The Call to Unity | Doctor Don Ross | Venture Church

Hi, and welcome to Venture Church Online. My name is

Kelsey and I'm our online campus pastor. We're so glad

that you're joining us. Drop a comment below of where

you're streaming from. We would love to interact with you.

We hope that you enjoy today's service.

If you don't even know what I'm going to have

to say, should wait? I should ask Brandon to have

him clap afterwards? You know, No, that's all good. Hey,

it's fun to be here. I was telling Brandon during

the first service. At twenty five years ago, one of

the leaders on our network talk to a young church

planter want to plant a church and Mill Creek, and

they said, you can't plant a church in Mill Creek.

It'll never take, it'll never grow. Wow, and here you are.

Way to go. Venture. We are very very proud of you.

I want to say thanks for your giving, thanks for

your faithfulness, thanks for planting churches, thanks for raising up leaders,

Thanks for just being who you are and living up

to Christ's expectations in the mission individually, obedient, walking and

following him is what makes all the difference. Well, my

name is Don and I serve as the network leader,

which runs from the Pacific Ocean to the Montana border

and from Morgon to Canada. That geographic rectangle is kind

of my world. There's almost thirteen hundred ministers and about

three hundred and fifty churches in that area, and I'm

in a different church every week along with my wife Brenda.

Give her a hand over here, So shameless plug before

I jump in. I've got a couple books out there.

If you're interested, We're going to wholesale them today just

ten bucks apiece. The first one is called Turnaround Pastor

tells the story of the church that Brandon just referenced.

This church hit a high of two thousand and dropped

down to one fit before bottomed out and came up

the other side. Brendon and I joined the team at

about three point fifty. Couldn't stop the slide. It's got

an inverted bell curve with nine key principles. If you're

a business owner, it'll help you reverse the trend. But

I think you find an interesting story. The second book

really ties in on the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's called The Tale of Two Churches. And doctor Josh Ziefel,

who's part of Venture and I co authored this and

it talks about what it means to walk in the

power of the spirit, and there's a lot of key elements.

It really walks through what it means to understand the

gifts of the spirit and how God wants to empower

you to move his church forward. So hopefully those will

bless you. Stop by and get him if you'd like

to do that. All right, let's pray, Father, I pray

today as we go to your word, that you will

open our hearts, that your spirit will spark obedience in

our hearts, and that it will change not just our

life life, but those that we serve and love in

Jesus' good name. Amen. By now you know that the

city of Ephesus is very similar in geography to the

city of Seattle, with all of the complex matrix that

make up all the ideas and ideals that motivate people

in a mixed culture like that. So there's a lot

of similarity between Ephesus and Seattle. Paul wrote a very

fused message to the city of Ephesis, to the church

in Ephesus. It really focused in on three different things.

It focuses in on critical doctrines, it focused on the

church itself, and it focused on building the community of

believers in unity. I want to remind you that Paul

wrote the Book of Ephesus from prison. I think Paul

must have thought at some point, wait a minute. I've

been on three missionary journeys. I've planted churches, I've done

a lot for the Kingdom of God. Why am I

boxed up in jail? Why am I here? Really? This

is going to move the Kingdom of God forward. Honestly,

it looks like this is exactly the opposite of moving

the Kingdom of God forward. I should be out doing

something else. Maybe you feel like that. Maybe you feel

like the circumstances where God has you right now. You

hate your job, you hate your marriage, you hate your house,

you hate at God. If you are listening to my prayers,

please change things, and nothing changes. I wonder if Paul

ever implored God to get him out of jail. What

did he do? He wrote letter after letter after letter

after letter. We have him in the New Testament. Now

they were sent to all the churches to encourage them,

and for the last twenty centuries we have those letters

to encourage us. But Paul didn't know that. He didn't

know that that's what was going to happen with the

work that he was writing in jail. I wonder if

his frustration ever morphed into obedient acceptance so that God

could use those circumstances. Here's what I know. God allows

situations in our life not just for our benefit, but

for the benefit of those we love and serve. I

believe that you would make the same decision God has

made regarding your circumstances if you had as much knowledge

as God and as much power as God. But you don't.

