The Power of Unity

Good morning, everyone. In Jesus Christ's name.

Good to see everyone here. I agree with Justin, more people back here than what I realized. If you would like to, you're welcome to turn to John chapter 17. I'm going to be looking at three verses today, verses 20 to 23.

The title of my message is, "What is the Way to Unity?" or "The Way to Unity." Now, I would like to think about taking the word unity and pulling it up out of the muck or out of the woods into the light. I think it's a word that is often misunderstood, disliked, not know how to look at it. It's kind of an impossible word. People look at it as it's just impossible to do. It's an unattainable experience when we talk about unity in the church. How do we get unity in the church when there's so many churches, so much disunity?

People even go to churches and we talk about unity, and there's not unity. It's this thing that we just end up talking about. So I would like to inspire this whole idea of what unity is, the path to it, how to find it, and how to experience it, just to lift that whole idea up.

In John chapter 17, where we're going to read here in a minute, Jesus said these words when he was approaching the cross, and he prayed this fascinating prayer.

And this prayer was for his disciples, the ones that he discipled. And some of these statements have really challenged me, and I hope to challenge you as well to bring that inspiration to you guys. And so let's read these three verses. I'm going to actually read the first verse and then jump to 20. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you." And I'm going to jump down to verse 20 and 23. "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me."

What a statement. Just beautiful verses. How do we work this out? Jesus' prayer is that the unity of his followers would be equal to the oneness of the Father and the Son.

He wants you and me to be one just as the Father and the Son are united.

Have you ever considered pursuing this type of unity with your church?

Do we even believe that this is possible? What does this even look like?

Jesus' prayer was not that we would just get along and avoid church splits.

His prayer was that we would become perfectly one, perfect or complete, the idea of to fill up. Okay?

He prayed this because our oneness was designed to be the way to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. Think about that.

Jesus said, "The purpose of our unity is so that the world may know that you sent me and love them." Wow, what a statement.

For some of us, this prayer doesn't make any sense.

How could our unity result in the world's belief? How could seeing us love one another make someone believe that the kingdom of God is at hand?

Do you really think the result of church unity would be people submitting to a king? But it actually did happen. Let's read Acts 2.

It says they were united, and the result was people being saved.

Acts describes it this way. Now, the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own. But they had everything in common, and with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands and houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

Acts 4:32 to 35.

What's your response to this passage?

The church in the scripture looks so beautiful and so attractive.

But this kind of unity that he's referring to, it's the kind of love and unity that actually makes our message believable.

And I want you to get these next couple of thoughts I'm going to share. I think it's really, really important. Scripture is clear, I think, that there's a real connection between our unity and the believability of our message.

If we are serious about winning the loss, we must be serious about pursuing unity.

It's what makes our message believable. Think about that.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or I'm absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.

This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and from God. Philippians 1:27 and 28. If you skip them verses, go back and read them again.

Notice the promise at the end. A fearless unity

is a clear sign those who oppose Christians of their destruction.

We are living in a time when few people believe in the wrath of God. Even the evilest people we know have no fear of the literal judgment day. Have you ever tried to convince someone of their future destruction?

It's not a simple task.

And yet scripture tells us that our fearless unity will convince them.

When are we going to take these promises seriously and spend our energy seeking unity?

Not just the kind of unity where we avoid arguments with one another, but the kind where we truly live together as a family, where we meet one another's needs and care for one another regardless of the time or effort required.

Unity does not come easily.

Think of everything that it takes for a family to stay together, all the acts of service it requires, all the forgiveness and grace that must be constantly extended to one another, all the times when one person's desires have to be lovingly laid aside for the desires of others.

It's very easy to talk about unity, but it requires a kind of mutual commitment that is all but absent from churches today.

If we're going to see this become a reality in our church, we need to count the cost and decide whether we will commit. I don't know about you, but this doesn't come naturally to me. But if we only obey when it feels natural, is Jesus truly Lord of our lives?

What often results from obedience, however, is unexpected blessing.

Pushing the church to live as a family is not some gimmick or flavor of church that would be just fun to try. I think it's a command.

Crafting the church into a truly united and supernaturally loving family is the very thing God is wanting to do.

Do we believe it's possible? Do we trust that his design for his church is what will be the most effective?

We've come up with countless strategies to reach the loss when God's promises that unity is the method that will work.

God gave us instructions on how to reach the world, yet we abandoned one set of instructions he gave us, even as we scrambled to create classes and programs and events that promote everything but one of the strategies that God gave us.

Have you given up on unity?

When you read about the unity of the early church, does it make you jealous?

Something in you wishes you were born 2,000 years ago so that you could be part of a group like that.

It's devastating to us that we don't believe it's possible.

In fact, what I see today is many people choosing to opt out of church and claiming a continued love for Jesus.

They have decided that church only gets in their way.

Is it not a sad time when those who want to be close to Jesus have given up on church?

There's this terrifying verse in 1 Timothy where Paul talks about two men who rejected the faith. Paul says that he handed them over to Satan, by which he put them out of the church, Peter 1:2 or 1:20. Basically, these men were actively opposing the works of God.

So Paul, rather than pretending everything was fine, Paul simply removed them from the safety and blessings of the fellowship of believers.

And what was his hope? That the misery of being separated from the church would lead them to repentance. Think about that.

Are we catching the weight of this?

Paul equated removal from the church with being handed over to Satan.

It's crazy to me to think that we live in a time when people are voluntarily doing this to themselves.

No church has placed them outside the fellowship. Instead, they've handed themselves possibly over to Satan.

Real love and unity and blessing were supposed to be found in the church.

And many are having a very hard time finding.

So they set off on finding so they set off on their own. Jesus said that the world would see the supernatural unity and love we share in the church and believe in him through that.

But instead, we're not experiencing it, so we just give up on it. We no longer believe it's possible. But if we take God's description of the church as a family seriously, what would happen if a group of people saw Jesus fervently and loved one another sacrificially and then share the gospel boldly? What would that do?

While we design strategies to slowly ease people into Christian commitment and grow attendance at our services, Jesus called people to count the cost from the very start. And that's what I want us to think about. Are we counting the cost? Luke 14:25 to 35. He didn't expect his followers to be perfect, but he did demand that they be committed in Luke 9:57 to 62.

What if we followed God's design for the church and in doing so allowed the church to be pruned down to only those who want to obey his command? I love one another as I have loved you, John 15:12.

We might actually find that a prune tree would bear more fruit in boldly preaching the gospel.

We might even discover that the branches that weren't bearing fruit were actually sucking the life out of the tree.

Don't forget that there are times in scripture when God doesn't just want us to let them leave. He wants us to ask them to leave. This is what Paul did. It's a very difficult reality to face, very difficult.

I think there's going to be people who try to take advantage of churches that are committed to love.

In order to love one another like family, like the Father and the Son are one, a powerful thought. We will need to have grace and forgiveness just like a family.

However, sometimes the most loving thing to do for people is not to enable them in their sin, but to follow the example of Paul in 1 Timothy.

Biblical unity is achieved not by overlooking sin, but through firm pruning.

A scary thought, which I believe leads to repentance. Unconditional love doesn't always look the way we expect it to.

It takes tremendous love to risk rejection for the hope of loving a sinner to repentance in the pursuit of unity.

And I'm going to close with the verses I started off with. In 1 John, there's three verses.

I do not ask for those only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you. That they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me, so that the world may believe you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me.

I believe oneness is doing or when Jesus said oneness was him doing what the Father did. And our oneness is that when we pursue and do what Christ asks us to do, and that's our focus. And in that, we become one and united, a beautiful thought and powerful.