The Power Of One | Acts 2:42-47 | August 27 | Derek Neider

Speaker [00:00:03] All right. The Bible says, and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers and aw came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believe were together, say the word together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, say, selling today. I just kidding. I just want to see I seriously want to see if you guys we say that louder than together and you're like selling. It was really quiet and day by day and day by day, attending the temple was that word. Together and breaking bread in their homes. They receive their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your word today. God, we come with with open hands. With open hands. God, we come with open hearts. We pray. You speak to us today. God, this is your church. We don't just attend. We don't just go to church. We're part of the family of God. And so God, we pray that your Word would pour into our hearts and minds like. Like rain, God, like a waterfall. You would fill us up to overflowing, speak to us in a powerful way. And father, through this time, change us. We pray In Jesus name. Amen. You can have a seat when we go to San Francisco, which you know is pretty regular. We'd love to stop in Muir woods. I don't know if you've ever been Muir Woods before, but. in Muir Woods, you know, you can you can walk through the forest and you can see the redwoods in the sequoias.

Speaker [00:02:01] I mean, they're they're absolutely amazing. I know you look at this and you think, that can't be real, right? That can't be real. Look how tiny that person is. And that person's not just like a little midget. That's not Ant-Man. That's. That's an actual human being. And the trees, when you're in near Muir Woods, the redwoods are spectacular. They stand between 330, 350 feet high, some as tall as 375 feet at the base. Some of them are 32 and a half feet wide. I just want you to think about how wide that is. You could drive a car through that and then some of them, they've been age dated to be about 2 to 3000 years old, some of them as old as 5000 years. And so, like I mean, it's extraordinarily thing when you stand there and you you just look up at this massive tree and you see this massive base and then you think, man, this tree has endured the elements for thousands of years. And I think about that. And the phrase that comes to my mind is staying power like that. That is staying power. And, you know, it's easy to think my initial thought was while those trees to endure all of the elements over the course of years and still be growing, it must be that their root system goes down deep into the soil. Right. You would think there just be this massive taproot that would go all the way down into the soil and lock itself to the bedrock. I was surprised to discover that redwoods have really have a really shallow root system and in fact, their root system. The reason it's so strong isn't because it's so deep is because in that shallow root system, all of the roots from trees or from tree to tree are interlocked together.

Speaker [00:03:57] And so the strength comes not because they have their own root going deep into the soil, but the strength comes because all of them are connected together. They're connected together. While the beauty may be above the soil, the strength is below the soil. It's in the root structure, it's in the interconnectedness. You walk through this forest and you're like, Man, there's many trees. But while there are many trees, really, they're all one. And that's what's enabled them to withstand time, to endure storms and to not be uprooted. And I know you know where I'm going with this. This is the way the church is supposed to be. This is the way the church is supposed to be. What they aren't. Right. While there may be beauty above the soil, the strength really comes from our interconnectedness. It comes from us being a community of people. It comes in our relationships are interlocked together. You know, one of the mottos of the United States of America in Latin is E Pluribus Unum. Do you know what that means? Yeah. Hey, raise your hand if you know what that means. All right. Like you guys are actually worse than the first service. And the first service was bad. E pluribus unum means out of the many. One out of the many. One. And so nationally, the truth is we're a very diverse, varied nation. We have people from all over the world that have come here over the course of time and become citizens. But while we may be from all over the place, we are we are one nation. Right? Good to be reminded what Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address. And you can go to his memorial in Washington, D.C. and see it carved in marble.

