Prayer that Works Week 4: Prayer for Unity

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Disciples, but for you and me. He prayed that we would be one.

Imagine the impact we could have if we were united in purpose,

building God's kingdom together.

Through our unity, the world would see God's glory and know that the Father sent the Son.

Now, let's dive into today's message with Pastor Jeff, a prayer for unity.

There are a lot of things through the

years that have caused an incredible amount of damage to

the body of christ shown up on sunday mornings at churches across the world

it's shown up on social media it's shown up on tiktok and instagram and in the

form of memes and videos it's been whispered halls,

coffee shops.

It's even shown up in disguise, taking the form of godliness,

but it could not be further from the truth.

It's torn marriages apart.

It's torn families apart and churches apart.

And it shows up as a blame game of who is right and who's wrong.

Shows up even here in our building from time to time in every church building across the world.

It's shown up on some of our Facebook feeds.

It's shown up on text messages on my phone.

It results in people no longer attending their home church and leaving and going to another church.

And it's none other than disunity. Disunity.

In fact, I would argue with all my heart that one of our spiritual enemies'

greatest schemes and tools is disunity, and it's used to divide the body of Christ.

Because if we are united, we are unstoppable in what we do for the glory of God here on earth.

But if we're divided, we are weak, and we're rendered ineffective for the kingdom.

And so today, as we wrap up our series on prayer, I want to dive into a prayer

that the Apostle Paul prayed, but then Jesus prayed as well.

Because if we're united, we'll be unstoppable.

There's nothing that we won't be able to do.

So today we're going to jump in and I just, the spirit of the Lord is here.

He's moving, he's active.

And so I'm just going to pray and ask that similar to what Lisa just prayed.

Father, would you open our ears to hear you? Would you open our minds?

Would you open our hearts?

We want to hear from you. So speak through your word, change us and make us

more like you that you will receive more glory.

And that the world will know that you sent Jesus to die for us.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Paul prayed a really important prayer in Romans 15,

and it addresses the very important theme of the family of God being unified

so that we will glorify God and so that the world will look at us and glorify God.

And this is what Paul prayed in Romans 15, five through seven.

It says, may the God who gives endurance, aren't you thankful for endurance

when we need it, and encouragement,

man, we need encouragement, give you the same attitude of mind toward each other

that Christ Jesus had. That's a big task.

So that with one mind and one voice, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Accept one another, then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to our God.

Notice the unity of one mind and one voice.

Why? In order to bring praise to God.

If we want to glorify God, if we want to bring praise to God,

we have to treat each other as Christ loved us and treats us.

We accept people as Jesus has accepted us and loved us. That's a tall task.

It's not an easy thing that we've been called to. But this is the prayer of Paul.

Why? So that we would glorify God.

This prayer looks a lot like the prayer that Jesus prayed in John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

And if you have your Bibles, I want to encourage you, go turn to John 17 right

now, whether it's on your phone or your iPad or Kindle or a lesser Android device

or paper, or like I like to say to Dean, your scroll.

Because he's that old.

Just kidding. He knows I love him.

And here's what Jesus prayed in verses 20 to 23.

He says, my prayer is not for them alone. In other words, I'm not just praying for my disciples here.

He goes on, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.

Who's he talking about here? Us, that's right.

That's you and that's me and that's everyone who's ever come to Christ through

the ages. And what does Jesus pray for us?

That all of them may be, say it with me, one, Father, just as you are in me

and I am in you, may they also be in us.

Why is unity so important?

Here's what Jesus said. so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Because the way that they treat each other, the way my church treats each other

and treats the world, people will see the love of the Father in them,

and they'll give glory to you, and they'll know that you sent me for them.

Unity is a big deal.

He says, he goes on, I have given them the glory that you gave me,

that they may be, again, he says, may be one as we are one.

I in them and you in me so that they may be brought to complete unity.

Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Even the very prayers that Jesus prayed were all about the gospel.

It was all about the father being glorified and people knowing that the father

so loved you and you and you that he sent Jesus for them,

that they could have a way from death and hell.

Unity matters. I would encourage you just to go home and after lunch,

as you're stirring and you want to take a nap, or maybe tonight.

