[Darris McNeely] Good afternoon, everyone. Good to see all of you here in the afternoon's service. We were in the a.m. last week, and some of you we have not seen since probably the Feast of Trumpets or even before then. And we had an extended time ourselves at the feast this year. We were in New Zealand, and then a couple of weeks afterwards in Australia going all over with some Beyond Today lectures and visits and able to see and meet a lot of the members in Australia. And we're still kind of, I think we're mostly adjusted to the time and everything coming back here, but it is good to always be home after something like that. I appreciated Harmony's music this morning, this afternoon, and the special music and what we have there to enjoy.

On this trip, I learned a pretty big lesson. And I didn't realize. how it would come about or that it would come out perhaps in this way. But it stemmed from a sermon that I gave during the feast and then a documentary movie that I actually watched on one of the legs of our trip around Australia. We flew to six different cities throughout Australia and covered the entire continent from north to south to west. On one of those legs, I actually saw a documentary movie that talked about something and brought something out from a sermon that I gave at the feast and a sermon actually I had given some time back here a few years ago about a story that comes out of history. As so many stories from history do, they offer tremendous lessons. And in this particular case, a lesson that I think is important.

I'd like to tell you briefly about the story of an Antarctic expedition that occurred a little more than 100 years ago. It is the Shackleton Expedition that was called the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1917. Many of you probably know the story of Ernest Shackleton and the expedition that he led to Antarctica to be the first person and team of men to travel all the way across the Antarctic ice path from one side to the other. Others had gone to the South Pole. Shackleton had actually wanted to be a part of that and be the man to do it, but someone else beat him to it. And he then said, well, to go all the way across, that hasn't been done.

This was during what has been called the imperial or the heroic age of Antarctic exploration that kind of ended with this particular trip. But in 1914, Shackleton, on his boat called the Endurance, left England bound for Antarctica, the South Pole. World War I had just erupted and they thought perhaps they shouldn't go but they decided to go anyway. And they were encouraged by the leaders to go ahead and make the trip. And so in August of 1914 they left. And they got to the Antarctic area and began to make their way through the ice to the point where they were going to then leave their ship and then make the trek across the South Pole.

But by January of 1915, they got locked into the ice. The ice packet came in and just basically locked their boat, the Endurance, up and they couldn't go any further. They thought that they could wait it out until the thaw. There is such a thing as a thaw in Antarctica. But in time, they realized that that wasn't going to happen because the ice began to crush their ship, the Endurance.

By October of 1915, the Endurance was breaking up. And they had to abandon ship and take all their food and supplies off onto the ice pack and watch the Endurance sink below the Antarctic ice. Ironically, just a couple of years ago, they found that boat. It's still there, pretty much intact. In the frozen cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean, and it's still there. But now they were stranded on essentially an ice floe. And they decided to kind of let it move and they would ride with it, hoping that it would bring them to land. They were actually wanting to get to a point called Elephant Island. But after a period of time, they realized that wasn't going to happen. And so they had to go back and eventually abandon that idea.

And they took a couple of lifeboats they had with them, pared themselves down. And a decision was made that six of the men would go on a boat, essentially a small lifeboat that was then rigged and outfitted to go across the waters, setting off for a place called South Georgia Island, where they knew there was a whaling station. And they could get a larger ship to then come back and get the remainder of the men. So six men started off. And they left the remaining men at that point, about 22 other men. There were 28 in total. They left 22 on the ice. And they had about six weeks of supplies to make it to South Georgia Island.

In what is still regarded as one of the great navigational feats of all time in the water with this very small boat, and they made it to South Georgia Island just as their food was about to run out after six weeks. But they had to then go across the glaciers and the mountains of South Georgia Island to get to the other side. And so Shackleton took three men with him, left three there, and they walked for about 36 hours over ice, glaciers, and up and down mountains in another tremendous feat to get to the whaling station to find the hill. And they got a boat and they then were able to get to start back to Elephant Island to get the remainder of the men. And it actually took about, I think, four different trips before Ernest Shackleton with actually more than one boat, they finally had to go all the way back to Chile to get another tugboat that could make it in through the ice to pick up the remainder of the men who were there.

