CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG? (16)

Ephesians 4:1– 7

Ephesians 4:1-7 (KJV) 1  I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2  With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3  Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5  One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6  One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. 7  But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

Tuesday, January the 20, 2009 will be remembered and marked as the most unusual day in American political history; as it will be remembered for the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States … the First African- American to hold such a position. Close to two hundred thousand people gathered in Washington DC for this event; the largest gathering of its kind in Washington in its history of the city and the community.What was intriguing about the event was the atmosphere, the climate. It was blistering cold in terms of the weather. But in the midst of this external environment that those who gathered had absolutely no control over the weather—there was electricity in the air. In other words, the weather did not stop the fire for why people gathered The … the people by the hundreds of thousands braved the cold … because they determined that the event was worth the inconvenience.People from different races, ethnicity, classes, culture, gender, and even political persuasion, descended upon Washington D.C because of the nature of the event and the uniqueness of the person around whom the event was centered, and it was determined that the nature of the event, and the uniqueness of the person was worthy of the gathering; and that the gathering, regardless of meteorological limitations, would create the fire needed to handle the cold. It was electric, regardless of your persuasion or what you agreed with and what you don’t agree with. One can not say that is was not an electric environment.We are gathered here because of a person, Jesus Christ … and I guess there is a political side to it since He’s King of kings and Lord of lords. We have made our way to this place as many people elsewhere have gone to their particular locations, because on some level there has been the determination that this person is worthy of this gathering. That He is worthy of us getting out of our beds and being inconvenienced to whatever degree we’ve been and are, to worship Him and to praise Him, because after all—He is Most Unique; Son of God and Son of man, Jesus the Christ.What was particularly engaging about the event was the sense of unity on the mall. People with the same purpose … they’ve come for the Inauguration. And that was so big that whatever difference may have been on ground level became subservient to the bigness of the occasion. Now as politics goes, we don’t know how long that’s goin’ to last. Honeymoons do come to an end, but on that day at least, it was clear that things were on one accord.We are looking at the Spirit of the Ministry; the atmosphere that the Spirit of God wishes to create among God’s people in order to maximize His presence in their midst. On last week we handed out a brochure … we ran out; we’ll have some more next week lifting the 7 Spirits of the Ministry; and Pastor Carter is writing songs about each one. But the atmosphere, the climate that should be engulfing God’s people … Last week was an introduction. Today we wanna talk about the First Spirit of the Ministry; the Spirit of Unity, the Spirit of unity.Ephesians, chapter 4—“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, one Spirit, just as also you were called to one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God; The Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”What is unity? The word is used regularly and it is what people long for, and hope for, and call for—What is it? In its simplest form, unity is oneness of purpose; oneness of purpose. You’ll see seven times in those first six verses, the word “one” is used—One. It is oneness of purpose. Let me say what unity is not. Unity is not uniformity, or sameness. That’s not unity. Unity is not everybody being like everybody else.God’s creative variety is replete; it is all around us. God has created things with different shapes and colors, and sizes and styles. Unity is not everybody being the same. It’s not uniformity; but what it is, uniqueness … going toward a common goal. That is, whatever the differences are, the uniqueness, the things that makes them different than something else, or someone else. But what makes it unity is that it is those uniqueness’s are all headed toward a common end, toward a common purpose to fulfill a common vision. It is oneness of purpose.A unified family doesn’t mean everybody’s the same. The children have different personalities, the maids have different personalities; they’re different genders. They look different. In a family, people aren’t the same, but what unifies the family is that they are all headed in the same direction toward the fulfillment of a common purpose, vision and goal. It is the sense that the thing