Unity | I Love My Church Part 2

Welcome to the one Crossing podcast here.

You can find past sermons along with other exclusive content.

Our prayer is that God will move in your life, even when you are

on the go, we hope you enjoyed this message.

Well, Crossing Church, how are you doing today?

You doing. All right, it's good.

It is so good. I'm so glad that you are here

today that we have the opportunity to be together

because when we gather together the holy spirit is, in our

Missed. He's in this place.

It changes everything. I want to welcome all of our

campuses joining from all across this region.

We are so thankful for each and every one of you.

And the amazing work you do to build the kingdom of Our Lord,

until he comes back to take us home.

That is so exciting when we get to share.

And if you are inside a part of our inside family, you know that

we're praying for you and we love you.

And we are wanting to encourage you.

And you encourage us every single week when we get Pray for

you, and just looking for that to expand as well.

And if you're online, we're so thankful for you as well.

And look forward to that day, that we get to be able to join

together together in one space, and be able to experience the

Lord together. You don't just look at each

other's faces and God's doing that.

He's opening us up and it's wonderful to experience that

together. How many of you think that Unity

is something that we need to be working on right now.

What do you think Emma? Can I see?

Yeah, yeah, I get a witness for that.

Yeah, Unity is something that's in short supply in our culture

right now. Isn't that true?

It really is. I mean, most of us would

probably say, I don't know if it's ever been worse in my

lifetime. And that is exactly why I'm so

glad that Mark more is going to come and he's going to talk

about unity and he's going to talk about like the difference

that being part of the body of Christ can make it what it can

actually do, and how it can change the world around us.

I'm so excited about that. Now, Mark more is dr.

Mark more and I had the privilege of going to school

with Mark. He was a year behind me.

In school, but ahead of me in every other way.

But definitely a year behind me in school and Mark, when he was

at school. Absolutely.

Loved learning. I mean, I have never seen such a

learning junkie. Every time I saw him, he was

following a professor around like a puppy dog, and he was

just trying to get the best they had and that's never changed

that I don't think that's ever changed in your life.

You've been that guy who's always been hungry to learn.

Earn and that's where those degrees came from that desire.

He's written some incredible books, one of the best books if

not the best book that I've ever experienced with regards to the

Life of Christ, the book of Acts incredible stuff.

Well the reason that he's here speaking this week and next week

is because of core 52. The series we've been going

through these series from January, all through this year

are all based on his book. 4:52 these 52 key verses and

Theological Concepts that we can just nail down our lives.

And I tell you, he has got such a passion for people to be in

the word of the Lord, because when you are it changes people,

it will change you. So I want you to give a

Crossing, welcome at all of our locations to dr.

Mark, Mark more. Come on up here.

Love you brother. Love you too, man.

Well, don't don't say this out loud because I don't want Jerry

to get a big head, but I've been, I've been wanting to

preach at this church for a long, long time.

And it's a joy. You did.

You guys came today ready, like, for church at my right?

Come on, I had an experience. I wasn't even planning on saying

this, in the message, but I like you.

So, I will, when I was doing my, my last degree, I was living in

Prague, and there was a group of women who had come Um, and

visited from the Middle East. And I was headed out of the

apartments where I was living was on the Seminary campus.

And there was this line of women who had come all from Israel,

half of them were Jewish. Half of them, were Arab, all of

them were Christians. And when I was greeted by just

going down the road, send where you where you from?

She isn't. Well, I'm from Israel.

I'm Arab. I'm from Israel.

I'm Jewish. They literally Sat one after

another intermingling together. CNN will never tell that story

because the only peace in the Middle East.

Is with Christians, the only Arabs and Jews that are getting

along together are Christians and you know where that goes

back to the first century church.

So can we have a conversation about Unity of all the things

that Christians should be experts in in our world for

today? And to Jerry's already mentioned

it, we are a divided nation. We of all people should have the

loudest voice about Unity. So let me start with a story.

Several weeks ago, I got a call. It's 9:30 at night.

I was already in bed, don't judge me.

So I ignored the call. And then a few minutes later my

phone rang again. So I that why, I better see who

it is and it was a friend of mine.

Larry. So, I ignored him.

I didn't say it was a good friend, and what he'd actually

is a really good friend, but that wasn't bad.

So I put the phone down. Come minutes later, it rings

again. Larry Larry is in trouble, so I

Larry's not his real name, by the way, but we're gonna call

him Larry. I pick up the phone and said,

oh, what's up? He was devastated crying grown,

man, crying. He was two blocks from my house.

