An Answer to Prayer

Intro

Conflict, who loves it? No one.

Some people might be good at resolving it, and others might be equally good and causing it, but most people don’t love being involved in it.

Conflict can get messy. Rarely do two parties walk away from conflict completely unscathed. Usually everyone leaves with a few bumps or bruises, and others sustain wounds that they carry with them the rest of their lives.

Conflict in of itself is not the problem. The sinful nature that each of us inherited from Adam and Eve when they broke fellowship with God is the problem.

God’s plan for humanity was one that was absent of conflict because we were created to be in perfect unity with God and by extension with each other.

But we chose a different way and as soon as sin entered the equation conflict took place.

Immediately Adam was at odds with his wife as he blamed her for his own rebellion.

Within one generation we see Adam and Eve’s own children come into conflict with each other. In fact that conflict was so intense that it led to the first recorded murder as Cain killed his brother Abel.

And we have been dealing with the propensity to conflict and its often devastating fallout ever since. In fact humanity’s sinful nature has put us in constant conflict with a Holy God. So much so that the Bible says that we were enemies of God.

But God had a plan, and that plan was to reconcile us back to the Father through Jesus’ sacrifice and the promised Holy Spirit.

But the plan didn’t stop with restoring the conflict sin had created between us and our creator, no it was also to build for himself a body, or a group of people who would be diverse culturally, ethnically, and economically. Diverse in age, gender, social standing. Divers in their personalities, talents, skills, and gifts.

Yet completely unified; bringing all that diversity together into a body made up of many different parts serving a single function; to bring glory to the head of that body, Jesus Christ.

What I have just described is the Church, or at least the Church as God intended it.

This morning we are wrapping up the series we started 4 weeks ago where we have been asking the question why Church?

Is it really that important? Does it really matter if I go? Can’t I be a Christian and not really get too involved in church?

Well, I hope I have been answering that question along the way. And I hope today I am able to bring it all together and leave you with a full and complete answer to that question.

Power in the Text

As I mentioned, conflict is the result of sin. And the Church was created to be an image to a world in constant conflict of what God originally intended his creation to look like.

I said this in my closing thought last week, but the Church really is supposed to be a reflection, albeit sometimes distorted reflection of heaven.

The relationship that we have with God the Father through Jesus and the relationship with have with other believers through our common belief and worship, along with the shared experience of the indwelling Holy Spirit is unlike anything people will experience on this side of eternity.

Church is a foreshadowing of what is to come in our next life where we will experience a level of intimacy with God and fellowship with one another that we can only begin to imagine.

But we have an idea, a taste of it if you will through the Church.

Now with that said, I wish that I could tell you that because of this, conflict is not present among God’s people. That unlike the world, we don’t live in conflict with one another.

But I think we all know that I would be lying if I said that was the case.

But you know, Jesus knew that while unity was the plan, he also knew it was possible. At the same time, he knew it wouldn’t be natural or easy.

In fact, he knew that so much that the last thing he did before he was arrested and ultimately executed was pray.

Specifically for you and I in regards to unity and conflict.

John 17:20-23 NLT 20 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. 22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

The church is important. Despite its messiness and imperfection, God uses the church (and each member) for his good purposes.

The church brings Glory to God. In this passage, a part of Jesus’s prayer, we find comfort and purpose in Jesus’s intercession for us as a community of faith.

What a blessing it is to know that Jesus, fully God and fully human, prayed for us, “those who will believe” (v. 20).

He prayed that we might be one in Christ, unified by the gospel (vv. 21–22).

Even more so, he prayed that our oneness might show others who do not yet believe how incredible God’s love is (v. 23).

Jesus was praying that his followers would ‘be one’ in their love for one another, their submission to the authority of Scripture, and their commitment to the Great Commission.

Disunity among professing Christians has frustrated Jesus’ purpose that the world might believe in Him.

For many, it isn’t because theirs no evidence for the God of the Bible, it is the behavior of those who claim to follow him that get in the way of people believing.