I know some of you have to go to work probably.

Read through John chapter 17 and circle or highlight or underline the things

John 17 · chapter mention

that Jesus is praying for his children.

In verse 13, he prays for our joy.

He prays for our protection several times, our sanctification or us becoming

more and more like Jesus, growing in maturity.

He prays for our mission as we've been sent out in verse 18.

He prays for our unity in verses 11 and verse 21 and 23.

And then for our future glory in verse 24.

Did you know that Jesus prays that one day you'll be with him in heaven?

That he's praying for those who will accept him as savior to be in heaven,

to experience the glory of the father?

Jesus's prayer to the Father is just poured out. And you get to see the heart

of Jesus as he's praying to his Father in chapter 17. Go read it.

So in both of these passages, Romans 15 and in John 17, we see both the Apostle

Paul and Jesus praying for the unity of the body of Christ,

so that God would be glorified and the world would know that God sent Jesus

to reach a lost, broken, and dying world.

I want to challenge you as we close out this series on prayer.

I hope you've been using those prayer booklets, those prayer journals,

and writing your prayer requests down, and praying specifically,

and praying big prayers.

But I want you to add something to that list.

Pray for the unity of the body of Christ.

Pray for the unity of the local church.

Pray for the unity of families and spouses and siblings, because it all brings glory to God the Father.

Why is it that we fight so often in the body of Christ?

Tragically, it's because we think that the Christians down the street are the enemy.

Isn't that true? We're in competition, right?

No, we're not. We're on the same team, and it's only when we recognize that

we have a common enemy that we become united in our mission.

It's no different in the world.

Nations join other nations who have a common enemy, don't they? They're called allies.

And they support one another, or they're supposed to. And they help defend them.

We should be defending other churches when you hear stuff. When you hear something

bad spoken about another church, don't hop on board that.

Defend them. We have the same enemy.

But somehow, in all the bickering of the church and the body of Christ,

we've tarnished the glory of God and the message of the gospel becomes muted

or silenced or just softer.

It'll never be silenced, but it could be a lot louder. And so we need to recognize

that we have an enemy whose mission is to steal and to kill and to destroy,

to steal the unity of the family of God,

and we need to stand together, and we can do infinitely more together for the

glory of God than we ever could accomplish apart.

We need each other. We need each other.

This morning, if you're taking notes, I want to give you three different reasons why we pray for unity.

Three reasons. The first one is, and I just said it, because we desperately need each other.

Romans 12, 4 and 5 says, For just as each of us has, how many bodies?

One body with many members.

These members do not all have the same function.

In other words, the hand is not the ear and the ear is not the foot.

And the foot is not the elbow.

So in Christ, though many form one body, each member belongs to all the others.

We all belong to each other. We are part of a broader family,

and we are different, and this is by God's design.

We need to understand this about unity. Listen, unity is not the same as uniformity.

Unity is not the same as uniformity. We actually have strength in our differences.

It is our differences that give us the ability to reach many people. Do you hear me?

Generations Church is going to reach some people that other churches aren't going to reach.

And other churches are going to reach people that we will never reach.

And God divinely put us all together as the body of Christ to reach more people.

To accomplish his purposes. Now, what I'm not saying, please hear me because this is very important.

I'm not saying that doctrine does not matter. Doctrine indeed matters.

Doctrine matters. And here's where I will always land. And I think I put it in your notes.

In essentials, unity. We're going to have unity with other churches that claim

and believe the essentials of scripture in theology.

In the non-essentials, there's liberty.

We do not preach something like praying in tongues or speaking in tongues.

That's not where we're at. And I have a viewpoint and a theology about that,

and I believe I'm correct.

There's other people in here that believe and practice it.

That's a non-essential. And there's liberty and there's love.

That's how it works. In non-essentials, there's liberty and freedom.

But in all things, in all things, we love each other.

Love each other. Pastor Jeff, what are the essentials that we must be united on as the body of Christ?

This is very important because this is what defines what we believe.

And if you don't believe these core things, these non-negotiables,

then you might be part of a cult, honestly. And so I believe I put them there.

