Units Together

Introduction

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Are you aware this morning with a certain brilliance that Jesus died for you as a person? When he was hanging on that cross, and the blood was trickling down his brow, and he was hurting and barely able to breathe, nailed to a piece of wood for which he was responsible for its creation, dumped into the belly of Mother Earth, whom he spoke into existence with his Father. Does it not impress you that he did that for you? And what a wonderful thing that was it not only did wonderful things for our salvation, but for our consolation. It did wonderful things to bring people together that never would have had any association at all. All kinds of races, all kinds of colors, all kinds of backgrounds.

All of it because Jesus died on the cross. What a wonderful, wonderful thing he has done for us. I must repress an almost overwhelming compulsion to say good things about all the people in this auditorium that I’ve known before and who have had impressions, made impressions on my life, who have loved me in spite of my warts, who have cared for my work, who have supported my activities as a gospel preacher. I thank you from the death of my being. And you know for a certainty that because we both love Lord, we love one another. And I am so grateful for that. And it comes emphatically to my mind this morning. But may I suggest something else? This is the day of rejoicing. Because on this day, Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

And because of that resurrection, we don’t have to hate parting. Because of that resurrection, we don’t have to cry long when we’re separated from one another. Because of that resurrection, we can pray together and know that He hears, and that because He was resurrected, we can be resurrected. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump. But the trumpet shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall be raised incorruptible. For this corruption must put on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy stain? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is the law, and the strength of the law is sin. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Be ye therefore steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, inasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. So I stand before you today one whose heart is filled full of the love and respect and appreciation that we should all have for the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Lord God Almighty has blessed us greatly. Thank you for being here. And thank you for being so kind to me and my little lady.

1. God Is Not the Author of Confusion

I shall look at the passage that was read for your hearing by our brother. If there therefore be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife and vainglory. But in everything and lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. We live in a world, ladies and gentlemen, where religion has been fragmented. God is not the author of confusion. God does not approve of all the division that we’d see existing in the world today.

I remember a certain place where I used to work, where on one corner over here there was a church. And on the corner across the street, there was another church. And a corner over this side, there was another church, and on this side over here there was a service station. I fooled you, didn’t I? This church over here teaches one thing that’s different from this church over here, from this church over here, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have any reason to be on those three corners. But they are there because there are differences in those religions. God does not approve of that. In John chapter 17, Jesus said, Neither pray I for these alone, but for everyone who shall believe on me by their word, that they may be one.

As thou Father art in me and thou in thee, that they may be one in us, that the world might believe that thou sent me. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 at verse 10, he said, I beseech you, therefore, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that’s authority, that you all speak the same things, that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Jesus had the apostle Paul to say in Ephesians 4, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you were called, with all long suffering and meekness and with forbearance for one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

And in the past which we read at the hearing this morning, and you’re hearing this morning, he said that you all be like-minded, that there’s no divisions. Jesus is not pleased with all of the various fragmentation that we see in the religious world today. It does not meet with his approval. But I want to suggest something to you, ladies and gentlemen. All of those passages which I just quoted in your hearing are read, every one of them denies in principle the thing that’s on those three corners. The thing that are on those three corners we would not tolerate if it was just us. God does not tolerate it. But the principle of the passages which I read are the things that appertain to that. They really are intended to be addressed to brethren.

Let me suggest it. Neither pray I for these alone, but for everyone who shall believe on me by their word, that they, which they, the believers, that they may all be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they, which they, the believers, that they may all be one in us, that the world might believe that thou hast sent me. When Paul addressed the Corinthians, he said, I beseech ye therefore, brethren, by the mercies of Jesus Christ, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same things, which ye, who is to speak the same things? The brethren. That you all speak the same things, that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together who?

The Christian people, the fellowship of saints, that you be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. The Apostle Paul in addressing the Philippines in the Ephesians said, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you by the mercies of Christ that you all speak the same thing. He said that there be no divisions among you, that you endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And then in the passage which we read in your hearing, he says, I exhort that you all be like-minded, that you all be like-minded. Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Please be advised then that all of these passages and other similar ones which could be quoted, have to do with organic unity.

2. Available in Christ: The Foundations of Unity

That is unity inside the body. And in most instances, I believe unity inside the local church, these passages are talking about. But it certainly has to do with unity among brethren, wherever they are and whoever they are. So I want you to look at the elements of unity as they are set forth for us in the passage which was read to introduce our lesson this morning. If there therefore be any consolation, he says, in Christ. I believe the next three things in this passage are sequential. That simply means that they follow in an order. I think he sets forth a principle here. He says that certain things are available in Christ. And he says, if there be any consolation in Christ. Now, he’s not saying, please be advised, that there might not be, he is saying, since, if I say, if you’re going to town, would you bring me a loaf of bread?

