Win The World: Thriving in Unity

Hello and welcome to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

We're Startup Church.

We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more.

You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that.

We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

That's awesome.

Amen.

Amen.

Yeah.

Give them a round.

Give them a round.

We, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna, uh, start with a prayer and then we're going to open the Bible together and, uh, and then, and then we'll be dismissed.

I know you guys have done so much.

It's only been day two.

It feels or not.

It feels like it really has only been day two.

Uh, you guys have been working so hard.

Uh, let, let's pray, uh, call on God for strength right now.

Um, dear God, Lord, uh, God, we really, we do pray for all of the people who we reached out to.

Father, I know that you were glorified, you were as glorified with the person who didn't even acknowledge us as you are with the one who was so open and so interested in following you, God.

And you're glorified because we're going out in faith, father.

I pray that we will tap in and lean in and rely on your strength.

Father, I pray that we will, uh, Lord, Lord, we're really are, I think in these next few weeks, a couple of weeks going to see our weaknesses and where we just need to rely and trust in you.

I pray that we will do that, Lord.

I pray it will not take us two weeks, but early on we'll, we'll, we'll give up whatever we need to give up and just lean in and lock into you.

Father, we love you.

This is in Jesus's name.

We pray.

Amen.

Amen.

You can go to this next slide.

So what we're going to talk about today is thriving in unity.

Dan talked a little bit about unity yesterday.

It's really fun.

The cool thing that I get to do is I get to talk to, uh, disciples.

I get to talk to you guys who have been, uh, who have studied the Bible and have made great commitments.

Certainly.

It's so much fun to talk to people who are not, uh, not disciples.

They're first learning about things, but it's so much fun to talk to, uh, to you guys.

And you know what's really powerful is that so many of you, uh, wouldn't be, uh, wouldn't be in this room even just a year ago.

Uh, if I, if you could just raise your hand, if, in, if you got baptized in the last two years, raise your hand.

Amazing.

And raise your hand.

If you got baptized in the last five years, including, and then last two years, so all of it.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And so we have basically the people would be here is like us and basically the, the, the leaders would be here is the only people really.

And so it's, it's so powerful how God has worked.

God has moved in your lives.

Uh, I want to talk about this idea of unity and I'm speaking really specifically to, uh, to the, the Latvian group.

Uh, so many, again, so many are going to get baptized in the coming, even few months.

I really believe that God is blessing your faith.

Uh, I think it's extremely important though.

The idea of unity is one that in a, in a very mature group comes, uh, it's, it's obvious when there's unity and in an immature group, being united is something that's totally foreign.

And so if you show me a group who is united, I can show you a group who is very mature.

If you show me a group who is not united, I can show you an immature group and the goal of all of us, uh, is to be taken to maturity.

Amen.

Uh, the, uh, we're, we're going to have three points.

Basically you can do the next slide.

The first that we're going to look at is that diversity is so important that Jesus organizes it because you might say, well, if we're going to be united, we all need to be the exact same diversity is not the exact same.

Actually.

Diversity is that we are all different and our, our, our differences come together to make something amazing.

And then the reality is unity is so hard that Jesus actually prays for it.

Then the third, we're going to look at, uh, what is practical unity?

What can we grow in even this week, even in our interactions in the coming days that we can grow in our unity.

Amen.

Uh, let, let's go to the first point we can go to Mark three.

And so for, for you guys, this is in Mark three, just for you guys to know, I grew up, I grew up in the church.

I grew up in, uh, my parents, uh, were, were, they met in the church, they were baptized in the church.

Uh, my dad in, I think 1988, my mom in 1987 or sometime right around there.

Uh, and my, my dad tells stories, uh, he said, man, I didn't know about the church.

And then I saw your mom and I felt like this should be the church for me.

Uh, and so, and so, um, they, they, they started dating, got married in 1990.

I came around and I was born in 91 and I grew up my whole life in the church.

I'm so grateful for this church.

I'm so grateful to be a part of it.

