The Path to Unity
About this sermon
In “The Path to Unity,” Pastor Dean Odle the service begins by asking for the Holy Spirit’s presence, direction, anointing, and power in everything the congregation does. Odle introduces unity as a condition that helps a church receive and steward God’s blessing rather than merely appear organized. The message develops its case chronologically from the biblical texts, examples, and applications heard in the sermon.
Chronological teaching outline
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The service begins by asking for the Holy Spirit’s presence, direction, anointing, and power in everything the congregation does. Odle introduces unity as a condition that helps a church receive and steward God’s blessing rather than merely appear organized.
Psalm 133 joins brethren dwelling together with oil, dew, and commanded blessing, which Odle applies to spiritual anointing. He argues that unity requires willing submission to God’s order and cannot coexist with rebellion that continually undermines legitimate authority.
First Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 establish differentiated ministry gifts and a structure intended to mature the body of Christ. Odle extends the principle of authority to family, school, civil life, and church while allowing resistance when a command plainly requires disobedience to God.
Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are said to prepare all believers for ministry until they reach unity, knowledge of Christ, and maturity. Odle contrasts this order with congregational systems in which boards hire and fire pastors as employees and doctrinal direction shifts with popular pressure.
Stories of discernment and confrontation illustrate the claim that private rebellion, occult influence, and hidden conduct can damage an entire congregation. Odle tells hearers that correction is meant to guard people and restore order rather than display a leader’s personal power.
Believers are warned not to demand flawless leaders, yet leaders remain accountable to God and must not dominate the flock. Odle reads Paul’s command for women to be silent in its immediate marital context and argues that women may prophesy, teach, and minister under biblical order.
Hebrews 13 is used to teach respect and cooperation with leaders who must give account for the people they serve. Odle says authority should be supported by a leader’s willingness to pray, fast, preach, witness, and personally practice what he asks of others.
Drawing from a spiritual-authority text, the sermon argues that God’s acts, creation, and moral order proceed from His throne and authority. Rebellion is therefore treated as a satanic principle, while submission begins with recognizing God as the source and limit of every lesser authority.
A congregant’s testimony describes anger, conflict, and concern about another person’s occult or divisive influence, then explains how teaching on authority changed her reactions. The testimony presents submission as a discipline that restrained personal retaliation and redirected the matter into prayer and proper channels.
The closing warning addresses private conversations and behind-the-scenes efforts that pollute trust and pull a church body apart. Prayer asks God to correct violations of authority so Fire and Grace Church can move toward unity of faith and experience His anointing without manipulation or rebellion.
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- 0:00:03
Lord, that's our prayer right now that we pray you will send your glory. Lord, your presence, your power, your anointing among your people. Lord, that's what we need.
- 0:03:03
We need your anointing. We need your presence. We need your glory. We need your strength. Or we need the power to be witnesses. We need you to confirm your word with signs following. We pray for the anointing on the preaching or what we do here. What our students will do in their evangelism. Lord, everything that we do, Lord, we pray for the anointing of your spirit, the leading of your spirit and the power of your Holy Spirit. And we pray this right now in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. You may be seen this morning. We welcome everyone to Fire and Grace Church. Got a lot of people out today sick or traveling. Yes. OK, Sandra says she has a word to share. The Lord says I am the same yesterday, today and forevermore, and I will never leave you. I'll always be with you. So to seek me while you can. And that if you can't find me, I'm in my word. My word is me. Amen. Amen. Receive that. Amen. Everybody take your Bibles out and turn with me to Psalm 133. Didn't plan on starting with this, but that last song just kind of motivated me here because we talk about the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit, a lot of the need for that in our lives, in our church. You know, let me just say this. I think most people know after our church has been here, now we're going on 16 years, got a little bit of a track record, right? I've been doing this now for 37 years, got a little bit of a track record. OK, I think people know that when it comes to church, and I hear this from people all over the country, different parts of the world, they say, you know, your church is like the church is supposed to be in a sense. You're at least what you preach and teach. A lot of people don't get to attend here, so they don't know what it's like to actually be here week to week. A lot of people are really shocked when they find out how small our church is that had been watching out there because, you know, we'll have eight to ten thousand people watch the sermon every week. And so they just think, you know, it's a big church. No, we're not a big church. And there's a reason why we're not a big church, because the battles that this church faces to do what we do, to preach what I preach, to teach what I teach,