I’m not assuming that you’re not going some way. I’m saying, since you’re going. That’s what he says here. Since there is this consolation in Christ, since there is this encouragement in Christ, fulfill ye my joy. He says, if there is in Christ, then these three things. And these are absolutely necessary to the unity that we need. He says, first of all, there is available in Christ certain things. Let me deal with the in Christ. The idea of being in Christ is not locative. He’s not saying you move from this point to this point at this point. He’s saying since you have a relationship, it is relational. He’s saying there is available in your connection with Jesus Christ. Because you are connected to Jesus Christ, then certain things of encouragement are available to you.

And he says, since there is in consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, comfort of love, there is great tenderness in the love that he gives to us. I have tried to capture that for you a little bit in the opening remarks. There is no doubt about the love of God as it is portrayed so beautifully and so eloquently and so marvelously in the death of Jesus Christ. I just have a picture of him hanging on that cross looking at a ragtag multitude of ungodly wretches who have just hailed him to the cross and looking down and saying to his Father, forgive them, Father, they don’t understand what they’re doing. What kind of love is that? What kind of marvelous feeling has he in his heart for us?

If there is any comfort of love, there is great tenderness in the love that he gives to us. He is long-suffering through us. We’re that wretched ragtag multitude. We’re the same thing. We all have sin in our lives. We all have been plucked out of the putridity pit that we were in because of our sins. And so I want to say to you, there is great tenderness in the love that he gives us. And then there is available encouragement because there is great, wonderful joy and enjoyment in the love that we give to one another. I don’t know how you feel about this, but when I strike hands with people that I love, that I’ve loved for a long time before, a lot of times I just get goosebumps and it’s wonderful.

We have something special, people. We need to enjoy it, we need to appreciate it, we need to praise God for it. We have something that nobody else has. When you can turn in the book and say, Here’s what I did to be saved, and here’s what he did to be saved, and we strike our hands together because we be together. There’s great tenderness in that. There’s great enjoyment in that. There’s great enjoyment than knowing that God has taken every individual, be he small or be he great, and made him equal in the kingdom. He’s taken a man of a great ability like your preacher here, both the preachers in that matter of fact. And he has taken these men and set them before us so that we can learn and understand.

But he’s given things to the little people. God never leaves the little people out. There is great enjoyment in the love that he gives that we distribute to one another. Just a simple handshake, just a little hug, just to say, I love you once in a while. Those things are just absolutely priceless possessions that we have because of the comfortableness of the love that is given to us in Jesus Christ. So there is available in Christ great comfort of love. And then he says, since there is fellowship, the Spirit, fellowship of the Spirit, there is great fellowship in knowing that we’re in con we’re in connection with the Spirit. He says here in Romans chapter 8, that we have fellowship with the Spirit. And that shouldn’t be some kind of difficult thing to understand.

The Spirit is what has given us the Word of God, has given us the truth. And we have fellowship with the Spirit when He gives us the truth and we obey the truth. What it is is joint participation. Partnership. Participation. Partners we are with the Holy Spirit. He gives the information, we give credence to it, and we obey it. When we do that, we have fellowship with the Spirit. Nobody else has that that does not obey the truth. If you don’t have the truth in your heart, produced by the love of God, then you don’t have all the privileges of being together in the Spirit. He says we have great consolation in the Spirit. We know that the truth is given. We know that we have obeyed the truth.

If we don’t know that, we need to get our noses in the book and find out what’s wrong. Because the truth of God is definitive. It tells us what we need to do, when we need to do it, how we need to do it, and when we do it, we can have relief of our conscience. We can go away refreshed because we have done what God had to say. And that’s how we’ve had fellowship with the Spirit. Fellowship with the Spirit.

The Spirit, through the truth, gives a part to me, and so we are partners in this truth. That is available in Christ. That’s what we have. And hear me carefully. What a joyful thing it is that God has torn down the middle wall of partition so that we walk into the Holy of Holies. With boldness, we enter into the Holy of Holies. We don’t have to have some priest ahead of us. We have a high priest who entered one time into the Holy of Holies in order that we might come boldly and ask for the grace that we need to have in the help and help that we need in time of need. We have that because the Spirit has directed us in the way that we should go.

