Unity In Diveresity | Ps Graeme Politanski

Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to

take hold of. So we hope this message inspires

you and build your faith, but it helps you have more of a God

perspective for your day. Enjoy.

If you've got faith to receive today from from heaven, would

you declare out loud today? My heart is open, my ears are

alert to grow and change and never be the same.

Amen. Amen.

Please be seated. Unity in diversity.

Unity in diversity. That's the title of my message

today. Unity in diversity.

Now from a non Christian or a non biblical viewpoint, unity in

diversity is communities of many cultures living side by side,

bound by this, bound by shared values of respect, justice and

belonging. That's a non biblical idea of

what unity in diversity is. This view of unity and diversity

that the world tries to follow is absolutely impossible to

uphold. It's an impossible concept that

they are putting on media, that they're putting in, in papers

and in articles for us as a world to have some sense of

unity. And it's a unity in diversity

across cultures that we actually can't uphold as humans without

God, nation to nation, race to race, person to person will

never completely uphold the same values or understanding of

belonging. However, you may get small

groupings of people to harmonize by dropping parts of their

identity to obtain momentary peace, and this is what the

world calls good. But who knows?

In the Church, as Saints with Jesus Christ, there is an

everlasting peace that we can obtain in our lives right now,

and it's found through Jesus Christ.

Amen. So they've got the right idea.

They just don't know how to get there without God.

You know, the book of Acts in our Bible have been doing, we've

been going through the book of Acts over the last month,

whether you've seen that or not, we've been preaching out of the

book of Acts and it holds keys demonstrating the power of and

the call to unity in diversity. So you find it in your Holy

Bible in the book of Acts. Now this is a celebration point

and it's unique to the to Christianity, to us as a church.

It separates Christianity from all other religions and world

views because through Jesus it can actually be fulfilled as

every Christian from every nation embraces our new Kingdom

of God culture, Kingdom of God culture.

As an Aussie growing up in, in Australia or in Townsville, one

of the hottest parts of Australia.

But it's where the crocodiles live.

It's a good place. Crocodile Hunter must have come

from there. And man, we've got real knives

in Townsville. You know, I feel like I'm

getting dad jokes. It's not Father's Day yet and I

don't even know why I said that. That's amazing.

That's why I said that. You know why?

I realized that as I grew up in Australia.

And this would be the same for anyone in any country where you

grow up in your, in your homeland, you go to church, you

become a Christian in your homeland and you, you can have

this sense that our way is the way.

And I've learned as I've matured in my Christian walk that my way

isn't the way, Heaven's way is the way.

And as when as we start to if we are willing to apply ourselves

to a heavenly way of thinking and under and grass hold of

throughout all my years. I still need to mature in the

things of God. That's a healthy way to live.

And if we could all do this. What we come to realize is as we

as we allow the heavenly culture over shadow our earthly cultures

from any country. What happens is that unity in

the body of Christ starts to form and This is why we call it

a body of Christ. See, my finger doesn't quite

understand the importance of my toe, but in the body of Christ,

when we come, when we come in unity, that we we both belong

and have an equal level of importance in the body of

Graham, we then play our part and Graham is fulfilled and more

powerful in who he is. So you just take my toe away and

I lose balance and I'm taking my finger away and I can't point.

I have to use my left hand. And it's a nunco hand, which is

a talisal word and which means just not very good hand.

And so there is, there is, there is purpose for everyone from

every nation, from every culture, and there is purpose

within your culture. And when we unify in the body of

the Christ, the body of Christ becomes beautiful, it comes

powerful, it becomes unified together.

And in that unity, the power and the splendor of God, the glory

of God can flow like like humanity has never experienced

before. Let me tell you, it's a mistake

to think that there is going to be division in the body of

Christ and the presence of God is going to move like ever

before. Miracles are going to move.

That's a mistake. God is going to unify His body.

And I love what Pastor Mark says.

As the world gets darker, the light gets brighter.

God is bringing unity into His body and as His body across the

globe unifies like never before, we will see the power and the

wonder and the glory of God manifest like we have never seen

before. To be really honest and rule

with you, I believe that this is part of what is happening in the

life of this church as the more unity in the things and the

purpose and the the missio day, the mission of God that is

coming in into yours and my souls.

And we are unifying with this and we're saying I don't want to

live for myself. What's the purpose?