You guys, I put this, I had a different message. I love that the Lord does this

to me. He's been doing this a lot. I had a different message planned all the way up until yesterday.

And I came in yesterday morning early and did this and then helped some people

move and then came back last night and finished it up.

So not only am I sore because I'm old and can't move refrigerators and freezers

and couches like I used to, but you're getting fresh. This is fresh off the vine.

So, so there's a list of non-negotiables. The first one is the authority of scripture.

The authority of scripture. Scripture is God-breathed.

It's the literal God-breathed word of God, the Trinity.

And you guys, there are Christian leaders and churches that do not believe some of these things.

And if you are part of a group or if you're listening to a pastor online.

They don't believe in the Trinity, you got a problem. You got a problem. You need to run.

There is one God who exists eternally in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Each person is fully God, yet there is only one God.

Number three, the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ. Jesus is fully God and

is fully man. He was born of a virgin.

He lived a sinless life, performed miracles, died on the cross,

rose from the dead, ascended into heaven.

And if you do not believe in the deity of Christ, that he is fully God and fully

man, and that he was born of someone who was not a virgin, you have a good teacher.

You do not have the sinless savior of the world.

He is the son of God, fully God, fully human.

Theology matters, my friends. Number four, the substitutionary death of Christ.

Jesus died on the cross as a substitute for me and for you, for sinners.

He took our place on the cross, on the cross.

And his death fully satisfies the justice of God and the wrath of God and makes

salvation possible for all who believe.

Number five, salvation by grace through faith.

Salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned.

There is no good in us. There is no righteousness apart from Christ in us.

Number six, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus physically rose from the dead on the third day.

There are other theories that he wasn't fully dead or he's once called the swoon theory.

He swooned and then he revived himself. No, he was dead and rose from the dead.

The Bible says what happened, and you believe it or you don't. It's faith.

The return of Christ. Jesus will return bodily and visibly to judge the living

and the dead and to establish his eternal kingdom.

Number eight, the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit convicts the world

of sin, regenerates the believers, indwells, empowers, sanctifies the believer

for Christian living and service.

Number nine, the church is the body of Christ made up of all true believers.

It exists to worship God, to preach the gospel, to make disciples,

and to baptize and build unity in the faith.

That's what church is all about.

Number 10, eternal life and judgment. There is a literal heaven,

and there is a literal hell and we will all spend eternity in one or the other

and God doesn't damn people to hell you choose it.

You choose your eternal destination. These are the core doctrines,

and we could go so deep in each one of these,

but these are the core doctrines that define Orthodox Christianity,

and they remain non-negotiable truths for Christians worldwide.

There may be other important doctrines, but these are the ones that are considered

essentials of the faith.

Now, are there differences within these doctrines? Yes.

That's why there's denominations. But the differences would be considered non-essentials.

For example, Christians generally, hopefully, believe in the return of Christ, the rapture.

Now, within that camp, you've got several different choices to choose from.

There are people that would say, hey, I believe Christ is going to rapture us

before the tribulation.

That's where I land, if you were to ask me. There are some that would say,

I believe in a mid-trib rapture.

You know what? Non-essential. It's okay.

I'm not with you on that, but it's okay. Then there are some that would say post-trib.

Not there either. But guess what? It's a non-essential.

We can still be brothers. We can still do life together. We can still encourage

one another. We can make each other better.

So again, we have in essentials, there is unity found, but in non-essentials,

there is liberty and love in all things.

So we pray for unity in the family of God so that God would be glorified and

the world would know that God sent Jesus.

We do this because we truly, desperately need each other.

Reason number two to pray for unity, because the world will see God's love.

When we are unified as the family of God, they see it demonstrated in our hearts

and lives with an active and passionate love of Jesus and his family.

Romans 15, 7 says, accept one another, just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God.

Are you getting this into your mind yet, that unity brings glory and praise to God?

And it allows people to believe that, wow, there is something different about them.

They drive each other crazy, and they're completely different,

but they still love each other, and they still honor one another,

and they They could be night and day different, but they love each other and

they respect one another.