Speaker [00:05:48] You know, a house divided against itself cannot stand. And unity is so important. If that's true for the nation, how much truer is it for the church out of the many one like you? My perspective today is just unique. You know, I get to look out on this congregation and I'll tell you, we are as a diverse congregation as as there ever was. You know, the diversity that I see out of the many out of the many backgrounds, out of the many ethnicities, out of the socioeconomic gradient, out of, you know, education and not educated and wealthy and not wealthy. I see not just diversity, though. I see unity out of the many. He has made us to be one and the church will be able to withstand and influence an adverse culture. If we are unified as one, we will be able to withstand and influence an adverse culture because you guys know the culture is becoming more and more adverse to Christianity and the gospel. You know that. In fact, as we wrap up this series, which has been ten keys to a strong church in two weeks, we're going to start the final part of this overall series. And that final part is reaching the culture with the gospel. And we're going to be talking about the hardest issues that we're dealing with in the culture today. But to be able to do that, I hope you agree with us today to be able to really not just withstand and endure the culture, but to influence it for the gospel. We can't be fractured. We can't be divided. We have to be united. We have to be united. Are you with me today? We have to be united as one. And I think that I think it is good to go back to the early church.

Speaker [00:07:42] You know, I love going through the Book of Acts and considering what God did in the early church, because, you know, sometimes you have to look back to look forward. You have to look back to look forward. Sometimes you've got to go back to the Book of Acts and just get a picture of what God did in the infancy of the church. Because in doing that, we're reminded it's easy for us to have mission drift in the church is to start to think that we need to be something other than what God has said in the Scripture. And so it's good to go back to to the Book of Acts and to get a picture of what the early church looked like so we can be reminded, I just want to read these verses again to you, and I'm going to draw a couple of observations out from them. I'm sure you'll have your own. But the Bible says, and they devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers and all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as many as any hard need and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. They received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord. This is what he did. And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who are being saved. So yeah, say, wow, today. I mean, it's beautiful. It's amazing. When I look at this.

Speaker [00:09:20] What are some of your excited I. I'm really grateful for that today. I just got to tell you, when I look at this, I'm reminded I am reminded that Christianity is primarily a relational, not an institutional movement where love and unity are the goals. As I read this, I am reminded, and you should be reminded too, that Christianity is primarily a relational, not institutional movement where love and unity are the goals. Now, last week I talked about the institutional aspect of Christianity. I didn't say that Christianity isn't institutional, and I didn't say that it's not organized or has some element of organization to it. Certainly it does, but primarily it's not that we talked about last week the importance of leadership and how Christ himself instituted organization and leadership structure within the church so that the church could be organized. There were leaders, there are formalized systems of belief. We have a statement of faith based around orthodox Christianity. There are clergy people who are called by God to vocationally serve the body of Christ. There are rules. There are rituals like baptism and communion, and there are governmental mechanisms. And and the truth is this as the church grows, sometimes those mechanisms or systems grow as well. All of that exists to organize and all of that exists so the church can be organized and lovingly led to worship God, to grow as disciples of Christ, and to reach the world and the city of Las Vegas for our context with the Gospel. So the institutional organizational aspect of the church. Hey, by the way, did you know that everything that God does has a order to it? Did you know that? Did you did you did you look at the Book of Genesis? You see in Genesis chapter one, there was chaos.

Speaker [00:11:22] There was disorder, right? There was darkness. And then God spoke. And once God spoke, order ensued. And you know, your life, your life before Christ was the same. Like you were a chaotic disaster. Don't tell me that you weren't. Your life was full of dysfunction. It was madness. You had no center. And then you put your trust in faith in Jesus Christ. And you know what God did? He brought order to your life. I mean, the way I've seen it, you know, from the beginning of my relationship with God was like my life used to orbit around myself. And the result of that was total chaos and darkness. But God gave me a new center. The center is his son. And then, as the son is the center of your life, you have your own Copernicus revolution. Everything. Everything then is ordered. So I'm just saying to you that order, in fact, is evidence that God moves. However, in saying all of that, I want to remind you the church is not a top down command control organization. The church is not a top down command control organization. It is a bottom up organization. And by that I just simply mean leaders are servants, not dictators. Leaders are servants, not dictators. I read these verses and you know what emerges? This phrase emerges for me together, people. This is a together people. There's something that God is doing this so spectacular as these people are united together and their unity is the strength. They're together. Read the verses yourself later. But they're together in their practices. They're together in their commonalities, not their differences. They're together and they're generous, sharing. They're together and their compassion. They're together in public while they're in the temple worshiping God, and they're together in private, as well as they've opened up their homes and they're having church service in their homes, they're together in their gratitude for God, and they're together in their favor that they receive from people.