And we're finding that in the church with God's people, we are

seeing miracles and the glory of God move like we've never seen

before. And isn't that amazing church

love being part of them? This is the unity concept that

the world longs for but can't grasp without Jesus being the

Lord of every nation and being the Lord of people.

Take a break. This is what a church body is,

to look like Jesus at the centre in heaven's culture as our new

governance as set out in Scripture and understand,

understood through relationship, unity and diversity, means that

God through Jesus Christ brings together people of every nation,

culture and background and gives them different giftings, roles

and callings, but makes them one family, one body and one church

in the Holy Spirit. That's awesome, isn't it?

And powerful. This is heavenly culture.

This is Christian, our new culture, this is my new this is

what I'm part of. You aren't part of my culture

and you have to just do whatever we do as a church in the

Australian way. We together collectively are

part of heaven's culture and we do things and we move and have

our being in a heavenly way, in one accord, under one God.

Amen. So today I want to hone in on

the Bible book of Acts and in Chapter 11, and this is what I'm

going to do. I'm going to jump from verse to

verse in this one chapter to exemplify the theme and bring

forward points as we look at unit unity in diversity

together. Are we ready for this Acts 11

verse one? It says Now the apostles and

brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also

received the word of God. Now this is a breakthrough

moment. See, the gospel is no longer

just for Jews, but also for Gentiles.

We jump to verse 17 and 18. If therefore God gave them the

same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus

Christ, who who was I that I could withstand God?

Verse 18 When they heard these things, they became silence and

they glorified God, saying, then God has also granted to the

Gentiles repentance to life. This is what this means.

Peter recognizes that God makes no distinction between Jew and

Gentile. Unity is God's doing here on

planet earth. It also says that the Jewish

believers accepted God's inclusion now of Gentiles,

praising Him for His grace to all people.

This is a beautiful gospel. This is a gospel for all of

Caboolture, for every person in Caboolture, not just the ones

driving nice cars with nicer for everyone.

This is the same gospel for people who just come out of

Woodford Prison. This is the same gospel for the

people living in in the canals and big houses.

It's the same gospel for the Australians as it is for the non

Australians that are living in Australia.

It's the same gospel no matter your upbringing, your education

or your understanding. It's the same gospel for those

who can read and can't read the word of God.

It's the same gospel for those who believe in miracles or don't

believe in miracles miracles. It's the same gospel for

Christians and non Christians. It's the same gospel for those

who are rejecting Jesus and those who are receiving Jesus.

It's the same gospel because we are all everyone on planet earth

from every nation and every people and every generation are

still all children of God. Amen.

It's a mistake to categorize children of God as Christians.

I don't think the church has ever done this wrong.

I just don't think they've just gone deep enough and it's just

left us wondering sometimes. So no, I love, I don't ever talk

negative about the church, but sometimes when you leave things

out, it creates and understand that might not be false.

Let me true, that may be false. But let me tell you, every

person, Christian or not, are children of God.

And if we can see them through that lens, we will not separate

ourselves in some sort sort of hierarchy, but we would see that

the heart of God pumps for them just as much as it pumps for us.

And that is what will drive you and I.

This is what drives us because they are children of God that

are yet to come back into their identity of sons and daughters

of God. Does this make sense?

And when we view people like this, it will drive you and I to

share this wonderful gospel that that that crosses all boundaries

and brings all people in. And when it brings all people

in, it brings them all into a new heavenly culture, a new

heavenly way of living, a new heavenly understanding, Amen.

This is good for all of us. It brings everyone into the

Kingdom of God, as what we will discover in a moment is a

Christian, Amen. So verse 20, now it says, but

some of them were men from Cyprus and Serene, who when they

had come to Antioch spoke to the Hellenist.

There's lots of words here preaching the Lord Jesus.

Verse 21 and the hand of the Lord was with them and a great

number of believers and turned to the Lord.

Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene went to

Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also telling them the

good news about the Lord Jesus. Can you see what's happening?

And the Lord's hand was with them, and a great number of

people believed and turned to the Lord.

Let me just show you what we just read.

Antioch was a cultural crossroads of Greek

sophisticated sophistication. Sophistication.

