Celebration Sunday | Pastor Chris Kouba & Pastor Eliel Diaz

Oh man, I love our church.

My name is Chris Cuba, and I have the unbelievable privilege of saying that I get to be the pastor of the United City Church.

I believe it is one of the greatest churches.

Uh, that God is doing something in our midst.

Um, He is allowing us to be able to experience and to see things.

Um, real quick, before we get going, I got a little bit of housekeeping that I need to prepare and warn you about.

Um when you come in next Sunday morning uh in each one of your chairs, there's gonna be a little card that looks like this.

Uh, this card on the top of it says prayer and fasting commitment card.

I want you to know that Gary Blackman is gonna be our guest preacher next week.

Gary is a longtime friend of our church.

Longtime is in the last few years, he's come and preached for us.

He went and preached for our men's conference.

Gary is one of my uh mentors.

He is just one of a great friend of mine.

He is the chairman of the board of Houston Christian University.

He also was the longtime chaplain for the Houston Fire Department.

Gary's just an amazing uh individual and promise keepers.

He was a part of that ministry, bringing you new years.

He's gonna be preaching with us next week, and he's gonna be talking to us about prayer and fasting.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna invite and we're gonna ask you next week to make a commitment with this card.

We're gonna ask you to make a commitment to pray and fast the following week.

So I'm giving you one week heads up that this is coming.

Uh, there's many different ways in which you can go about doing this.

You can maybe skip a meal each day, you can go about maybe skipping one day's full of food, you can go about maybe doing a media fast, there's all Daniel fast, there's all different types of things that you can do.

Let me just go ahead and tell you up front, though, that most likely, if you are a normal believer in Christ, you're gonna try to figure out how you can participate in this doing the least amount of actual sacrifice.

Okay, how can I check the box by giving up the least?

And I want to just encourage you one week in advance, whatever you're thinking, do more.

Whatever you're thinking, do something else.

Because what I have discovered is in this issue of prayer and fasting, that you have to take an intentional effort to put aside the things of the world in order to actually hear the voice of God.

And what I have discovered is that when I go through the work in order to do that, God is always, always, always, always, always faithful to sometimes do exactly what I've asked him for, and at other times, in his grace and in his mercy, say no to the thing that I thought I had to have.

But regardless, what I've noticed is this is God always meets with us.

Three and a half years ago, I came to this church, and I've done this for the last three and a half years, this prayer and fasting, before we even invited the church to do it last year.

And the two things that I prayed for over and over again unity and diversity.

And this morning, I'm just sitting there on the front row getting this moment of just thinking, God, you are so good.

Because I know that as we celebrate all that took place in 2022, he's just getting started.

And what he desires to do in our midst, I firmly believe, is gonna be one of those things that we can look up and we can say, God, I'm so grateful.

I'm so grateful that I got to hear your voice, follow your lead, and do what you've called me to do.

Heads up, it's coming, all right?

You're gonna want to say no and you're gonna wanna push back.

This is your week of excuses.

Get them all out because next week it's commitment time, all right?

Just giving you a heads up that that's coming.

Grab your Bibles, open them up with me to Ephesians chapter two.

Ephesians chapter two.

I want to start off our service today by sending a word of greeting to all of the men at the Ramsey Unit and all of the women at the Plain State Correctional Facility.

We are so grateful to bring this message to you.

Today is New Member Sunday.

We've done this the last three years for the very first really week of the year.

We're trying to just take some time to just stop and to celebrate all that God did in the previous year.

Uh, our staff team is wired in such that we're always thinking ahead.

All right.

I'm already thinking through 2025 and 2026 and what God wants to do.

And so it's necessary that in the midst of us looking ahead, we also stop and say, God, thank you.

And there is so much for us to be grateful for.

And so today, what we're gonna have a chance to do is to recognize, to honor all of the new members and all of the things that God did in 2022.

You notice that I started the service the way that I have started the service most of 2022, where I basically did two things.

And really, anybody who comes up here and preaches does the same thing no matter who it is.

