Unity

one woman. That is the definition of marriage. Complementary to one another, into one person, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It's actually the physical representation of a spiritual reality. Sex is a gift that God has given us, and it's a physical representation of a spiritual reality. Just as husband and wife are one in marriage, that there is no shame between a husband and wife. It's almost, let's be honest, it's taking us back to Eden. When you're in a marriage that God has ordained and set aside, and you're living for the Lord, when you are together like that, there is no shame there. That is an earthly representation of what a relationship to God can be like. Not in a sexual way, of course, but the unity expressed in marriage shows the intimate relationship we can have with a holy God. But we have traded that unity for our own passions. And my friends, there's no way arou

Our old self is crucified, and we are now raised with Jesus to walk in the newness of life. We have a new life. We are born again in the Lord Jesus. And it is out of this unity with Christ that it flows into us. It flows all of the truths that pertain to us as believers in Christ. It is through this unity with Jesus where we get these amazing new realities for us as followers of the Lord. And one of those is this in Romans 6, 14, that we are no longer under law.

Like in first Peter three, eight. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love. Tender heart, a humble mind. Don't pay. Don't repay evil for evil, reviling for reviling. But on the contrary, bless for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. Go to the Old Testament in Psalms 133. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. You go to the end of second Corinthians as Paul wrote to the church of Corinth who was struggling.

He says, Finally, brothers rejoice. Bring for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love, peace will be with you. Where in the world are you going to find this unity? Where in the world the unity that the church is called to be? Where are you going to find that? Where are you going to find this peace and this freedom and this kindness? Where are you going to find it?

Verse 5. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Jesus Christ, that together... And you just keep hearing together, unity, this is wonderful stuff. That together you may with one voice glorify... Glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Last week kicked us off and we used three words that really point to the purpose of the church.

And I think we all can feel that in a little bit. We can all think that in a little bit. So what do we do? And as Paul's going in Romans chapter 14, he kind of, again, I don't love the, Hey, chapter 14 is one subject. Chapter 15 is one subject. Like you've got to read the Bible and it's like entirety. So don't just stop at chapters. Don't just stop at the margins. You got to keep reading. But in Romans chapter 14, and then Paul goes into Romans chapter 15 and he's, he's kind of wrapping up his topic about unity. And then Paul just breaks out like into a prayer in the middle of this conversation about unity. In my heart, my, my eyes, like everything has been like just fixated on these verses. So in Romans chapter 15, starting in verse five, if you've got your Bibles, feel free to join us. If not, it will be on the Paul's prayer. He says, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant yo

I really looked in as the purpose of unity. When we have unity, what do we turn around and do? And I love this verse more and more this week, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I've been living in verse six for a long time this week, but then there's verse seven. I love it. And therefore, and again, you start seeing the results of this unity. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.

We are failing to be the church. We are failing to live out what God has called us to do. Psalms 1.1, blessed is the man who walks, not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. We as a group of believers, we need to fight for this unity. We need to fight to stay out of, sitting in the seat of the scoffer. I know there are times when it's probably even justified scoffing, but we need to fight for this unity.

Fighting and striving for unity within the body. That unity is so important for us. If we're going to be a force that pushes the gospel forward, if we're going to be a church that is known in this community for sharing the love of Christ, for reaching new people who desperately need it, then we as the body need to be united.

It says, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Jesus Christ. If you look out there, but there's not much harmony, there's not much unity. So here Paul says, God, God of endurance and encouragement. The only way we live out this unity in the church, live out gathering, knowing the call is by having a superpower. What are you talking about? Well, last time, remember I talked about love was a supernatural thing given from the Holy Spirit.

Can I tell you unity is the same thing. We will not strive for unity without the help of the Lord, without his encouragement, without him giving us endurance. Can I tell you in the church, you're going to have to endure things. Things are going to be different. Things are going to be difficult and things are going to be hard. When I talk about unity, it doesn't mean we all come in here and smile every day. Like everything's all great.

But I want you to know, as we're called to gather together, this gift of unity comes from the Lord to have this endurance and encouragement. Tim Keller said this, passive Christians will not experience much unity. Only believers who are following hard, setting priorities for Christ to grow will experience deep unity. And can I tell you, I think he's right.

But I also thought about this in another way while I was praying about it. Well, yes, seeing the church grow and people being welcomed and coming in the doors and they're feeling like they can connect with what God is doing. The one thing that really got to me is that therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. We're sticking close to the source. We're glorifying him in one voice and we're striving for unity.