That's obviously I'm not sophisticated enough for that

word. For Roman power, Jewish

religion, sorry, Assyrian tradition and international

trade. This is the place of the

Antioch. It was the perfect place for the

gospel to demonstrate that Christ unites people from every

culture into one family. This is in the book of Acts.

Antioch becomes the first multi ethnic church showing the gospel

flourishing in diversity. Let me tell you church, if we

want to flourish, we need to embrace each other and our

differences. That's how we fly.

We learn from each other. You know, cross today in the and

when you go out into the cafe, sit on a different table than

what you normally sit on. And weren't some people around

us. There is so much diversity and

so many culture cultures represented in this wonderful

church that we are in that your life can just be enlightened.

So much more unity can come into your your world and so much more

joy as we learn each other, our cultures and we learn from each

other. Amen.

And this is what this church in Antioch was experiencing, and

God was adding to the church all the time.

Verse 25. Then Barnabas departed for

Tarsus to seek Saul, and when he had found him, he bought him to

Antioch. So it was that for a whole year

they assembled with the church and taught a great many people

and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

That's where the name comes from.

This shows the diverse community in Antioch is where believers

are first called Christians and a new identity that transcends

ethnic and cultural divisions. See, when you become a

Christian, I love this. When you call me a Christian,

you're not calling me Australian.

I love it's it's an identity. When you call me a Christian,

you're calling me a child of the living God, the author of all

things. You are shifting The Who I am

and re identifying who whose I am and within that when I call

you a Christian, I'm calling you by the call of heaven of the

purpose on your life. I'm not seeing you by your past.

I'm seeing you through the blood of Jesus.

How the Father does see when he sees you, he calls you child and

he says I'm your father. That's an identity moment.

He's he's saying I have transformed you from darkness

and into lights. He, he doesn't say when you give

your life to Christ that you are darkness, but you can now see

lights. He doesn't say that.

He doesn't say you are still Graham, but I'm doing a good

work in you. But he says I have transformed

you. You are now born again as though

you never were, because your old Jew was into the sinful world,

but the new you is into the heavenly world, A heavenly

culture, a heavenly rule, a heavenly mandate, a heavenly

calling, a heavenly purpose, and with a heavenly Father.

Amen. This is why Christianity is life

to the soul. When you and I become

Christians, we aren't joining cults or gangs or clubs.

We are joining a heavenly purpose and call that is divine,

that is eternal. And the eternal, the eternal

purpose starts now in our human, human experience.

This is the power of the gospel. And when we understand that this

should drive you and I to get out of these walls, man, I'm

excited to get home. Are you excited to get home

today? Please say no because this

message is awesome. But you get stirred, right?

And you just want to get out into the world and tell people

about this. God.

See, we want to see people not just come out of drugs.

We want that, but we don't just want to see people come out of

prostitution. We want that.

We don't just want to see people come out of poverty.

We we do want that, but we want to see people come into the

family of gods. This is what no other religion

can offer. No other God can offer this.

In fact, there is no other God. Just just settle that deal.

There's no such thing. They're just all deceptions of

the devil. There is one God.

There is one heavenly family and everyone is welcome.

But when we all come into this heavenly family, we come into a

new culture, a new way of living, a new way of breathing,

a new way of thinking. Behold, all things become new

for you and I Amen. This is good, good, good stuff.

Gentiles are defined as non Jews, anyone not belonging to

the ethnic or religious community of Israel.

And in the modern world, from a biblical perspective, Gentiles

encompass all people groups who are not ethnically or

religiously Jew. So when the Bible is talking

about Gentiles and the message has now moved into the world of

the Gentiles, he's talking about most people in this room today,

non Jews, you and I isn't this good?

The, the, the early disciples took it that way.

So what does this mean? Unity and diversity means we

prioritize God's Kingdom values. Listen, lean into this over our

cultural customs and traditions. I'm going to say that again

because if you struggle in this area, I want to help you in this

area this morning. And this will bring a new, a new

level of life and unity in the Kingdom of God that you've never

experienced. Unity in God means we prioritize

God's Kingdom values over our cultural customs and traditions.

And if we all do this, it unifies us together.

The Scriptures teach that Christians must place God's

Kingdom culture over personal, national culture, learning to

live out heaven's values even when they clash with earthly

traditions. This is tough stuff.

This is really tough sometimes for us to do.

