What Matters Most | Week 4 | Pastor Micah Sutton | Five Lakes Church

We're in our fourth series, fourth lesson of the series, what matters most?

And I encourage you to take some notes.

We're talking about the prayer of Jesus, where he's talking to the father and he prays for times that they may be one that they may be unified.

And ultimately what we're saying is unity in our world matters most is what Jesus said matters most in the area of the church for believers to work together as one to fulfill the mission that God has for his church.

Can we say amen to that?

The world's priorities are shifting the culture of the world is shifting and we were living in it.

We, and sometimes it is sometimes it causes us to get excited because of different movements within culture, we say, Hey, that's, that could be a good thing.

And then sometimes when things aren't going in the direction that we feel, Hey, this is, this is going to be positive for me and my family and our outlook and our way of looking at the world.

We can become afraid, fearful of what's going on.

And we can start responding in a fearful manner.

We can, I don't mean that we have one idea or another idea.

The ideas are real.

The ideas are good.

The R D ideas are right, but, but our response to the changing world around us should not be fearful.

It should not be one who breaks us that breaks us apart.

But one that brings us together as Christ prays for us, that we would have unity.

And in this series, we're talking about intentionally building unity in our families and our friendships and our businesses in our community.

And yes, here in our faith family.

So week number one, we said that unity matters most for ultimate success.

And then week number two, we said, identify why you are unified for longterm success.

And then last week we, you said, we have unity in the essentials Liberty and non-essentials

And love and all things.

So we know what we're reaching for.

And we understand why we're reaching for it.

We're, we're beginning to see a little bit how we might could achieve it.

And, but we also have to figure out what are we unifying

Around?

Who are we?

Who are we?

Here's our big idea today.

If you're taking notes, if not take a picture of the screen.

We are a multi-cultural multi-generational church, both physically and spiritually.

We're all believers, mature and new believers are born.

New believers are born.

Okay.

Uh, this is a phrase that is created four or five lakes church, our elders, our administrative team, the, those are staff are our pastors worked and developed and talk through these things on a consistent for, for a while before we began to talk about it.

And as we prayed into it and so on, but it really does apply even in our families.

It applies in our businesses.

It applies in our community.

It applies in every realm of life that we're talking about throughout this series.

See the script, the world that we're in, pushes diversity with divisiveness, God created diverse

And calls for unity.

Jesus.

Again, praise to the father, John 17.

I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.

I pray that they will be one just as you and I are one, as you are in me, father and I am in you.

And that they may be in us so that the world will believe that you sent me.

That's what Jesus prayed to his father.

I pray that this group and the many other people who are drawn into my body, the body of Christ, the church, that, that diverse group, that they will be one, as they believe in me, they will become one.

And in order to do that, it means respecting one another's value and process.

Let me rephrase,

Let me say that again.

I wonder how to read next week.

Promise you respecting one another's value in process strengthens unity in diversity, strengthens unity in diversity.

So unity thrives.

When the identity of we is prioritized over the identity of me, and you might say, well, how does that fit me personally?

Do I just disappear?

No last throughout this week, we've been talking about marriage and, and or the series talking about marriage and in a marriage.

I intentionally give up parts of me in order to be a part of the wheat.

I am a guy who, if I'm 20 minutes early, I'm feeling rushed for time.

I don't like being late.

I hate being late.

I'd rather be an hour early than a minute late.

I'm married to someone who is entirely different.

She would rather be 20 minutes late than a minute early.

And I just do not understand that.

And she doesn't understand where I'm coming from.

And so I intentionally give up me in that we're there five minutes early in order to accommodate the wi cause I would be there five minutes early with her, then an hour all by my self.

So I intentionally give up some of me in order to prioritize the wee.

Why do I do that?

Overall?

What's the big picture reason for that values are developed and supported more effectively together.

I'll talk to you a few weeks ago about the, the mission statement that Christie and I have together, that we are agents, bringers of hope, agents of change, connections of people with God, each other.

That's what we are.

That's what we do.

And we can do that better together.

Can I do any of that by myself?

Yes I can.

Can she do any of that by herself?

Yes, she can.

But can we do it better if we are together?

Yes, we can.

And that's the, that's the truth in your family?

That's the truth in your business?

That's the truth in your church?

That's the truth in your neighborhood?