There is great comfort of love then in this consolation that we have in Jesus. And then vows of mercy, bowels of mercies, tendable, tender, compassionate feelings. In the Oriental economy, the bowels were not the lower tract, as we think of, but the vital organs. We have that word vital from the Latin vita, which means life. The vital organs are what give us life. Without them we have no life. And so the vital organs were the things that were under consideration when this was written. It was the things that sustain us. And he says we have something very special. We have bowels of mercy, tender feelings of compassion that exists. Tenderness is a wonderful thing. We’re macho, we men. We don’t like to express anything about tenderness, and we certainly wouldn’t cry, you know.

I want to tell you something, folks. I wouldn’t give you a nickel for a grown man that wouldn’t cry. There’s a time to cry. And tenderness is a part of who we are. Jesus was a tender person. You know the shortest verse in the Bible, don’t you? Jesus wept. Don’t just pass that off as the shortest verse in the Bible. Look at what it says. Jesus wept. When Jesus saw Jerusalem from looking across the Kedron brook, he said, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How often would I have gathered you into myself as a hen gather her chicks under her wings, but ye would not. He was a man of feeling and compassion. And we have that.

I hope I can get through this. Our beloved Vernon Heinley is here today. We all love him, don’t we? It’s not hard to love him. We feel compassion because he feels compassion. We feel love because he has evinced love all through these years. If I know a man of tender heart, it is him, unless it might be Bonnie. But together, they have shown us something. They’ve related something to us about tender feelings of compassion. Care for other people. Listen to me. They’ve done things people don’t even know about. But God knows. And they’re predicated on tender feelings of compassion. Feelings of tenderness, feelings of love, feelings of benevolence and beneficence. And those kinds of feelings are not manufactured. They don’t come naturally. They are things that come as a result of our relationship in Jesus Christ.

And so he says to us, these things are available in Christ. First of all, a great consolation, encouragement. These things are our encouragement. Comfort of love, comfort, fortress, comfort, comfort one another. He says, fellowship of the Spirit and tender feelings of compassion. And then he says, since these things are available, these are the predicate. These are the foundations of unity. If you’re going to have unity inside the Bumby congregation, it will be predicated on those foundations, that comfort of love, those tender feelings of compassion, though those fellowship, that the fellowship that we have with the Spirit. Those are the things on which the unity is going to rest. And then he tells us the elements of unity. He says, first of all, I want you to be like-minded, be like-minded, and that’s speaking of unity.

3. Be Like-Minded: Unity of Motive

And when I say unity, I’m talking about unit e unit e unity is what? Unit is what? One. Unit E. So we’re talking about one. And we share in all of these things in Jesus Christ, and then he gives us the elements of this unity. He says, first of all, there’s unity of motive. Unity of motive. You’re aware that our English word motive is akin to our English word motor. They come from the same root. And when you’re motivated, it just simply means that you’re motivated. If you have a car and you want your car to go, you have to motivate it. You have to get your car going. And the way you do that is you start it. You start it. And he says, the thing that fuels, the thing that fuels unity is love.

Can you imagine, ladies and gentlemen, if everybody in this congregation and everybody in any other congregation where you go had this tremendous feeling of unity of love? Can you imagine what we could do? It be it prohibits us from doing what we ought to do when we don’t have that. We can’t have the kind of unity that we ought to have until such a time as we have this great motive that runs us on the track that we ought to go on. It’s motivation. It makes us go in the right way. This love is energy. Love is energy. I I used to broadcast football quite a bit. I used to get the biggest kick out of when the ball game was over. And I’d see some great big strapping guy that weighed 250 pounds, six five, and some little cheerleader about five feet and two inches tall would walk up to him and he would melt and run down in his shoes.

He’s just been at it with somebody hard, boy, and he’s been getting, I tell you what, love does that to you. Love will take you and it energizes people. It it made a little girl walk up to a guy and say, How are you? And all that’s how it’s love. But this love is a grander love than that. This love is not erotic. This love is not familial even. This love, ladies and gentlemen, seeks the best interests of the object of the affection, whether or not there’s any understanding, whether or not there’s any reciprocity, whether or not anybody is enemy or friend. It doesn’t make any difference about that. This kind of love seeks what’s best for the object of the affection. Can you imagine what kind of a sentiment, a feeling that we would have in churches all around the country if everybody had that kind of love?