The first thing they do is they say, turn in your Bibles to, because at the end of the day, we don't have anything in and of ourselves that we're gonna be able to offer you that's gonna add lasting value other than what's found in God's Word.

And so just know that.

We're gonna start off with that every single week.

The second thing, though, is we've been able to give this standard greeting to the men at the Ramsey Unit and the women at the Plainsteck Correctional Facility.

Here's what's pretty amazing.

Dave Kenney and I, our executive pastor, part of our preaching team, a couple of years ago we had this conversation.

Man, what would it look like for us to be able to do something in prisons?

Like, what could it possibly mean for us to have some sort of impact and to do something in the midst of those various places?

And what we saw is in 2022, God decided to take passing ideas, comments that we could make, what would it look like for us to have a ministry in this area or in this region or whatever?

And God did Ephesians 3, 20 and 21 exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think.

Because what we have the opportunity to now, it's a standard for you if you've been at United City.

Every week we say, open up your Bibles, and then we greet those at the Ramsey Unit and we greet those at the Plain State Correctional Facility.

What God has allowed us to be able to do in these prison units, I got a letter from a guy who leads a Bible study at the Ramsey Unit right before Christmas with a Christmas card.

And he began to tell me about the impact of your church, of our church being able to be shown in this place and how God was able to use the messages from United City Church to reach people that many people in this room and all of you online will have never may ever even know who they are.

Last year we had the opportunity, God did exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or imagine.

Some of our pastors had the privilege of being able to go to the Plain State Correctional Facility, and we specifically had the chance to baptize over 150 ladies at the Plain State Correctional Facility last year.

We've got a crew that now comes in and is a growing number of folks.

Encourage you to consider being a part of it as well, who comes in to help disciple these ladies.

It's not just about making decisions that are emotional things, instead, it's about discipleship, it's about ongoing, long-term discipleship, and God's opening up doors for us in an area that we did not even know was possible at the beginning of 2022.

What I want you to see is this is that God does exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask and we could possibly think.

So when I ask you as a church next week to consider the idea of praying and fasting, I need you to understand we better recognize what that could mean.

Is that God may desire to use a group of people who were willing to set aside the things of the world and open up to hear the voice of God.

And what I've discovered so far, just in 2022, is that God desires to all of a sudden birth new things far beyond what we could have ever imagined.

Our mission statement at United City is everyone, every day, crossing every divide to live united in Christ.

This isn't just a catchy little couple of phrases that we try to put together that would make it maybe easy for you to perhaps memorize or perhaps know what it means, or for you to have it on the website so that somehow you could look at it and it can be impressive.

This is who we are.

Right here, this is exactly what we not only desire to be, but this is exactly in 2022 we can give testimony to the Lord.

This is what he allowed us to be.

We saw new ministries launched in 2022.

I mentioned, of course, the prison ministry.

We saw a young adult ministry was birthed in 2022, which is absolutely incredible.

We had the opportunity in 2022 as well to launch United City Espanol.

It's been meeting as a core group, absolutely.

It's been meeting as a core group, and next Sunday is their official launch, 11 o'clock over in the student building.

Every week, this core group is now gonna be an official group, and United City Espanol is here.

It's gonna be absolutely awesome.

Here's what I want to do.

I've got two points in this message.

I want you to look up in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

I want to read for you about what I believe God is calling us to do and to be in 2023.

I have the uh translation on the screens.

I'm gonna read for you in English, and for those of you that speak Spanish, it's gonna be up there on the screens.

I will not be reading in Spanish because it just wouldn't be fun for any of us, okay?

Ephesians 2, verse 11.

Ephesians 2:11

Therefore, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and is broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near.

For through him we both have access and one spirit to the Father.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

The context of the passage here is the Apostle Paul is speaking about the divide that exists between Jews and Gentiles.

The Jews were God's chosen people.

They were the people that God set aside and he gave them the land, he gave them the blessing, he gave them all the commandment and the law, and the design was that they would receive the blessing from God, and from that they would then become a blessing to all other people.

The other people they were called to be a blessing to were the Gentiles.

The Gentiles were the non-Jews.