I was a part of a bigger church, uh, for a while, uh, in, in, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

It's about the same size as Riga actually about, I think 600,000 people is Riga.

Is that right?

No.

How much?

Yeah.

More?

What?

Seven, seven, between six and 700,000.

I think.

Or even more.

It's about, give or take, give or take, give or take, work, you know?

And so I, that was the city I grew up in and then, and then my family actually moved when I was five years old to a smaller town, uh, that Dan is actually leading in the campus ministry now.

Uh, and, and then Nick is a part of, and we, we started, um, we were on the team that planted the church in Madison, Wisconsin.

And so I got to see what it's like to be in a small church for a little bit of time and see even a small church get to be a bigger church of 120 and all this when I was growing up was stuff that I really embraced.

And then later on, I moved over back to Milwaukee to go to school over there, university and me and Bianca, I met Bianca over there and uh, then we, we, uh, we've been married, um, nine years.

Uh, and, and right away it felt like there was a connection, like we were friends, but, um, but there was a height difference.

So I was very hard headed and I, I just thought, you know, I, she's very pretty, but this difference in height, I can't, we can't ever really date.

I think we're incompatible because it just won't work out.

Uh, I was wrong and thank God I was wrong.

Uh, I remember one of my friends who I brought to church, he said, Hey, do you like anybody in this church?

I said, no, I don't really like anybody in this church.

Uh, he said, well, what about Bianca?

And I said, you know, bro, he said, you don't think she's pretty.

I said, no, no, she's very pretty.

So what about her?

I said, well, she's just a little short and he said, all right, but it doesn't really matter.

But okay.

And then that was a wise words from, from him.

Uh, God works powerfully even through hardheaded people.

Uh, you know, one thing to think about diversity, uh, as we talk about unity, it's important to talk about diversity.

I'm really interested right now.

Uh, so that was my background.

That was the little, the little bit we can talk a little bit more, um, right now, right now we lead a campus, uh, we lead a campus, but then also the whole church in a really small town.

It's, it's in Michigan, which is about two hours drive from Chicago.

Uh, and the church is 31.

We moved there in 2020 and it was the first starting of the church.

It's been a lot of fun.

So much, uh, so much fun.

Actually, we have two daughters, one of them's three, one of them's one, uh, they, they keep us moving around.

They keep us really busy.

I'm talking about diversity though.

So I, I, I'm interested right now.

How many different ethnicities are in this room?

So I've got, I'm, I'm like, where are your parents come from?

I got, I got one, I'm Indian and then I'm also, let's just, let's just call, let's even work with me here.

We'll call American just one.

Okay.

So I've got two different cultures who can Indian and then, and then American.

What are, what do you got Jade?

You got, you got Korean, Korean, right?

Okay.

So we're going to say Korean and then let's, uh, let's just plump all the Americans over together.

So we got Korean and then a Hispanic, you said Mexican, Mexican specifically.

And then, and then the EAS, right?

So we got four, uh, at least four and there's more.

I know, I know.

I get it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

David, six, seven, eight.

Okay.

Very good.

So what, what else?

Who's beating it?

What are you, what about you guys?

Nine.

Okay.

10.

Okay.

Who's, who, who, who else?

Yeah.

We're 11.

Okay.

We can keep going on and on.

Maybe if you looked at, I think there's so many different, Oh, James got it.

What was that?

Oh yeah.

12.

Yeah.

African-American.

Yeah.

We're, we're, we're playing ball now.

This is awesome.

We got 12.

That means there's 12, I think about 12 different ethnicities just in this room.

Wow.

Uh, how many different skillsets?

We're not going to talk about it.

Uh, how many different interests?

Again, let's not talk about it.

We would keep going on and on and on.

Diversity it's so important.

Uh, and Jesus organizes diversity.

It says in, in Mark three says Jesus in verse 13.

You can, you can follow along up there if you want to say Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted and they came to him.

He appointed 12 that they might be with them.

him that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.

These are the 12 he appointed.

Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, to them he gave the name Bornegis, which means sons of thunder, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, son of Alpheus, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

It might make sense to think, well, if Jesus really wants us to be united, Dan talked about it yesterday, we talked about the importance of it, then he would make everybody the same.

But even in the people that he called, they're all quite different actually.

So you think there's one guy, there's two guys named James, one of them is James, son of thunder, and you get the impression, this strong, amazing guy.

Have you guys ever seen Thor?

Like, this is like that kind of powerful guy.

And the other one is called James, and actually it's called James the Less, is how he's known.

So you have somebody who's so powerful and so strong, and then you have somebody who's James the Less.

Think about, think about, think about, no, no, both Davids are not here today.

But you figure, you know, you would not like to be called, I wouldn't like to be called Jaron the Less, you know what I'm saying?

We've got Daniel the Less.

And you're, think about being known like that forever.

So we have people who have different skill sets.

Jesus chose these people.

Not only that, but there's two other people.

There's one called Simon the Zealot, and there's Matthew the Tax Collector.

If you were a zealot in that day, it meant you were totally opposed to the government.

You wanted to overthrow the government because you viewed, I'm very zealous for God, I'm a strong Jew in Jesus.

The Messiah is going to come back, and so I'm going to come with power.

I'm going to make sure he comes with power.

I'm looking to, I'm even scheming at times in how I can kill Roman officials.

This is, this is what zealots would do.

All in the name of glorifying God.

So you've got that guy, and then you've got a tax collector.

Somebody who is so close to the government that he actually works for the government in order to oppress his people.

He would take additional money from his people and demand it, or else they would be put in jail.

If you were a tax collector, it was no, no, no Jewish person should interact with you.

If you were a Jewish person and you had a friend who was a tax collector, you were looked down upon.

This is why the Pharisees looked at Jesus, and they said, man, this guy, he's messed up.

He goes to eat at the house of sinners and tax collectors.

Two totally different sides, and yet Jesus says, you know what, unity is so important that we actually have to, we have to join together.

And it wasn't by chance.

Jesus called those he wanted.

I would ask us, in the way of unity, this is something to think about.

Do you want the same thing?

Do you really want to have a diverse student ministry?

Because it'd be, it's much easier.

Everybody, you know, for me growing up, I just love basketball.

I love watching sports.

It would be a much easier ministry if the only people that I interacted with are those that play sports.

That would be so easy for me.

But that's not what Jesus wants though.

If you look at whatever your interests are, whatever your skills are, if you just go towards those people, that's not what Jesus wants actually.

And so we understand Jesus organizes unity.

The next thing we want to talk about is this truth, that unity is so hard Jesus decides to pray for it actually.

He's in the garden of Gethsemane now.

We fast forward so much time in the garden of Gethsemane.

He's praying.

This is right before he's crucified.

And he's praying for you and me.

The Bible even organizes, it says the prayer for all the believers.

That's you, that's me.

It says my prayer is not for them alone.

In verse 20, it's John 17 20.

My prayer is not for them alone.

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one.

Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.

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

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one just as we are one.

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

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

Jesus did amazing things, didn't he?

What are some amazing things?

This is what I really want.

Just just shout them out.

Amazing things.

When you look at the life of Jesus that he did.

What are some, what are some amazing things?

He healed the broken.

Absolutely.

The physically broken and the spiritually broken.

Absolutely.

What else?

He walked on water.

Yeah, what do you got?

He calmed the sea and he just, he calmed the sea when he was sleeping.

He calmed it a couple of times.

Absolutely.

Yeah, Jake.

Yeah, he died and he resurrected from the dead.

Yes.

The other thing I said, he raises the young girl to life.

And I see inside of that that he just, he picks her up and he just, he dismisses the mortars that are just fake and they're just a little bit there and he, he goes and he does that.

And how does he do those things?

He just, he just kind of does them, right?

He just, he just walks on water.

He just picks up the girl and says, Hey, get up.