Speaker [00:13:29] And I would just say to you that all of that is exactly what Christ intended when he went to the cross and rose again from the dead on the third day like that picture. Think about this. That picture that Jesus had in his mind was a together people. In fact, the Bible says in Colossians for in Christ, for in Christ, the fullness, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. We don't have time to totally talk about that. But let me just say that when you read that, what you discover is that Jesus is more than just a man. Jesus is more than just a prophet. He's more than just a rabbi. Some of you might be here today thinking, Hey, you know what? I'm going to go to church today and hear about Jesus. And you know, he's what is he? Well, he's a good example to follow. Hey, he's more than that. He's more than that. He is he is the greatest example, but he is also God incarnate. He is God in the. The Bible says all the fullness of God dwelled in him bodily. And, you know, as that was true, this was what he was doing through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on Earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. In other words, what he was doing through the sacrifice on the cross was overcoming the brokenness of sin in humanity and creation. And he alone has the power to take what was broken and to mend it, to take what was broken and to heal it. And he reconciles. He takes what was at odds with God, and through his sacrifice, he brings it. He gathers it together to himself.

Speaker [00:15:11] Hey, he is going to one day renew all of creation. He is going to create a new heaven and he's going to create a new earth. But he is also creating a new people zealous for good works. He is gathering to himself through those who put their trust and faith in him. A new people that are designated not by splintered or divided or fragmented relationships, not identified by extreme individualism. You say, Well, what are they identified by? They're identified by family. The people he's gathering to himself are now considered to be the family of God. Yeah. Anybody in the House today, part of the family of God and happy about it and happy about it and happy about it. I want to remind you today and I know that you know this, but even though you know what I need to tell you just again, just in case you don't know, because you may think that you know, but you don't know. And so let me remind you of something that you think that you know, but you really don't know. And that's this the goal is not the goal is not to join a church. The goal is not to join a church. The goal is to join the family of God. Sometimes sometimes our terminology betrays our false theology. Like we have this idea that it's all about joining a social group or an organization or an institution. And the terminology that we use betrays the reality of that type of philosophy or thinking. And all along, God said, it's not about you having your name on the role at a church. It's not all about you going through some assimilation classes. It's not all about you being present and saying to other people while I go to Awaken Las Vegas or I attend Awaken Las Vegas.

Speaker [00:17:06] No, the goal is to be a part of the family of God. And guess what? You're not born into that. I made somebody mad right now. I know I did. I know you're not you. You're not born into it. You need to be born again into it. You have to be born again into it. You're like, Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Pastor. Like we're all born children of God. No, we're not. We're all born separated from God because of our sins and trespasses. Ephesians chapter two says that we're sons and Daughters of wrath. We're children of disobedience. But God. But God stepped in. Stepped in. And when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you were adopted into God's family. John says it like this in his first epistle, Chapter three, he says, See what kind of love the fathers given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. John doesn't say, Hey, you know what? We were we were born by nature into this. He doesn't say we earned it. We bought it. You know, we worked our way into it. It's a demonstration of the love of the father. And for John, 60 years down the road, in walking with Jesus Christ, it never got old to him. He's like, Dang, dude, can you believe it? Now this is like my modern version. Dang good. Can you believe it? I'm part of God's family. I am part of God. I am God's son. And I know I don't deserve it. It is all because. It is all because of him. There has been a change of identity for you. And as there's been this change of identity, there is a new paradigm that you operate by.