And so after several months and several attempts to make this, he picked the men up off of Elephant Island and as they approached him he shouted out, "Are you guys okay?" And they said, "We're still here, boss." They had been waiting over four and a half months not knowing the fate of Ernest Shackleton and the six small men in the boat, whether they even made it, whether they survived, or whether they would come back. But they did. And Shackleton fulfilled his word because he told the men, "I will get you home." And he did, he got them all home.

Ironically, some of the men then got back in time to enlist in the Army and go to the front of World War I, and some of them died in World War I after having survived the Antarctic ice shelf. It's one of the great feats of exploration and endurance. The ship that they were on was amply, amply named. And when I was watching the documentary movie on the plane about it, it struck me that what those men had taken with them was an intangible quality that really was the key to their survival and the success of what was then a changed mission.

Their first mission was to cross the ice pack. Well, with the loss of their ship, their mission changed, and it became one of survival. And what they had with them, what they took, and what they demonstrated that was a key was trust. They had to have explicit trust in Ernest Shackleton to get them home, to get them off. And that meant every decision that he made to abandon the ship, to abandon the ice, to wait for him, and to expect that what he was deciding along the way was the best decision for all 28 men. Had they not trusted in him, had they mutinied, had they decided to abandon his plan and in a sense created one of their own, elect someone else as their leader, it's doubtful they would have survived. And that's what struck me as I watched the documentary about it and after having thought about a lot of the different aspects of that, that was a remarkable feat.

It was later said about Ernest Shackleton, in comparing him to the other great figures of that heroic age of exploration, there were other men who had better scientific methods. There were other explorers who were faster in terms of how they were more efficient in getting their mission accomplished. But what was said about Ernest Shackleton was that, "When disaster strikes, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton." Pray for Shackleton. He had that ability to lead men and to inspire that one quality of trust in that particular episode. Interestingly, within about five years of that expedition, Shackleton himself was dead. He didn't function too well in normal life, as so many men do in situations like this who are, in a sense, seek to achieve big things like that. His home life, his life back in England wasn't quite up to the heroic steps that he took.

So what I'd like to focus on here for a few minutes this afternoon is a lesson that I learned and thought about not only from the expedition, but from what effectively are my observations from a big trip, but also things that we can reflect on in the church today. Trust. Think about how much trust we have today in our world and in our culture. Look at every big institution in America today, education. How much trust do we have in higher education today, technology? And we have our technology. But the technology companies, we have seen power abused. We have seen power exerted by technology companies in recent years. And that, too, has created a lack of trust among people there.

Religion. Do we trust religion for the answers? How about politics? Do we trust politicians? Well, they're usually rated some of the lowest when it comes to the trust scale as people are surveyed as to what they trust. When you look at every major institution that is a part of the fabric of our culture today, trust is something that is very, very low. Big pharmaceuticals, think about that. I know how that would come out on the scale of trust today. Everywhere we turn, scandal, problems lead to a lack of trust when it comes to our world, people, leaders, institutions that are and have been trusted in years past. And events and circumstances have eroded a great deal of that.

How about trust in the church? The one bastion of security, of importance, of definition in our life, how much trust do you and I have as it comes to ourselves in the church and as being part of the body of Jesus Christ? Because we're living in some very big times right now. We know that. Mr. Cook's sermonette alluded to what erupted four weeks ago today with another war in the Middle East. And we're watching that begin to develop and to play out and reshape again, not only that region, but many other aspects of our world right now. We watch that very carefully as we should.

And, you know, the things that we think are a lock or a trust, I remember some who were getting ready to leave for the trip to Israel before and they were a little bit worried. I said, "Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Israel, you know, it's safe over there. Everybody's packing a gun." I said, "I feel safer in Israel than I do in parts of Cincinnati." I said, "Don't worry about it." I even wrote a little piece about it in a blog that I put together for my travels and commenting on that.

And then all of a sudden on the eighth day. I opened up my feed on Facebook and there was a member from Israel who sent big headlines, "We're under attack," it said. And I thought, oh no, you know, it must have been a backfire of a motorcycle or something. And then another one pops up here and there and all of a sudden you realize, no, they're under attack and missiles are flying all over Israel again and that the news community can develop their side of it. These are big times that we're living in, and big, big events. Trust is something that we should consider in terms of ourselves, and God, and His Church.