They were the people who didn't have the law, who didn't have the blessing, who didn't have the land, who didn't have all of these things.

We know in the beginning, in Ephesians chapter 1, in the beginning of Ephesians chapter 2, he begins to describe how all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, are all separated from God.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

The Bible says that this separation is so significant you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

And what it does is it highlights the fact that Jesus comes along and he crosses the personal divides that each of us have, those who are Jews and those who are Gentiles, and he reconciles us to the Father.

It's an amazing thing.

But he goes on and he says here in verses 11 through 22, he identifies the fact that even though the fact that all of us collectively are divided from God because of our sin, there still are some differences between the Jews and the Gentiles, and it goes on to say that Jesus Himself even crosses those divides.

What I want you to see, look at what it says there in verse 12.

It says, first of all, the divides are clear, there was a separation.

It describes it as you were alienated, you were strangers to the covenant.

The result was there was no hope.

Verse 13, it says, You are far off.

Verse 14, it calls it the dividing wall of hostility.

What I want you to see is that the divides that exist between Jews and Gentiles aren't so insignificant you can just act like they're no big deal.

They're real.

They're real things, but what we see is that Jesus intentionally cross-divides to not only allow us to have a relationship with the Father, but he also cross-divides so that the Jews who were meant to be the recipients of the blessing and then the givers of the blessing, but they didn't, can also go and be giving this blessing now to the Gentiles who previously didn't have it.

What it shows us is this the Jews' primary purpose was not to be a lake but a river.

You see, a lake, the water is stuck, it has nowhere to go.

It can rise and it can go down, but it just stays where it is.

A river, on the other hand, is something where the water flows through it.

And what he's saying is that what we are called to do is not just admire the fact that Jesus intentionally crosses divides, but we are to actually emulate and follow it as an example that we do ourselves.

Naturally, though, what we do is we find ourselves in a situation where we want to be around people that are like us, we want to be around people who cheer for the same teams that we do, we want to be around people that talk the same way that we do, we want to be around people who dress the same way that we do, who make about the same money that we do, and what intentional, what we we don't necessarily intentionally do it, and it's not necessarily antagonistic, but we look up and we have, without noticing, drawn dividing lines, and it's us over here and they over there.

And what he's saying is that what we are called to do is to follow after the example of Jesus and not just be recipients of the blessing of God, but to be conduits of the blessing of God's to others.

Let me ask you a question.

And I want to ask you to really consider this before you easily dismiss it as though it's not you.

What are the divides that exist in your life?

What are those areas in your life where you haven't intentionally done it and you haven't necessarily antagonistically done it, but it's very clear you're here and somebody else is over there.

Is it racial?

Is it language barriers?

Is it socioeconomics?

Is it you live on this side of the bridge and somebody else lives on this side of the bridge?

Is it that you go to this school and somebody else goes to this school?

Please hear me.

If we're ever gonna do what God's called us to do, we must follow the example of Jesus and intentionally with great effort cross the divides that exist among us.

Pastor E, come on up here.

Thank you.

Pastor Chris, I'm gonna preach in Spanish, right?

So if you don't get it, just pray by faith.

Um decided to just shout amen or clap your hands.

That's fine.

Um, the Apostle Paulo that we have between the Judah and the Gentiles.

The Judah, the people escogido, the people of the pacto, the bending of the tier, and for one later, the gentiles, who are considered paganos, impuros, the fucking pacto del Seigneur.

Come on, capital 2 of Ephesians saying that you were muert because of our delitos and pectors.

The pueblo judío and the gentiles established demasiado separados.

Divisiones muy notables.

Los judíos marcando líneas, creando territorios, segregando grupos, formando líneas, tú allá, yo acá, los judíos, en vez de ser un canal de bendición para la gente, se convirtió en un recipiente de la bendición de Dios.

Un recipiente es algo en lo cual tú pones cosas allá adentro, ya sea agua, lo que sea, y ahí se queda.

Y el pueblo judío se convirtió en recipiente en vez de ser canales de bendición.

Cuando usted y yo somos recipientes de la bendición de Dios, es algo que es solamente para nosotros.