Speaker [00:18:43] The key descriptors of God's family are these two things. They are love and unity. You want to describe the family of God? Well, it's not splintered, divided, fragmented or individuals. It is love and unity. In fact, Jesus in the upper room, you know, he's just hours away from his betrayal, his crucifixion and his resurrection. He said to his disciples, he said, I have a new commandment that I'm giving to you. That you love one another, just as I have loved you. The standard for the love that you have for one another is not the one that you grew up with. It's not the one that you're making up on your own. It's not what is current or relevant within the church. The example of our love, the standard of our love is the love that Christ has shown for us. He says, Just as I've loved you, you if it's convenient. You if you feel like it, you are. For those of you, for those who love you, then you can love them with the love that I love you. He doesn't. There is no qualification like that. I mean, he doesn't. He doesn't give us the opt out. Some of us want an opt out. You're like, God, you have no idea what a jerk this person is, right? There's no way you can expect me to love this person. And then you like. Scroll over to Matthew. Chapter five and six is like, Love your enemies. And you're like, Dang, man, that can't be your word for me today. This. This has got to be for somebody else. He goes on to say, By this, all people will know that you're my disciples. If you if you have love, one for another.

Speaker [00:20:26] And so so when he says this, remember, he's not saying that love and unity are a means to an end. They are the end. Love and unity are a means to an end. They are the end. Sometimes when we look at this verse, we think about it in terms of witnessing to people or reaching the loss. And we're like, Well, if we just got to love people, we've got to do some deeds for them to demonstrate the mercy of God. And as we do that, then we can be a witness to them. And and it's just the exact opposite. No, we are a witness to them. So we can love them, so we can love them. And if we don't do that, we objectify people. If we don't do that, if we treat love in unity as a means to an end, our love and our unity becomes transactional and not transformational. I'm saying to you the whole point of the gathering of God's people today, one of the key points is for us to to to be fiercely unified and to have an opportunity to love one another. We look at the early church and we see that fundamentally it was a relational movement. The second thing that I see today is this We need to choose authenticity as a strength and not a weakness. We need to choose authenticity as a strength and not a weakness. Do you guys believe that today? Do you believe authenticity is a strength, not a weakness? Do you believe being transparent is a strength and not a weakness? If we believed that, there wouldn't be so much hypocrisy within the church today, like if we really believed, if we really believe, you know, you want people to be real.

Speaker [00:22:01] Doesn't it bug you when people are real? It's like, Dude, what the heck, man? Just be real. Just be authentic. Like, stop playing games. I hate it when people play games with me. And as a pastor, you'd be surprised how many people play games. And, you know, you just you think, man, just be real. But the truth is this If all of us were just real, there wouldn't be so much hypocrisy in the church today. When I say hypocrisy, I'm not talking about struggling or battling against sin. That's called Christianity, you know what I'm saying? We all battle against sin. Hey, newsflash, today your pastors battle against sin. We fight sin. You think, Hey, man, you know what? You've been a pastor, You've gone to Bible College, you've walked with God for so long, you probably don't deal with sin like the rest of us do. Oh, you don't want to know. You want to know. You pick a different church. Probably. You know, like now we we're no different. We're no different. Pastors and leaders are no different than anybody else in the body of Christ. As long as my feet are touching this ground, I am struggling and battling the old nature just as much. Maybe. Maybe even more than you are. The reality is this In this life, we are always going to be struggling and fighting against sin. That that doesn't disqualify ourselves from being children of God, that identifies us as being children of God. Did you know that? Because. Because when you weren't a Christian, I mean, it was a lifestyle of sin. It was it was condescending to sin, like in the sense of you were going with the flow, that the culture was directing your decisions, that you were in full agreement.

Speaker [00:23:50] There was no battle, there was no resist, and it was just a way of life. The Bible says it like this You were practicing sin and then Christ touched your life and you recognize that sin is an offense. It's an affront to God. It is a wound to His Holiness. And you you saw you discover that God went to the most extreme measures to deal with the sin in your life. The thing that was an obstruction between yourself and him, not created by him, but created by you that God wasn't just at war with you, but you were at war with God, and God convicted you by the power of the Holy Spirit, because the purpose of the Spirit is to convict us of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. And there was a revelation, a spiritual epiphany. You put your faith in Christ, you were born again, and now all of a sudden you find yourself at war with sin because you know it's not in alignment with the desire and the will of God for your life. And so you live in this place where where there's continual repentance and there's victory over sin on a progressive basis. That is the relationship that you have with sin in your life. I'm not when I talk about hypocrisy, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when you act like you don't sin. I'm talking about when you pretend to be something that you aren't. Because the word hypocrisy in the New Testament means to play a part is when you're wearing a mask, you know, is when you act like you have it all together, when you don't have it all together. And you know, our modern culture makes it easy for us to do that.