He just, he rose from the dead.

He just, he just did it.

He, he fed 5,000.

He just, he gave thanks and he just did it.

But what about unity?

If, what does he have to do for unity?

He prays for it, right?

If he's, if he's all powerful, he can do everything.

There's nothing that's too big, too little.

He cares about us so deeply, but he can, he raises people from the dead, but he has to pray for unity for you and me.

The task of unity then is the greatest task that, that probably he's ever embarked on.

Because that involves you and me, right?

Even raising from the dead, it's so difficult.

It's virtually, it's impossible for anybody.

And yet, that's him and God.

That's a him and God thing, right?

He's walking with the father.

He's talking to the father.

He's fully connected to the father.

And yet this task for unity, he's saying, God, just like I'm close with you, I pray they're close with one another.

It's easy to say that we're united.

It's easy to say, you know, in this, in the U.S., it's easy to say that we're a church that has all different races can, can, can come in.

Black, white, Puerto Rican, you know, Hispanic, and, and, you know, fill in the blank, Indian.

And it's easy to say that.

I think in, in our churches, we pride ourselves on that.

I would say this, you know, even, even for you guys, you, you can pride yourself that, okay, we are, we're a church of Latvians, that we'll allow Ukrainians, and we'll allow Russians, and we have interactions with these people, and all of this, of course.

But it's easy to say, I think it's much difficult to be this way.

When I was, when I was growing up, I didn't understand this very well.

I did a really bad job of it, actually.

There, there was a guy who, he, he looked different than me.

We had different interests.

We were some of the only people in the same age group, because it was a small church.

We went to different schools.

We had a different home life.

His, his was a little bit more chaotic than mine, and I remember every single, just about every single Sunday after church, he's like, hey, do you want to come over to my house after church?

Do you want to come over to my house after church?

Do you want to hang out after church?

And I just felt like, you know, the answer is not really.

You know, I, I remember being, you know, between, really, it was just about every single week from, from maybe third grade through, through sixth grade, from the time I was eight to about twelve, that I just, no, I'm okay, I'm okay.

And once in a while, I'd go over, and we were, you know how, you know how eight-year-olds talk.

They always, you know, and sometimes his mom might say no, and sometimes my dad might say no.

Majority of the time, it was, I just didn't really want to go over.

I just wanted to be by myself, because it was, it was a little bit more difficult to spend time with someone that wasn't like me.

I think if we're going to follow what Jesus teaches, then we can't have just church friends, and I think you know what I mean when I say that the people that we, we'll interact with at church, be giving to a church, but maybe if we see them, or if they say, hey, can I come?

I don't know, well, we have got this, and you don't understand this, you know, okay, we can't be like that if we are going to be united how Jesus calls us to be.

You know, I remember then, as I, as I grew up, I went to school, and I just became convicted of this, this fact, that if I'm going to be a disciple, my best friends have to be spiritual people.

It doesn't matter if we have everything in common.

If we have Jesus in common, that is everything, and, and there's this guy, this, he challenged my ability to, to love and be united with everyone.

He, I, I wish I could paint as good of a picture as I'm imagining in my head right now.

This guy, he's known all throughout the city that, that we live in, okay, and he's known as being a guy that dresses up as Superman, all throughout the city.

Dan is laughing, because we've had, all throughout the city, you might see him, and he's dressed as Superman, and he might even talk like Superman, but he didn't look that much like Superman.

He had a little bit of the hair, but he had a big belly, and he would just walk around acting like Superman.

He, he, he was known, he was on the news at various points, because he was dressed like this, and was, he was acting so much like this.

He, he was somebody who was a part of the church for a series of years, and we've had, we had so many conversations, and he's in his, at the time, probably early to mid-40s, and I was just a 19-year-old college student, and, and I, I remember him asking, hey, where do you, bro, where do you live?

I said, well, I live, you know, right on the university's campus, and he said, bro, I live right there, right by there, and I said, okay.