And this is part of what gathering is, that we come together unified, not because of our distinct unity in the things that we like as far as, like, sports teams or this or that, whatever it is. We come together and we're unified because we have Christ as our Lord, right? And that's what brings us together in unity. That's what brings us in harmony. And when we operate in harmony, man, we sing with one voice. We shout the glory of God.

So we, though many are one body in Christ. So we are one, but we're also many. We're also unique. So you have unity in Christ, but you have also diversity. That we're different. Verse six says, having gifts that differ. So we're different. That diversity is beautiful and wonderful. So there's unity in Christ. There is diversity. And then we see we are individually members one of another. God has designed it so that we need each other.

And so here what Paul says is a transformed life looks like unity. A transformed life looks like unity. The reality is we are called to be unified. Now, when we're each humble, when we're each searching for Christ and looking to live out what Christ is calling us to in our lives. Every day when we're each relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, that unity comes very naturally. But the reality is that's when our enemy looks to attack unity.

You put me and my wife up here. We had to walk through. We think differently, right? We process information differently. God made us different on purpose. It's a good thing that she doesn't think like me, quite frankly. It balances me out in a really good way, and hopefully I do the same for her. See, what we have to recognize, what Paul is walking us through here, is that just being different or having diversity is not a threat to unity. We all have a different background. We all have different parts, different family dynamics, different focuses. Our differences aren't what separate us. What we grasp as Paul is walking through this, we are part of one body. We have unity despite the differences that we carry. Some of, listen, Dr. Ken's wearing an Ohio State shirt. I don't know if anybody paid attention to that. We can root for the other guys. It's okay.

It's wonderful. This is what Paul is leading to and helping us recognize. He says this in so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of it. You see, this unity that happens despite the fact that we all have different roles, different functions. This is amazing. This is what God designed the church to look like. We're going to come together with differences, but our focus is unity and understanding, rightfully viewing ourselves, rightfully viewing ourselves in the light of mercy and in the light of grace. So when someone comes and they have a different perspective, a different idea, maybe a different way of looking at things, we don't immediately jump on this judgment, this bandwagon that destroys or causes conflict. We go with this perspective of mercy. Okay, I'm going to take time and listen. This also goes into grace. God gave me

Ready? When we hear this, that's okay. That's okay. Some churches, man, they can be more effective in reaching this group or that group. That's okay. We're all given different functions and abilities. And so in those functions, it's important that we realize that and understand that, that the diversity is important. But it starts with unity. It starts with unity. We must realize what unifies us. It's not our abilities.

Romans 5 talks about this unity talks about the unity that the body of Christ should have as the believers should have. It says so we though many are one body in Christ and individual members of one another. But we're diverse because of Christ we have unity and we are individual members of one another Paul says. That means just like the human body or the human hand needs the arm we need each other. Look I can't do the stuff on the computer but I can do the stuff but I can work on the bus.

And I said, hey, you need to tell them this is what we do. We take care of each other. We serve each other. We love each other. This unity, but that we also have individual gifts. Tell you the last couple months at our location, it's been amazing to watch this happening more and more. It's something that just blows me away. But I've watched us as a church find the unity of the Lord really important. I've watched us as a church, as many of you are developing your gifts, that you are seeing how the Lord has gifted you, and you're using those gifts. And I, as the pastor, just sit back, and I am blown away. Because we get to see the fruit of what God is doing.

And what we have to look at what scripture says, and there's a balance, your salvation is not based on your Sunday. Morning attendance, but you are part of the body of Christ. And if we're going to be seeking God uniformly in unity, it's really hard to be unified with someone who isn't here. It's really hard to be in unity when your body is missing parts.

We're there to, after a gathering on Sunday, to huddle up and cry together and pray for one another. This is a way that we can show love, show this genuine brotherly affection for one another. Verse 16, live in harmony with one another. Again, we need to deal with issues before they grow bigger and bigger and cause division. Vision within the church, right? As believers, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we are called to live in harmony with one another, to believe the best in each other, to give grace and forgiveness to each other because of the grace and forgiveness that has been extended to us by Jesus Christ.

Verse 16 says, live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. We can't be haughty or wise in our own sight. That means we can't be prideful. We have to go back to what Paul talked about earlier. We can't be thinking of ourselves. We cannot think of ourselves above other folks. If we're going to live in harmony and empathy, it's impossible if we're prideful.