That's the truth in every single area of life in which you are unified with others in your friendships, the, the values that you hold in, those areas they can be developed and they can be lived out more effectively together than they can on their own here at five lakes, church, we value things like community compassion and commitment.

Those are three things that we hold very dear.

And we, we, we live those things out there.

Not just stuff we say, it's stuff we live out in our world and can we live out any of those things as individuals?

Yes, we can.

It's tougher to, to, uh, live out community without anybody else, cause that requires other people to be in community, but, but we can live out some of these values all by ourself, but what would happen and what kind of impact would be made, not only in our, in our community, but in our world, if we live those out with not one person, not five people, but what if a thousand people came together and lived out those values, what kind of a difference could be made in the world?

What kind of a difference could be made?

Can you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior and be saved all by yourself?

The answer is, yes, you can.

And I say, thank the Lord for that.

But what kind of a difference can you make in the world?

If you join together with five other people, a hundred other people, a thousand other people all rallying around the, the reality that we believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior.

And we want to help you know, him too, what kind of a difference can be made.

I would just argue, suggest today that it would be a far greater difference than if we did it all by ourselves, but it does require that we have respect for the value that our, those brain and respect for the process that others are in, in order for us to be strong as a church, as a group, as friends, as a family, et cetera.

But it is not easy, not brings us first of our three thoughts today.

And I'm just going to warn you up front that I'm walking through this and I, we have four thoughts today.

I'm sorry.

I said three out of habit, but it's four thoughts.

I may not get through all of them today.

And if that causes you dilemma, I'm sorry, because I, I really feel like the holy Spirit's been speaking to me a lot in this, in this sphere, in this series and in the sermon, and I don't want to rush through it.

Thought, number one is this a multicultural identity makes you

Strong whatever

Group you're in the you there is, is talking about the group that you're in, whether it be your faith family, or whether it be your friendships or your marriage or whatever it is, a multicultural identity makes you strong.

Now in our world right now, the idea of multiculturalism is a hot topic on many levels.

And so I want to just, I want to breathe some cool air on a hot topic.

If it's bothering you, okay, if it's affecting you negatively.

Now, here's the reality.

Every, every single family is a multicultural family and one way or another, there are multiple cultures that come into every group of people.

It's not just racial.

Every group of people has multiple cultures, uh, um, Bishop TD Jakes, uh, a great pastor from Dallas, Texas, a black man.

He is, he was teaching years ago and I was listening to his teaching and he said, he said, I was gonna write a book on race and the racial relations and how to get things right.

He said, then I went to Africa and I began to minister in Africa.

And here in the United States, it's often an issue of a black person versus a white person.

He said, but when I got to Africa, I realized that it was far race, social racial tensions were far deeper than what I was thinking.

In fact, there were black people and black people that were against one another, or had tension between them because they were from different tribes or different regions.

There were white people and other white people that were experiencing the same.

And he said, I realized, he said, I've never written the book.

I never wrote the book because I realized that the way I was seeing it was through my own personal lenses.

And it wasn't nearly as broad as what I thought.

I, I, I didn't understand it nearly as broadly as I thought I understood it.

I've lived all over the world.

I've had the privilege of being in Africa, living in Botswana, meeting people from all over Africa.

The reality is here in the United States.

We often we've been so powerful for so long that we often forget the realities of other nations.

And in some, when I came back from one Christy and I came back from Africa, people would say things like, so what's Africa like, well, Africa is made up of many, many different nations.

And then it's made up of many different cultures and tribes within those nations.

And when you were there, it's like, there's, there's no way to answer the question.

What is Africa like?

Because I can't, I can't even remotely say that.

I know all of Africa, I've been to Botswana and Zimbabwe and Malawi and Mozambique and South Africa.

I've had a couple of wonderful trips to Northern Ghana, a little place called Tama lake and some beautiful, beautiful people there doing pastors conferences.

And the fact of the matter is no matter where, when no matter where you go, there's culture, that's involved there.

Every family has a culture.

When, when Christie and I got married, my grandmother and grandpa father nano and Popol for the longest time, didn't remember her name.

They called her that Yankee girl, Micah married.

We're all from Louisiana.

Christie's from Massachusetts.

We were living in Massachusetts when we met.

And you want to think, you want to, if you don't realize that there was a clash of cultures, I had to be on the phone when my grandfather and my wife would talk, I had to be on the other line to interpret between the two of them, what they were saying.