He said, bro, let's have a quiet time, and I'm like, I don't, but I thought, you know, if I'm gonna be united, I have to, of course, I said, yeah, have a quiet time, but then I'm thinking, maybe he'll say, I'll go to his house and have the quiet time, and so I can, like, kind of hide a little bit.

He said, bro, you got free food at your place.

I mean, well, because in the dorms, again, this is, I think, maybe everywhere, but at least in US, there was, in the dorms that you lived in for university, there was also, like, a meal plan that you had to purchase, and so you could scan a card to get this, the people in, basically, and so, is it the same or not, really?

Maybe different, okay, no, too bad, yeah, but anyways, he said, bro, you've got free food at your place.

I'm like, well, I'm, I guess it's a loan somehow, but I said, come on over, and I remember this guy, he's, he's so loud, he brought these, this big thing of soda, because he knew that you can fill up soda for free.

He was, he brought a whole thing of soda, he's filling up soda for free.

Everybody's 18, 19 years old, and they're, and I'm, it's me, and it's this, this brother, and we're sitting, we're reading the Bible, some of my friends came over, and this became some, somewhat of a regular thing.

It would, about once a week, we'd have a quiet time.

This guy, we're not alike, he, he has some, some different kind of needs, he doesn't look like me, he doesn't even act like me, and yet, I'm like, if I'm gonna be a Christian, then I, then I've got to interact with this guy.

This is what I signed up for, this is, unity is not unity if it's behind closed doors, it has to be in front, and you know what happened?

People in my school, my friends, they began to know him, too.

They said, hey, bro, are you gonna come to the, I play basketball in school, they said, are you gonna come to the basketball game?

And so then he started going to my basketball games, and he started to cheer, like, only this guy can cheer.

Again, I don't want to say his name, but only he can cheer like this.

You know, I, what's incredible, though, if we, if we live like this, people are going to be attracted.

Again, we talked about, if we live this way, it's, it's gonna be very obvious to people.

So let's, let's talk for a few minutes about what it means about practical unity.

There's two things that you can do, even, even today, make decisions about that you can grow in your unity and in, in the, in understanding the importance of it.

And the first is to grow in humility.

It says in Romans 12, 3, it says, for by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

Paul is writing this letter, then right after that, he talks about all of the different skills that people have, but before that, he says, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought.

Don't, don't think of yourself like you're this, some special person.

You know, there's, there's something that's true, is that all of us are needed, but all of us are expendable as well.

So all of us are needed.

You are so needed.

Your skills, what, what, what God is doing in your life, it is absolutely needed.

But you know what's going to happen if you decide, you know what, I'm not going to be a part of the group.

I'm going to leave.

I'm going to leave the group.

You know what happens?

God still works, doesn't he?

God still moves.

And what happens is you guys know some of your friends, some of my closest friends who decided to leave God, their life never gets better.

I don't know anybody whose life becomes more fulfilled from leaving God.

And so the reality is that we're, we're, we're expendable, but we're absolutely needed.

But the Bible says, don't think of yourself more highly, but then think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

This word distributed is an important word.

It means that you haven't really earned it.

It's just been handed to you.

You know, if we were going through a line and I, somebody just had, there was a millionaire that's just started giving out money, maybe multimillion.

Um, and he gave one person 50 euros and you're like, that's pretty good.

Then he gave the other person 10,000 euros.

You're like, that's a little bit better.

And then he gave this other person 100,000 euros.

That's, that's way better, right?

None of us have earned that.

None of us have done anything to do that.

It was just distributed to you.

The Bible is saying the same is true with your faith.

And so you look at areas that you are better at than other people.

That's just been distributed to you.

You didn't, you didn't do anything special to get that.

God just decided, I love you so much.

I'm going to give this to you.

And if it's God that's given it to you, then it's easy for us to point to God when, when good things happen.

And it's easy for us to be patient with other people through these struggles.

If we are, if we are perfectly humble, then it's easy to be united.

It's, it's easy to, to be a patient with people.