Otherwise you'd be God. So why not trust him? Ultimately?

This is a choice of whether God is trustworthy or not.

Let's jump in my assignment today given by your pastor

is Ephesians chapter four, beginning at verse one through verse sixteen.

So strap on your seat belts, all right. As a

prisoner for the Lord, I urge you to live a

life worthy of the calling you've received. Be completely humble

and gentle, be patient, be bearing with one another in love. Now,

imagine if you had to figinn a disclaimer before you

could post on Facebook or INSTAGRAMM or X. You have

to sign this disclasion, and here's what it says. I

promise that I will always be humble and gentle, patient,

bearing with everyone on this site, and speak in love

in all my posts. Boy, that had slow things down,

wouldn't it. Why Because we live in a divided world

and the jabs on social media amp up. But we've

always lived in a divided world, Paul says. Unity is

are calling in the middle of a divided world. That's

why unity stands out so much, because the world is divided.

That's why light stands out, because the world is in darkness.

That's why love stands out, because the world is filled

with hate. You're called to walk a different path, called

to walk in unity. Now, unity doesn't mean full agreement.

Unity means that we agree on the mission together. You

and I are called the walk in unity. But in

the same way that two people are married and may

disagree a lot on a lot of stuff, they agree

that they should be married. They agree on the purpose

of marriage and have made a lifelong commitment to one another.

My wife and I have been together almost five decades,

almost another year to go. They're clapping for you, babe.

All right. We disagree on almost everything except that we

love each other, and that's enough for unity. We can

walk in unity even though we disagree. The church is

called the walk in unity because you are placed in

a world of disunity. Now, Jesus started this right from

the very beginning when he called his disciples. Jesus called

Simon the Zealot. He's almost always called Simon the Zalot.

Zealot was a political party that hated the Romans. They

were terrorists. They would kill individual or small groups of

Roman soldiers. They're literally called the Knives. That's what Zealot means.

They're a member of the Knives. Simon the Zealot. Then

Jesus walks down the road and calls Matthew, the tax collector,

always identified by his job, Simon always political party, his politics.

I hate the Romans. Matthew's politics. I work for the Romans.

And Jesus q two to go out working in ministry together.

But the focus on the mission of the kingdom was

greater than their political stance. So they found unity and

harmony based on a focus on the mission. Jesus showed

them how to put the kingdom first above politics and

find unity. I attended a presidential breakfast which is led

by one Republican senator and one Democratic senator they're both

genuine believers, and they illustrated unity praying for one another

in that room with thousands of people, the unity of

the Spirit as they led in that group. Now some

of you are thinking, whoa, wha, whoa, whoa whoa, unity

the Spirit. You actually know what Democrats believe, But there's

somebody else in the room that says unity of the Spirit.

Do you actually know what Republicans believe? Yeah, I'm pretty

well versed on both of them. And Jesus is higher.

He is higher the kingdom, purposes and principles are higher.

You are not just a citizen of the United States.

That's temporary. You will die and your citizenship will die

with you. But you are a citizen of Heaven, and

when you die, you are just stepping into the fullness

of your citizenship. That's where you reign. Verse three. Make

every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in

the bond of peace. This scripture gives us an assignment.

We are to keep the unity, not create the unity.

God never asks us to create unity. He asks us

to make every effort to keep the unity he created.

Don't destroy what God creates, enhance it, work to keep it.

Verse four Paul is showing unity here with seven different

ones in this verse beginning of verse four, there is

one body, there is one spirit, just as you were

called to one hope, when you were called to one Lord,

one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all,

who is over all and through all in all, we

have unity because of what we share in common. One body,

one spirit, one hope, one calling, one Lord, one faith,

one baptism, one Father, one one one one. Do you

know when you get to heaven, there's not going to

be a Baptist heaven and a Presbyteri in heaven and

a Lutheran heaven. There's only one. And Jesus will build

your mansion right next to the person you can't stand

on earth. I don't know that he'll do that or not.