What if we respected one another with a spirit of love like that? What if we looked at one another in the same way that we look at ourselves? What if we sought for everybody? What we want for ourselves? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Love thy neighbor as thyself tells us that it’s not wrong to love yourself. It’s wrong to love yourself inordinately. But it says love your neighbor in the same way you want to love yourself. And so if we had that, we would get rid of a lot of fussing. We’d get rid of a lot of entanglements. We’d get rid of a lot of petty jealousies and stuff like that. I just absolutely deplore the fact that we have jealousy among preachers. It just galls me.

We’re trying to do the same thing and yet i some people just can’t stand if somebody else is used and they’re not used. Listen, some of the best preachers I know are not preaching in big churches. Some of the best preachers I know are preaching in ship centers, somewhere off in the middle of Arkansas, and nobody ever heard of them. They love God and He loves them. We need to get rid of that junk that goes on with us. There’s no place for it. And if we love one another like we ought to love one another, that would not be there. We would rejoice because you’re doing your work and I’m doing my work and we’re trying to go to the same heaven. And I want to tell you something, we don’t have any big preachers and little preachers.

What we have is a bunch of unprofitable servants. That’s what we are. And not only is that the case, we don’t have any big Christians and little Christians. All we have are a group of fellowship of forgiven sinners. And we better not forget it. So I’m here to tell you that the kind of love that I’m talking about is tough. The kind of love that I’m talking about is not just sentimental modern modeling kind of sentimentality. That is not the love I’m talking about. This kind of love is strong and pervasive. This kind of love is diligent and works. This kind of love, as we pointed out, is energetic. It finds its root of pursuit, and then it goes at it with ferocity and with great determination.

So we will have the same character if we have this kind of love. If you have the same character of love that I have, and I have the same as you, is that not what unity is all about? That is unity between us. And when you have that, you have unity in a congregation. And you share the same hope. When we reach off to the future together, when we hold hands, ladies and gentlemen, and reach off to the throne of God Himself with the anchor for the soul to find solace and to find help in time of need. When we reach off like that together, we’re united. If we look at the same hope, if we visualize the same end, if we’re looking at the same Savior to get us there, if we are doing all of those things, there is a sameness in our lives that we cannot get any other way.

4. Being of One Accord: Unity of Aim

You can’t get it in any other way. No psychologist can bring it for you. No medical book can find it for you. Nobody can come up with it that’s a sage of some sort. It will take God, and it’ll take the simplest character and the greatest character and meld them together because they love one another. So there has to be unity, unity of love, unity of motive. And then secondly, he says being of one accord. Being of one accord. That simply means unity of aim. Being of one accord. Our brother over here is a wonderful song leader, and he will tell you right quick that any time you have C, E, G, and C on a staff, you have a chord. Now that’s not the same spelling.

But I’m going to tell you right now it’s the same concept. You have a chord. And when C, E, G, and C are together, and everybody is in tune, and everybody sings his part and stays on his line or on his space, you have unity. But when somebody gets off and C E G and C become C, E flat, A flat, and G, then you have a discord. A discord. You can’t have any unity when you have discord. What we have in the Lord’s church is not unity of talent. It’s not unity of abilities. It’s harmony. It’s harmony. That’s the kind of unity that God wants. It’s every man being what he’s supposed to be. I beseech you that you all present your body as a living sacrifice unto God, wholly acceptable, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed with the renewing of your mind.

He goes on to say, if a man can minister, let him minister. If a man can do this, let him do that. We can all do what we want to do or what we need to do. If we have unity of aim. If our love causes us to have the same aim, the same determination, the same observation, the same focus, then we’re going to get a lot of things done in this church. I’ll guarantee you that. But it won’t be done when you have people on E and people singing flat and people trying to dominate the chord by singing too loud. First thing you know, you got this cord. That’s just the way that works. And I’ll tell you something else. You go out here and you get you a certain number of pieces of wood and you cut them a certain length and stack them up, you you have a chord.

A chord of wood. And you know what that is? That’s every place, everybody in the stack. But you don’t have a cord until you got everybody in his place. Don’t we see that? We see that in everyday life. Why can’t we see that in local churches? You’ve got a cord when you stack everybody up where he’s supposed to be. And by the same time, I grew up in West Texas. I don’t seventeen miles this side of the New Mexico line. And we had the cowboys come to town every fall to break the horses, and when they came to town, they all had the same equipment. They drove an old pickup with a floppy fender. And they had a rope and a saddle in the back, and everybody’s rope was just like everybody else’s rope.

