Unity

Intro

Whats up inverted?

I hope everyone has had an amazing week

highlights vs lowlights?

Main Idea:

Man i wanna think back to our retreat

I loved being able to spend that weekend with you guys and i got to know a lot of you very well.

Youth connected with leaders

Youth connected with youth

if we ever get trapped on an island, i definitely now know who im trusting with my life, and who im sacrificing

but anyways..

during the retreat we..

grew with God

grew with each other

established a core

and what i love is that i feel like we kind of established sense of unity.

but unity sometimes isnt pretty, it can have difficult moments, and as you grow in relationship to anyone in your life, you will always see that being united to people is a loaded topic

on one hand we can dislike people in general, we have a natural tendency to want to be alone, caused by many things

but with this all in mind, unity is one of the most important things for a body of believers like INVTD YTH.

and so today i want to explore that with you.

because i think sometimes we accidentally turn our relationship with God into something thats completely individual.

its my relationship with God

my prayer life

my bible reading

my struggles

my growth

and obviously you need a personal relationship with Jesus.

but a personal relationship with Jesus was never supposed to mean an isolated relationship with Jesus.

when you actually look throughout scripture, God constantly puts people around people.

people to encourage you

people to correct you

people to carry you when youre struggling

and sometimes people that are just gonna get on your nerves

but even those relationships can grow you.

and i think one of the biggest mistakes we can make as a youth group is thinking that we can become everything God is calling us to become completely by ourselves.

because from the very beginning, that was never the design.

1. We Were Never Meant to Walk Alone— God designed believers to grow through relationship with one another.

I want to read Hebrews 10:24–25 with you guys but before i do i want to provide some context here.

The author was addressing a church that had issues with

public ridicule

suffering

withdrawing from coorporate worship

the author wanted to correct these things

he understood the dangers

Hebrews 10:24–25 CSB

And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

gathering together was seen in a incredibly important light.

he was basically teaching us through this that we need to gather together at church.

he needes us to know that gathering together like we do on fridays and sundays are essential, not peripheral, because it was medicine against spiritual erosion.

theres a very powerful quote by Lamp f and Herbert F, authors of a great book called “Journey with me: Spiritual Formation for Global Workers; and he says this about us gathering together:

“Our enemy is detforgivenermined to keep us in darkness and isolation. When we become isolated, we have no one to encourage, console, equip, or challenge us. We can lose perspective and hope. Community can be hard, but it is a prime way that God uses to bring healing and hope to all of us.”

and he is right.

we are warned to not neglect gathering with one another, because the more we drift apart from each other, the less motivated we become in our faith.

walking alone isnt something God wanted for us, even with Adam and Eve, the first thing God ever said was not good was the fact that Adam was alone, thats when God made Eve.

even though this can be applied to marriage, its the same idea, we need each other. we cant function without each other, and if we try, the worse off we become.

this is a tough pill to swallow especially if you’re naturally hardwired to be introverted like me, but and heres the difficult part. God doesn’t just use people to encourage us, sometimes God uses difficult people to grow us.

because you dont really learn patience until somebody tests your patience. you dont really learn forgiveness until somebody gives you something to forgive. and you dont really learn humility if you never have to put somebody else before yourself.

so yes, we need people. but that doesnt mean people are always easy. and thats why my second point is: People Will Be Difficult.

2. People Will Be Difficult— Loving people means learning patience, forgiveness, and humility.

This is a reality that you will understand the more you spend time with people

dont get me wrong, you can have people you love to be around all the time, but i promise theres comes a point where one of you is too much for the other.

have you ever had?...

people get you to your last nerve (including family)

someone disappoint you

someone hurts you

all of these examples are something we experience throughout our life, but it the awesome thing is it makes each of us a vessel to teach one another the things God wants us to improve on.

lets look at the book of james one second;

James 4:1–2 CSB

What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask.

the bible is revealing here that human difficulty comes from both internal struggles but also relational failures.

Conflicts come from the passions that wage war in us

things like selfish desires and unmet expectations that creates the friction between people.

but its the friction between one another that God uses to build each other up.

dont hear what im not saying, im not telling you to surround yourself with people that irritate you, but i AM saying that as you get closer to Christ, if you pray for patience, God will use people that will annoy the bejeezus out of you to build up that patience.

a lot of us dont like this but let me ask you this;

how does a pro vollyball player improve skills?

from going to the spa, or tearing muscle in the practice gym?

how does a pro race car driver improve driving?

from playing bumper cars or by studying the track and racing his car?

guys youre not going to become a professional racer speeding in traffic. you need to spend time on the track, in a race car, with race wheels, and race tires.

the same is true with us, when we pray for forgiveness, on top of forgiving us, God convicts us of the people we havent forgiven.

Matthew 6:14–15 CSB

“For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.