Romans, the Apostle Paul writes extensively about the righteousness of God and

how it needs to be lived out in the lives of believers.

And so he's writing as an appeal for unity and harmony between the Jewish Christians

and the Gentile Christians.

And so this letter of Paul's is for believers in different camps to reconcile

their differences and to promote mutual acceptance and unity within this Christian community.

There were Jews that were getting saved, and there were Gentiles being saved,

and they come from different places.

And when you come from different places, you tend to throw stones and sling

arrows at the ones that are in different places.

And that should never be.

The word accept here in verse 7 isn't just like, we're going to be tolerant.

What it suggests is a warm welcome and embrace.

It's as if I'm coming over to a friend that is being introduced to me and they're

different as night and day for me, but I'm going to not just,

hey, how's it going? No, I'm going to embrace them warmly.

I'm going to put my arm around them and I'm going to walk through life with

them in spite of the differences.

That's that word accept here. It's a genuine love and genuine interest in the

other person's well-being.

Do you have that for those who are different?

Do you have that for those in your family? Let's start there.

That's hard enough. Don't we want to change a lot of people?

We want them to be how we want them to be or what we think they should be? No.

Love them. Walk with them. Take genuine interest in their well-being.

And in the diverse culture of the early Roman church, it was made up of so many

people from different cultures and different backgrounds and different religious traditions.

And Paul points to the example of Christ accepting us as his example.

Christ accepted us with grace and unconditional love, so we must accept others in the same way.

Again, verse 7 says, in order to bring praise to God.

Listen, unity is an act of worship that honors God and manifests his kingdom

on earth or displays or shows his kingdom on earth.

We are to be known by our love. And when we love each other, we show whose we are.

You hear me? The way that we love each other shows who we belong to.

John 13 says this, a new commandment I give to you, love one another as I have loved you.

I mean, it's a high bar, right? Look how Christ loved people and then say,

okay, I'm going to love people like Christ. That's hard.

Need the Holy Spirit to help us in that. So you must love one another by this.

Everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

I love what Tim Keller said. He was a pastor.

He passed away a couple of years ago, but he said this, you cannot separate

love for God from love for others.

They are two sides of the same coin.

Don't tell me that you love God if you cannot love your neighbor.

Don't tell me you love God if you cannot love your coworker who drives you crazy.

Don't tell me you love God if you don't love the transgender person that walks in the building.

Don't tell me you love God if you don't love people.

There's a difference between loving someone and accepting someone or loving and confronting.

We love. I know. I saw some of you like, ooh, I was good until the transgender

or the homosexual or that person or that person. I know. I know.

Are we called to call out sin?

Listen, it's our job to speak truth in love.

God is the judge and the Spirit convicts.

I will never convict someone of their sin, whether it's the worst sin or someone who's a liar.

I will speak truth. I will speak the Word of God.

And then the Spirit has to do it, His work, in their lives. but it's our job to love.

And guess what? It's that love for them that may draw them to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Only one description of how the world will know we will follow Jesus in all

of the Bible. You know what it is?

If we love one another. If you love one another, they will know.

So we pray for unity, number one, because we need each other.

Number two, because the world will see God's love. And number three,

lastly, because we can do infinitely more together.

This was the heartbeat and the attitude that made the first century church thrive.

Think about it. What did they have? Did they have incredible buildings and lights and sound? No.

Did they have podcasts and fundraisers and special campaigns?

No. What they did have was massive persecution.

People didn't go on Facebook to pound them.

They literally threw rocks, like real rocks, not virtual rocks,

real rocks, and would stone them.

And they would be tortured and they would be killed for saying that they believe

Jesus really did race from the dead.

Yet this little band of non-educated, first century, passionate Jesus followers

spread the gospel all over the world.

And they were known throughout the community that said, we may not believe in

what they believe, but my goodness, look at the way they love each other.

They were known by their love.

Look at the way they love each other. I want people to think about Generations Church and say, wow.

And look at the way they love each other. Look at the way they come to the rescue of somebody in need.

You a picture in Acts 4.32 of what it looked like.

It said, all the believers were one in heart. There's that unity and mind.