Why would someone give their lives over to a God who promises so much in the way of freedom from sin, and the power to overcome and live an entirely new life when they look at a Church who doesn’t demonstrate that to be true because we don’t live like it is?

However, there is an answer. but the solution to this problem is not to impose a fake institutional unity that ignores the basis of true unity—and presents a hypocritical facade of oneness.

It is to promote love for one another among genuine believers. Are we a community of authentic unity? Would others recognize God’s love when they look at our Church?

That’s the million dollar question isn’t it. What good is a Church that can’t do the very thingJesus prayed for?

You can have the best worship, the best preaching, the best programs, the best facility, but it will all be a facade if underneath it all is a dis-unified group of people who are in constant conflict with one another.

We have the government to look at if that is what we want to see. The Church should be the opposite.

Big Idea/Why it Matters

Human beings are weird and unique. We all have quirks and pet peeves. We all have strong opinions. We all like to be heard. Some of us are very different from one another.

So why did Jesus think unity was a realistic possibility? If we want to embrace Jesus’s vision for the church, we must be in Christ. The only way we can live out the purposes of God is to be connected to God—first individually and then corporately.

The first part of that equation is simple. God loves us, no matter what. Nothing we can say, do, or be will remove us from his love.

Romans 8:38-39 NLT 38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We can come to him with 100 percent realness. We can be our authentic selves, because the truth is, we can’t hide who that is from an all knowing God.

Can we come to one another with that same sense of security?

Most of us would likely say that confessing your sin or struggles in front of your church would be incredibly difficult. Why?

Isn’t church supposed to be the place where we feel a sense of belonging? Why do we hide the things we need the most help with from our church family?

Ephesians 4:2-3 NLT 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.

Before Christ, the law required sacrifice at the temple for sins. Do you think people were able to hide their sinfulness in a setting like that?

No! Everyone was getting together because they had messed up. There was no question that sacrifices needed to be made. If you were going to the temple, no doubt you had blown it.

Yet in the modern church we enter the doors as put-together as possible. Fights on the car ride to church have been quieted—to be dealt with later.

You put on your church clothes. You bring your Bible. You put on your happy face and pep talk yourself into being your best self.

And if you can’t muster that because the façade is just too much, then maybe you don’t go at all.

This may not be the atmosphere at every gathering, but there seems to be an unspoken expectation in many churches that even though you can “come as you are,” it’s better if you don’t.

Unity can’t happen when there are secrets. When we withhold our full selves from one another, we miss the opportunity to give and accept God’s grace and love in a real, tangible way.

Application/Closing

Once we’ve encountered difficulties in the church, stumbled in our own walks, or watched the failures of our fellow believers be revealed, we no longer see things with the rose-tinted glasses we once did.

Instead of hardening us and causing us to write Church off, this ought to encourage us to be more vulnerable, more gracious, and more forgiving.

After all, we all belong to the same club of failures who have found hope in Christ. This is the power of the gospel.

God wants us to receive and reflect the generous fellowship he enjoys as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the mission of God—to unite creation to himself and human beings to one another.

When God’s mission is carried out, more and more of the joy, generosity, and peace of the Father, Son, and Spirit can be seen on Earth.

And isn’t that what we all want? Relationships that are so authentic, generous, and secure that we are not afraid?

Where real love is shared between each other, and we are no longer threatened by abandonment, rejection, and betrayal?

This is the kind of fellowship that God enjoys, and he made us like him. Our joy is fullest and most complete in the loving fellowship that the Father, Son, and Spirit enjoy.

But to really experience joy, we are invited to trust God as we devote ourselves to living our lives in a real community. When we do, we participate with Heaven while on Earth.

Why Church? Because when we gather in unity we are the answer to Jesus’ prayer. The Church mattered to him so much so that he died to build it.

The world is dying, but it isn’t blind. It is watching. What will it see? The answer to that question will determine whether or not they respond and accept the message we believe.

Don’t take it for granted. The Church will not always be here. And when it’s gone, the world will wish someone was left to be the light in the darkness.