I'd like to turn over to Ephesians, Chapter 1. As we go through a few passages in the book of Ephesians that I think development or show us kind of where we are, what we do trust in, what we should trust in, as well as to understand ourselves in regard to this trust when it comes to each other and where we are spiritually before God. Ephesians does talk to this in the sense of as we look through the scriptures here in Ephesians and what we are being told. I'd like to begin in Chapter 1 of Ephesians, what has become in recent times probably my favorite passages and chapter in all of the Bible. But let's begin at verse 3 of Chapter 1 and read a few verses here because these verses that I'm going to read really speak to our trust in God, in God, which I think is where we start as a first point, as a first building block for having trust.

Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Our trust is in God the Father. And in what Paul here begins to tell us He is doing and has purposed, “who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

This is what the Father has done. And this is where trust begins, real trust, real confidence, that is the anchor of our life. At any moment, in the darkest moment, in the highest moment of enjoyment and pleasure and success we might be on, at any point and at any angle we would begin to focus, trust has to be in God. And this is what Paul is beginning to lay down for us here in some verses.

Ephesians 1:4-5 "Just as He chose us and Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will."

God chose us, He says, and Him before the foundation of the world and what he is going to do through Christ. It was all thought out. It was all planned. The purpose of God to bring many sons to glory was in place before the beginning of the world that we are a part of. That we are to be holy. The people, the group that we would call the church, the elect, the first fruits, all of these terms that are parts of what we know to be the church of God, and of which we are a part, was predetermined, predestined by God in place before the foundation of this world. We trust in that. That is something to then help us realize that this is what God has purposed. This is what Creation is all about, the earth, the human creation.

Ephesians 1:6-7 "To the praise of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace."

We have that forgiveness. We trust in that. We believe that. We demonstrate that trust as we accept the sacrifice of Christ at that point in our life when we are baptized. We go into the waters of baptism and we become a new person in a sense as we come up out of that watery grave with our sins forgiven and with the receipt of God's Spirit, we begin a new life. And that life of God within us begins to shape and develop and mold us, but we are redeemed according to God's riches, the abundance of His grace, His unmerited pardon to us, His unmeasured love and desire to share His glory with us, this is what begins. And we have confidence God is going to do that.

Ephesians 1:8-9 "Which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in himself."

And so again, this is God's purpose. It is His desire. It is the compact, as it has been described, that was agreed upon by the Word and by God in the beginning and is working out.

Ephesians 1:10 "That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth in Him.”

The beauty of Chapter 1 of Ephesians is how Paul is able to put the emphasis upon Christ and his position and what has been set up by the purpose of God to be fulfilled by Christ. And verse 10 is one of those verses that just kind of soars into the cosmic heights of thought to challenge us to figure out what that means, to bring together all things in heaven and in earth in Christ. He tells us a lot of how that is through other passages in his epistles and here in Ephesians as well, but it is a very large idea.

Ephesians 1:11-12 "In him also, we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will." And that is what we believe. And notice what he says in verse 12. “That we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”

Those of us who first trusted, a part of this group called the first fruits. Now, yes, he was writing this to a group of Christians in the first century as he brings this out to them, but these words are living words that speak to us today that tell us we are among the first of God's plan of salvation to trust in Christ in that way. Again in verse 13.

Ephesians 1:13 He says, "In Him you also trust, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase possession to the praise of His glory."

These verses here, in a sense, lay down that meaning of trust that we have in God, in the Father, in what He is doing through Christ. And that's where trust begins. And this is what we have put our life into. This is what we have committed ourselves to in our life. And it's a lifelong commitment. It's a deep commitment that trust that we develop in that relationship with the Father then begins to flow toward trust in all other aspects of our life and of our calling in God. But God has said He is going to bring to pass His purpose to bring many sons to glory, to bring us into life eternal and He will do that. And we trust that. We have trusted in His words to do that. That is in a sense survival through this life that we come to believe and live by in all aspects of our life. That's where the trust begins here in these verses. God's purpose stands. He will do what He has agreed to do before the foundation of the world, and we trust God the Father to bring this to completion. Now, Paul begins to show that there is another element of this trust as he winds this chapter down in verses 22 and 23 of Chapter 1.