No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own. Awesome.

I got a boat I need to borrow. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own.

Just kidding, Paul. But they shared everything they had.

With great power, the apostles continued to testify of the resurrection of the

Lord Jesus and God's grace.

Notice it's God's grace was so powerfully at work in them that there were no

needy persons among them.

They were one in heart, one in mind. They shared everything.

That's a whole nother level to love, isn't it?

I mean, I borrow tools and we lend each other stuff and we help each other out,

but my house is your house.

I used to have a pastor that would say, we're either friends or we're refrigerator friends.

Be a refrigerator friend where you can just go over and you can go through the

refrigerator. That's a whole nother level of friend.

That's a commitment to the body of Christ.

Christians would sell their possessions, give money to the church or to the

leaders, and then the leaders would disperse it.

So when they saw a need, they'd give it to whoever was in need.

I want to be that. I want to be able to meet needs.

There were no needy people among them. Guys, we can accomplish more together than we can apart.

Thursday and Friday of this past week, I was at a pastor's retreat with six

pastors out in the country at this house.

Some of you guys would really, really like it. It was kind of like a huge log

cabin, had fireplaces all over the place and guns and deer hanging everywhere. It was really manly.

And it was out in the middle of the rolling hills of Western Iowa,

and there was just six of us.

And we gathered together, and we're just pastors that are connected through

the SEND network, which we launched with.

Reminded of how our giving and our partnership with the SEND Network and the

North American Mission Board and our missionaries like Abraham Thomas,

how we're able to reach so many more people because of our partnerships with people.

We're able to reach so many more people because we come together in things.

And there are going to be some of you who have given tithes and offering and

have given to missionaries.

And one day when you get to heaven, there's going to be a village of people

that may come up to you and say,

you don't know me, but you gave at Generations Church and they built a water well in my village.

And so we, our whole family traveled. and we got water.

And when we went to get water because we were thirsty, they gave us the living water.

And we're here today because you in Cedar Falls, Iowa, gave money one time to Generations Church.

That's how unity works. That's how the gospel works.

We can do indefinitely more together than we can alone I came across the comic

strip and I am not one of those newspaper guys that reads comics every every

every day or even once a month go ahead and put it up.

It's a white slide. There it is. It's a little hard to read.

I blew it up as big as I could get it up here.

But Lucy comes in and says, switch channels. Like a mean sister would do, right?

And he's watching. Who is that, Minus? See, I'm telling you,

I'm not a cartoon person. I said switch channels.

And I want to watch my program. Are you kidding? What makes you think you can

just walk right in here and take over?

And Lucy says, these five fingers, individually, they're nothing.

But when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon

that is terrible to behold.

Which channel do you want, he says. And he sighs.

And then he looks at himself and he says, why can't you guys get organized?

Music.

And when I saw that, I just thought, wow,

isn't that a picture of the body of Christ? We're out here trying to get things

done, but if we would come together, there would be power.

If we would come together, we could accomplish great things for the gospel.

If we could come together no one would be able to stand against us and there'd

be no needy there'd be no one without,

we could reach not just the Cedar Valley we could reach Iowa we could reach

the United States we could reach the whole world if we came together.

Music.

If we're unified there's nothing that we cannot accomplish for the kingdom of God.

That's it. That's my challenge.

What do we have to do to come together? To accomplish great things for the kingdom. Life is short.

I don't want to get to the end of my life and still be like this.

I want to accomplish great things for the kingdom. I want to reach people.

I want people's lives to be different because each one of you came together,

and accomplished great things.

Your money, your pocketbook isn't going to matter at the end.

Your stats or your trophies that you've earned aren't going to matter at the end.

What's gonna matter are your relationships and the things you were able to accomplish.

Music.

To help meet your needs we want to shepherd you

and love you and

walk with you through the highs and the lows and the mountains and the valleys

of life because we are better together do not go through this life alone i want.

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To challenge you just to come to our membership class after the service.

You'd be glad you did. Heavenly Father, we love you.

We don't want to be in competition with any church. We are the body.

We have different functions, and our differences help us reach more people for the kingdom of God.

Music.