Jesus is showing us how serious unforgiveness is. Someone who has experienced the incredible mercy of God cannot casually decide that they will never extend mercy to anybody else.

again dont hear what im not saying, sometimes forgiveness is a battle and a journey God takes you through and thats okay, but that is actively trying to heal and forgive.

once you reach the point where you’ve decided you wont forgive someone, im sorry but you need to look back on that decision and choose tonight whether or not youll begin the journey of forgiveness.

and guys, this is why all of this matters.

patience, forgiveness, humility, all of these things arent just God trying to make you a nicer person.

God is building something through us.

because think about what happens if every time somebody hurts us, annoys us, disappoints us, or disagrees with us, we just walk away.

everyone will eventually follow that example and then everybody ends up alone

a group of people who are constantly divided will never accomplish what a group of people who have learned to forgive each other can.

thats why the enemy would love for something small betwen two people to become something that separates an entire group.

division makes us weaker.

the enemy knows this especially, so he wants to use it to separate as many people as possible.

when we learn to say, “yeah you anoyed me, yeah we disagreed, maybe you even hurt me, but im still choosing to forgive, im still choosing to love you, and im still choosing unity”

you have something powerful.

because when people stop fighting against each other, they can start fighting for something together.

and thats my third point:

3. We Are Stronger Together— A united church can accomplish what isolated Christians never could.

i think this is where unity becomes bigger than just getting along with each other.

because the goal isnt just for Victory Church, INVTD YTH, and every other new life church, next level church to be a group where everybody is friends and nobody has problems.

God actually wants to do something through us.

when a group of people are all pulling in different directins, you can have a lot of movement without actually going anywhere.

but when those same people begin moving in the same direction, with the same purpose, towards the same mission, now you have something completely different.

and this is what we see happen with the early church.

these were different people, different personalities, different backgrounds, but they were united around Jesus and the mission he gave them.

it was Jews, with greeks, and persians, and every other mix of people in the early church

and because of that, God used a relatively small group of believers to begin something that eventually reached the entire world.

so unity isnt just about keeping us together.

unity makes us effective.

Acts 2:42–47 CSB

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

all it took was a small group of ragtag believers in Jesus to start a movement that is worldwide with billions of believers both alive and passed away

imagine the movement that you guys can create just in your schools.

imagine the the world when every church practices unity faithfully.

imagine how many more people can be healed and impacted by God

but it all begins with us. We need to be surrendered to Christ and live with the idea of Unity playing a foundational role in our lives in Church.

throughout the years Christians have taken the bible out of context to make up a doctrine or belief that simply doesnt align with Gods heart.

and for years those teaching hurt people, and hurt the way the church is viewed.

from the so called Christians who were aboard the slave ships, to the Christians who yell unbiblical and horrible things at other people on street corners...

Christians have unfortunately put a stain on the public view of the church and the enemy loves it.

but when you look at what the church is actually supposed to look like, a unified church, you see something completely different.

Acts 4:32 CSB

Now the entire group of those who believed were of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they held everything in common.

Acts 4:34–35 CSB

For there was not a needy person among them because all those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet. This was then distributed to each person as any had need.

or what about this verse:

Acts 11:27–29 CSB

In those days some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine throughout the Roman world. This took place during the reign of Claudius. Each of the disciples, according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brothers and sisters who lived in Judea.

and we cant forget about how the widows were taken care of in Acts 6

Closing

as we come to a close, I want to really encourage you guys on if there was only one thing you’ll get from this message tonight, this is what i want it to be:

The body of Christ NEEDS to be united.

unity doesnt mean we all have to be the same.

it doesnt mean we all have the same personality, the same interests, the same opinions, or that we never disagree with each other

unity means that despite all of those differences, we have decided that Jesus is more important than the things that could divide us

tonight we learned that we were never meant to walk alone

we learned that people are going to be difficult

and we learned that when we choose to stay together, forgive each other, serve each other and love each other, we become stronger together

and guys i want you to think about INVTD YTH for a second.

what could God do through this room if we lived this faithfully?

if soeone was struggling and instead of ignoring them, we carried them?

if somebody felt alone and we noticed them?

if there was an argument, we chose forgiveness?

if somebody had a need and we said “what can i do?”

thats the kind of church we just read about in Acts.

they weren't just people who attended the same service.

they became a family centered around Jesus.

and I think theres something even deeper here.

right before Jesus went to the cross, one of the things he prayed for his followers was that they would be one.

John 17 shows us that Jesus cared deeply about the unity of his church.

John 17:11 CSB

I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.

and he connects our unity to our witness.

in other words, the waywe love each other can actually show the world something about Jesus

so when somebody walks into INVTD YTH who doesnt know God yet, what are they going to see?

are they going to see cliques?

gossip?

people tearing each other down?

or are they going to walk in here and see something different?

people forgiving.

people serving.

people praying for each other.

guys thats the kind of unity God wants for his church.

and it starts with every single one of us deciding:

im not just going to attend this community. im going to help build it.

because we were never meant to walk alone.

people will be difficult

but when Jesus is at the center, we are stronger together.

lets pray