Cuando nos convertimos en canales de la bendición de Dios, es algo que fluye a través de nosotros.

A mí me encantaría que a través de esta iglesia fluya el amor, la gracia, la misericordia, el perdón de Dios.

Ahí me encantaría que a través de esta iglesia fluya la misericordia del Dios Todopoderoso.

Para que aquellos que todavía no han conocido acerca de Jesús vengan y abran su corazón a Él y sus vidas sean transformadas para siempre.

That's what you shout, amen.

Right there.

There you go.

El versículo 12 dice que antes estábamos separados, alienados, ajenos del pacto.

El versículo 13 dice que estábamos lejos del pacto.

El versículo 14 incluso dimensiona que había un muro de hostilidad puesto entre ellos.

El pueblo judío y los gentiles no era muy diferente a nosotros.

A cada rato, nosotros levantamos muros entre las personas.

Muros porque no se ve como yo.

El muro de porque no habla como yo.

Me divido porque no viste como yo.

No está en mi status social.

De repente, como Iglesia, en vez de ser canales de bendición, nos convertimos en recipientes simplemente porque pensamos en nuestros propios intereses.

El problema is that when I pienso solamente en mí, hay un pueblo and a gente que se pierde sin Dios, sin esperanza, and salvación.

A usted y a mí, Iglesia, nos toca derribar los muros and alcanzar al perdido.

Eso fue lo que hizo Jesus.

And what Jesus, podemos admirar.

Wow, mira lo que hizo, qué impresionante.

Or inspirarnos anders of what he hizo and literally alcanzar aquellos who are perdidos.

Number one, what divisions are in our life?

What divisions possibly we have levant?

And number two, just reconocte esas divisions.

Number two, the unity in Christ.

The unity is in Christ.

And there are a confusion when we look at unity and uniformity, when we are united.

Amigos, necesitamos ser los mejores amigos, tenemos que siempre hanguear juntos, ir al cine juntos, comer juntos, hacer todo juntos, y de repente eso nos puede dar miedo, uy, ¿por qué no necesariamente es mi amigo?

Y no se refiere a eso.

Caminar en unidad significa literalmente amar a nuestro prójimo como a nosotros mismos.

Caminar en unidad significa que cuando yo veo a alguien que está caído, tenderle la mano de gracia, de misericordia y decirle, Dios todavía tiene un plan para ti.

Caminar en unidad es reflejar el amor de Dios.

Y cuando nosotros no hacemos esto, nos volvemos al recipiente.

Cuando la bendición es solo para mí, solo para mí.

Solo para mí.

Pero hay alguien más que está esperando el abrazo del Padre.

Hay alguien más que está esperando el mensaje de salvación y esperanza.

Hay alguien más que necesita ser levantado de donde está.

Jesús vino a cruzar cada división.

Y sabes que nos invita a hacer a nosotros, iglesia, también cruzar cada división.

Dice el versículo 14, que cuando usted y yo hacemos eso, somos reconciliados con el Padre.

Sigue mencionando la palabra que cuando usted y yo decidimos vivir unidos a Cristo, nos volvemos con ciudadanos del cielo.

Dice el versículo 21, que cuando usted y yo como iglesia decidimos vivir unidos en Cristo, la iglesia será edificada, el cuerpo de Cristo será edificado e iremos a alcanzar las vidas que están perdidas.

Iglesia, somos recipientes de la bendición de Dios.

O decidimos ser canales y conductos.

La cual a través de nosotros fluya el mensaje de misericordia, de gracia, de amor y de esperanza.

Una vez nos alcanza a nosotros. ¿Cuál va a ser nuestra decisión?

Paso Cristo.

The second thing I want you to see from this passage is this true unity only comes in Christ.

True unity only comes in Christ.

So please hear me.

A lot of people are talking about unity these days.

Like people want to make sure that unity is highlighted and they want to make sure that all the different ways and avenues upon which you can do this.

Please understand this because a lot of times when it comes to the topic of unity, maybe one of the reasons why you push back is because you assume that unity means uniformity.