Ephesians 1:22-23 Look at what he says, “That He,” meaning the Father, “put all things under His feet and gave Him, Christ, to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him, who fulfills all in all.”

This is one of the memory verses that we might have as kind of a lock in our mind that tells us that it is well known to us. It is also a definitive verse to describe, let's say, the teaching about the church or the doctrine about the church, that Christ is the head of the church, which is His body. Therefore, the church is a spiritual mechanism or organism. It is not physical. We know that when we're baptized, if we remember those words that were said over us at baptism, we were baptized not into an organization of men, but into the body of Jesus Christ, the spiritual body. We've had time and opportunity to be reminded of that, and in a sense kind of have the dust blown off of that concept over the years, but that's indeed the case. The Church is a spiritual organism. It is the body of Christ and Christ is the head of the church.

And this is that second great block of trust. that is important for us to focus on spiritually and in our life, that Christ is the head of the church. These are not words that we spit out to pass a quiz or to, you know, in a sense, demonstrate that we know, you know, something doctrinally about the church, as important as that is. This so often becomes a challenge to us. Do we really believe that? That is, that Christ is the head of the church, that it's His body, that He is truly working and guiding His Church to His end. We trust Christ to direct the affairs of His spiritual body.

I've had to think that went through a lot and through the years where I've been challenged about that. I think all of us have and come back to that and say, "Okay, that scripture is true. Do I believe it? Do I trust that Christ is the head of this church?" I will admit there have been times when I didn't quite zero in on it. And probably by actions and or words, I was demonstrating a lack of trust that Christ is guiding His church. But I think through years of experience, I've come to remember that more often than I might forget it. and have it kind of embedded in my approach that indeed, yeah, He is. He is. Which means you trust that He knows what He is doing, that you trust that Christ is guiding His church as He always has, that He's guiding it today.

And one of the elements of that trust is founded upon another scripture from 1 Corinthians, the first chapter, where Paul asks the rhetorical question, "Is Christ divided?" You know the answer to that question, don't you? Is Christ divided? No. Paul knew the answer and he wasn't asking for verification. He knew the answer. Christ is not divided. Christ's body is not divided. Christ is guiding His body, His church, of which He is the head. Sometimes that can present a bit of a conundrum for us because when we look around we see, we can see division. We can see differing organizations.

We certainly, you know, Mr. Welch was talking about the teen study into comparative religion. A study of comparative religion is always fascinating just as a foundation to understand the religious movements of the world and have that locked in. I remember studying that, I had a whole class about that in college. And it really did help to put a lot of things in perspective. But for us, we should be able to tick the box. Well, that particular faith is, we can see errors there, and this one, and we compare it to the Word of God. We compare it to what we know. We come down to where we are church-wise and we are a part of the Church of God and we believe the truths of the Scriptures, and when we study this particular topic, we come to realize that this is true right here, that Christ is the head of his church and that it is not divided.

And yet we look around and we see that things are a little bit different. You know, I've heard comments and talking with some of you through the years that speak to your experience in the church as being one of a lot of division in let's say the last 25 years, which I can't deny. But I go back 50 years and more. I go back 50 years in my ministry and within the first months of my ministry, I lived through a time of division. And Debbie and I determined that after the dust settled on that one, we would never be a part of any effort to divide the people of God because we saw the impact of it. And I was only in my early 20s at that time. I was young. And I've lived with it a long time.

And so, just like anyone else, I've seen it. And belief in this particular verse, trust in Christ to be guiding what He's doing, has always, you know, it's something that you find to be a challenge. This brings it down to a personal level. We must trust in Christ in many different ways. Our salvation is dependent upon it. We must also trust in His ability to guide His church and to recognize that He is. Now, there may be division or we might be a bit confused and even have confused loyalty or divided loyalty. That presents a challenge to us. And if we ignore that, then we're demonstrating a lack of faith, if not certainly a lack of understanding. Let's read on here. In Chapter 2 and at verse 14, this trust in Christ is brought out even more.

Ephesians 2:14-18 Paul writes, "For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. And that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, having put to death the enmity. And He came and he preached peace to those who were far off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father."