The consistency of it might have been different, and the element with which it was made might be a little bit different, but it was a rope. And what it was was an intertwined pieces of twine. Sometimes it’d be rawhide. Sometimes it would be hemp material. But in every instance, when you got through with it, if you wound it all around together, it was a cord. It was a cord. And everybody was round up in there together. And I want to show you something. You could take a piece of that rawhide or a piece of that hemp and you could put it out a little ways, and then all of a sudden the rest of it started pulling back. Because you have a cord, you can’t separate things from it very easily.

We need to learn from that. That’s what a cord is all about. We endorse. We endorse. It’s unity of aim. I heard about a fella that was walking in a farmer’s backyard and they were visiting. He looked on the uh looked on the guy’s barn. And there was a group of targets up there. And every bullseye had an error right in the middle of it. And he said, Man alive, you must really be a bowman.

He said, Every arrow is in the middle of the target. How do you do that? Do you pull the bow back to a certain length and length? Do you uh calculate it for the wind and all that kind of thing? He said, No. I grew up there, I just go shoot the air and then draw the circles around it. Now we got too many folks doing that very thing. They want to shoot the aim and they want the aim to be their aim, so they do the aim and shoot the there, and then they draw the circle around. You can’t do that. The circle’s out there. We must have unity of aim. And that means that we calculate everything according to the scriptures. We see how much wind is going to get into the way, and we then go about the activity of shooting the projectile.

And only when we’ve done that can we have unity of aim. We share the same hope. We mold the same character. Why can’t we be the same? And I’m going to tell you something, folks, when you get this to work, you may think this is a small matter. And I’m a nobody, and that’s fine. But that’s not a nobody. What I’m reading out of is not a nobody at all. And it says what needs to be done. And if you want the Bumby Church to be all that it can become, you find out how you can get those things done. And it starts with you. It starts with you as a person. If you don’t have the right aim, you can’t have that same aim as somebody else has.

5. One Mind: Unity of Determination

If you don’t have the right motivation, the other person suffers because you don’t have the right motivation. And then finally, he says, There must be one mind. One mind.

That’s unity of determination. Can I ask you a question? I don’t care how long you’ve been a member of the God’s family. I don’t care how long you’ve been part of the Bumby congregation. I don’t care how long you’ve been a member of the church where you are, one of our deacons in the audience this morning, Brother and Sister Jerry Graham. I don’t care how long you’ve been. If you’re not united with other people with the same determination, you’re causing the church to suffer. It’s not getting what it ought to get. You may not be able to offer a great amount of things. You may not be able to offer much. But you can offer what you offer, and you can be an encouragement by doing so to everybody else who’s making his offering.

And so I suggest to you that there has to be a unity of determination. You reach out there and you say, This is the goal we’re going to. I was preaching a meeting in a certain place, which for obvious reasons will remain nameless, and a lady came to me. She was the preacher’s wife, and she did calligraphy, fancy writing, and I mean it was beautiful. She said, I want a correlation, I want to do a calligraphy of the uh of your favorite passage. Let me know what it is before we leave. She was shocked when I gave it to her. It hangs on the wall of my desk right now. And it says this I press. I press. Paul said, I count not myself to have apprehended.

But this one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forth to the things which are before. I press toward the mark prize for the mark toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He said, I press. That whole sentence, if you strip it of all of its modifiers, it has a subject and a predicate. And it is, I press. And that ought to be everybody’s determination. I press. I’m not going to wait. I’m going to buckle on what faith I’ve got. I’m going to have the sword of the Spirit in my hand. I’m going to look like I have on a helmet of salvation, and I’m going out here with the rest of the saints, and I’m going to press toward the prize of the high calling of God.

I’m going to press toward the mark. I’m going to cross this goal. We just finished the big marathon in Houston just last Sunday. And it amazes me. Those people don’t run that race to win. They run to finish. Why can’t we see that? Why do we not see that, brethren? They don’t run the Christ to win. They’re going to win if they finish, and that’s the point. Somebody came to me with their little eager. Said, he’s kind of discouraged. We haven’t won a game yet. I said, Did he have fun? He said he had fun every time. I said, You won every game. You won every game. I press. It’s saying that I have the determination. I’m going to try as hard as I can with what I have to do what I can for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’re going to endorse the struggle for one another. We’re going to reach down with a hand that says, Come on, we’ll finish this thing together. Get yourself up. Pick up. Dust off your britches and get back into fracas. We have places to go and things to do. I press, he said. Forgetting the things which are behind. Reaching forth, and that reaching is just keeping on. Do you ever notice those guys when they run in a race and they’re trying to finish the cross the goal line, they get up to the goal line, they’re back up like this, right? Wrong. How do they do it? They’re leaning into it all the time. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God. We endorse the common struggle and we warn of the common foe.