I don't want to look like them.

I don't want to talk like them.

I don't want to be like them.

I don't want to live, whatever.

And you assume that somehow I have to leave where I am and become something totally different.

That is not at all what biblical unity looks like.

You see, one of the beautiful things is the diversity amongst all of us.

That is something that should be highlighted and celebrated and not somehow pushed aside.

But a lot of times when it comes to unity as well, what you'll see is people try to unify around things that may be good for a moment, but they don't last.

For instance, you see that there's some natural disaster.

And what happens?

Everybody begins to rally together and they begin to help those that are in need, and everybody is supporting each other, but after a period of time, ultimately that begins to go away, and people go back to where they were.

Or maybe you see some sort of identifiable need, a crisis in a community, or something like that.

And people may come together, and maybe your work, you have to do some service hours, and so you'll come and you'll serve with other people, or maybe at school you've got to do some sort of hours to check off a box, and you'll go and you'll serve together.

And it's awesome to see the common grace take place when people come together to serve those in need, but ultimately, once that need goes away, you see that that desire for unity goes away just with it.

And so, what I want you to know is this the Bible is so clear the unity that lasts is this one unity that we have the opportunity to be able to not just be recipients of, but also to be conduits of, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We say here a lot that we exist for those who are not yet here.

We actually mean that.

People that are all different than us.

We exist for those people.

We exist for people who aren't going to make the same amount of money as you do.

We exist for people who don't look the same way that you do.

We exist for people who don't speak the same languages that we do.

We exist for people who have different backgrounds than you do.

We believe that is the beauty of Christ's church is that he allows all of us, people from all different stories, to come together under the same story, and that is the story of Jesus.

Look at the descriptions that it begins to say in verse 13, it says that those who have who have been far away have been brought near.

It leads to actual peace existing in verse 14, it leads to reconciliation, is the word that's used in verse 16.

We get to be fellow citizens and members of the household of God in verse 19.

It leads to the church that is strong and being built up according to verse 21.

In 2022, God worked in profound ways in the life of United City Church.

Yeah.

Got it.

Yeah, I just repeated okay.

I just tried.

Yeah.

169 people were baptized in our church last year.

That is the largest number of people baptized in two years in the 110-year history of our church.

God be the glory.

Would you stand up right now?

I want to ask you to do me a favor.

If you would and you're standing up, or you should be standing up, but you don't want to yet, come on up on stage right now.

I want to ask all of you to come up here if you would, please.

As well the Spanish congregation, right?

Yep, yep.

La Congregación de Español se puede poner de pie también andar, por favor.

First of all, how amazing is this of you that are on stage, all of you have a key.

Can you show me your key?

This represents not only our English congregation, but our Spanish congregation.

We believe that God wants to use you.

To be a part of having people be on this stage a year from right now.

And ultimately they have a life-changing relationship with Jesus.

Some of you need to start off 2023.

And you come and be a part of what God is doing in United City through formal membership.

Some of you though need to take the very first step, and that is to have a relationship with Jesus.

Place your faith and your trust and fully in him.

And to allow him to be your Lord and to be your savior.

If you want to receive Jesus today, I want to invite you to pray this simple prayer faith with me.

Right now I invite him to come into my life.

Thank you for saving me and forgiving me of all of my sins.

And so if you made that decision, would you text next to 55498 and someone from our team would love to follow up with you.

In the meantime, I would love to pray with you even right now as God continues to do things in your heart moving.

And so, Jesus, we love you so much.

We say thank you for the truth of your word.

Thank you for still showing up in people's lives and still doing all what you can do.

Jesus, I pray that you continue to heal hearts and heal lives.

Uh, bring peace to minds.

And Jesus, once again, just do it only you can do it in your name that we pray.

United City fans, this has been an incredible service.

It's been so fun worshiping with you.

Hey, to stay in the know on everything going on in the life of our church, we'd love for you to follow us on Instagram and on Facebook to stay up to date on everything happening.

And we'd love to see you either in person or online right back here next week.

Services are at 9 30 and 11.

We'll be having a fantastic week and we'll see you soon.