Christie had no clue how to, how to cook good.

At two Fe, she does because the Lord has blessed her, but every group has culture within it.

How about in our faith family?

Right now, we have multiple faith cultures represented, even in this room and online, we have people in this congregation that were raised Methodist, and you absolutely, you identify with a Methodist culture of doing, of worshiping Jesus and others are, have come from the disciples of Christ

Background,

Or how about Presbyterian or, or Mennonite.

Some of us were raised Pentecostal.

So we lift both hands and are charismatic or Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist.

All of these different, these different faith backgrounds, bring with them a culture, a way of doing things.

When, when I was growing up, we did communion one time a year at the beginning of the year.

And it was always accompanied with foot washing.

If you didn't wash feet, you didn't take communion.

Boy, that'd be a way to drop the attendance in this church right now.

Sure would because, well, well, and when I first came to churches that were doing a communion, once a month,

I fought, how

Can they take communion seriously doing it so often?

That's what I thought, because I thought that's a precious thing.

That is you have to hold it sacredly.

And, and if you do it too often, there is no rule in scripture as to how often one must do communion or receive communion, partake, communion, but it's, uh, but in the culture that I grew up in, I thought we do it once a year because it's precious.

And it's, it's, it's something to be really revered.

So you don't do it too often.

And then I came to churches that were doing it once a month.

And I was like, wow, that's a lot.

Now I do it three times a Sunday.

I'm very communion after every weekend.

But what I've recognized is when I came into that, when I started changing culture in my own life, in order to connect with the, and be in unity with the broader body of Christ, I thought, how can they take it seriously?

But now today, now today I realize how beautiful and seriously we can take it.

Even if we partake in communion, every service,

Because

I started understanding something about someone else's culture that I did not previously know.

And God calls people from every spiritual culture and every

Physical culture.

He calls them to be his own, his own.

Consider the early church in acts chapter two.

The scripture says that as the holy spirit begins to be poured out upon the new, the new church, this is Pentecost Sunday.

So this fits the, the people from all over were, were gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost.

And as they began to hear, uh, the holy spirit move upon those hundred and 20 in the upper room, they gather around and they say, Hey, I hear people speaking in my own language.

Now.

Now the likelihood is that most of these people actually lived in Jerusalem.

Some of them had traveled from other places, but they were there in Jerusalem hearing one sound from heaven.

And they begin to identify themselves by where they come from.

Acts two, verse nine.

He says, here we are.

Parthians means Elamites people from Mesopotamia, Judea Capitol Desia pumped us the provinces of Asia, Phi JIRA, Pamphylia, Egypt,

The areas around Libya, around serene visitors from Rome, both Jews and reverts

To Judaism.

So Gentiles

Who had become Jews,

Cretins, and Arabs.

And we are all here.

These people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done.

This began with Jews 120 Jews.

The disciples were there.

Mary, the mother of Jesus was there.

These are people who probably know one another pretty well.

They've been following glowing Jesus together for a little while.

Now,

The, the, there are,

There are a small group.

If you will, there are a tight bunch.

And they know that they're fighting a common enemy, the enemy of Judaism and the Sanhedrin not wanting the gospel that has been revealed to them to be known to the world

And Rome, because

Rome's trying to keep everything happy.

And if the Sanhedrin is not happy, Rome's not happy.

And so they're fighting this battle.

They, some of them have been fighting together for

Years now, now,

And now here they are in this moment.

And all of these people from all over the world, the known world at the time are, are hearing what Jesus is doing in them.

And through them this hundred and 20 disciples

Of Jesus, they they've been tight, but they can't fulfill the mission all by themselves.

They can't go into all the world and preach the gospel to every single creature, just 120 of them.

There's got to be more people than that involved and engaged in order to change the world.

So what does God do?

He immediately begins adding people to his church that day.

Thousands of people were added to the church, and they've just identified who they are in that list.

There are white people in that list.

There are black people in that list.

There are brown people in that list.

There are Asian people, middle Eastern people in that list.

The world is represented.

Now what they were all believing in Jehovah God, they were all being pointed to Jesus Christ, but they were coming from their own backgrounds, their own cultures, their own ways of doing things, their own ways of dressing and eating and speaking and their own languages.

And that's what made it so awesome.

