What Unites Us

What Unites Us

Acts 2:44-47

Series Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship on this beautiful day that the Lord has made. For those that may have missed the announcements, this afternoon we will be having our packing party for our Operation Christmas Child Boxes! In addition to that, we need you to be packing boxes at home and getting them here by next Sunday. Our goal this year is 1000 boxes! I want us to have bragging rights of the top church in the community… but you know what? If we pack 1000 boxes, and First Baptist packs 1001 boxes… That’s an additional 700-800 boxes going to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and a little Christmas cheer around the world! So, if you haven’t packed a box or two at your house… grab a couple and getem’ packed.

I wanted to let you know where we are headed on Sunday mornings over the next couple of months. Today and next Sunday we will be focusing on Gratitude, on Thanksgiving as we consider being gracious and grateful to one another and to our Lord, Jesus Christ.

After that, we will move into Advent where we will be looking at the Carols of Christmas. A friend of mine wrote a book called the “Best Loved Songs of Christmas” and I will be working from his research to share messages about these great songs of our faith. But, I’m not one to give up on Christmas in January… we will carry that theme all the way through Epiphany.

Sermon Slide

Today, we are going to talk about Gratitude, specifically how gratitude can unite us. Knowing that this will be a shorter sermon today, I have not fully developed the idea for us… that’s why you need to be back next week for the second sermon.

But for now, join me in prayer as we dive in.

<PRAYER>

There is a concerted effort to divide us as a nation and as followers of Jesus. Oh, I don’t think the intent is division… I think the intent is profit, but the unintended consequence is division. How many of you frequent a social media site? Facebook, X, Instagram, Snap Chat, TikTok, Linkedin… or anything like that? The algorithms of these sites are designed to feed you more of what you look at. If you look at sports results for the Dallas Cowboys… you will get things in your feed about the Dallas Cowboys.

If you look at political posts about conservative issues, you will see more posts about conservative issues… Same thing with liberal issues, republican and democrat posts. They feed you more of what you are have looked at in the past.

How about your choice in news?

If you watch Fox News or CNN exclusively, you are getting information slanted to one side or the other… Marketing tells them, a Democrat watching CNN wants these kinds of stories so that’s what they do.

Same thing with Fox News, CNBC, OANN, and the list goes on.

Their goal isn’t to divide the nation, their goal is to make money off of you.

It has and continues to create situations where we are siloed in our thinking and a narrative in which people of different backgrounds cannot converse with each other without getting angry. Pew Research Group conducted a study after the 2020 election, and I suspect they will do the same this year. Their results were a waste of money in my opinion… they told us what we already know. We are divided and the divide is becoming more and more vitriolic.

On November 5th, I prayed that we could move past the day and reunite. What I found on Wednesday, November 6 was a news feed split with ½ friends who thought the Anti-Christ had been elected and the other half who you would have thought Jesus had returned.

When we post negatively about another person on social media, we get instant reward. Our post is seen by ‘friends’ who share our views who give us instant positive feedback. We see the ‘likes’ and think, “Well, I’m justified… John and Amy agree with me.” So there is no remorse for posting something we would never say to someone’s face. This feeds our ideology and drives us deeper and deeper into our personal convictions and we become less and less willing to listen to anyone with an opposing view. It is the unintentional consequence of the schemes to get our advertising dollars, and you and I and the entire nation have bought in to it. Today, everything seems to be trying to divide us… but what is it that can and will unite us?

In the passage we just heard, we find the answer.

All the believerswere together and had everything in common.

In the early church, they were a ragtag group. You had Paul, the scholar and you had Andrew the Fisherman. You had women in leadership, unheard of in the normal society of the day… you had poor laborers and wealthy patrons. You had slave and free, you had Jew and Roman and Greek. And yet, they were together… they had EVERYTHING in common.

They sold propertyand possessions to give to anyone who had need.

They shared together the needs of one another. They didn’t need the government for welfare, they cared for one another. Those who were doing well helped those in need with the understanding that if the tables turned, the others would care for them. They set up ways to take care of the widows and orphans. They regularly brought abandoned children into the church to care for them and raise them in the church.

Not only that…

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,

There it is… they worshiped together, they shared communion the Eucharist together… they fellowshipped together in each other’s homes… with what… glad and sincere hearts. They were grateful for one another and for their Lord!

What else did they do…

praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

They praised God… Thanks and Praise! The recipe for building the Kingdom. How do we know?

And the Lordadded to their number daily those who were being saved.

Friends, we have got to get out of the cultural wars and political backbiting… we’ve got to get out of our ideological silos and link arms with those of us who have the most important thing in common… Jesus Christ! You and I are not Democrats or Republicans… you and I are Christians… We are followers of Jesus Christ first, before anything else. Yes, I’m proud to be an American, but what is more important is the fact that I am a child of the one true king!

Sermon Slide

The early church understood that the remedy for keeping out the spirit of division was to embrace a spirit of grace and gratitude. Paul and the early Church Fathers preached a gospel of grace. In the New Testament, the word Grace is mentioned more than 170 times!

These early church leaders knew, that if the people would simply slow down and give thanks for one another and thanks for who God is, then we would live like Jesus.

I want you all to do something for me…

Close your eyes and think of someone that you have been at odds with. It doesn’t have to be in this church, it can be in the community… anyone that you have been in conflict… maybe it was over COVID and how that could or should be handled.

Maybe it is someone on the other side of the debate for disaffiliation.

Maybe it’s someone of a different political party.

Do you have them in your mind?

Ok, now, in your bulletin you will find a Thank You note. Look beyond the division, and look at what you have in common… and write a note thanking them for what it is that unites you. Do not mention what it is that drove a wedge between you… that isn’t the focus. The focus is what unites you. The next two steps are the ones that matter. 1) Pray over the card and for them. 2) Deliver or mail it to them.

Spend this week being gracious and grateful and see what a difference it makes!

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Invitation…