You have a long time to work things out. Unity

comes as our diversity lives in harmony in a shared mission,

a shared mission. Paul speaks here of one by the

way it ends that full list of seven with one father.

Can I just challenge you, when you pray out loud,

that you pray to the Father. Now, if you pray

to God, He's going to hear your prayers. Okay, it's

not that he didn't hear that he will, but I

want to follow the instructions of Jesus, who said, when

you pray, say our Yeah, you've heard that. The other

thing is that in our world there are three monotheistic

religions Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Those are the only three

that have a monotheistic look at God. Islam. For twenty

years and I had Islamic students living with us. We

talked about and compared. They would never call godfather. It's

too close, it's too intimate. But that's exactly what God

wants you to have that kind of relationship. And Jews

will call Godfather. In the Old Testament. There are some references,

but very rare. So Jesus lands and he says, call

God your father. He's my father, he's your father. We

are brothers, part of the same family. Just a little

parenthetical teaching. Okay, let's jump in. Paul says this one baptism.

When he says one baptism, he is not invalidating a

baptism in the Holy Spirit because in Paul's mind, and

he teaches this in Acts nineteen, when he planted this church,

he talked to him and said, what baptism did you have?

They said John's. He said you really, you haven't been

baptized in the name of Jesus. Let's do that. He

baptizes them again in the name of Jesus and then

talks to them about the baptism of the Holy Spirit,

and they are baptized in the Holy Spirit. The ways

that you keep the unity of the Spirit is by

experiencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which I will

tell you. Your revival nights are a perfect time for you

to come open your heart and say, Jesus, fill me

with your Holy Spirit. There's a powerful, powerful opportunity. The

baptism brings us into that community of faith. Now, you

will never be able to do what Jesus has called

you to do, that is keep the unity of the Spirit.

Without the power of the spirit, good intentions will not

get you there. Jesus had to be baptized both in

water and receive the Holy Spirit. It's in the Bible.

If Jesus believes important for him to be baptized in water,

let me tell you it's important for you to be

baptized in water. Here's what happens. You can receive Christ

sitting in the chair and nobody knows it. Maybe you'll

tell somebody or a few friends. But when you enter

the waters of baptism, that is a public demonstration. People

know where you stand. Jesus went public of his love

for you when he died on the cross. I want

to challenge you to go public in your obedience in

following him in the waters of baptism. You need to

go to the venture app right now and just check

off you're interested in being baptized. You can do that.

You can be fully obedient in the next one hundred

and sixty eight hours. It could happen. You could do this.

All right, let's jump in keep moving. Now we come

to the gifts of the spirit. There are three different

sections in the New Testament that list the gifts of

the spirit. The first one is in Romans chapter twelve.

They are the gifts of the Father. We'll talk about

those in just a moment. The second group in First

Corinthians nine or twelve is the gifts of the Spirit,

and the third group are the gifts of the Sun

that are here in Ephesians chapter four. Now God made

and gifted every one of you. All of you receive

gifts from God. He gives them to you we call

the gifts of the Father. In Romans twelve three, it

says God has distributed to each of you. Now you

have a lot of tests here that we can take, enneagram,

disc test, strength finders, all of those to kind of

find out where you're at a little bit. But Romans

twelve says, when you are born, God imbeds this gift

inside you, and when you are born again it begins

to develop, and obedience raises it to a whole new level.

What are some of those gifts, Well, let me give

you a couple examples. I didn't ask your pastor if

I could do this, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Pastor Brandon has the gift of leadership. Anybody doubt that

he absolutely does. He was born with it. He was

a leader in third grade, he was a leader in

high school. He was a leader as a youth. Pastor,

he's a leader now. He would be a leader wherever

he went. If he was in business, he would be

a leader. He's a pastor, so he's a leader. But

he still had through obedience to cultivate that gift. Are

you tracking with me? All of you have gifts just

like that. Pastor Die has the gift of teaching. I

love listening to her teach. Take confusing topics, make them

simple and understandable. I just love listening to her teach.