we are gathered for is bigger than our own individual preferences.When drug addicts get together, their common goal is drugs. What pulls them together is the mutual goal of getting high off of drugs. And the goal of getting high off of drugs, or drunk using alcohol, or whatever it is that is pulling them together creates a bond that unites them. And that common negative in this case (unity), becomes a goal that they pursue. They are one around that central issue of gettin’ high, or getting’ drunk, or whatever it may be.In sports unity is not that every player on the field or in the stadium is playing the same position—they aren’t. They are unique in their talents, their skills, their identity; their responsibilities, they all are unique but the goal line to which they are headed is the same. If it’s a basketball team they’re different positions for the five players on the court, but the goal that they’re shooting at is all the same. They are … they are headed toward that goal.I was talking to a former cowboy the other day, and the question we wound up discussing is what’s wrong, what was wrong with the cowboys? And the conclusion was that they have a lot of talent but no team. That they are unparalleled as far as individual talent is concerned, but they have not yet gelled together to become one functioning, talented team.Tony Dungy and I were talking one day and he was telling me about talented players. Who would never be a part of his team when he was coaching. He would name this player, and that player, the other player, and he said, “Now, they could never be a part of my team. They would have the talent to be on my team, but they would disrupt our unity, and I’ll prefer a less-talented person who’s gonna contribute to the unity of our team, than a more talented person who would disrupt our unity.”Because unity has to do with the commonality of the goal, the vision that has been captured by the uniqueness with each individual with in it; it is that sense of oneness of purpose. “Be diligent” he says in Verse 3, “to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He says, “Be diligent.” The word diligence speaks of making a deep commitment to this goal.In other words, don’t be casual about this. Don’t be cavalier about this. He says this is a Big Deal, that there is, (because he’s writing the church at Ephesus, so he’s talking to the church now). It is absolutely critical that the church at Ephesus or at Oak Cliff is committed to unity. Not uniformity, because that’s not unity, that’s cookie-cutter; tryin’ ta’ make everybody like you, or everybody like me. But he says, “Be diligent” and please notice this word—he doesn’t say be diligent to create unity, he said “be diligent to preserve it” … that’s different. A lot of people spend time trying’ ta make things unified; they’re trying’ to create unity.When it comes to God’s program, He’s not inviting us to create anything. He’s inviting us to preserve what He’s already created. We have entered into His Kingdom, we’ve entered into His program, we’ve entered into His plan, and He is saying, “Preserve the unity to which you have been invited.” Have you ever invited somebody over to your house, who brings into your house their agenda? Maybe you didn’t invite them, maybe you gave birth to them, but, the point it that they have entered your realm with their agenda. And they’re trying to get you to join them. They wanna create something.He says, “No, I want you to preserve the unity of the Spirit.” So He’s talking about a spirit here. Of course, it’s based on the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is interested in, (among God’s people to create an atmosphere), a climate control, an environment, if you will, of unity, where the thing that ties it together, He says ‘is the Spirit.’ Preserve the Unity of the Spirit.Now the implication here is staggering because what this means is if you are not spiritual, and if you have no orientation to the Spirit, you’re gonna have a problem preserving unity. Because your point of reference won’t be the Spirit of God; and the only other point of reference that you and I have, if it’s not the Spirit of God, is called “the flesh.”The flesh is your human understanding, your human approach and man’s way. The Spirit is God’s point of you, God’s perspective, and His way. The conflict that exists within us and between us is really a battle of flesh vs. spirit. That’s way the Bible says in Galatians 5, that “we are to walk by the Spirit and not fulfill the desires of the flesh.” In other words, the lack of unity is because the Spirit’s control is not being preserved. There has been a removal of the Spirit’s approach to a thing, leading to division and disharmony and chaos.So comprehensive is this that 2 Corinthians 5:16 says, “From this point on, we know no man after the flesh.” In other words, Paul is saying, “we don’t relate to people based on the human point of view.” Based on man’s way of thinking, we don’t relate to people that way anymore. He says we relate to people now based on the Spirit; based on God’s point of view, based on God’s point of