And the reason why it can be tough is let's say you give your

life to Jesus at 20 years old. You've had 20 years of living

with a perspective that has been shaped by your culture, by where

you have been brought up. And when you come into the

Kingdom of God, there is a a new way of thinking.

And This is why I love calling it a journey is because the, the

wonderful grace of God and the beauty of God is he doesn't

expect anyone to just flick and just go, Oh, I don't do that

anymore. I now do this.

We're all growing, learning, doing what we call getting it

wrong. You know what I mean?

Which just means we're expanding and we're, we're learning new

things. It's good.

It's good for us. It's good for our minds.

It's good for our souls and our bodies to be in learning new

things like this, just like in schools or diversities or Bible

college. Man, we got a lot of Bible

college students in the house this morning, which is just

awesome. But when we learn, we grow.

And when you come into the Kingdom of God, it's a, it's a

journey that we walk together. This is why it's so, so

important that we don't judge each other, but rather we

sharpen each other. Now you can't sharpen a person

if you don't understand a person and you won't sharpen or

understand a person if you don't go deeper.

Then hello, where do you live? Oh, we all live in Caboolture.

So we all have Australian culture.

We're missing a few things, right?

And so we have our after church coffees together and you shout

someone and you, you start asking some real questions.

Where were you brought up? What was that like?

Where was your family? And you find out that they were

brought up in a place and their family was up on the hills and

you're like, wow. So what was the community was a

small community. Oh wow, that must have been a

strong community. And we learn each other.

But in that talking and that communion together, we are both

focused on the heavenly culture. And so iron can sharpen iron.

Oh, well, I love that about your, your upbringing.

But you know, the thing of heaven and the way God thinks

that we find through his word is this.

We go, wow, that is so awesome. And so we we move each other

together towards the ways of heaven.

Amen. It's beautiful, beautiful stuff.

Philippians 320 says this for our citizen.

I'm struggling with words though.

Our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait

for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I like that because there's there's two ways of looking at

those few words. One is, is we're eagerly waiting

for such a thing, but we already have the citizenship off.

And so it's kind of to me, it's like I grew up in in Townsville.

And so sometimes I might eagerly wait to go and visit Townsville.

Now that's very rare, but it might happen.

And so I'm eagerly waiting to go back, but I already understand

what I'm going to find. Does this make sense?

And so if you can identify yourself Christian as as a

citizen of heaven, although we're waiting for that great

wonderful day, our citizenship does this ready.

It draws heaven to earth. And see, sometimes we cry out,

God, would you pour heaven out on earth?

And God's God must be saying to himself with the angels

sometimes, do they not realize they're citizens?

They already carry heaven within them.

And we realize this the more we unify together, because the more

we unify, there's a freedom in the atmosphere.

Signs and wonders start to happen.

Did you know that every time a miracle happens, that is heaven

on earth? It's not a visitation of God's

power. It's not a momentary thing of

God's power. God's power is flowing through

His Saints. Anyone that wants this God's

power is flowing. Why?

Because we are citizens. I often use the term conduits,

which just means no glory to me, but all glory to God.

I'm just a conduit, OK, But I understand that I can be a

conduit, and I stand in the place of a conduit, wherever

that is. But I stand in that place and I

say God use me. Why do I do that?

Because I understand I am a citizen of heaven.

I belong to heaven, and heaven belongs in me.

Amen. So we are citizens, Christian.

You are a citizen of heaven. When we hold tight to earthly

cultural traditions, values, language and behaviours, our

relationship with the rest of God's people becomes under

immense tension. When you or I hold on to our

past, our traditions, our cultures over the graces of God

for people around us, we just formulate tensions, not freedom,

but through our cultural understanding.

When we were in communion or talking with people, if we're

our gaze is on the heavenly, well, God, what does your word

say? God, would you flow through me?

Not through me and my cultural filters, but God, would you use

me as a conduit because I'm a citizen of heaven?

Heaven, would you flow through me?

In this conversation, you'll find unity comes into that

moment, and liberty and freedom, not divide.

The transformative work of what Jesus has done in US becomes

watered down because our witness of God's Kingdom and our

behaviours don't line up. You can't witness the freedom

that we find in Jesus Christ and then hold on to behaviours and

traditions that bring disunity or division.

Does this make sense? Sometimes we speak about the

love of God and the gospel, and we speak about Jesus, but then

we hold so true to a traditional fact that it's secluding the

same person. Does this make sense?

