all in for unity
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Today people who go to church for an hour on Sunday mornings to attend a worship service call themselves members of a church.
Does that sound shocking?
This is the norm today
This is the norm today
This doesn’t align with what I read in the NT
Imagine two disciples from Scripture
Hey, peter, where do you go to church now?
I go to ————. You should hear the music and the kids program is so fun
Cool, can I check out yours next weekend? I’m not getting much out of mine
For sure but we won’t be there next week. Little billy has baseball how about next week?
Sure. Do they have a young adult community group?
Could you picture this in Scripture?
Why then is it so normal today?
Could you imagine a gang member talking to another member this way?
Like the gang was a one hour weekly meeting
No group would meet for an hour a week and call one another a gang
Hey man, how was gang? I missed it this week because
Ives been crazy.
That sounds ridiculous!
The church should be more like a gang.
Less killing, stealing and stuff but more connected than a weekly gathering
The kind of connection that we have each other’s back
There in the good and the bad
Committed, loyal, and present to one another and the cause
We say all the time that church is family but we must not know Jesus’ idea of family
We are called to love one another in a way that isn’t natural but it’s supernatural
Dependent upon God
Here’s what Jesus says about it
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
The church should be known for its love
We talk about churches music or dynamic preaching, or cool buildings and programs
BUT God wants us to be known for our love for one another
“ one another” is mentioned over a hundred times in the NT
Love one another
Care for
Pray for
Admonish
What if this were the goal
Less on the performance and programs and more on the love
SOME THINKING RIGHT NOW I thought we were a pretty loving church
I would agree
BUT how is our love different than any other close group of people?
Group of golf buddies
Close neighborhood click
Gym buddies
Co-workers
Is our love much different than that?
IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE
Jesus said
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Then He was tortured and gave His life up for us!
Have you ever thought of loving another Christian that way?
No matter the cost
Think of your least favorite person at church today
Now think of the whippings that He endured so that they could be forgiven
The way that He thought of them as He hung on the cross
So who might God be leading you to pursue?
Who could you spend more time with?
Jesus went from heaven to earth to bring them into His family
What barriers are holding you back?
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
We have experienced the greatest love in the universe. Shouldn’t that profound love flow out of us?
Shouldn’t that be enough to shock the world?
He said that if we love one another that He would abide in USA do His love would be perfected in us
What could we want more than that?
Yet I don’t live like this statement is true
Then there are serious warnings for those who don’t love because He says if we don’t love then we don’t know Him
As Jesus was preparing to go to the cross he prayed this
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
Jesus prayed that the unity of His followers would be equal to the oneness of the Father and Son
Have you considered pursuing that kind of unity?
Do you think that is even possible?
Not that we’d be united to the point...
No more church splits
So we could tolerate each other for our weekly meetings
BUT FOR PERFECT UNITY
WHY?
So that the world may know that God sent His Son and loves them
How could our love for one another cause people to believe that Jesus came from heave?
God uses different math than we do
Walk around a city 7 times and the walls will fall down
Go into battle outnumbered 350-1 without weapons and you will win
Be unified and people will get saved...
Read it happened
Here is what their unity looked like
Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
This passage just moves me
It’s beautiful
If we are serious about saving the lost then we will pursue this type of unity within the church
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.
A sign
When will we take these promises seriously and spend our time seeking supernatural unity?
ITS COSTLY
You’ll have to be out of your comfort zone at times
when we see this picture it makes us want to jump back 2000 years ago and be a part of this church
REALITY PROBLEM
Because we have missed it people are not desiring to be a part of the church but opting to leave the church because it’s not leading the, closer to Christ
In Paul and the church put two men out of their church because of their lack of faith and commitment in hopes that the separation from the church would be so unbearable that they would fix their relationship with God and return
It we have people voluntarily leaving because separation from church seems like a better option to some
And MAYBE it’s not all their fault
Be encouraged in this
God can provide the supernatural ability for us to have the kind of unity that draws others to Christ
Changes lives
Breaks addition and patterns of sin
IF AND WHEN we decide to pursue it with everything we have