We trust in Christ to be our high priest, our mediator, our advocate, to break that wall down, to bring us to the Father in a unity. This is a very personal side of the matter because it involves our salvation. And so we have a trust in the Father and we have a trust in Christ that is defined by just these scriptures here. Many, many more could be brought to bear upon it. But we have to trust that Christ is guiding His church, His body, no matter what we might see or be unable to see when it comes to the physical organizations that we have been a part of.

Now bear with me for a moment because I want to bring this down a little bit closer to something to think about in terms of our part and what we're actually being told here in these scriptures. Let's look at a third aspect of this. We've looked at the Father. We've looked at Christ. Let's look at the church and what is said about the church here in these verses. Go down in Chapter 3 to verse 8.

Ephesians 3:8-10 Paul writes this about something about the church. “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given. But I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the Church. The manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the Church to the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places.”

The Church has a role in making known the deep, complete wisdom of God by the Church, the spiritual body of Jesus Christ. Now other scriptures define what the church will be doing. It will be preaching the gospel. It will be making disciples. It will be preparing a people, caring for those disciples. Scripture defines very great detail what the church will do. We have a whole book called the Book of Acts that shows what the resurrected Christ working through His body was doing in the first century as a model, a template by which we are to operate in that continuing work of Christ with His church today.

So much of this definition is here. But this is a pretty profound one right here that it is...by the, that the church, it makes known the wisdom of God. Now keep your mind on the spiritual organism of the church of which Christ is the head and recognize that, again, part of our trust has to be in a scripture like this to know that Christ is doing that. It's not about an organization in one sense. It is about what Christ is doing as the Father has given to Him, and what the Scripture says will be done. And so when we think about the church of God, when we think about the spiritual body of Christ, we've got to look beyond physical organization to the spiritual body.

And from Scripture, see how God has chosen to work through His disciples. What's another word for disciple? People. Oh yeah, people. What's the old saying? Church would be a really nice place if we didn't have all the people. Well, we wouldn't have a church if we didn't have the people. So Christ is working through His disciples. Again, I call your attention to the Book of Acts. I think that that book is a spiritual demonstration of how the resurrected Christ continues to this day, the work that He did when He walked the earth in the flesh. He's just now doing it through His disciples whom He sent to the world.

So where do we fit within that? God now is calling from among the nations, people from every walk of life. And this is where we have our challenge here. This is where trust often will begin to break down, when it comes to how we look at the church, and we confuse an organization with the Church. Now, don't get me wrong there. An organization is important. There has to be a certain protection of the assets of the church. And frankly, the biggest asset is the people. But this is where the challenge comes in. And what we see, and this gets down to the observation that I made after two weeks in New Zealand, two weeks in Australia, meeting members and meeting Beyond Today subscribers who came to hear a message and to interact with people at many levels, it comes down to this matter of trust and what is working, what is happening within the church today.

Let me tell you about a phrase that I actually learned about. I learned the meaning of it. I'd heard the phrase before when I was in Australia. We were out on a walk one afternoon, a couple of us along the very nice beach area of the Gold Coast in Australia. And I said to my friend who took us there, Scott, I said, "Scott, thanks for taking us out here for a little bit, just get a little break and do a walkabout here this afternoon." And he stopped and he turned around and he looked at me. He said, "Mate." That's what they say in Australia, mate. "We're not on a walkabout." I said, "We're on a walk."

He said, "Well," he said, "No, a walkabout in Australia is what the Aborigines do, the indigenous people." First Nation, whatever. He said, "It's what the Aborigines do." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah." He said within the Aboriginal culture, if they don't like where they are, they just get up and they walk out. And Aunt Janie and Uncle Pete will walk out, they just leave, and they can be gone months, years. People will come around and say, "Well, where's Aunt Janie?" "Well, she's on a walkabout." They literally get up and go.

"Oh," I said, "that's what a walkabout is." Been a year since I'd seen "Crocodile Dundee." So I began to think about what I had been observing there and what I actually had been observing for quite some time in the larger church, not just Australia or New Zealand, where you hear and see people who do what I call a spiritual walkabout. They just decide to get up and leave and go someplace else. And I've said, "Where's so-and-so at times?" As I might encounter someone I haven't seen for several months or maybe a few years, "How's so-and-so?" "Oh, they're gone." There was another group or they don't come to church anymore. They don't come, they don't fellowship with us.