It's easy to explain where we're coming from.

It's easy to say, my opinion is not the only opinion.

And I want to learn from you.

The next thing we have to do a good job of is that we have to settle our disputes.

In Matthew seven, um, the, the, the Bible, uh, this is Jesus.

He's preaching, um, this, this powerful lesson, basically the longest sermon we have recorded, uh, from Jesus.

And he, he gives this direction in verse three.

He says, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there's a plank in your own eye, you hypocrite first, take the plank out of your own eye.

And then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

I, for years, I didn't really understand what this, I thought it was like some impractical thing because nobody has ever, I don't know anybody that's had this, a big plank in their eye, uh, and lived to tell about it.

Maybe they did, but we don't talk about those guys.

So how can you have this, this big plank in your eye?

What does it mean?

Then somebody explained, explained this to me, but you think about for, for you guys, when, when you have something in your eye, uh, doesn't it feel way bigger than it actually is?

You're like, what's, is there something in my eye?

You, you open your eye up and you're like, you know what?

There's nothing there.

Uh, I don't know.

Maybe, maybe it's, maybe it's gone away.

And, but you think, wow, this thing is so, it's so massive because it's taking up so much of your vision actually.

And what this is saying is as you look at other people, you know, sure.

Maybe you see somebody, uh, that this, this, this plank would be sin, we can say.

Uh, and you might see a little bit of sin in somebody and you're like, man, I've got, I've got, I better bring up this sin with somebody.

But the reality is nobody in this world knows more about your sin than actually, than you do.

If you had, think about for a moment, what would happen if you just decided, I'm going to think about the worst person you've ever met in your life, worst person.

Maybe they're not even a Christian.

They're the farthest from it.

And you decided, hey, I'm going to write down all this person's sins, every single one.

And then you decided, you know what?

Okay.

I'm leaving that to the side.

And now I said, okay, so now write down every single one of your sins.

The list of your sins would cover over the list of their sins, the worst person that you know.

And you could keep going right.

You could write down, man, I thought this bad thing.

I looked at this thing.

I didn't say the right thing here.

I was not kind there.

And you could go on and on and on of your sins.

And what the Bible is saying is maybe somebody is so bad.

Maybe they're so messed up.

But if you look at your life, you'd realize that there's a lot more about your sin that you know, than even that other person's.

But there's two parts of it.

The Bible doesn't end there.

And I think where we can go is understanding that and saying, well, I'm so messed up.

I'm just not going to speak up.

I'm done.

The Bible says, what does it say?

Well, it says, take this plank out of your own eye.

What does that mean to take a plank out of your own eye?

It means to acknowledge that I'm sinful.

I'm walking into this conversation.

Even if I'm telling them, hey, you said this mean thing to me, I'm walking in and I know only one mean thing they said.

I know about 100 mean things that I've said.

And so I need to walk in with humility.

But it says to walk in first take the plank out of your eye.

And then you can remove the speck from your brother's eye.

I think one of the big detractors of unity is people that say, you know what, it's not that important to bring up sin with somebody.

So I'm just not going to say anything.

Or it's not that important to bring it up.

They're going to respond so badly.

So I'm not going to speak up to them.

But I'm going to talk behind their back.

And I'm going to say, let me get advice about this.

Let me get advice about it.

I'm getting advice.

But if you're never actually going to talk to them, all you're doing is gossiping.

You're going to talk behind somebody's back.

It's not a way to create unity issues with you're always going to have issues, we're going to be united, we'll always have problems.

But the call in the Bible is to deal with these problems, like this to come with humility, to just say, hey, it hurt my feelings when you did this, it hurt my feelings when you said this, how I noticed that you did this thing, right?

I saw you, I saw that interaction with and it felt weird.

What was that about?

Was I misreading it?

Did I come in wrong?

We're talking bad behind somebody's back.

That's no way to create unity.

It's actually tearing down the exact thing Jesus is praying for.

So what does that mean?

What does that mean for us?

