Be Tolerant

Tolerance is a popular secular virtue. The priority of tolerance is not only popular, but at times it appears to hold the same authority as the dogma of the Constitution for our country. It seems inviolable. This tolerance says, “You must approve of what I do…You must agree with me…You must allow me to have […]

God’s Commitment to Unity

God is committed to unity. God’s priority of unity is emphasized throughout Scripture. Unity is inferred on the very first pages of Scripture, when a unified God acts to create the world and all things in it and beyond it. When God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and […]

Preserving Unity

Preserving Unity — Ministry Focus for 2025Ephesians 4:1-3January 19, 2025 For several years, we have had a theme for the year — a biblical truth that would help orient us and guide us as we serve Christ. Often those themes come from circumstances that we see in the culture (both secular and church) that […]

Fighting for Church Unity

Unity in the local church is the goal of every church (or it should be). It is not always easily or readily attained, as a newspaper account about a church in Wales a couple of generations ago testifies: Yesterday the two opposition groups both sent ministers to the pulpit. Both spoke simultaneously, each trying to […]

Sermon: Walking Worthy by Preserving Unity

Walking Worthy by Preserving Unity Ephesians 4:1-3 May 31, 2020 I have always loved, and often used, the saying, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as quickly as I could.” Similarly, I wasn’t born in the church, but I got here as quickly as I could. Since childhood, I have always attended […]

Sermon: Hospitality, truth, love, and missions, Pt. 2

Hospitality, Truth, Love, and Missions, Pt. 2 3 John 7-14 October 5, 2014 Years ago, when then-speaker of the house Sam Rayburn discovered he had terminal cancer, he shocked everyone when he announced that he was going back to his small hometown of Bonham, Texas. He was often asked, “They have the finest facilities in […]

Sermon: Hospitality, truth, love, and missions

Hospitality, Truth, Love, and Missions, Pt. 1 3 John 1-6 September 21, 2014 One thing we speak of frequently at GBC is the shape of our church ministry: what will we do and how will we do it? There are so many competing ideas of what a church is and how it should function that […]

Sermon: Restrictions to Fellowship

Restrictions to Fellowship 2 John 7-13 September 14, 2014 The first time I remember a Mormon coming by our house when I was a child was when we were living in Minnesota. I think it was January. My Dad answered the door, saw who they were, stepped outside, closed the door, and shared the gospel […]

Sermon: The Basis of Fellowship

The Basis of Fellowship 2 John 1-6 September 7, 2014 Satan is the ruler of the world (1 Jn. 5:19). That makes the world a wicked and awful place. And despite our discouragement about what we find in the world, we’ve come to expect what we find in the world and from the world. But […]

Today’s Quote – Unity (Tozer)

A. W. Tozer: Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each […]