Or I'll get a letter from somebody, a letter of anguish, people are gone. And I encountered that quite a bit, in New Zealand especially, where people, even at the feast, they were here, they were there. And I realized, you know, people are doing a spiritual walkabout in the church today. They, for whatever reason, decide to get up and walk and go. And I'm not picking on New Zealand or Australia, because I've noticed that that is something that is within the church and the landscape that we are part of today. Is it because of a lack of trust? What is it that we are seeing here?

This is where we have certain challenges. We can trust God. We can trust Christ. We can profess trust in His Church. But when we look at these scriptures, the church is supposed to be building a unity of the spirit and a unity of the faith. That's what Chapter 4 begins to talk about. And I want to take us into Chapter 4 at a point here just to go into the topic here because Paul really, his whole thing, and I think there is a theme of trust, a thread of trust that works through these chapters. Then it comes really down to the one-on-one of how the church is built up. And if you look at verse 11 of Chapter 4, Paul writes about the organization or the structure within the church.

Ephesians 4:11 He said, “He gave himself, he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and teachers.”

And we've correctly interpreted these in the United Church of God to be administrations, not ranks, and recognize that they represent functions within the church. But it is verse 12 that really shows the purpose for any of those, whether it's an apostle or a teacher.

Ephesians 4:12 “It is for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”

An apostle, prophet, an evangelist, pastor, or teacher is for equipping the saints, the people, giving the tools, equipping the saints for the work of ministry or for the work of service for the building up, the edifying of the body of Christ.

What's the body of Christ? It's a spiritual body. Who's the head of, whose body is it? It's Christ and He's the head of it. And we trust that. Do we trust in ourselves and among ourselves at this level to work together to that end?

Ephesians 4:12-13 Then he says, “Til we all come to the unity of the faith.” It is all to come to that end, “a unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

Again, these are not unfamiliar verses to us, and we've poured over them through the years. But I think that it is a good time to have a discussion about this as it applies to the ministry, yes. And as it applies to all of us in the church together because we are to all come to that unity of the faith. In verse 14, he describes some of the things that have kept that unity from occurring.

Ephesians 4:14 He said, “That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of the deceitful plotting.”

Verse 14 is an uncomfortable verse because Paul is led to say that we have problems that cause us to be tossed around, to and fro, like you're in a bumper car, you know, on the midway, and with every wind of doctrine. A doctrine is important. Teaching how we live, how we believe, how we conduct ourselves, and all that is the body of truth that we have in the church. And we all know the challenges that we may face at times when different doctrines are taught. And we strive to speak the same thing in the church, and we must speak the same thing. We must come to a unity of faith and not be tossed to and fro with doctrine.

The first split I told you that I was a part of way back in 1974, doctrine was involved. But also people and personalities were involved as well. Verse 14 talks about doctrine and truth, but it also talks about the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. Now that's again another uncomfortable verse. But I'll be honest that I've thought about it in uncomfortable terms in recent times and had to consider a few things as to an explanation for why we have so much of a spiritual walkabout condition within the church today and how to talk about it so that we can at least look into the scripture and be focused upon that.

God's plan for His church involves building a unity of faith and a unity of spirit. When I look at 50 years of my experience just in the ministry, I've got over 60 years as a church experience total, but 50 in the ministry, which is kind of an interesting place to at least kind of look back on, I see a lot of slight of men. I've seen a lot of itinerant teachers. And I don't have to mention any names, I won't, but I see the impact of it throughout the church and among ourselves as a spiritual body. I see 50 years of men.

What we should see is 50 years of Jesus Christ. We should see 50 years of Jesus Christ to where we come up to the measure of the stature and the fullness of Jesus Christ, not any man. And I see the ideas of men. And I have watched the peeling away of an organization that taught an idea that led my family into it back more than 60 years ago to base their lives and put their trust in God and His purpose and in Christ as the head of the church and in a church that was endeavoring to do, make known the mystery of the will of God. And what I have watched and what I have observed is men, a trickery of men. Crafty deceit packaged in whatever form that we have.