reference.Many times, we think problems that create chaos have to do with simply a person’s personality, or a person’s background, or a person’s history. And yes, that can reveal itself. But ultimately, the inability to function on the biblical definition of unity has to do with the absence of the Spirit of God in a situation. Because the Spirit of God has the power to override the human differences. So if it’s Christians involved and there is chaos involved, that means one or both sides have refused the presence of the Spirit of God in the situation.Let me say that again … “Where there is unresolved, ongoing conflict, that means the Spirit of God has not been allowed to override the human flesh differences that have brought about the chaos, and more importantly, that is sustaining it. God has been left out of the equation.” He says, “Preserve it … because when allowed to, the Spirit of God overrules the human things that bring about and sustain the conflicts.” Even if the disunity is within you, cuz see a lot of us are dis-unified when we’re by ourselves.And trust me, if you can’t get along with you, if you are disunified with you, if you are in conflict with you, then it ought not to shock you that other folk have the same problem. It is the job of the Spirit of God to override the human divisions when He is allowed to do so. The reason why He says, “Be diligent to preserve it” is because it is possible not to be preserved; it is possible to be lost.The illustration I love to use here is the illustration of mayonnaise. I am not a mustard person when it comes to sandwiches, I am a mayonnaise person. Now, one of the problems with mayonnaise is … the problem of getting the oil in mayonnaise and the water in mayonnaise to come together. Because oil and water doesn’t mix, yet oil and water are both necessary to create mayonnaise, but the two just can’t get along.No matter how hard you try to bring the water of mayonnaise and the oil of mayonnaise together, no matter how hard you stir them, no matter how much you shake’em, no matter how many counseling session you give ’em, as soon as you stop shaking it, and stop stirring it, they’re goin’ to go their own way, because they are pre-disposed not to get along. They … they have already pre-determined ‘we are only going to stay together to the degree that somebody else is forcing it but the moment you leave us alone, we are gonna go to our own corners.’ Because we have already decided we are predisposed not to make it.So what the makers of mayonnaise did in order to create what they needed for this spread that so many of us enjoy on our sandwiches is to introduce an emulsifier. Now an emulsifier is an ingredient that you add to ingredients that can’t get along, in order to enable them to work it out. An emulsifier is an ingredient that you add to ingredients that don’t coagulate on their own, in order to enable them to hang-out together when that’s not their normal profile to do so.So a necessary ingredient in mayonnaise is eggs, but it’s not just for the taste, eggs serve as an emulsifier in mayonnaise. Egg reaches out to the water and says, “Come here.” Egg reaches out to the oil and says, “I said, come over here.” Now I know you all don’t like each other. I know water and egg—you don’t like to hang out with each other, so what I want both of you to do is to hang out with me … egg.I want you, oil, over here, to hang out with me; and I want you, water, to hang out with me … and when the egg gets mixed in with the water and the oil, the water and the oil will now hang out with one another. Not because water and oil like each other, but because both of them can agree on egg. And their ability to agree on egg forces them to hang out … I’m tryin’ to go somewhere here … It forces them to hang out with one another.Something greater than the individual parts forces the individual parts to come together. But they not only come together, they come together to create somethin’ better than anyone of them could ever be by themselves. He says, “preserve the unity of the Spirit.” Guess what the Holy Spirit is? He is the emulsifier of the people of God. If you are living in a war zone, if you are operating in perpetual conflict, even with yourself … If you don’t like you … or with others … it is because some part of that situation has refused the emulsification work of the Holy Spirit. Because He says, “it is the Spirit’s unity.”That means, no Spirit, no unity! Except for part-time unity you create for a minute. What the enemy wants you to do is to think it’s these underlining problems. But these underlining problems are simply issues that are there that when left unaddressed by the Spirit, creates the conflict that exists on individual levels … certainly within families.When husbands and wives are constantly at each other’s throat, constantly living in a war zone, constantly blaming and fussing and fighting … and that’s a state of affairs. It’s not something that happens occasionally. Smiling happens occasionally, laughing happens occasionally, being happy happens occasionally.One or both parties have refused the work of the Spirit of God … then you’re unable to bring together the two personalities, the two genders. They’re unable to come together no matter how many plans you make to bring them together, no matter how many promises … ‘we’re gonna do better next year.’ You may mean it, but you’re tryin’ to create unity. He says, “Be diligent, but be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit.” That means that the Spirit has gotta have the final say so, because the Spirit means a different realm.It’s like moving from Las Vegas to Jerusalem; those are two different cities. It’s a different realm. You … you go to Las Vegas, that’s one realm, you go to Jerusalem, that’s another realm. Those are two different realms. Preserve the unity of the Spirit. The Spirit always reflects God’s way of thinking on a matter. Let me say that again; because for many of us, that’s an amorphous concept. Let me bring it down to ground level. To say something, to do something by the Spirit is to bring God’s view on a matter to bear on that situation. As long as there is the refusal, which there regularly is … to bring into the discussion, and to operate by God’s view on a matter without mixture.See what we will do is we will bring the part of God’s view we like on a matter. The part of God’s view we prefer on the matter. But that’s asking Spirit and flesh to mix together, and the two don’t get along. The Bible says in Galatians 5—“They’re at war with one another.” Whenever you bring God’s way and man’s way and try to work both ways, they will not work. The Bible says they will cancel out each other because they don’t get along, and will never get along.So, to operate by the Spirit in order to preserve the unity, there must be the statement that God’s view on the matter, period … is the view we operate by, period. You have now invited emulsification into the situation. The hardest things we face in counseling is to get people to agree on God’s view on a matter. The hardest problem we face in reconciliation, where there’s conflict is to get God’s view on the matter, why?Because the human wants to set itself off! The human wants to make itself heard, and to make a loud noise, and to say, “But I feel this, and I think that.” Once you do that, you have removed the Spirit, and therefore—watch this now … You have removed the belt. Please notice, (preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace). If I use another word of bond … Belt, a bond, something that holds things together.When men wear a belt, they are holding their pants up, they are tucking their shirts in. It is holding things in place. It is the job of the belt to hold things together. The belt serves as a bond—Holding things together. What the Spirit of God will do is that He will now create a belt around the situation. Holding things together that will not naturally held together if there is a not belt.Preserve the unity of the Spirit with the belt, the bond of peace, He says. The United Nations is trying to create peace because there is no central galvanizing supernatural force involved. God is calling you and me to create an atmosphere of unity oneness of purpose, common direction, common vision; different people, different personalities—different histories, different backgrounds.On Wednesday nights, we’re having an exciting Bible study on the soul. And we’re learning why we’ so jacked-up, cuz most of our problems emanate from our damaged soul. They’re … most of our problems are because of conflicts within the soul. Of James 4, he says, “Why are there battles within you—between you?” In James 4, the first 3 verses says, “There’s battle between you because there’s battle within you.” He says ‘because of the battle in here, it’s showing up out here.’And so until the soul becomes unified, and therefore becomes spiritual, you won’t be able to solve the battle out here, cuz there’s a war in here. And no matter how much you and I say, “let’s have peace between each other” … if I’m still carrying on a battle deep down inside here, then I’m gonna have trouble getting along with you; cuz whether I admit it or not, I’m having trouble getting along with me. And until the soul becomes healthy, the unity becomes impossible. But the only mechanism to heal the soul, is the Spirit.You can get people to talk to you and make you feel better, but one of things that we’ve been learning over the weeks is that feelings have no intellect. Please remember that! Please remember that. Feelings are real—don’t get me wrong. If you’re mad, you’re mad. If you’re sad … if you’re glad you’re glad.Those are feelings and those are real. I’m not saying that they aren’t real, I’m saying that they aren’t smart. Feelings have no intellect. In other words, they don’t think first, feelings react. I get mad because of what you said to me. I get sad because of what happened to me. In other words, something creates my madness, or joy, or sadness. Something affects, and then therefore, if you bring something else, I’ll feel differently because feelings are reactive; they react, and therefore, they change. That’s real, that’s the way it is. So when the