If somebody came to you this morning and said, Look, you haven’t been attending like you ought to. Is something wrong? Oh. There we are, right there. Put up your dukes, buddy. You don’t have any right to be criticizing me. Who are you to tell me what to do? Listen to me. We endorse the common struggle. He may have to warn you the next time, but the fact of the matter is, what he’s trying to do is to help you get where we need to go. So listen to what they have to say. Now that’s not to say that somebody has a right to go around doing that just for the sake of the fun that he gets out of it or power that he has. That isn’t the point at all.

But when somebody comes to you in a spirit of love and determination and says to you, we’re worried about you. Love him. Respect him. Appreciate him. He’s trying to help you get where we need to go. He’s pressing along with you because we warn each other that the common foe’s lurking on the periphery and he wants to take us. And then we share our joys and our sorrow.

I told somebody the other day, since I’ve gotten older, I don’t sit down anymore. I just aim and fall in. It’s pitiful. I look at my body anymore and I say to myself, what happened? I weigh the same. It’s gravity I’m having the trouble with. It’s all falling in my socks. I hate getting old. I hate pain. I hate the zipper I have in my chest. I hate diabetical shots. But I want to tell you something. When it gets right down to thinking about it. And when I read the book, and I look at people around about me, I think to myself, I ain’t a caring. I ain’t a curing. It’s going to be all right. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But it’s going to be okay.

And I look at my beloved brother back here. They’ve told him he’s going to die, and he said, Not until I go here deep preach again. I told him less yesterday afternoon when we went to semi. I said, We’ll see you in two years, Vernon. He said, Okay, I’ll be here. But I’ll tell you what, we’ll be separated one day. But not for long. Not for long. Because we’re going to be there together. I told him yesterday, if you get there before I do, be sure and find those two little men from the road to Emmaus. I’ve got to see those guys. They’re my kind of people. We better be careful that we maintain the spirit of unity in the Lord’s church. And do what we can individually to bring about that unity.

Conclusion

Unity is units together. Could I say that again? Unity is units together. That’s what we’re looking for. That’s what’ll make this a great church. That’s what’ll make you a great Christian. And I’ll tell you what else. It’s just satisfying. It’s just satisfying. We’re in this together. We have so many things to be grateful for. There’s several preacher friends of mine in the audience. I just love preachers’ wives for what they do. They’ve sacrificed so much. My norma has been the winds beneath my wings. She’s taken me where I need to go. Ricky’s Jody is the same way. I could go through the audience and the preachers. And I don’t care. When the preacher’s up and and and somebody else is preaching, and did you ever notice that she leans over and says something to him after they start preaching?

Bless their hearts. They’re not telling them they love them. What they’re saying is you can do it better than he can. They’re always. They’re always there for us. They’re always there. And they’re always ready. And we love you, preachers wives, for what you do. And you don’t get the credit you ought to get. And elders’ wives are the same way. I’d hate to think what Robert Hockrider would be without our leave. She has done so much for him. But let me tell you something. He did a few things for her, too. Well, that’s my sermon on unity. I hope you got something out of it. Because if you did, tonight’s going to be different than today was. You’re going to be more united. You’re going to be more together.

You’re going to be more same determination. And that’s what we’re looking for. So those passages which we read, they talk about me and you. All these religious denominations out here don’t have any right to exist for the same principle. God is not an author of division. But when these passages are looked at carefully, they speak to organic unity. Unity inside the Lord’s body. If you’re not a part of the Lord’s people, you don’t have these same wonderful blessings to which I’ve referred this morning. We want to give you that opportunity. If you’ll come and confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and say before this audience that you believe that. And then you will submit to him in baptism. On an obedient faith, he will make you his child.

Start you on your trek to heaven. What a glorious thought that you can then join arms with this army of God’s saints that meet here from time to time. And you can walk across the sin and the ungodliness in the world and make your way to heaven when this life is over. Don’t you want that? And if you’re a unit that has been unfaithful, you’ve left the unity. And you need to come back and make that right. We’ll happily entertain your wish and pray with and for you that God will put you back into a right relationship. And you can let us know whatever your duty to God while we stand and sing.