And I think for me the conversation needs to be less about men and it needs to be more about Christ. Now, as I look at these verses, I recognize and as someone who was telling me just a day or two ago as I was talking about what I was going to give in my message, "Well, you should be talking to the ministry." I know that. But I also know that we have to talk among ourselves because we all have to have that trust in God, in Christ, in His church, and we have to have that trust in each other, to pull together in a unity of faith.

Someone, a member, recently asked me, "Well, Mr. McNeely, have you ever had a opportunity to mistrust a minister?" Of course, he was asking a minister, wasn't he? And his challenge, his challenge, this man, this gentleman's challenge was a minister. I said, "Yeah. Yeah, I've been challenged by trusting a minister, too." "How did you deal with it?" he said. You're standing in the midst of a crowded room of other members and you're sometimes you have questions you don't have hours to prepare an answer for. I think God does give us certain answers at times when we need it to help people in this way. And I said, "You know what, you know what helped me? I finally had to come in the depths of my own heart and mind, I had to come down to where's my integrity? Where is my integrity?"

Because we've all been offended. I've offended. The offense is plentiful. How do we handle it? Do we really trust that God is guiding us by His purpose, that Christ is the head of the church, that the church is doing its job? And if we do, then when we are offended or when we see offense, I finally came to, and as I explained it to the individual, I said it was a matter of personal integrity. I finally decided I was going to handle it differently. I was going to take it to God and lay it before His altar and before Christ and let them do it because I couldn't.

And I think that had over the 50 years, certain men had had a level of deep personal integrity, they might have thought twice about what they decided to do because that's how you develop unity of faith and unity of spirit. We all individually before God trust in God. We trust that Christ is the head of the church. And we trust that we are to be building unity of spirit and unity of faith within each other to come up to the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ, not a man. And that conversation has to be deep inside ourselves. And we decide, this time, I won't do it that way that leads to further strife, lack of trust, tearing down, creating instability. I will just take it to God. And that was my answer to the gentleman. It came down to a matter of personal integrity, which I think is at the heart of these verses that get us to that time, where we can all be unified. The vision that Christ has for the church is in verse 15 and 16.

Ephesians 4:15-16 “To speak the truth in love. And we would grow up in all things into Him who is the head Christ from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

Verse 16 is Christ's vision for His body. That's where he's taking it. And it is being done. It is being done because He's the head of the church and it's a spiritual purpose for that spiritual body. And I think the integrity that each of us must rise to is enter and the inner person of trust in the Father and in Christ, in the spiritual church. and in one another as disciples led by God's Spirit to work it out together without creating strife, division or doing a spiritual walkabout. I heard people say recently, "Well, we go here because there's no children with us." And then I talk the next day to somebody as well. There's no children. I'm thinking, wait a minute. Now, if this family here and this family here with their children would all be together, guess what? You got children. But when we decide to do spiritual walkabout, we render ourselves ineffective and we perpetuate the very opposite of what these scriptures point us to.

We're not going to get through the years that are ahead of us, a very challenging period, we're not going to get through it without trust. The world, as I said, is tearing down institutions and destroying trust in any authority, in any institution. We all know that and see that going on around us. We can't let that happen among ourselves. Whatever the current time of trouble will develop to, I can't say. But it should certainly cause us to be awake and to watch. I think we do have this time yet to build trust. And if we do, to build that complete trust in Christ. His purpose will be accomplished among those who are the called and chosen of His disciples who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Started with the story of Ernest Shackleton and his expedition. And I said that the one quality those men took with them that got them to safety was trust in their leader. There was one man in that 28 group of men, there was one man who challenged Ernest Shackleton, tried to incite a mutiny. Now, Shackleton knew how to deal with it and he put a stop to it. But when he decided who the six men were going to be that would leave the other 22 behind and go for help, he took that malcontent with him because he didn't want that person to be left with the other 22 men on the shore of the ice.

I don't know what that man learned, but he took him with him. The point is he dealt with the issue and that trust was maintained. We've got to build that trust among ourselves, trust in the leadership of the Father and of Jesus Christ to guide us, to get us to the success of the position of glory within that kingdom that God has placed before us all. I hope that we can all look at ourselves in that way and work together to build that unity of faith and build that trust off of the confidence that we have in God to bring His purpose about.