Sunday, August 2nd
Unity's Power

Welcome to The Journey Church. I'm Pastor Paris Pasch.​

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Last week Pastor Ben spoke about the camaraderie between we three Pastors when it comes to preaching and preparation.  I have enjoyed the fruit of that kind of ministry well beyond our church walls for almost 4 decades.  I believe it is because Jesus loves when we walk in harmony and I long to walk with Jesus.

My ministry life has been a thrill a minute since I met Christ at 23 years old.  Each step had amazing challenges but wonderful fruit.  Many people in my life have not fully grasped what motivates me and what drives me still for over 44 long years.  Today I want to share some of my internal driver, so I need to take you back to my start.  I hope to show you why so much of my ministry life has been an exercise in unity under one LORD.  My message today is called “Unity’s Power.”

As a young pastor I observed the attitudes of division, superiority, competition, comparison and self-congratulations among my colleagues and many attenders in God’s church.  At a peak time of my ministry development, having achieved considerable recognition and impact in my small circle due to the kindness and generosity of mentors like a guest present today, Dennis Matula.  I’m so grateful for their investment into the life of a small-town hick.  However, in 1986 after serving as a pastor for a few years, God arrested me with a simple instruction I could not sidestep.  I was pierced to the heart and driven to repentance and reform.

First, our loving God chastened me for my narrow, elitest personal perspective of who I was.  Then He clearly and succinctly stated that I was to go and search for the rest of the body of Christ among the surrounding churches of my region that flowed with theologies I assumed I already knew and had judged imperfect.  Rapidly I began to obey, and as I did, I found out that I, in my circle, did not possess either the best or the most accurate theological position on things, nor did I have God’s spirit to the degree that I considered I had.  I was arrogant and prideful, thinking my group was God’s favorite, but God humbled me.

I was driven into the scriptures to reread them afresh, absent my spiritual prejudice.  The scriptures came alive to me, as I, for the first time, actually made the effort to investigate exactly why I believed what I believed.  I became focused on Jesus Himself and His church rather than my church or our church.

Every time I would cross the threshold of another congregation, I would infiltrate their ranks and build connections that would allow me access to their heart and mission.  Far too many times I found common ground where I thought we had contrasting ground.  I also found that many of those churches felt “they” were the elite among other churches.

Something interesting I learned was that God truly gave individual churches specific emphasis and mission that didn’t affect their theological alignment with Jesus.  I was beginning to find God’s people and I fell in love with more of the Body of Christ.

Now don’t get me wrong, some of the churches I peered into, I found grave error in their reinterpreting the long held and taught beliefs of the church of Jesus Christ.  Some had raised tradition and ritual above its rightful place and created a church of form with no power.  Some had made subordinate figures of the Bible into worshiped and venerated images and persons.  However, God revealed to me that He will deal with their confusion and misguiding of His people, I don’t have to.

At the same time, I was seeing the beauty of the multifaceted body.  The joy of regarding one another rather than suspecting one another.  Listen to God Himself on this unity thing.

Psalm 133:1 (NIV) How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!

In the New Testament the Apostle John is a heavy hitter among the newly forming churches of his day.  He saw the good, the bad and the ugly as people determined to follow the facet of Jesus they admired most.  Maybe for one it was preaching doctrine, another evangelism, another worship and still another prayer.  But John was trying to get us to see through the lens of unity.

John 17:22–23 (NIV) I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Note the power and fruit of this thing called unity, but the opposite is true when we compete, critique, fault find and gossip about our brothers and sisters.  Listen to the Apostle Paul on this simple topic.

Ephesians 4:1–6 (NIV) As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Let me make it clear that ecumenical viewpoints have never been my ultimate goal, but rather biblical Unity.  Ecumenicalism is often about lowest common denominators, where we tolerate each other’s flaws.  

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• Unity is when we stand together loving Jesus above all others and we are willing to obey Him regardless of the cost.  

• Unity is about alignment and common mission to save a lost world from the brokenness that Satan has laid upon us.

• Unity is when we sacrifice our pet preferences, but never our core truths.  

• Unity is when the call of “THE CHURCH” is louder to us than the call of our local church.

Unity is not when we sacrifice biblical truth to all sit in a common room.  I am shattered when I find those who call themselves Christian but fail to protect innocent lives from abortion.  My heart aches when I find those who espouse to be Jesus followers not endorsing marriage between one man and one woman.  I am grieved when wonderful human beings, who attend church every Sunday, also capitulate to a culture that questions the design of God and reinvent the Bible text to support the things that God blatantly abhors.  And what about people who condemn common sins, but live in hidden sin without remorse themselves.  These people wear a token cross around their neck and yet compromise their biblical mandates in everyday life.  I have never backed off this position and long to find the rest of the family of God that I can stand strong together with on these very clear biblical truths.  These are not political topics, these are biblical at their core.  I long for us to search the Bible and find these truths then unify around them and sacrifice greatly to walk them out.

Unity is not rallying around the lowest common denominator.  It’s not compromising the fundamentals that jump off the pages in clarity from our bibles.  Maybe we can’t unify on things more mystical, and we must make room for smarter people than ourselves to help us if they can.  My policy is this; If its fuzzy, don’t build your next doctrine on it.  If you find contrast and differences, be willing to search the text until you sense God guiding your conclusions more that your feelings or our cultural drift.  As my dearest brother Jim Bzoskie had said so many times: keep the main thing the main thing.

I’ve been in settings observing two believers arguing the merits of Calvinism verse Arminianism all the while no evangelism is even considered and people are dying of hunger without Christ.

Matthew 23:15 (NIV) “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

In 1986 God instructed me to stop hanging out with only my own kind.  Since that moment I am compelled to find my fellow warriors.  For years I have championed that assignment in my community, and we have seen wonderful and powerful results from that effort.  I am in lock step with at least 10 other local Pastors whom I meet with every week for encouragement and care.  Community leaders sit with us, and we have become a force in Hastings.  We challenge each other and sharpen each other.  We are building God’s church and not merely our own.  I am often asked by new pastor who comes to Hasting to share my longstanding insights into our community and the foremost thing I instruct them is in this message I give you today.

This not my idea or even a good idea.  This is the command of our King and our God.  Walk this truth out with me and let’s witness God manifest “UNITY’S POWER” among us and others.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 (NIV) Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. 11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? 12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Next week I will expose the enemy among us who does everything he can to oppose today’s truth.  He is a false accuser, a liar, an isolationist and a wedge driver who we allow far too often to keep us from our intended goal to be unified in Christ.  God has given the prescription for our future, and we must chase after it.

Ephesians 4:11–15 (NIV) So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

Next week we address the enemy who divides.

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Connect with us at www.thejourneyhastings.church

Message Questions

1. Why is elitism incompatible with the gospel message and Christianity?

2. Ephesians 4:1–6 lists qualities that preserve unity: humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love. Which of these do you find most challenging, and why?

3. Pastor Paris said, “Unity is when we sacrifice our pet preferences, but never our core truths.” What are some preferences Christians should be willing to set aside for the sake of unity? What are some core truths we should never compromise?

4. What did Pastor Paris mean when he said, “Unity is when the call of “THE CHURCH” is louder to us than the call of our local church.” How might that change the way we view other Bible-believing churches?

5. How can our group or church take practical steps to build relationships with believers outside our usual circle?