But she doesn't just do that as a pastor. She

did that as a mother with her children. She does

that as a trainer. That gift is working inside her.

The gift of teaching one of the gifts in First

Romans twelve, gift of leadership. There's another gift there. I'm

wanna poke fun at my friend Alex. Pastor Alex has

the gift of giving. He is a giver. Long before

he came to work at Venture, Alex was a giver.

I've been with him on a number of situations where

he just was generous. He chose to do that. He

looks for opportunities to give, and that gift of giving

is manifested through his obedience. All of those are listed

in Romans twelve. In fact, in Romans twelve, it says

in verse six, if your gift, the gifts are called yours.

If your gift, God has embedded that gift in you. Now.

In the second group of gifts in First Corinthian it

talks about the gifts that of the spirit. These gifts

of the Spirit are not embedded in you. They are

embedded in the spirit. And when the Spirit is in you,

he activates those gifts when he chooses you don't have

the gift of miracles. You don't have the gift of healing.

The Holy Spirit does. But the Holy Spirit will prompt

you when you are filled with His spirit. The Holy

Spirit will prompt you to pray for somebody to be healed,

or to talk to someone, or miracles took place. I

remember working in my yard one time. My neighbor was sick,

didn't know Jesus at all. Knocked on the door, came in.

He said who is I said, at your neighbor done?

Can I come in Mike? And he said yeah, And

I came in, prayed for him. God healed him instantly.

Now I'd like to tell you that he went to

church with me. He got saved in his pastoring at church.

Now I don't know, we moved away to obedient in

that moment. You want God to flow through you, you

need to be filled with His spirit. Then there is

this third set of gifts that are designed to strengthen

the Church move the mission forward in unity begins at

verse seven. Each one of us has grace that's been

given by Christ, as Christ apportioned it. This is why

it says when he ascended on high, he took many

captives and gave gifts to his people. What does he

ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower

earthly region. He who descended is the very one who

us sended higher than all the heavens in order to

fill the whole universe. Now Paul is quoting from Psalm

sixty eight that says, you've a said on high you

led captivity captive. Now the gifts that were given by

Christ when he ascended into heaven as evidence of his victory. Now,

what does it mean that he also descended? I honestly

don't know. This is some pretty deep spiritual activity here.

But Peter, who is very close to Jesus, writes about

this just a little bit in one Peter three, for

Christ also suffered once for sins, the just, for the unjust,

that he might bring us to God, being put to

death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,

by whom he also went and preached to the spirits

in prison who formerly were disobedient. Some believe that Christ

descended and preached the gospel to those who were formerly disobedient.

Who were those people, I don't know, but I know

that the scripture says that it happened. In fact, since

the beginning of the Church, the early Christians had together

a statement of faith called the Apostles Creed. Here's what

it says about Christ's dissension. He suffered under Pontius Pilot,

was crucified, died and buried. He descended into Hell and

rose the third day. Now this clearly shows the mercy

of God that Christ would first descend into hell and

pay our debt. Jesus paid the debt that every one

of us should have paid so that we could live

the life that he lived. Even though we don't know

all that happened in that dissension, we do know that

it did happen. We know that Christ descended before he

us ended and gave gifts. Now let's look at these

gifts Verse eleven. So Christ himself gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors,

and teachers to equip his people for works of service

so the body may be built up. This means that

Jesus is the one who established those offices. That's why

it's called Christ's Church, because he birthed it. He is

leading it. Jesus has been leading his church for two

thousand years. Every time I get in a kafuffle in

a church, I remind myself, Jesus, you've been doing this

for twenty centuries. I trust you, even though I don't

know all that's going on right now. These offices are

the work of Christ in his church. Now, let's walk

through them. Apostles are special messengers that do God's work.