- 0:06:08
is the battle like I cannot even put into words to try to maintain unity, order, respect of authority. We can talk about that a little bit today. To do things biblically. You know, I saw a meme on Facebook this morning. I've been up since about 1 30, but I saw a meme and it was like, what that goofy guy from the office mean? Well, you know, one of those. But it said there that biblical Christianity is unpopular, and popular Christianity is unbiblical. And I was like, yep, bingo. See, what's really unpopular, and it's unpopular with a lot of Christians, is when you get down into the nitty gritty of the Bible, what the Bible says about things that most of us want to avoid. We want to avoid, or that we've been to so many churches in America that are so watered down, and we got accustomed to that. So then you come to a church like this and start hearing stuff that you didn't hear for years and years and years, or in a way you've never heard it. It really kind of shocks the spiritual system. But that's okay, because our battle, our battle is to be a biblical church, okay? And that means sound doctrine from Genesis to Revelation on things. Now, I know there are people out there that hate my guts, and they go to different denominations and things. I'm talking about Christians who cannot stand me because they are into false doctrines, whatever it may be. It always saved Calvinism, pre-Trib rapture beliefs, Preterism, I mean, there's all kinds of errors out there that I deal with. But I think most people know, and most people who have followed me or followed the ministry for a long time now, know that doctrinally, if I'm going to make a point, I'm going to kind of cover it thoroughly, whatever it may be. Creation, deliverance, spiritual warfare, healing, miracles, and try to give the balanced side of those things. I don't think anybody can really charge me with false doctrine, teaching false doctrine, and be correct in that accusation, all right? So that's the first thing. Second thing is, there's no one that can charge me with immorality, because I'm not living it. And there's no one that can charge me with misuse of funds, because I live in a 100-year-old house that keeps needing repairs, and I drive a 12-year-old truck. So I'm not getting rich off of doing this, all right?
- 0:09:10
So I'm not misusing money. So when it comes to that, then here's the thing, and this is what we've got to remember. And this we need to remember not just about leadership but about each other. Be very careful when you decide to criticize or attack, because a lot of times, these things are like minor issues that if you let continue, they're going to blow up into big issues. And I'm going to explain what I'm talking about. But let's read this. This is Psalm 133. We want the anointing. We want the glory of God. We want the power of the Holy Spirit to move. And this is one of the songs of David here. And he said, behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, and went down to the skirts of his garments, as the dew of Herman and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. So in the context of talking about unity, how wonderful he is for brethren to dwell together in unity, he says that is part of what brings the anointing and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But notice he could have just said, I just pour my spirit out if you're in unity. No. He actually said it's like the anointing that came upon Aaron. Why did he bring up Aaron? Because Aaron was one of his delegated authorities. Moses was a delegated authority. Aaron was a delegated authority. And he's letting us know that the anointing comes down from the Lord. Because today's really a message about leadership. Then upon his leadership, delegated authority. And then to what? Down to the rest of the body. Because Aaron also represents the high priest. Jesus is the high priest, so it represents his body. Now, there's misnomers about unity in the body of Christ. Because there's a lot of people that think that unity means that we can disagree about a bunch of stuff and be in unity. That's not a definition of unity. Let me just give you that. That's a little tidbit of wisdom, right? In fact, in Amos 3.3, let's put that up. God asked Israel this when Israel was in, they had their idolatry going on, all their compromise and issues. And the prophet Amos, God speaking through him, says, this, can two walk together except they be agreed? What is the obvious answer to that question? No. Now, let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10.
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