Speaker [00:25:33] You know, you can live a life on social media that presents a you that's not the you that you know, it's not the real you. It's like, I'll just tell you right now, you don't wake up looking like that. You don't don't even don't even act like you just rolled out of bed and, you know, your makeup is all done and your hair is just right and you know, everything's perfect. And you and, you know, you put that in the post, you're like, man, just got up. No, you didn't. That took that took you 90 minutes. That took you 90 minutes to do. And it was a lot of hard work. You put a lot of sweat into making that happen. And, you know, this is what hypocrisy is, I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong. I'm just saying hypocrisy is acting like you're something that you're not. And and the scripture I love the Bible is so honest about the people that we're supposed to respect and honor, Right? The people that are that that are the giants of the faith. Guess what? They're no different than you and me. You look at David and you think, Man, a man after God's own heart. That's what the Bible says about him. A man after God's own heart. And there were victories after victories, after victories, and there was real failure. Thank God. I'm not rejoicing in David's failure. I'm rejoicing in the authenticity and the transparency of Scripture that the Bible is like, Hey, you know what? David had his mountaintop experiences. That boy had some serious valleys, too, and the Bible didn't hide it. The Bible exposed it so that we could see a clear pathway to walk with God while we have those similar experiences in our own lives, times of victory and times of struggle.

Speaker [00:27:14] I love that about the early church. There just seems to me to be an authenticity, right? They were in public together and yet they also opened their homes up and they were in their homes together. They were honest about their needs. The people who were struggling didn't hide their struggle, and the people who were wealthy didn't conceal compassion. They had open hands and open hearts to one another. That's authenticity. Authenticity means to be real. It means no hypocrisy, no play acting, no wearing a mask. A biblical word for this is sincerity or sincere. The English word. Are you guys with me today? The English word for sincere comes from a Latin word, which is sincera and the word sincera in Latin means without wax. Now, you might be thinking, that's kind of a weird that's a weird word to describe sincerity or someone living without hypocrisy. But historically, it worked like this. If you were a pot maker, I'm not talking about like, cannabis dealing. I'm talking about like this. Just the world we live in, y'all. I just had. I just got to clarify, Geez. If you made those if you're somebody who spent your life making those, you know, you would be mass producing. And in the mass production, a lot, a lot of work. Right. You're going to the potter's field. You're getting the shards, you're gathering them together, you're watering them, you're working the mud, you're putting it on the wheel, you're shaping it, and it's mass production. You don't have machines to do it. You're doing it with your own hands. Well, from time to time, you'd make these pods. And as they were fired up and and dried, they would crack. And, you know, if you weren't a person of integrity, instead of throwing that pot away, what you would do is you would find the crack, you'd get some wax and you'd put the wax in the crack, and then you would paint it and coat it and sell it.

Speaker [00:29:19] And so, you know, you go into a potter, his store, her store, they don't operate by integrity. You buy this pot. You don't know that All the cracks in it have been filled with wax and then covered up. And, you know, you've got it for winter and the pot, you know, it's beautiful and the plants in it. And then spring comes and summer comes and you're hanging out, you know, and your patio and you've got all these beautiful pots around you and you got your drink in your espresso and you're like, man, you know, all these parts are so beautiful. And in the heat of the day, because it was so hot at that point in time, the wax would melt and so you'd be hanging out. All of a sudden it's like, Dang, dude, what? But my mom was dripping water and then that pours drip in water and that pours drip in water. And what you didn't realize was that when you bought those pots, the person had no integrity and they just concealed all of the faults and the weaknesses. And it wasn't until things heated up that those things were revealed. And so what what potters would do is in front of their store, if they were people of integrity, they would put the word sincera, which meant without wax, Hey, you can come in, you can buy a pot and you can know when summer comes around. It's not going to be spring in a leak. Right. And this is what Paul is saying when he uses the word is like, hey, don't conceal, don't cover up, don't hide the faults, don't fill in and make it look like something is not. Because when when the heat is on, when things get difficult, when you go through the tribulation and the trial, all that's going to be revealed and you're going to spring a leak and you're going to have presented this this your're going to have presented this persona to other people.