But today's apostles, and I believe that there are apostles today.

I get nervous if somebody calls themself an apostle. I do,

but I can recognize the apostolic work of individuals. The

apostles that we have today are not the apostles that

the foundation of the Gospel is built on Ephesians two,

who says having been built on the foundation of the

apostles and the prophets. So those are the ones that

Christ called. Did you know that the word apostle and

the word gospel are Roman words. When Caesar sent out

a message to the Roman Empire, that message was called

a gospel, and that gospel was carried by a messenger

known as an apostle, which makes the book of the

very first chapter so absolutely fascinating, because an apostle of God,

not Caesar, is carrying the gospel, not a gospel into Rome,

not coming out of Rome. That's powerful. Powerful. There's something

that happened in the spiritual realm when all declared that prophets.

Let's talk about prophets for a minute. Prophets speak forth

the word of God, and there's a foundation for them,

both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

Sometimes prophets speak predictions, but not always. Sometimes they are

speaking forth what God is declaring. There's a prophetic tone

of kind of what's right and what's wrong. Prophets, though,

are always subject to the discernment and judgment of other

church leaders. Here's what it says in one Corinthians fourteen.

Let two or three prophets speak and let the others judge.

There's discernment, there's an assessment of what's happening. Let's talk

about evangelist. Evangelists carry the evangel or the news. The

gift of evangelist is designed to spread the word of

God in a compelling way. Now, what's interesting is that

some studies show that up to ten percent of every

local congregation the gift of e evangelists is present. These

are people that just have this compelling way to lead

other people to Christ. It doesn't mean that they have

their own TV show. Okay, the gift of evangelists can

work very unobtrusively. There's a church just north of here

in Everett. They have an evangelist. He's an African man

with French descent. There's a lot of French Africans that

have moved into this particular area of the city. And

he told the pastor. He says, I have the gift

of Please do not use me in any of the services.

I don't like talking in public, but I will work

all week and lead people to Christ, and I will

bring them on Sunday. There are some of you that

have that gift. You've been a little bit afraid to

use it. I want to challenge you to live up

to the gift that God has placed within you. Now,

all of us are challenged to be witnesses, and all

of us are called to be peoplemakers. But there are

some of you that have the gift of evangelists that

God will use to take this church to the next level.

Why did he do this? He did it to build

up the church. Let's talk about pastors. Pastors shepherd the flock.

They do it primarily through leading and teaching, but not exclusively.

Listen carefully. Pastors are not primarily called to do ministry.

They have another function. The purpose of pastors is to

equip the saints to do the work of ministry, to

equip his people. Verse twelve says in works of service,

so the body may be built up. The pastors the coach.

We are the team. We run the place. He calls them.

Pastor is the We are the crew. He reads the blueprints,

we put up the walls. The body of Christ is

built up when all of the gifts are working together

in harmony. In fact, the Greek word equipping means to

make right or to repair its like setting a broken

bone or mending broken nets. The real work of ministry

doesn't happen at the hands of the pastor. The real

work of ministry happens twenty four to seven throughout an

entire week while you are being obedient to the prompting

of the Spirit, using the gifts that you have inside

you being trained. This is a training session. Listen to

me carefully. Some of you this week are going to

be prompted by the spirit to pray for someone that

you work with, and you got a choice. You can

be held hostage by fear and give into that, or

you can step out and boldly ask them if they

would allow you to pray with them. There are some

of you that are going to be called to pray

for your neighbors or people that you know and ask

God to heal their bodies. I want to challenge you

to step out and do that. God wants to flow

through you to do that. Some of you are thinking,

who is this guy? Well, I'm leaving in an hour

or so, so don't worry about it. Verse thirteen. Let's

wrap this up. Then we'll no longer be infants, tossed

back and forth by the waves blowing here and there

by every wind of teaching and cunning craftiness of people

in their deceitful scheming. Instead speaking the truth and love

will grow up in every respect from him. The whole body,

joined in hell together by every supporting ligament, grows and

builds itself up in love as each part does its work.

