{"id":8591,"date":"2021-11-15T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/?p=8591"},"modified":"2021-10-20T16:29:51","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T21:29:51","slug":"unity-as-simple-as-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/2021\/11\/15\/unity-as-simple-as-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Unity: As Simple as Light"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Foreword by W. A. Mills:<\/strong>\u00a0 Unity is one of the seven promises of a Promise Keeper.\u00a0 An authentic man of God is committed to reaching beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.\u00a0 As has often been said, \u201cIn essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things, charity and love.\u201d\u00a0 What exactly constitutes the essentials?\u00a0 Pastor Ronnie Barnes answers that question in the following reflection.\u00a0 Continue reading for more insight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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A while back, I worked for two weeks on a sermon concerning unity. I thought I had finished once I got to a particular place, but the message was far from complete. It happens sometimes! Preaching a sermon \u2013 one of the most publicly noted works of a pastor \u2013 is not always a simple matter. I indeed take it very seriously. I always have.<\/p>\n

When I first began to train in matters of Bible and Theology at Holmes Bible College, I became convinced by the Holy Spirit of an interesting truth that would frame my training and practice indefinitely.\u00a0 That truth is: \u201cAnything can be preached; what should be preached?\u201d.\u00a0 Dealing with matters of truth and conscience, and hearing from God across congregational situations, local happenings, and national\/global events, reconciling one with the other to make a sensible and helpful set of insights, solutions, and appropriate exhortations to personal behavior. None of it is child\u2019s play, not one portion of it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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\u201cAnything can be preached; what should be preached?\u201d<\/h6>\n
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Riding on my previous statement, I guess it could be said that anyone could probably preach, but likely, not everyone should. The reason for this is the good and lofty goal of preaching: namely, unity and the desirable kind is not one according to the world, but according to God. The preacher seeks to bring unity between God\u2019s Word and the hearts of God\u2019s people through the medium of preaching.<\/p>\n

Charles Spurgeon is credited with a particular quote (whose attribution is apparently dubious), noting the polarity of preachers behind the pulpit: \u201cA time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.\u201d There are undoubtedly many entertaining preachers out there, and not all of them are \u201cclowns,\u201d but some certainly must be. The most offensive preaching before God must be the kind based on worldly enlightenment rather than the illumination that comes through fellowship with God through His Word and the Holy Spirit. Such worldly preaching may even have a moral tone, but it demands very little courage from the preacher, as he is well-aware that the world and all its power are on his side. It also requires very little from the hearer, as it is affirmative primarily of their current lifestyle and way of operating. Such worldly preaching is not without negative consequences. The light of God\u2019s Word is contained rather than proclaimed when preachers fail to divide the scriptures rightly.\u00a0 Consequently, darkness (or at the very least dimness) spreads in its place. Regardless of the content of the message, as it lacks the light of God\u2019s Word, it will only ultimately bring darkness and division within the church and the individual.<\/p>\n

The world we find ourselves in is getting dimmer and bad stuff is growing in darkening corners.\u00a0 Biblical, Holy-Spirit-inspired preaching is supposed to act as a preserving agent \u2014 light to stave off the darkness. \u00a0And so, the king of exhortations in this hour would be to \u201c...walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light...\u201d \u2014 1st John 1:7 NASB<\/p>\n

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Unity cannot be founded upon anything other than the person of Jesus Christ.<\/h6>\n
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The result of such personal resolve to act on this command will be a mutually promising future for the church at large. In the next part of the verse I just quoted, John continues, explaining what the more significant result will be of such walking in the light: \u201cwe [will] have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about unity when we speak of having fellowship with one another. Unity cannot be founded upon anything other than the person of Jesus Christ. Belief in Him becomes sufficient infrastructure for all fellowship to occur. Unity of ideas is not the ultimate goal, but unity around the person of Jesus Christ. That is my message, I guess, after all!<\/p>\n

Unity is not as complicated as people like to make it, according to God. If we walk in the light of God, unity will happen. Maybe it isn\u2019t an immediate unity on a larger scale, but according to this passage we\u2019ve looked at, it seems to be the one that God is more concerned with, and maybe that is what we should be concerned with also.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Ronnie Barnes is a member of the General Men\u2019s Ministries Board. A graduate of both Holmes Bible College and Advantage College, Ronnie serves as the senior pastor of the Laurens Pentecostal Holiness Church in Spirit Life Ministries of the IPHC. He also teaches Spanish at Laurens Academy and enjoys developing his various creative pursuits, including writing poetry. He and his wife Estrella make their home in Laurens, SC with their two children, Josiah and Claire.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":8594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1,15],"tags":[1308,1404,1031,1044,10,946,1206,955,1043,1450],"class_list":{"0":"post-8591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-discipleship-ministries","8":"category-general","9":"category-mens-ministries","10":"tag-1308","11":"tag-article","12":"tag-discipleship-ministries","13":"tag-fellowship","14":"tag-iphc","15":"tag-iphc-mens-ministries","16":"tag-quarter-4","17":"tag-ronnie-barnes","18":"tag-unity","19":"tag-unity-as-simple-as-light","20":"entry"},"title_es":"","content_es":"","author_name":"Ronnie Barnes","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/11\/MM-2021-Q4-Article-Graphic.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T9u2-2ez","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/discipleship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}