soul is diseased, and when the soul is not operating properly, then you’re all over the place. And you don’t know a consistency of well-being and so you live in war.Some of us are in here in war, we live in war, we live parent/child war, husband/wife war, still mad at our parents for what happened 10 years ago. A cousin, you know, whatever it is … we’ mad. You know, people get mad at church and don’t wanna speak to people, and you know, if they’ sittin over here, we’ goin sit over there. And, and the war continues.Racial war, the racial war … the racial war that even shows up in church; the war continues—why does it continue? Because the Spirit does not rule; God’s way of thinking automatic … if you wanna confront the concept of the Spirit—God’s way of thinking on the matter—when adopted, without compromise with the flesh, and implemented, produces emulsification.The pulling together of that … You know, if you read (we don’t have time to go there), but this week, simply read Ephesians chapter 2 You read Ephesians chapter 2, he talks about the coming together into one of two groups who would never even look at each other: Jews and Gentiles. Gentiles didn’t like the Jews, Jews didn’t like the Gentiles … and now Paul writes them now that they’re all Christians, and he says that he has brought both into one body and created something that the culture would never accept, except it be a supernatural work of God.Why is 11:00 O’clock on Sunday morning been the most segregated hour in America? Because flesh has overruled spirit, that’s why. How people look, and their color, has overruled what God says on the matter, and as a result of that, at the feet of the church are the lives of countless, thousands of people; in America, South Africa … who’ve been abused and misused because the Spirit didn’t have the final say—the flesh did, and so there’s no unity.Preserve the unity. He says that for this to happen, it starts with your internal character. He … he says in the first 3 verses. First 3 verses, walk worthy … all humility, gentleness, patience, showing tolerance for one another, in love. We’ve already talked about love. It’s responsibly and righteously seeking the well-being of another. In other words, it starts with the character of the person.Unspiritual people will never produce unity, cuz it’s the unity of the Spirit. So that’s why you’ve got to become the kind of Christian that the Spirit can work through so that you can be.… what the Bible calls them, Peace maker. Blessed are the peace makers. He says to do that, there must be humility and gentleness, that is—humility by the way, it ain’t walking around with your head down, talkin’ ’bout ‘I’m no body.’ Humility is your willingness to submit to Jesus Christ; I’m willing to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over my life, in spite of what I think, feel, or want, or how I was raised.That Jesus Christ is Lord. So for Him … for me to put Him up there, I gotta come down here. Or as John the Baptist said, “I must decrease, He must increase.” I’m gonna come underneath from Him. And once you do that, you have now entered the realm of humility, which positions you to become gentle.The, the … let me tell you about gentle. Gentleness or meekness, as it sometimes is called, was used of breaking a horse. You know, when a cowboy breaks a horse, he gets on the house … what does he do? He rides it. What does the horse do? Buck him. What is the horse saying? Get off my back, that’s what the horse is saying. “Get off my back, and if you don’t voluntarily get off my back and leave me alone, I’m a throw your backside off my back.”So what does he do? He bucks, cuz he wants his independence and he doesn’t wanna be ridden. What happens when he bucks the cowboy off? Cowboy brushes himself off, and gets right back on there, and rides him some more. And the horse … “get off of me I said” … and he’s bucking, and bucking and bucking, and bucking, and—but “get off of me.” Cowboy says, “Not until I break you.”Now, a cowboy doesn’t break a horse by hurting the horse. He doesn’t break it, physically break the horse. Guess what he breaks the horse of? His independent will. He doesn’t break him of his physical strength, he breaks him of his independent will so that now the cowboy can say, “Whoa … getting-up.” In other words, the horse is now strength under control. It was strength out of control. Now it’s strength under control; under whose control? Under the control of the one sittin on his back.Jesus Christ wants to be on your back. Calling the shots, and … let me.… I know you don’t like this, but I gotta tell you anyway. He’ll ride you till you get tired. He’ll ride ya’ till you get tired, and that means … no direction you go in is goin’ to work for long. No direction you go in, is goin’ to work for long because He’s gonna ride you till you get tired; until gentleness sets in. That is, meekness; that is a willingness to submit to His authority, leading to peace.Peace is harmony, because that which is not harmonious has been removed. Peace doesn’t mean ‘Let’s forget what happened’ … or ‘let’s forget what you did to me’ … or ‘let’s forget what I did to you.’ No … peace is identifying the sin, addressing the sin, then building the bridge. It doesn’t mean skipping the sin, it means acknowledging it, addressing it, and then creating the bridge that now reconnects us.If you’re not willing to acknowledge it, then we can’t correct it. Or if you’re willing to acknowledge it but not deal with it, we can’t correct it. Or if you wanted to acknowledge it, deal with it, but you refuse to forgive it … you can’t correct it. But once there’s an acknowledgement, it’s addressed, and it’s forgiven; now we can construct the bridge to re-connect what which split us up. Creating peace, or a harmonious situation where things that were in conflict are now operating together.Notice what he says in Ephesians 4, “One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.” One, 7 times … One … 7 is the number of completion. One! Not two! Most marriages fail for a very simple reason. It’s really not that deep. It’s deep, but it’s not that deep. Most marriages fail because the two wanna stay two. The two wanna stay two. When God created He said, “And the two shall become ONE.” One flesh! But folk who don’t wanna be one flesh, and wanna stay two, ‘this mine, this yours.’Now when it comes to being physically intimate, they don’t want no two. Tell the truth, shame the devil. Ain’t nobody—they ain’t talkin’ ’bout two. OK, let’s be intimate, you in your bedroom, and me in mine—that’s something else, that’s not that. No, when in the physical side … ONE … But then, every other area … two.END OF SIDE ONEMine, yours … watch this now … because the Spirit is saying “one”; if you insist on two, you invited the Spirit away. You follow me? Once you insist on something opposite to what God is doing, then the Spirit will not produce the unity. I don’t care how much you pray for it. He will not produce it.When leaders of a church are divided, the church will not produce unity. One, He says, “One.” And we’re saying, “but two.” And we got all kind of reasons for two … “Well, I was raised this way, you were raised that way.” But no, the Spirit has said what you’re supposed to do, what he’s supposed to do.The Spirit has said all of that. So the mere fact you keep going back ta’ (what your mamma said, and your daddy said, and what you think, and what you feel, and what they taught you in school), and you keep … The Spirit is sayin’, “I ain’t got nothin’ to do with that” … I ain’t got nothin’ to do with that” … So why don’t you let that fix you up!When John wrote I John, he introduces the Book of I John by saying, “I want you to have the fellowship that we have with the Father, and our fellowship is with Him, and if you’re with Him, then you can have fellowship with us.” Cuz our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. He brings the whole Trinity in it … “One Spirit, One Lord, Jesus Christ, One Baptism,” One!But what God will not stop is your insistence on disunity. That’s one of the reasons He’s told every Christian … become one part of a body, one body, a local church. Why? So that you have the opportunity to practice.… One, one; it’s like the man who came to the pastor; he did badly, economic times. He says, “Pastor, I need, I need some money. I need the Deacons’ fund to give me some money.” He says, “Well, so what church do you belong to?” He says, “Well I belong to the invisible church.” Pastor said, “Well, here’s some invisible money.”This is amazing. People want visible help while they remain invisible. They wanna be served; we’ll talk about this later … They don’t wanna serve when they need it. And then, we get mad at the church if they don’t do it. OK. Why is this unity thing so important? Why is it so critical?One of the things you don’t wanna hear from your doctor is that you have cancer. Nobody wants to hear that; that is the dreaded disease. You almost … even though there have been great improvements over the last number of years you almost hear the word “death” when you hear cancer. It … it creates such fear and insecurity in us.You know what cancer is? Cells who no longer wanna be unified; Cells, who are creating their independent vision and their own program; which would be fine if they left your body to do it, but the thing is, they wanna hang around and still be disunified. They wanna stay in your body, but do their own thing. They not only wanna stay in your body and do their own thing; they wanna stay in your body, do their own thing and multiply.They don’t wanna do their own thing by themselves. They want company. Now you got a lump. They don’t only wanna do their own thing. These radical cells multiply, a lump. Now they wanna take a tour. They wanna metastasize and visit other parts of your body. You know why? Because the goal of that cell, whether it knows it or not, is to shut the rest of you down … to shut you down.Satan wants to create cancer in God’s people individually … as families … most certainly in the church to whom he’s addressing … cuz he wants to shut you down. And he knows nothing will shut you down like disunity. He wants to shut you down! That’s why the Bible says in Romans, chapter 15 and 16 … He says, “Mark those who create disunity in the church and address them.” Don’t allow cancer in the church to metastasize. If you see it cut it. Don’t ignore it, cuz it’ll shut you down. Cuz cancer spreads.Look at Psalm 133, as we wind down. Three verses, it’s only 3 verses in Psalm 133 … 3 verses. Let me read it and then comment. “Behold,” Psalm 133, verse 1 says, “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil upon the head coming down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard, coming down upon the edge of his robe. It is like the dew of Harmon coming down upon the mountain of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing—life forever.”We sang a song in Praise Service—“Like the Dew in the Morning” He says it is good and pleasant for brothers to dwell together in unity. It is like the oil that came down upon the head of Aaron, going down Aaron’s beard, down Aaron’s robe, down Aaron’s feet and all over Zion; and there, the blessing of the Lord rested. Why must there be a Spirit of Unity? Not sameness, not uniformity, but why must there a Spirit of Unity? Here it is—Because that’s where the blessing of God rests.That’s what the end of verse 3 says! It comes down from heaven and it flows from the head, to the body; from the leaders, to the family of God, in Zion, and the blessing of God rests there. Or let me put it another way; Where there is disunity, there is no blessing. You can not operate in disunity and be blessed. Your blessing will turn to a curse. You can’t operate in disunity and expect to hear from heaven.You can’t operate in disunity and expect God to answer your prayers. The Bible is clear. 1 Peter 3:7—“When a husband and wife are disunified, the prayers are not answered.” What made the book of Acts so electric? The Book of Acts was so electric because the Bible says the Spirit of God took over, and you read the last part of Chapter 2, and it says: “And they were together.” … On one accord in the Temple.Their miracles didn’t happen because they had the best program. Their miracles didn’t happen because they had a technology. Their miracles didn’t happen because they had big buildings to meet in. They didn’t have none of that! Their miracles didn’t happen because they had this big income; the poor were in Jerusalem. Their miracles didn’t happen because of all the land they owned; they didn’t own any land. Their miracles didn’t happen because of the people of notoriety. Most of them were common people. They happen because the Spirit of God was so free to flow, that heaven could bring blessing in history.So there’s a benefit to unity. The first benefit is that you’re living in peace and not in war, but the other benefit is God can do something He will not do otherwise if the Spirit’s point of view is the final view on the matter. Now I’m gonna tell you how. The first time you hear the Spirit’s point of view, if it disagrees with your flesh, you’ not gonna like it or want it. You’re not gonna like it or want it, but you know how it is when you’re changing your taste buds. For a while you don’t like it or want it, but you acquire a taste. You acquire a taste.The problem is not wanting to go through the acquiring process because you’re too in love with the way you always ate; the stuff you always like … so you don’t wanna go to the process of acquiring a Spirit taste bud—cuz I’ve been used ta’ flesh eatin’. But if you ever decide to acquire a Spirit taste bud, He says, “Then you’ll see the Blessing flow. You’ll see heaven visit history.” You’ll see God do some things like in the Book of Acts; it says, ‘… and God was performing day by day, as they were one.’I agree the strength in our church won’t be preaching from the pulpit, singing from the choir, or this building, or that building, or this program, or that program. You have all the programs you want, if there is no flow of the Spirit, that’s a heart attack. The blood doesn’t flow.There were men in an insane asylum and they would let ’em out of them rooms for a time in the yard, and you could tell they weren’t—the elevator didn’t go all the way to the top, these people were off, and they would go around from the drooling, and some of them were just walking. They were out in the yard … when a man came to visit someone he knew there, and he noticed that there was one gate, and one guard.He went over to the guard and he said, “Sir, I mean, it’s just one guard and you got all these crazy people out here. Aren’t you worries, that one day, they’re goin decide to overpower you and break out of this thing?” Guard said, “No.” “Wait a minute, there are hundreds of crazy people out here, aren’t you worried that one day they goin’ decide we don’t have to be stuck in here, there’s only one guard over there at that gate, let’s go gettem and let’s break out of here?”Guard said, “I’ll never happen.” “I mean, why don’t you think that will happen?” He said, “Simple. Lunatics don’t unite.” Crazy folk don’t come together. And we got to be crazy not to take advantage of the Spirit of God and what He wants to do when God’s people come together.