Speaker [00:31:07] That's not that's really was it really was never real. It wasn't authentic. It wasn't transparent. You know, this is the thing. You guys were all crackedpots. You knew that was coming, right? We're all crackedpots. We're all crackedpots. And it's good for us. I mean, in our conversations over the course of time, we deal with people all the time. And, you know, we struggle as a pastor. And, you know, in ministry, Rachel and I, we've we've had our share of difficulty. And when we're struggling with somebody and we're talking about it, inevitably our conversation comes around to something like this. Yeah, we're messed up, too. We're messed up too. Like we I'm just saying we all have issues and we don't we don't have to hide the fact that we have issues. We can be authentic about it. I'm not saying to you today that when you leave the service, you need to go post online all the issues that you have that no one wants to hear that now. You don't need to do that. You don't need to do that. Like it's enough to say, Hey, I have issues and I'm not going to act like I don't. You know, you have friends in your life. Jesus had distant friends and he had designated friends when you went to the gardener because so many there were eight that followed, you know, at a distance that were with him, that championed him, that were his friends. But there were three that he pulled closer and he divulged himself to. And you had those friends in your life, those close friends that you can now you can pour your heart out to. And that is good. But you can do this because your identity is in Christ.

Speaker [00:32:40] I mean, all of this is an identity issue. It's not about it's not about being a performer. It's about being a child of God. We are we are sinners. Saved by grace. I. This has been a saying, you know, that I've kind of kept close to my heart over the years. God, I may not be who I want to be, but thank you. I'm not who I used to be. Right. I'm just acknowledging God. There's a lot of room for growth in my life. And I know that. And my friends know that and the church knows that. And the people that work with me and for me, they know that, too. I just want to thank God that there has been a transformation that's so much different than the point of view of a Pharisee. You know, Jesus was talking about two men who approached God in prayer. One was a Pharisee, one was a tax collector, and this was the way the Pharisee prayed God, this is what the Pharisee prayed. God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. Extortion or unjust adulterers or even like so they're praying right there. The story goes, or probably on the Temple Mount. And this Pharisee, you know, who was all about his own self righteousness, was praying somewhere near him, was a tax collector, despise, you know, this person considered to be, from a Jew's point of mind, a total traitor. And not only just a traitor, but unworthy and unacceptable in the eyes of God. And so the Pharisees like, Man, thank you. I'm not like other men. Then he lists other people's sin and then says, Not even like this tax collector. Could you imagine praying next to somebody like this? You know, who in their prayer was like, God, you know what? Thank you so much that I'm not like, you know, people who own cannabis stores and and, you know, thank you that I'm not a homosexual or I'm struggling with a gender dysphoria, you know, thank you, God, that I'm not a glutton or greedy.

Speaker [00:34:41] And thank you that I'm not like Derek, You know, I just want to maybe some of you have prayed that. But but he goes on to say and look at this self-righteousness I what do you do? I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. And then in contrast, the tax collector who's standing a far off like in the picture is this. He's like, I know I'm not worthy to be in his presence. That's what that means. I know I'm not worthy. I don't even belong in proximity to God. And yet his prayer was this. He wouldn't even lift his eyes up to heaven. But he beat his breath saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And Jesus said this. He said, That's the guy. And this was a mind blower for the Jew at the time, because the Jew thought that the Pharisee was the one who was always righteous before God and the one who would be accepted and the tax collector was rejected, could never be received by God. Jesus flips the whole paradigm and says, that man was the one who went away justified. It was. There was the humility. It was the brokenness. It was the acknowledgment. It was the willingness not to conceal what it was that God already knew. God honors that authenticity. The Bible says these two things God will not despise a broken spirit and a contrite heart. God help us to not be parasitical in the House of God, but also with respect to those who are lost. This is a great quote on authenticity. Authenticity is the cornerstone of trust. When you're authentic, you show your true self without pretense or manipulation. This honesty builds trust with others as they know you're not hiding anything or being deceitful.