Our unity is a spiritual unity based on a common faith. Now,

Verse fourteen says that we're no longer infants, no longer

tossed through and forth, back and forth. That happens as

a result of obedience. We walk in. We're tossed back

and forth. We walk in obedience, we become strong. Then

it says to speak the truth and love. When we

speak the truth and love, we grow. If we don't

speak the truth in love, we don't grow. Very clear,

it's a very clear biblical equation. Now, there are three

parts to this. First of all, you've got to speak

the truth. You can't think it or hint it. You

have to actually say it. You can't render an opinion

and go, yeah, I know some things about you that

might be helpful. That's not speaking the truth. Okay, that's

a derogatory shot. You got to speak the truth. Number two,

you have to actually speak what is true, not your opinion.

It has to be truth, and you have to be

assured that's truth because truth produces freedom. Deception brings bondage.

And then finally, you've got to speak it in love.

Speak the truth in love. Are your words more about them?

Or you. If your words are more about you, that's

not love. But if your words are more about them,

it actually allows you to say some painful things, because

even in the middle of the pain, they'll feel your

love Verse sixteen. From him the the whole body is

joined and held together by every supporting ligament. Are you

a supporting ligament? It's held together when everybody does their part.

Number two, every supporting ligament. It isn't possible to be

part of the body of Christ and be fat and

not muscle. What are you doing this part of the

body of Christ? In our world? It's a whole lot

easier to give money than time. But if the spirit

tells you to give time, you haven't been obedient when

you've given money. It's real quiet in here. I want

you to think about that. This is about us being obedient.

How are you contruding? What ministry are you involved in?

And then finally, the body grows and builds itself up

in love as each part does its work. What has

God called you to do? I worked in eastern Washington

with some oyster discs and they were talking to me

about how fruit trees are prude. They said, you want

to you want to look for two things. You want

to open up the inside of the tree and let

the fruit, let the sunshine come in, because that's what

helps the fruit grow. And then you want to look

for branches that don't produce fruit. And he pointed to one.

I still remember it. He said, you see this and

I said yeah. He said, that's an unhelpful branch. There

are no buds on this branch. It will not produce

any fruit. We're going to cut that off. He said,

you know what we call those kind of branches that

steal sustenance from the tree but don't produce fruit. And

I said no. He said, we call them suckers. Suckers.

So I don't want to be rude, but I want

to be clear, and I want to be direct. Are

you a contributing ligament, a member that's making a difference

in the body of Christ? Or are you a sucker?

Because Jesus tells us Jesus is so pain plain. He said,

everyone in me that bears no fruit be cut off.

So I want to give you that opportunity. Would you

bow your heads and close your eyes in prayer with me? Father,

We have this wonderful opportunity to be part of building

unity in your body. And I pray that we will

take this opportunity seriously, that we will understand that you

are called every one of us to contribute to the

Body of Christ. If you're here today and you say, Don,

I have been avoiding the prompting of the spirit to

be involved in ministry. But today today, Hey Jesus, if

that's you, I want you to open your eyes, look

directly right now, all across this room. You are making

a commitment to make a difference by making a decision.

Thank you for leading us by your love to love

others well in Jesus good name.

Amen, Amen, I want to invite all of you to

stand up on your feet. Thank you for coming to

Venture Church today. Again, we want to direct you to

our app to the What's Next page, and on the

What's Next page there are some practical things that you

can do to practically respond to the message that you've

heard today. Again, I want to encourage you after the service,

swing by Don's table. You can meet him if you

want to. You can buy one or two of his books.

They'll be there. But we want to thank you for

coming to Venture Church. We'll look forward to seeing you

next week, and thanks again for your patience in this

expansion project. See you guys next week.

Thank you again for joining us. If you enjoy today's service,

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