Similar, right? Or we're all together because we all have the same value system. We all have the same opinions, ideas. See, I believe Paul in Romans 14 calls the church to unity despite diversity. Unity despite diversity. Unity is a common theme starting with Jesus, right? As Jesus is praying in John 17, it records Jesus is praying in his final moments. He's praying for what? His disciples. His followers, the church that comes after him to be unified. Paul is constantly speaking towards the theme of unity and writing to the churches in the New Testament, be unified, avoid false teachers and be unified, solidified under the hand of God. The Psalmist in 133 verse one writes, behold, how good and pleasant is it when brothers dwell in unity. And so, unity is pleasing to the Lord. But we know as human beings, I'm not saying anything anyone in this room doesn't understand or know, right? It's

I'm going to play my game. You had your 30 minutes. I even let you go first. It's time. Was I right? Sure. By the letter of the law, I was right. But how unloving. I see now how much of my frustrations and problems as a kid were my fault. So how unloving I was. Instead, choose to take every thought captive. Every day, we have got to have the mindset of unity. If all of Christ's church pursued this level of unity with one another, what do you think the difference would look like?

Or how we dress or a tattoo or social drinking cause us to fail at that. Okay, we have to love one another in this. We have to have unity. Romans 15, 1 and 2 says, we are strong and have obligations to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good and his good for his good. And we have to love one another in this. And we have to build him up. If we're trying to change our neighbor to be like us in these gray areas, we're not building them up. We're tearing them down. In the body of Christ today, in the church today, it's just like it was in Rome. We're all diverse. We're all from different places, different backgrounds. It's about building up our neighbors. And when we do this, there's unity in the diversity. And through Christ, it is possible to have that unity. If we skip down to Romans 15, 5 through 6, it says, may the

We're here to say, man, Jesus has brought us together and together with one voice, literally as we sing in a few moments, we're going to bring glory to the father by glorifying the son. And verse seven, we're going to welcome one another because Jesus has welcomed us. Verse seven, I love. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, as Christ has come alongside of you, as Christ has taken us alongside himself for the glory of God.

If you look back in Romans 12, verse 3, it says, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself or herself more highly than you ought. We must humble ourselves. Put Christ first. Put others first. It's not about you and me. It's about glorifying God. Now, there's been times in my life where I've been upset by decisions that were made in the church. I didn't agree with something. And I found myself complaining and wanting my way. But that's not the way that God calls us to be. Maybe you find yourself in that position today. We have to remember that we are a diverse group. We're going to glorify God. We have to be in unity. That means unity with our elders, unity with each other, unity with between me and you. Any conflict is going to mess that up. Now, if you have a problem, what do we do? If you have a problem with me, or you have a problem with another Christian, or you have a pro

"Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. For the glory of God." For the glory of God. It's what we do. So this is something I want us to walk away with. My friends, in the minors, we've got to have liberty. In the minors, we have liberty. In the majors, we have unity. But in all things, we have love. This is not my statement. It's just tweaked from a statement from a long time ago. But in the minor things, my friends, we've got to allow each other some liberty.

It's the major. That's what we preach. And how do we do that? We live like he did. We love like he did. On 133.1, it's not on the screen, but I want you to hear it. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. Let's live like this. Liberty in the minors, unity in the majors, and in all things, love. Because every one of us has been welcomed by Jesus. Let us welcome one another. In the same. And let me tell you something.

So we're gonna walk backwards and look and say, okay, what does that mindset look like that produces the actions we want that leads to the result that we're hoping for, right? Which is unity. So the first thing is he says, here is this mindset, verse five, having this mind among yourself. So this unity, this thing that you should be unified on that you should all look and say, this is how we think, this is how we operate, this is how we function.

And so Paul looks and this whole section, this insight that he's giving is to look and say, when we live according to this gospel, when we live in the example of Christ Jesus, it brings us freedom and unity, freedom from sin and unity with each other. I think in this room, we can all say, we would love those two things.

Lord, that when we live, when we encounter temptation, we look and we say, no, and not just for ourselves, but for the relationships in our lives, for the ways that we care for and love people. Lord, I pray that you would help us to live with this gospel mindset. And this gospel mindset would bring unity. Unity between spouses, unity between parents and child, unity between families, friends. Lord, a unity that's rooted, not in baseless relationship, but in you.

Unity. You guessed it. Unity. We need each other. We need each other, and we need to be focused on the same thing. Look, we're going to have disagreements. You know why? And you know why there's no perfect churches? Because we're all messed up, and we need Jesus. That's why we're here. There's going to be some disagreements. There's going to be some spiritual warfare that happens, but it doesn't change the great things God's doing. Let's look at the early church here.