Speaker [00:36:31] It's a good one. It's a good one. The final thing today is this. At least as I look at the early church, I think we need to remember that love and unity don't come automatically. They are developed and defended. Love and unity don't come automatically. They are developed and defended. I'm saying to you today, stick with me. All right? I'm saying to you today that relationships, real, godly relationships take work. They take work. They don't just come easy. They don't come. They don't just come naturally. How many of you today would say that you have a healthy marriage? Raise your hand. Okay. I didn't say perfect marriage, okay? I said, you know, a healthy marriage. Don't be, like, sheepish about it. Raise your hand, like, boldly and confidently. All right. That's better. Did that just happen? That just happened. Like, you know what? You. You gave your vows and you know, you gave your vows. And right away, you know that he was perfect. He was always a servant. He was always helpful. He was never selfish. He was never difficult. He was never offensive. He was never a challenge. No, that's not the case. Because, like, right after your vows, he was all those things and more. He's been a lot of work. And you've been a lot of work, too. Like you've had your mountaintop experiences. If you have a strong marriage today that did not come easy, that took a lot of work, that took a lot of selflessness, that took a lot of denying yourself and dying to yourself, it took a willingness to press through when you didn't want to. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. It took a willingness to press through when you didn't want to press through.

Speaker [00:38:18] But for love sake, for love sake, to honor God, because you knew it was the right thing. You denied your own flesh and you did those things that God directed you to do because you're a child of God. And that's true for marriage, and that is true in the House of God with your relationships. It's true in friendships. Healthy, strong relationships take a lot of work. And you know what? God will? You know what God wants to do. He wants to develop your capacity to love more. Listen, he wants to develop your because you've not you've not plateaued, sister. You've not plateaued, brother. You're sitting here. You're like, Did I? I'm pretty loving person, man. I don't think I could love anymore. Just what a liar you are. You're lying to yourself. God wants to develop your capacity to love, and He wants to teach you. Listen, He wants to teach you to fight for unity. He wants to teach you to fight for unity, because unity has to be fought for. And you know, you say, well, how does God do that? He does it by bringing difficult people into your life. You know what? You guys. You guys are as sick as the first service. Because. Because they clap for that, too. They clap for it, too. And I'm sitting here thinking, I ain't clapping for that, y'all. I'm not clapping. Like when God puts another difficult person in our life and I'm like, God, you know what we got? We got. They're all lined up. They're all lined up. We don't need one more. It's like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Oh, my God. I said that to you 15 people ago. Like, not one more now. One more, please.

Speaker [00:40:04] And, you know, you know what he does? Those people. Those people are a gift. Let me just swallow. They're. They're a gift. They're a gift from God to help you grow there. Because you know, what God does is is testing you. He's testing you. He's testing your limits. It's not that God doesn't know what your limits are. He is very aware. He is very aware of your limitations. He's very aware of the lines that you've drawn, the the arbitrary lines that you've drawn. And you've said, I'm not going any further or it's not just I'm not going any further. But God, if this person's like that or that person's like this, you have all these qualifications where it's like, yeah, all love, all love to that level. But you know what? Not if they're like this or not. If they're attitudes like that or not. If they treat me like this. And then you roll over to Matthew chapter five and six and Jesus is says, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall hate your enemies. But I say to you, love your enemies. And you're like, Man, that's not from God for me today. Right. And you know what you do? You take a picture of it and you send it to somebody else who you think needs it, right? Like, Hey, man, I was really praying for you today, sister. And I just really felt a tug of God on my heart. Like, I think you need this. And God is like, Dude, what are you talking about? You need this. That was for you. That was for you all along. That's right. Because you've set up. You have set up these boundaries. You've set up these arbitrary prep preferences.