He only lived four blocks from my house and the reason he was

two blocks from my house is because he had wrecked his car

and the Regency to wrecked. His car is that he and his wife,

their marriage was in trouble, and they got in a huge blowout

argument. Now Larry does not have a

drinking problem, he's not a drunk.

This was out of character for him, but every time his wife

said something that made him mad to make her angrier, he just

took shot. She made a lot of really good

points in that argument. I'm just going to say that and

it's so he's just like, you know, shooting a back doesn't

even realize how drunk he is. She by the way, if you're

arguing with the spouse, this is not the strategy.

I would suggest if you want to win the argument.

So he gets mad, he's going to go to a hotel, throw some things in

a suitcase throws on the back of the car and he just guns it out

of the neighborhood. He almost made it out of the

neighborhood. He missed the curve but hit the

curb with up into the I live in Phoenix.

By the way it went into the desert and he hit a saguaro

cactus. Those are the big ones with the

big arms. They're exactly like dogwoods

that white flowers. What just on the top, not like

all over and they don't have any leaves and they all have a lot

of spiky things. But other than that they're

exactly like dogwoods, he hits one of those, which You don't do

that. You don't mess with the Saguaro

like where we live their sacred. And so the neighbor said he told

his car, he can't go anywhere, he can't go back home because he

already burned that bridge. So there he is on the side of

the curb and somebody called the cops because somebody ran into a

saguaro so three squad cars, come and he still sit on the

side of the road and they want to give him a breathalyzer.

Well, my friend Larry's black, he grew up in a ghetto like gang

banging ghetto and he made it out through his athletic

abilities. A phenomenal College athlete.

He got a lot of praise and accolades from that, and then he

he's actually right now, an executive for American Express,

we're talking about a highly educated a high-paid executive.

Who's afraid of the cops? I don't even care what your

opinion is on that, because that's not my experience.

I'm not black. I'm not had to live through

that. This is his experience, his

fear, and the police officers there.

He said, I don't want you to breathalyze me without a

witness. My pastor lives, were just right

around the corner, I'm going to call him and have him.

Come they said. Well, what church you go to and

he said, well Christ Church of the Valley and the sergeant said

me to, he's my pastor to. So it's going to call Pastor.

Mark, have him come as I walk the Blocks.

And there he was, they explained the situation is okay.

Well, let's do the breathalyzer he was drunk.

There's just no denying it. So they put handcuffs on him.

He was so ashamed. So embarrassed and they put him

in the back of the squad car. So I helped the officers clean

out the car because this total is going to be pulled out.

So we got everything, he possessed out of the car kids

car seats and we took them over to the house.

And by the time I came back, the sergeant said, our would you be

able to stick around for about 15 more minutes?

Absolutely been there about 45, they were going to take him down

to the station. I'm just going to have to go get

him about two in the morning and the sergeant came back.

He made a decision I've never I don't know about law enforcement

so I'm not an expert in this. But the decision he made was

that Larry would be better and our community would be better in

the hands of a pastor than in the system.

So he pulled Larry out, he took the handcuffs off and he said,

Larry, I know you're driving the car.

You told me you're driving the car, but I didn't see you drive

the car, so when our country you're innocent until proven

guilty, So I'm going to release you to your pastor and you know

why I'm like he couldn't say it out loud but he said, you know,

I'm doing this. So I took Larry to my house, I

laid him on the couch. I took us took his shoes off and

for about two hours, he just whimpered.

Finally fell asleep about two in the morning.

I woke him up. Put a shoes back on him and

walked him to his house. But it's bothered me, why?

A man of his stature. Would be so riled up.

When we've really we have come, we have come a long way.

Haven't we and racial reconciliation?

Now, I'm not saying we don't have a long way to go.

We do. But why?

Now, why this year has such tension exploded but don't press

pause on that thought. Come on, come over to the

political scene. Hello, it's no different between

Republicans and Democrats. This why?

Now Why here where is there? Such explosion and what I'm

about to say. I'm not justifying like I'm not

making excuses for anything but I will tell you this, there is a

scientific reason, why we are so spun up about everything, it

doesn't matter what the issue is on the table, it could be black

lives matter, it could be blue lives matter.

It could be Republicans, it could be Democrats.

It could be CNN or Fox News but let me tell you What is making

the problem way worse than it needs to be anyone?

You can, like raise your hand on all our campuses.

Anyone seen the social dilemma? That that documentary on Netflix

messed me up because what they showed is they are algorithms in

every social media platform. If you're on Google, if you're

on Facebook or on Instagram, no matter where, if you're on

Netflix, wherever you go, there's an algorithm that knows

you better than you know you and there's one scene where the

algorithms were personified. So they had three guys in a

studio, there's all kinds of buttons and knobs And TV

screens, and they're studying this one user, and he's there

looking on his phone. And they're basically saying,

okay, how can we keep him on his phone as long as possible so

that he will buy more that is what the social dilemma is all

about and they have mastered it and the, more your online, the

better they get at keeping you online, they know what buttons

to push, they know what adds to give you, but the consequence of

that It is they know what you want to hear.

So, you go online and you Google something.

If I Google something and you Google, something, you will get

different results because they know what you want to hear.

So the consequence is we're all hearing, what we want to hear,

and we think that everybody's hearing the same thing and we're

not So someone watches Fox News, the other person watches MSNBC

and the person who watches MSNBC is, I can't believe those people

are so stupid that they don't know this and the people

watching fox say, but I can't believe you're so stupid, you've

never heard this. So our families like

Thanksgiving for me is a terrible time now, anyone else

you just can't even be in the same room with these people

because they're so stupid. And we're convinced that we have

all the information and everybody else is somehow

mentally deficient, what has happened?

Please hear me say this on all our campus.

This is so important. Some of you got, what does this

have to do with the Bible? You're about to find out, we are

past the point of civil discourse.

We are now incapable of having a conversation with another person

because everyone has in their ear, what they want to hear, and

everybody else is wrong. We cannot have a civil

conversation, that's why more than ever.

The Church of Jesus Christ. Has to be.

Please hear me? Say this has to be the source of

unity in our nation or God help us because nobody else is.

So I'm going to share two passages of scripture with you.

One will tell you why the problem is worse than you think,

or more important than you think.

And the other is going to give you an actual solution.

How can you create? Dirty, this will work in your

Bridge Club. This will work on your sports

team. This will work in your church.

This will work in your community.

It's the same strategy, it's God's strategy for Unity texture

here scripture number one, this comes from the life of Jesus.

In fact, for the last night of his life, he prays a prayer

longest prayer of Jesus recorded in the Bible.

John 17, the whole chapter is one prayer, we get down to verse

20, and Jesus. Says he's talking to God, I do

not ask for these alone 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 listen

so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

How we doing? The guy drove up Main Street in

Quincy Illinois. And I noticed all the different

churches along that corridor. How we doing with unity pretty

poorly. If the church cannot be unified,

how will the world know, the one God that we know brothers and

sisters? I'm laying down the gauntlet.

If we don't stand together as body of Believers, I expect the

world to be at each other's throat.

I expect the world to hate each other, I expect politicians to

undercut each other. I don't expect it in the church

and if the church forfeits are Divine, Right are divine.

When responsibility to be the unity of God in our world, how

will we ever have Unity across any other divided?

Economic, gender, cultural or ethnic?

This is our responsibility and we need to get better at it.

In fact, let me share something else with you and this is going

to sound heretical. So save your darts till later.

God said, yes to the prayer. Jesus said, Lord, may they be

one in us as I am in you and you are in me.

May they be what God Said? Yes.

You said, no. This is the only prayer that

Jesus ever prayed that you are more capable of answering than

God, the Father. It sounds like them.

How can you even say that? Because God answers all prayers.

Nope. God Gave You Free Will.

And you have the free will to be unified or not to be unified if

you're on one of our campuses. And you have a division with

another group, or another group of people, this is on you.

And the stakes are higher than your personal preference for

your political position, or your cultural background.

The stakes are this, that there are lost people who will go to

hell because you you can't get along.

Your opinion is not that important.

It's certainly not as important as the unity of the church and

it is certainly not as important as the salvation of people who

will not come to Christ. If the church continues to be

divided is that important? So that's how high that's all

Hiatus. Okay, so let's let's actually

talk about the solution to this. The Apostle Paul makes a

statement in Galatians 3:28 Eight.

Galatians 3:28

There is neither Jew, nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free.

There is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ.

Paul said that in the first century when racism was Far

deeper than it is today in our country, then sexism and ageism

and economic divide was far greater than in our nation right

now. Do you know that in all of the

Roman world? There was one organization and

only one that had male and female rich, and poor slave and

free Citizen and non-citizen in one room at the same time.

My son is a is a family pastor at a little church in Loganville

Georgia called Corinth, Christian Church, go Rams,

Christian Church. Clayton, I have no idea why you

would ever name a church Corinth Christian Church, like of all

the shirts with each other. This church is more screwed up

than any other shirts. You know why?

Because they had more diversity than any other Church.

They had rich and poor slave and free different ethnicities.

And I just want to commend this church.

When I said earlier that I've been longing to preach at this

church. That's that's not Hyperbole.

And one of the reasons is there is no church reaching that I

know of reaching a greater diversity of Economics.

Did you know that on your campuses you have This is

unbelievable. There's greater ethnic diversity

on your campuses than in the communities, where you live.

That is really cool. So it's not it's not all bad.

In fact as I travel around the country, when I see other

churches, the church is doing better than ever at diversity.

You know, why that is? I'm about to show you.

This is a this is a passage from Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

It says get to it. Here there is one body and one

Spirit just as you were called in one hope that belongs to your

call one Lord, one faith. With one baptism, one God and

Father of all, who is over all and through all, and in all.

And let me just pause there for a second and say, the only hope

for Unity and I don't care what your religious background is or

what your cultural background is.

The only time human beings are naturally unified is when there

are something above their differences, that is more

important than their personal preferences.

Can I say that again? The only time you will have

Unity T in humanity is when there are something above their

differences, that is more important to them than their

preferences. Let me give you two examples,

football fields, not the locker room football fields, when

you're playing in a football game, let's say you get to the

championship, I don't care what color your quarterback is, what

color? The receivers are the only color

you care about is the Jersey. Because if you can help me win,

I might hate you in the locker room, but when we have a goal,

that's bigger than our differences, that's more

important than our preferences. Then we will drive to that goal

together, so the athletic field and then the battlefield, I

don't care. What color your skin is, I count

care what color your uniform is. I care what direction, your gun

is pointing and when the church points their guns at each other,

It's because we've forgotten who the real enemy is.

We've got to do better than our culture around us.

Listen, they don't have the Holy Spirit, they don't have the word

of God. They don't have access to the

wisdom and Truth through which Unity will take place.

So if you care about different ethnicities and you do, I know

you do, if you care about different genders and you do, I

know you do, if you care about different economics and I know

you do, you're putting it into practice as a church then for

God's sake. Make sure that there's one Lord

in this church so that all people will have equal access to

our great. God, fair enough.

Okay. That's the easy part. here's the

hard part, how God has a brilliant but simple strategy

for Unity and it is I'm going to keep reading in the verse if I

could just read verse 7, but Grace was given to each one of

us. According to the measure of

Christ's gift, it's called spiritual gifts down.

In verse 11, he's going to start identifying some of the very

specific gifts prophecy teaching speaking in tongues.

You've heard about the gifts of the holy spirit, right?

If you Look through all the New Testament.

This is my professor hat coming on.

Now there are three passages that lists.

The gifts, Ephesians 4, Romans 12.

First Corinthians 12, put them all together.

Take every every item on every lift you get 16 different gifts

of the Holy Spirit. So what people tend to do is

they will combine the list and they'll give you a survey and

say which of these gifts are your spiritual gifts problem.

Your gift might not be on the list.

Here's why the list in the Bible we're never intended to be

complete lists. It's not like a pilot, checking

the list to take off the plane. I want him to have a complete

list, trust me. But the list of say, the

requirement for elders, we have a different list in Titus than

we do in first Timothy. Where they different

qualifications. No the list is a portrait to be

painted. The list of sins in Colossians 3

is different than in First Corinthians.

Is it mean that they're different things going on in

those to know it's a portrait being painted?

Is this make sense the fruit of the spirit?

So it's absolutely, that's not the only fruit of the spirit so

the gift. Let me, let me list to you.

Several gifts that are not in the Bible, but we all agree

their spiritual gifts. Here's one music.

Would anybody disagree that the musicians on our stages on your

campus? Those musicians were gifted by

God to lead you to his throne. No, it's pretty clear.

How about counselors God knows we need them.

And I'm not one of them, the not my gift but we need them.

It's never listen to the Bible. Humour, I happen to think I'm

hilarious and your opinion doesn't really matter much to me

about that. I think I'm funny other might

disagree. But humor is never in a

spiritual gift list in the Bible but Solomon said laughter is

good medicine. So apparently Clayton is a

doctor, amen. Do you know what?

The very first spiritual gift was ever given not in the New

Testament. The Old Testament, the first

spiritual gift ever given was to a guy named bozell.

He's listed in Exodus and his his specific gift in Exodus 31

to through. Five is to construct the

Tabernacle of God, he was gifted with color coordination working

with different fabrics and materials, arranging faith.

I Bizet Le was alive today. He would be on HGTV.

The guy just has the touch. Some of you are gifted at the

interior design and you never believed it was a spiritual

gift. So how could you know this is an

important question. How could you know your

spiritual gift if it's not listed in the Bible?

All right, huddle up here, I'm going to tell you in 15 seconds.

You can time me. When I say go, 15 seconds.

I'm going to tell you how to know for sure, what your

spiritual gift is, you ready? Go.

Walk into a room. Look around.

See what needs to be done that you could do with excellence and

would want to do That's your spiritual gift.

Yummy say it again, walk into a room.

See what you notice that others don't notice that you want to do

and could do with Excellence. That's your spiritual gift.

Now in that simple statement are a couple of really important

truths. Some of you are saying, well,

you know, I've always been good at this.

Maybe I've always had a knack for speaking.

I've always had a knack for interior design.

I've always had a knack with numbers.

That's not a spiritual gift, that's a natural gift time.

Out. There are some gifts that I just

believe. Some of them are Oculus gifts.

The holy spirit gives after your baptized And we see people who

maybe spoke in tongues or people in the Bible who prophesied or

whatever they did, but the vast majority are spiritual gifts,

not given at baptism, but given at Birth, they are natural gifts

at Birth, that become spiritual gifts.

Not when the spirit gives them to you, but when you give them

back to the spirit, Paul makes a statement that all spiritual

gifts are to serve the body, they're intended to be given to

the body. And if you're not serving some

with your, with your gift, it's not spiritual.

It's just a natural ability, but the minute you give your natural

ability to the body of Christ. It becomes a spiritual gift.

That should encourage some of you because some of you have

been saying, well, and I want to serve the church.

I want to do this, but I just don't know if this is like

maybe, you know, I'm good with cooking.

Are you kidding me? Do you know that every meal in

the entire Bible is spiritual? That's that, is it, you could

turn your dinner table into an altar for God, to do his work in

somebody else's life, you can use your ability with making

money. That is a spiritual gift.

But think about this, the making of money, there's some people

that are just as good at it. If you think that God gave you

that gift, because he likes you, you'll spend the money on you.

God never gave you a gift because he likes you, he gave

you a gift because he loves someone else.

And he wants to love someone else through you and here's what

happens. If all of us had all the gifts,

none of us would be dependent on each other.

But when the Holy Spirit decided to withhold all the gifts but

one or two from everyone else, but you like you have your gift

and everyone else has their gift.

Suddenly you get in the room and you go, I need that.

I need your help with that. And I become dependent on you

and you become dependent on me and we become dependent on them.

The idea of mutual service for Mutual dependence.

So that all of us Us could make the name of Jesus famous.

That is how Unity is built in our community.

And so one of the things that I have loved seeing through this

church, in particular, is the way that you have just poured

into the community and said, we're going to be a church that

focuses on reaching people in our community who are hurting,

who are lost, who are poor, who are hungry.

Because what you're saying to them is not, this is not a

statement of benevolence, we're going to take care of Love you.

You're saying we respect your Humanity.

We need your ability. Come join us.

So we're going to do about it. I appreciate your affirmation be

clapping every now and then and looking and nodding.

I appreciate that. But that doesn't change

anything. Our world is desperately

divided. And yet, I see Christians in the

church, taking sides over issues, that will be of no

consequence in. Eternity, isn't it time?

Starting with the crossing that in our communities?

That we put a stake in the ground and say, we are not going

to be distracted by diversions of politics, or social or

culture. But we are going to care for

people because they have something to offer to the body

of Christ. So here's my question.

Very simple question. What are you going to do about

it? Not in theory, but on your

campus. How are you going to serve a

church to walk into the room and look around and say what needs

to be done that I could do? I would enjoy doing that and I

could do it with Excellence. That's your spiritual gift and

without your spiritual gift, there's part of the body of

Christ that will not be fully mature and fully unified.

Meaning, somebody won't know Jesus Is, if everybody isn't

doing their part to serve the body of Christ.

What is your gift? It's time to make a decision.

I mean right now and on your campus you're going to see some

leaders in front. And they want to hear what your

gift is. You may take a typical took a

while to get get everybody involved.

It may take a while to create a space for that and listen to

this is I need to say this because I know what happens at

my church. Someone says, hey I've got this

ministry. So what are you going to do to

make my Ministry? Work know, if God called you

that's on, you not me. You make a way and we'll get out

of the way. So Jesus can have his way.

It's time to move into a time of decision.

What your gift? Let's make that decision right

now. Thank you for joining us.

A special thank you to those of you that choose to give to this

ministry it's because of your generosity that this ministry is

possible. You can click the link in the

description to give now or visit the crossing dotnet forward

slash podcast for more information.

If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to subscribe and share with

your friends, tagging one Crossing on social media.

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for joining us.

A special thank you to those of you that choose to give to this

ministry it's because of your generosity that this ministry is

possible. You can click the link in the

description to give now or visit the crossing dotnet forward

slash podcast for more information.

If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to subscribe and share with

your friends, tagging one Crossing on social media.

Thank you so much for listening.