Well, it means I hope you realize that without Jesus, there's no hope for unity.

I hope that there's no you cannot show me in all of the world, any, any religion, any group, any organization, any school, any job, you can't show me anything like that, even if they have everything in common, on the surface that is united like this.

There's no such thing.

Even inside of political parties, there's so many conflicts, right?

Even inside of teams, you know, like, like basketball teams, football teams, there's so many conflicts inside of workplaces, there are so many conflicts.

There's no hope of unity without Jesus.

But imagine what would happen if we decided in this in this room, us disciples, we are going to put the same emphasis on unity that Jesus put on unity.

Come on.

It's amazing knowing that we can you can settle disputes.

And you don't want the person how the person is going to respond.

Usually they respond.

Amen.

I'm sorry.

I don't want to be I don't want to hurt your feelings.

And then the Bible is also clear when they don't respond that way.

He says, well, bring somebody else alongside you and so that you can deal with these matters.

This is stuff the world doesn't know about.

The world said what it says one of two things, one of the world will yell, and then never talk to the person.

So many families are like this, at least, again, maybe I'm overstepping, I can speak in America, so many families, you ask, there's disagreements, and there's conflicts.

And how did it start?

Sometimes they don't remember.

I haven't talked to my sister in 15 years.

Well, what happened?

Well, she was late to dinner one day.

And that's it.

And it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

But knowing that we can settle disputes with one another, we're united, that's an amazing feeling.

Knowing that someone has your back when you mess up is an amazing feeling.

Knowing that we are focused on the same goal, and we are focused on winning the world for Christ, that's an amazing feeling to be part of the most amazing group that has ever walked this earth, that being Christians.

We living this way, we are acting to speed along Jesus's coming by creating more pockets of Christianity in the world.

But there's again, there's no point to be like this.

There's no point, even we can baptize.

Let's say just let's just imagine this week we baptize 500 people.

How could it ever happen?

Well, Jesus baptized, you know, Peter baptized 3000, right?

That's what it says.

And so 500 is actually a small number, according to according to God.

But let's say we baptize 500 people, and we are on top of the world.

But if we are not united, then it doesn't matter.

It makes no difference.

I don't mean that God is not so pleased.

I think God is more pleased.

If we decide we're going to be united, and we're going to be people that instead you guys understand, maybe maybe you use this analogy, what hurts more a slap or a punch?

Of course, a punch, right?

Don't don't try it.

Don't try it when you go.

Let's practice.

But the punch hurts more, right?

A slap, it stings a little bit.

The punch, you can feel you can feel it.

When we're united, the devil is going to feel us even more.

Amen.

Let's, let's, let's pray for unity, just like Jesus did.

And then I want to actually hear some response.

So take a moment, if anything really connected well, or you feel like I want to say this one thing, or if there's a question I'd love to, to answer or we can even answer together.

Amen.

Let's let's pray right now.

Dear God, Lord, the same way Jesus that you prayed for unity, Lord, give, we pray for unity as well.

Lord, we know that there's no hope for unity without you.

God, we know that there that we can never reach this place of unity, we can never be fully connected to one another, there will always be something that that's holding us back if we are not united in the name of you, Jesus.

And then we just, we ask that you give us the conviction that it matters.

Lord, I think sometimes I can feel like, what's the point?

But, but I know that that you call us to that Father, I'm convicted that you've done so many amazing things that was so easy.

And yet because of our hard headedness, you have to pray for us to be united.

Lord, we we pray that we will be united so much so that that we'll call in there will be no cliques or no groups, or no factions among us, Lord, I pray that we will, when we have conflicts with each other, or with leadership, or with, or with our siblings or with our family members, and I pray that we will settle these disputes according to how you teach Father by coming with humility, and by by sharing how we're feeling and then by calling other people to follow what the Bible teaches, Lord, we love you.

This is Jesus, if we can only pray this, this crazy prayer, because you died for our sins, and then you rose again.

So it's in your name that we pray.

Amen.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

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