Speaker [00:41:40] And so I'm gonna put someone in your life that presses you, that gets you to that line, and then I'm going to speak to you by my Holy Spirit saying, you know, that line that you have made, you need to step over it. You need to step over it. Because I'll tell you, if you love within the confines of your own arbitrary preferences, you will never experience the miracle of God in your life. You'll never you'll never you'll never be in a place where is like God. There's no way I could have done that. You did that. You did that through my life. Paul was praying for the church. In Thessalonica and he said this. He said, May the Lord make you increase in abounding in love for one another and for all his this is his prayer. May the Lord make you increase like you. You've hit a limit, but may God extend that and may God develop your capacity to love to a place where your love is abounding, not just for one another in the house of God, but for all as we do for you. And then He goes on to say that he may establish Your heart's blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints. So if you believe Jesus is coming back, your heart needs to be prepared. This is how God does it. I'm wrapping up here. I'm landing the plane. But listen to me. We learn in the church to value love and unity so much that we choose to fight for them. Your physical body has an immune system that fight sicknesses. If your body is healthy and the body of Christ has tools given by God to to attack sicknesses of division, anger, resentment, hurt and bitterness.

Speaker [00:43:25] This is what he's done. He's given us tools. You say, Well, what are those tools? I'll give you one. Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, verse 23. He says, Hey, when you're about to offer your gift of worship on the altar and you remember that you've offended somebody, you lay down your gift and you go be reconciled to that person and then come back and offer your gift. So your gift is not offered in hypocrisy to God. And so a tool that he's given us to ensure that we're fighting against things that would undermine love and unity. Is this address your offense as a precursor to your worship before you worship, address your offense? He also exhorted his disciples to choose forgiveness and reconciliation over bitterness, to choose forgiveness and reconciliation over bitterness. Matthew Chapter six. You remember he was teaching his disciples to pray, and in that he said, He taught them to pray. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And then later, he punctuates that prayer by saying, you know, that God will not forgive our trespasses unless we forgive those who trespass against us. And then you go to Matthew chapter 18. And in Matthew, chapter 18, Jesus teaches his disciples that if someone has offended them, what they need to do is they need to go to that person personally and address that offense. And so in Matthew chapter five, you're saying if you've offended to someone, go to that person. In Matthew chapter 18, he is saying, if someone has offended you, you go to them, you go to them privately, you go to them directly. You don't you don't post it on social media like you don't go to everybody else and get a little group of faction to yourself talking about how someone else has offended you.

Speaker [00:45:16] You don't use prayer. You don't use prayer as a as a indirect way to gossip about what somebody else has done in your life. You know, how it goes, right? Is like, Hey, dude, I don't want to gossip, but man, I just need to unload and and let you know I'm struggling with somebody. This is what they've done. Whenever someone starts the sentence with, I don't want to gossip. Right. Right. And then you listen. You have a responsibility. Your responsibility is to stop the conversation right there. I don't need to know any more. Listen, I want to encourage you. Matthew, chapter 18. Go to that person directly. I don't need to harbor. I don't need to be a safe harbor for you to back up your dump truck. Beep, beep, beep, beep. And dump the load on me. Because that's not the way the Bible has laid it out. I will tell you, having spent so much time in the church, 90 to 95% of all of the relational difficulties in the church would be settled if people would just go to the person that's offended them. All right. Today. Yeah. Today's. Think about this. Are you listening? Think about this. Are you ready for this one? Today's Christians resolve conflict by canceling people or switching churches. Exactly. Can I read that again? Today's Christians resolve conflict by canceling people or switching churches. The final thing is this. Identify, address, and if necessary, reject the divisive person that the third way that Jesus has equipped us to deal with division, anger, resentment, hurt, or bitterness is to identify, address and if necessary, reject a divisive person. Paul said this in Romans 16:17. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles, contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught.