15 June 2025: Building the House of God #5 Unity (Justin Evers)

Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South

Australia. I've got to change what I what I

wanted to do because, and I want to give you context for it

because it doesn't happen often. I'm very much a person who comes

and kind of like I've prayed. I know what I want to share, but

the Bible is very clear that we see in part, we don't

necessarily see the whole thing. And I feel this morning there

has been this theme we gathered to gathered this morning to pray

and Hillary came in and said, Hey, I've really feel the unity.

I really feel unity over this morning.

And then Anne's coming up with a word that says, Hey, you know,

David and Jonathan in, in unified covenant with each

other. Like, thank God I, I had

something ages ago on unity and like, I had something different.

I wanted to preach. But I feel maybe this morning,

let's just actually, let's talk about this idea of unity

because, well, actually, why don't you open your Bibles to

Psalm 133? This is whenever we talk about

unity, this is kind of where we we sit as a Psalm.

It's one of the great chapters in the Bible that speaks of

unity. And to me, it's just an

incredible picture of what happens when God's people live

in unity. And if you remember a couple of

months ago, we talked about our eight building blocks to build

God's house. And the first one that we see

when these people gathered together to build God's house

was that they came together in unity.

They came together side by side that had one purpose, one mind.

We're going to build God's house together.

And so it is essential, you see, even at the beginning of the

early church, it says they all gathered together in one place.

They all gathered together with one mind, with one purpose, with

one heart. So this idea of unity is central

to what God wants to do. And we'll look at that text as

well. We'll look at where Jesus prays.

A similar prayer, but I want to start here.

In Psalm 133, it says, behold, how good and how pleasant it is

when brothers dwell together in unity.

It is like the precious oil upon the head running down on the

beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of

his robes. We'll stop there.

That is a, that is a lot of oil. That's like, if you, if you

think about this context here, this is so when the scriptures

talk of oil, it speaks of the anointing of God, It speaks of

the Spirit of God, right? When we see that throughout the

Scriptures, one of the pictures used to describe the anointing

of God, right? We're not talking about a little

bit of anointing here. For the oil to run down over

somebody's beard, to run down his head, run down the collar of

his robes. That's a lot of oil.

That's a lot of anointing. Like when we walk together in

unity, there's not just a little bit of what God wants to do.

Like God can do incredible amounts of stuff when these

people walk together in unity. When we walk in in division, God

could do maybe a little bit. But when we come together in

unity, when we come together with this is what we can expect

God to do. We can expect there to be such

an anointing in the place that it just runs down and, and out

and over the beard and just runs out.

Man, this is the pursuit. This is why we pursue unity.

Because I'm sure all of us, we'd be like, man, I just want more

of the anointing of God. I want more of the life of God

in our meetings. I want more of the life of God

in my family, man, for me to get there.

Pursue unity at all costs. Pursue unity at all costs

because this is a lot of oil. This is a lot of anointing oil.

And that's what they used to do in the old, old covenant.

We, we talk about anointing with oil and we might put a little

dab or something, but when they anointed, they poured heaps of

oil and it just ran down over the beard.

It was dripping with anointing unity.

When we walk in godly unity, it drips with the anointing of God.

It just drips with it like it it causes like people look at it

and they're going how does that even work because it's dripping

with the anointing of God. So important.

Next verse. It's like the Jew of Herman

descending upon the mountains of Zion for there the Lord has

commanded the blessing life forevermore.

It is one of those things that God that brings the command of

God like this is this to me is amazing, right?

Like when we live in unity, it's not just like, you know, God

might bless it if he wants to. It says where there is unity,

God commands his blessing. Like it's a definitive from God.

Like when there is godly unity, God speaks and doesn't just

suggest that there might be might be blessing or anything

like that. It's like God he commands his

blessing to be present where there is unity, where there's

godly unity. I think we do we need do need to

make sure we kind of align this here that like sometimes what we

think unity is and what God thinks unity is can be very

different. Just because we are all seated

in this room here together in one place does not necessarily

mean we are in unity. We need to be in godly unity.

Amen. God, godly unity is what what we

need to be in so godly unity. Let me why don't we turn to one

Samuel chapter 18, which is we this was talked about this

morning and just speaks of unity and shared this this morning

just around David and Jonathan. And I just wanted to see this

because this is this is significant.

The way that these guys walked in godly unity.

Like this just wasn't just another friendship.

Like I can say that I'm again, I can say that I'm in unity, but

it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm in godly unity and I'm in

covenantal unity with somebody else.

Just because we're all in the same room, just because we're

sitting next to each other does not mean necessarily that we are

in unity. It says here in one Samuel

chapter 18. It says now when he had finished

speaking to Saul, this is David. The soul of Jonathan was a knit

to the soul of David. The soul of Jonathan was a knit

to the soul of David on that, that to sinking that that there

is is biblical unity. If if I've knitted something

together, it is very difficult for me to separate it apart.

When my soul is knit to Colin, it is very difficult because

what happens to Colin? I feel that I'm connected to

Colin more than just that I've I've given him a hug or a

handshake. Like my soul is knitted with

Colin. What happens to Colin?

I'm affected by what happens to me.

Colin's affected by that's unity talks here.

This the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David and

Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

Biblical unity looks out for each other as if it was my own.

So when I'm, when I'm here and I'm, I'm sorry, Colin, I'm

picking on this morning just because you're there, I know

you, you'll be fine with this. I know you're fine with this,

right. But by the way, that we, we

don't have disunity, as far as I know, we don't have division as

far as we know. But like Jonathan loved him as

his own soul. Like when I think about biblical

unity, that's, that's the heart posture that I need to have that

my soul is knit with Colin and that Colin's soul is knit with

me. And that when I love Colin as

much as I love myself, the Bible is the Bible is very clear that

I need to do that. And so here's Jonathan.

He's he's connected himself with David.

He's going, we're not just going to be friends, we're going to be

in covenant. And there's a big difference

between again, earth, the unity, which we probably term more

friendship and biblical unity, which is covenant.

We walk in covenant with each other, like all of us and, and

us as a church and other churches as well.

We're called to walk in covenant, not just in

friendship. And there's a big difference.

There's a huge difference. And so we, we look at this and I

just want to pick out three, three things.

That covenant, kind of what covenant looks like.

We go on here and it says in verse 3, it actually uses the

word covenant. It said, then Jonathan and David

made a covenant. They made a covenant.

So they're kind of going, this is this steps beyond our normal

friendship, this steps beyond earthly unity.

We're making a covenant here. It says this because he loved

him as his own soul. Verse 4 And Jonathan took off

the robe that was on him and gave it to David with his armor,

or some of your Bibles might say his breastplate and even his

sword, his bow and his belt. Jonathan took off his robe, he

took off his armour and he took off his sword, his bow, and his

belt. So I want to kind of group those

into three his robe, his armour, and his sword, bow and belt.

So firstly, Jonathan in Covenant, he gives David his

robe and this is an incredible picture of honor.

When we walk in biblical unity, there's an honor that takes

place, right? It's just it's not just that I

like Colin, but I honor Colin and godly with godly honor.

It's not that just I have to submit to my leaders.

I honor my leaders, I honor each other.

I honor the gifts that all everyone brings into the church.

It says here, like this is this is Jonathan not just kind of say

he's giving, I'm not sure how much.

You know, Jonathan's the son of the king.

So this isn't just any old, any old bathrobe that he's offering

him, right? This is his kingly robe.

This is this is a robe that carries significant position

with it. And Jonathan's giving it over to

David and saying, hey, you're going to now be recognized like

me. Like this is a huge piece that

happens here. Jonathan gives David a kingly

robe. Now, when every anybody comes

from behind, what are they going to see?

They're going to see the robe. They're going to see Jonathan's

robe. They're not going to see that

it's David wearing it. So people are going to honor and

he, Jonathan's honoring David in such a significant way here.

And so when we come and we knit together in biblical unity, we

come and we honor each other. We honor the gifts, we honor

what each person contributes to the body of Christ.

We honor other churches like we're we're called to walk,

honoring each other and lifting each other up.

And the other thing here, which is quite interesting is Jonathan

takes off his rope. I want like he didn't go and go

to his bag and pick up another robe and say, here you have a

robe, right? I've, I've got a spare.

You can have my spare robe. It's OK.

I've got the actual robe, right? He took the robe off himself and

he gave it to David. That is an incredible act of

humility. This is an incredible act of

humility. Biblical unity requires

humility. Because it's not enough for me

to say, hey, you know, I, I honour Alan, but I still think

I'm pretty good. But I honour Alan, but not quite

as much as I honour myself, because I give him my spare

robe. I give him the honour that's

leftover. But you know, you still need to

honour me. Jonathan's not doing that.

Jonathan's kind of Jonathan is giving.

He's taking off his robe and saying, actually, I'm going to

walk in humility here. You're going to get all the

honour. You're going to get the honor

that I should actually get, but you're going to get it because

I'm giving you my robe. I think for us, we need to

understand here the great picture of this is Jesus, right?

The great picture of this is Jesus, who the Bible says in

Philippians chapter 2 that who made himself nothing.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

He was God. He is in the very image of God,

but he made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a

servant. He takes off any kingly robe

that he had any, any right of claim to that.

And then the Bible speaks that he then gives us a robe of

righteousness like he came in such humility, in such humility.

And that's the attitude that God calls us to walk in with each

other, to walk in such humility, honoring one another above

yourself. And that's that's what we see

here with Jonathan and David. Jonathan Carnes, he says, I'm

going to honor you above my myself.

I've nipped my soul to you and I'm going to honor you above

myself. The next thing we see with

Jonathan and David is he takes off his armor.

He gives David his armor. And this here is obviously

Jonathan's protection. Biblical unity looks out for

each other. Like if if somebody is coming

under attack, if somebody's being attacked by the enemy or

being attacked by people. I remember when I was young,

younger, when I was when I was at primary school, Let's go

there. When I was at primary school, I

got in trouble quite a bit, but the common thread of the reason

I got in trouble was because people were picking on my

brothers. People were picking on my

younger brothers who were new to the school.

And I'm like, hang on, I'm, I'm the older brother here.

I've got to, I have to go and protect these guys with

everything that I have. Why we were, we were blood

related. That is kind of the, the unity

that the, the Bible speaks of, right?

It isn't just yeah, oh, you're getting attacked.

OK, you stand up. Come on, you fight.

No, no, no. Like I'm coming alongside of you

and I'm protecting you with everything that I have.

It's not like I give up out of the battle.

And I say, you know what? It's getting a bit hard for me

now. You're on your own.

You've got to fight for me. No, I'm fighting in the secret

place for you. I'm fighting for you to see the

breakthrough. I'm fighting for you to come

into the fullness of God. Biblical unity is about

protecting each other. And it's not just even

protecting each other just from spiritual stuff.

Like this is protecting each other with our words.

It's protecting each other from the words of others.

Like Jonathan is giving all of his armor his breastplate.

It's it's protecting their heart.

It's it's helping, helping them be protected in here and

protected in their mind. It's it's us coming alongside

and encouraging, But that also means that nothing out of here

comes down to put you down, right?

When I walk in biblical unity, you should not see anything

coming out of my mouth that's going to bring you down because

like that's not biblical unity because I'm out to protect you

at all costs. Like Jonathan gives his armor to

David. He says, not only am I giving

you honor and position, but I'm also protecting you.

I'm also going to do everything in my power to protect you from

the enemy, to protect you from what's coming.

And it's quite interesting, even down the tracks, Saul, King Saul

is out to try and kill David. So that's Jonathan's dad.

So Jonathan's dad is out to kill David.

And so you can imagine Jonathan's now in this quandary.

He's like, well, I've got my dad's and I've got this guy I'm

in covenant relationship with. It's quite interesting.

Do you know who he sides with? The majority of it, his eyes

with David, he goes, well, let me go find out the truth.

And if it's true, I will do everything I can to get you out

of the city and to protect you. And he finds out it's true.

He's going OK. I'm going to look.

I have to stay with my dad. I'm kind of the son of the king.

But I'm going to get you out safely.

I'm going to send you on your way.

Covenant unity, biblical unity looks out for each other.

It means when somebody's missing, like today, becoming a

man, are they OK, man? Do they need anything?

Is there anything I could do to help them?

Can I pray, can I visit? Can I prepare something for

them? How can I protect them?

Biblical unity seeks to protect. And the third thing here, it

says that Jonathan gave David his sword, his bow and his belt.

It speaks of purpose. Biblical unity has a unified

purpose. When there's like, if there's,

it's a funny statement like when there's two visions, call it

division. Biblical unity has a single

singular purpose. But I can't come and I can't

say, hey, Colin, we're a unity. But you're going to go that way.

I'm going to go this way. And by the way, we're not, we're

not going to be doing the same thing, right?

I think there's a couple of ways we can, we can kind of slice

this like we could, we could still be doing the same thing in

God, like, and I think when we're talking about doing

different things, right, it still comes back to God's

purpose, right? What we're talking about here,

we're not talking about the fact that, you know, Colin might be

ministering over here to these people.

I'm ministering to these people. That's not division because,

well, hopefully it's not division like because we're

still serving the purposes of God, right?

It's when I'm going off and I'm trying to make a name for myself

over here and I'm trying to do this thing and I don't care what

Colin is doing Jonathan here is kind of going we're going to

we're going to be on the same purpose.

We're going to be on the same team.

Biblical unity is about being on the same team when we're talking

about unified purpose. Ephesians when it talks about

this is going I pray you're going to be of 1 heart and one

mind under 1 Lord you're going to be really going after all,

contending for the gospel as one man.

In other words, when people. When people look at us, they

don't see two different individuals trying to fight for

their own thing. They see us together standing

for the same thing. And I think there's there's a

great unfortunate reality that's happening around us where

different Christians, different churches, different groups of

people, they're kind of running after their own thing.

And it's not about running after our thing, right?

This is not about running after our thing.

This is about running after his thing.

And when Jonathan comes and he says, here, have my sword and

have my bow, have my belt, you're coming into me with one

purpose. We're going to be on the same

team here. And we're going to do the same

thing. And that's not about Jonathan

saying, hey, now you're going to take on my purpose.

He's going to go, no, no, we're, we're, we're on the same team

and we're fulfilling the same purpose.

And that's, that's ultimately making much of him.

But here Jonathan and David, as we, we read earlier, like

they're knitted together in Seoul, which means if one of

them starts going the other way, like they're, they're together

on this, right? We're, we're in unity with each

other. I think when we come together in

unity and pursue godly unity, we need to make sure that we are

honoring each other. We're honoring God, we're

honoring each other, we're looking out and protecting each

other and we're encouraging each other in the same purpose, the

purposes of God. We're coming together in one

purpose with one mind, one heart, contending for one

gospel, contending as one man for the gospel and the purposes

of God. I think we can, we can get so

sidetracked when we start going after our purposes and our

plans. And sometimes I know I have been

in this place where we kind of disguise our purposes and our

plans as God's plans, but they're not really God's plans.

Like if we, if we really searched our hearts, we're like,

this is this is what God is saying.

This is God's plans. But if we really searched in our

heart, it's not really God's plan.

I think #1 we need to make sure that we're on the purposes of

God. But they're then together, we're

encouraging each other and saying, hey, this isn't about

getting on my team. It's about getting on his team.

And us sharing one purpose, contending as one man for the

gospel. And when we come together, it's

not necessarily about who's leading a meeting or whose

church do we go to Paul, Paul has a God that says, hey, you

guys are like chasing after this leader in that church.

And this thing in that church is going, hey, Christ isn't divided

like Christ is not divided. Guys like we remember, come

together on one purpose as one parent, as one man contending as

one man for the gospel. And so we speak of godly unity.

We need to make sure that our hearts are needed, that we come

with honor for each other. We're looking out for each

other, and we're contending as one man for the gospel side by

side. It's again, it's not about me

doing my thing, you doing your thing.

It's about us doing his thing together.

While you turn with me. We'll move across into John, the

Gospel of John. John chapter 17, it's the the

John 17 · chapter mention

chapter, it could be the great high priestly prayer.

It's it's where we get a glimpse into what Jesus potentially

prayed in the gun in the Gethsemane.

This is this is what he prays in verse 20 and this is he doesn't

pray this just he says, I do not pray for these alone.

So he's kind of he's prayed for himself.

He's prayed for his disciples. He's going, I do not pray for

these alone, but also for all those who will believe in me

through their word that's referring to us.

So Jesus directly now saying I'm praying for them, praying for

us, that they may all be one as you Father are in me and I in

you. We speak of the Trinity, the

three persons. God is 3 persons in one,

indistinguishable. You can't separate one from the

other. You can't say we got Jesus, the

Holy Spirit of Father like you. You can't do that.

They are so one person that you cannot separate them.

And that's the picture that Jesus is praying for.

Now is unity. He's saying like again, that

knitting of your soul. So I pray that they're going to

be as one, just as you, Father, are in me and we are one that

the world may believe that you sent me.

This to me is remarkable. When we walk in biblical unity,

it is one of the biggest displays to the world that Jesus

is here and he is present and he's in our midst.

It is one of the biggest displays when his people walk in

unity. I think we can.

So often we can say, man, we can preach the gospel and that's

great. We should be preaching the

gospel. We can go pray for the sick.

Yes, we can. But when people stand to unity,

it is something that Jesus said. This is how the world will know

that you've sent me. When the Church lives together

in unity, that's when people will know we move on.

The glory which you gave me, I have given them that they may be

one, just as we are one, I in them, you in me, that they may

be made perfect in one. And again, that the world may

know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have

loved me. This is phenomenal.

Again, I'm just when we speak of unity, it isn't just for our

sake. Hey, I want to I want to relate

better to Colin. This is one of those things that

God commands his blessing on. But he also says this is one of

the great witnesses to the world around us.

When the church lives together in unity, not only does God

command his blessing, not only is there incredible honor and

protection and unity of purpose, but it is one of the great

evangelism tools of the church. It's one of the great evangelism

tools. Jesus said, And I think we we

always need to my Bible's got it in red letters.

It's like, pay attention to what Jesus says and he says that the

world may know that you have sent me the purpose.

We walk in unity ultimately it's not just so that we have a good

relationship with each other and that we receive the blessing of

God, but the reason we pursue unity ultimately is to show the

world, hey, God exists. Jesus exists and there to show

them that Jesus has been sent by God as a great witness that when

people look in and go, I want that again.

Jesus says they may be made perfect in one and that the

world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as

you loved me. I want to encourage us like we

spoke again a few weeks ago, what one of the building, core

building blocks of building God's church was coming together

in unity. And it is hard sometimes to

build in unity because anything that the enemy is trying to do

is bring division. He sow seeds of division.

He sow seeds of of deception and just ideas in our head that is

simply not true. He's trying to bring division at

all costs. But let's be people who who

pursue unity at all costs, who deal with things in our heart

quickly, who seek to honor and seek to protect when things come

in that they try and tell me that Colin has done such and

such like, sorry, Colin, we have a good relationship.

But like when think when the enemy comes in, he's sowing

cords, seeds of kind of deception and disunity.

I'm very quick to say, no, I'm going to protect this

relationship at all costs, at all costs.

I'm going into my prayer room and I'm going to be praying for

this relationship because the Bible tells me like this is

important. Biblical unity is important and

as much as it is a physical thing that we have to work

towards, it is a spiritual thing.

We are up against a real spiritual enemy that's trying to

bring division because he knows that when he brings division,

the world will ignore the church.

He knows that Jesus said where there is unity, then the world

will know that you have sent me. Where there is unity, the world

will know that you have sent me. Let's be a people that in every

way pursue unity. Pursue biblical unity at all

costs. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for today's message.

For more information about The Way Church, please visit

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Have a blessed day.