What the holy spirit did on that particular, in that particular moment, he unified them in this experience with God, he's going to change the world.

Jesus is, and he's going to do it with the gospel through his church.

And the church is going to be made up of people of all kinds of different cultures and different

Backgrounds.

And

That's the day of Pentecost.

What about heaven?

Consider heaven, revelation chapter number revelation, chapter seven says, and after this I saw a vast crowd,

Too great to count

From every nation and tribe and people and language standing in front of the throne.

And before the lamb, they were closed and clothed in white robes and held Palm branches in their hands.

And they were shouting with a great roar.

Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the land.

So think about the identifying factor here.

The identifying factor of those in heaven is not where they came from or the culture that they lived in.

It is the fact that they've called on Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior.

It's not your background that makes you my brother or my sister in Jesus Christ.

It's your salvation that makes you my, my brother or my sister in Christ.

That's the thing that's making a difference.

And suddenly that becomes the priority in my relationship with you.

That's why I can live in a multicultural scenario because there's something greater than my personal culture that I'm striving for.

And you, if you're in the group with me or I'm in the group with you, we're making the same choice together.

We're deciding it's not going to be about where I come from, because if that were true, then I would be, then, then I couldn't be here because this isn't the church kind of church that I grew up in.

We didn't have a single song.

We had boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, Bumble, Bumble, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, not one.

And some of you didn't experience the kind of song that you grew up with either.

But we have come together from all tribes and nations, tongues, all cultures, all understandings.

And we are, we are focused on the one Christ Jesus, and we're doing everything we can to get closer and closer to him.

And as you and I get closer and closer to him, we cannot, but help get closer and closer

To one another.

You're

Saying,[inaudible] makes you my brother and sister.

You are a new creation in Christ.

I'm a new creation in Christ.

So I have a new bloodline.

I'm no longer from first man, Adam, but now we are from second man, Adam, he becomes the, our progenitor.

He becomes the one who has, who has, uh, who we come out of and we come from.

And so his will, his purpose, his plan becomes the overarching wheel purpose and plan that you and I live in within,

And the strength

Of a multicultural group, multicultural identity.

It's a comes from its relate-ability and its adaptability.

Relate-ability and adaptability.

When I surround myself with people that are just like me on every area, when I put myself in an echo chamber where my ideas are so spoken back

To me, number one, it feels good at times.

It does.

I

Like that.

Get whenever I turn on a program and they're saying what I'm thinking, I like it.

I get, whenever, whenever I walk into the room and I say to Christie,

Hey, this

Is what I think on this particular subject.

And she said to me, you are absolutely right.

And if that ever happens, I'll let you know.

Okay.

I will let you know.

One of the reasons why I married Christie was that she challenged me.

She challenged the way that I thought she challenged the way that I lived.

Now, none of us like to be challenged on every single thing all of the time.

So we had to have, I have a lot of in common as well, but, but I liked the way she challenged me because it, it caused me to look at things that I was doing and the way I was being and the way I was living and certain things about my culture and certain things about the way I saw different subjects in the world.

And, and she challenged him and caused me to begin examining, what do I really really

Think?

Nah.

And a lot of places I've lived in a lot of different countries.

I've lived cult, different cultures, even within the same country and in doing so.

What I've discovered is that by surrounding myself with people that are different than me, they may have the same color skin, but they're different

Than me.

They may, they may speak the same language, but they're still different than me or those two things may be completely different.

And yet we can still be unified because we have a commonality and that we're following Jesus Christ.

But when that happens, it pushes me to think differently, to go deeper in what I think than just surface level understanding.

Now I want to be very clear in this.

I'm not knocking your understanding or mine of any one thing.

I'm simply saying when something pushes against us, when something in a loving way, in a kind way pushes against us.

Like my mother used to do to me, she would say, Micah, do you think, do you ever think there's a good, there's a good time to balance your checkbook.

That was her pushing me, pushing

Me to do something that I didn't want

To do it in.

When we

Were got married, Christie would work hard to boil water.

Well, she was not a very good cook.

That's a fact she's sitting in the room right now and I ain't even scared cause that's okay.

But she started to learn how to cook.

And when I thought she was going to make a good meal, I thought we were going to have some rice

Because

In the south we always ate rice and everywhere I lived, I was in the south because that's where my mama was from.

So we need rice and we need beans and we need, uh, you know, okra, gumbo, hallelujah.

I feel the holy spirit moving to phase of all kinds.

We'd eat those things.

And when Christie thought about a home goods, sodded homemade meal, she would think boil dinner.

I dunno if that's proper.

I've never done that on a stage before, but boiled dinners are just bland.

Horrible.

I've eaten so many of them, not, not from Christie, but from other people in the Northeast.

I just, I don't like them.

How about cohorts?

I like cohorts.

I find there are big clam.

Littlenecks I've been in the clam boils.

I've been to all con what I'm saying is that I, that some of the things that she brought to the, to the table I needed to adopt into my life and some of the things that I brought to the table, thank God she adopted them into her life.

And what we discovered is that now we married together have been together and we've lived together and we've worked together

All over the country, all over the world.

And because a little bit of her and because of a little bit of me,

If we go to the south, we're going to be able to adapt.

And we're going to be able to work with whomever and whatever.

And if we go to the north, hello, we're

Going to be able to adapt.

And we've got to be able to adopt.

And we're going to be able

To, to be effective in what we're doing, uniformity or unity

Doesn't require uniformity.

It does require a decision

To work for a common goal.

It stretches us.

It stretches our knowledge and our patients, but

I want to be clear.

It does not diminish who you are

And in our culture

Right now, people are saying, in order for you to be kind and generous and accepting of other people, you have to deny

The strengths and the values that you bring to the table that is not strong.

And that is not multicultural.

That's diminishing

One in order to bring up another.

And no matter which direction that goes,

It is inherently wrong because God created you and God created me.

God created each and every one of us.

And he calls us to be his children.

And

So our desire today is not, I'm not trying to become anybody else.

I'm trying to become the best me that God's created me to be.

I'm not ashamed of who I am and neither should you be.

And at the same time, I'm opening my arms wide

To men and women, men,

And women who do not look like me, act like me, speak like me.

Think like me.

And I'm saying to you, the common denominator

That I'm really looking for is, are you a fighter, a Christ follower?

Are you looking for Jesus?

Cause I'm looking for Jesus.

And if we're looking for Jesus, you might call him.

And in your language, you may say it one way and I might say it another, you might worship one way and I might worship another.

You might sing one song and I might like another, but, but I'll tell you what if it means that I can be with you.

Then I'd like to sing a few of my songs periodically.

I'm going to sing your songs too.

I'd like to use your vocabulary.

And I'd like to use my vocabulary too.

I'd

Like to be, I I'm gonna, I'm gonna adopt some of you.

And I'm gonna ask you to adopt

Some of me, whether it's

A family or a church or a business.

When we are a multi-cultural group, it makes us

Strong.

It makes us strong.

And from the beginning to the end, from the beginning of the church, acts two to the end of time revelation, you see the church reaching in to every single pocket of society, every single part of the world, every single language in every single location and every single time period,

Making an impact everywhere.

It goes everywhere.

It goes.

Why?

Because the kingdom of God is bigger than any one.

It is all whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And I've lived all over.

Like I said, lived all over the world, Indonesia, Philippines,

I don't know how many languages I've heard the praises of God

Go forth in.

I dunno how many times I've danced with

People.

Dancing dances that I don't know how to dance, but dancing, eating food that I was like, Lord Jesus, if you do not save me, I had just, but I was with my brothers.

I was with my sisters in Christ.

Jesus.

I knew this was going to happen.

That's thought number one, let's bow our heads together right now, Lord, this world is trying to tear people apart, tear communities apart, terminations apart.

And you've called us to

Come together, come together.

Not because we even understand it all, but because you've called us all that our salvation is the greater identifier than anything else on this earth.

And we're asking you to let our hearts and our minds be open to you today.

Mighty savior

That love would come from us.

Wisdom would come from us that your grace would flow from us.

That we

Would stand strong and proud in our own creation.

And at the same time, humbly respecting the value and the process that every man, woman, boy, and girl on this planet is in.

We thank you and praise you my savior for your grace, for your mercy.

And I pray that you unify your body, the church

Like never before, so that we can make a difference in this world.

Like never, never before in Jesus name, we pray and let everybody say, man, amen, prayer partners.

Would you come forward?

Let's stand to our feet.

If you need prayer, come forward.

We'd love to pray with you.

Let's close in worship this morning.