It would be like God without grace.

God without grace He gives us the Word and without grace it

would become law. But because of the grace of God,

I just exampled this. I became a Christian and then

God had the grace for of me to be on my journey of learning how

to transform my life, my mind, my behaviors, to walk in the

ways or the culture of heaven. And I'm still till the day I die

or go to heaven or Jesus comes back, which should have been

last week but it wasn't. But so don't worry about that.

Depends how much YouTube you watch.

But until that day I am always being transformed and that is a

beautiful process. And so this, without the grace

of God becomes law. But the grace of God we see

exercise through the life of Jesus Christ.

Amen, became our Saviour. People need to see that there is

a transfer of culture and traditional grounding and that

there is a transformation in you and I when we give our lives to

Jesus. People need to see that there is

a transfer, a transaction that happens in our lives because

it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives through me.

Amen. So this is insane.

Have no cultural traditions, values, language or behavior,

but rather all of us from every culture.

Now as citizens of one heaven under the lordship of one God,

and save through the one person, Jesus Christ, we allow the Word

of God, the Holy Bible, reshape our beautiful cultural cultural

life foundations so that our differences become our unifying

strengths. CS Lewis said Christianity does

not replace or abolish our natural lives, but it must

subordinate them to something higher, the culture of heaven

breaking into earth. What that word means Subordinate

is means come under or be redefined or be realigned by the

new culture of heaven. In this church we exist to see

spiritual and social transformation of our city.

This great church is made-up of people from diverse nations and

different cultures. We are unified through Jesus

Christ, our new heavenly culture that transcends every earthly

culture and is to unify every earthly culture.

Our new identity as children of God, all of us in the same

heavenly family that work our differences for the one purpose,

the mission of God, the vision of this church to see spiritual

and social transformation of our city.

This is our unmistakable influence as a church.

Amen is when you and I have this mindset and understanding, we

become a unified group of people, a unified ecclesia, a

body of Christ in one accord, you working in one accord as

your body does. And we bring the body and the

message of Jesus Christ to our great city, the Morton City and

the Bribie Island and everyone around us.

And we exemplify the goodness of God across all the agricultures.

Amen. That's amazing stuff.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He said the church is the church

only when it exists for others, not dominating, but helping and

serving. It must tell men of every

calling what it means to live for Christ and not for the

nation. I do not live for Australia.

I love Australia, I think we're in the great self land of the

Holy Spirit, but I live for the Kingdom of God to shine the

light that only heaven has, to bring the gospel that only Jesus

is to bring the transformation that can only happen through the

saving grace of our God. This is our purpose as a church.

Listen, if you're in this church and you're part of this church,

this is your purpose is to bring Jesus to the nations, not to

uphold our family traditions or hold higher what we believe and

think in our preferences and our understanding and and all of

that stuff. But to get into the word of God

and bring the life of the word of God that transcends anything

that I could possibly make up or think or have learnt in my own

experiences. Amen.

Biblical unity and diversity is Christ centered truth or Bible

governed and sacrificial. Our culture and heritage plays

an important part in our mission for Jesus, our vision as a

church and purposeful living where we do in this great city

of ours and as citizens of heaven.

We must submit who we are to God so that He can shape and

redefined who we are so that we are unified as one people in one

cause and that of Jesus Christ. Our differences are our

strength. We are strengthened together.

Trust me, you don't want a lot of Grimes going around.

Unity and diversity is a dream for the world, yet a reality for

God's Kingdom and for God's people in Christ.

Many nations become one people, many cultures become one family,

and many gifts become one mission.

Here's our action point for today, and the band can come.

If you're not already here with me, here's our action point from

today's message. As we live out our heavenly

citizenship, we are to choose Kingdom values over cultural

divides so our city sees the unmistakable influence of Jesus

in you. You received that today, Church.

And as you go out into the cafe, can I encourage you to chat with

someone new this morning to have a conversation that goes deeper

than Hi and Hallows and where do you live?

Why don't we just get deep with our brothers and our sisters?

Who loves that? We're called brothers and

sisters in Christ. You know, I've grown up always

knowing that, but never really understanding that.

And you can only really understand that we are brothers

and sisters in Christ if you understand that we all have the

same citizenship and that of heaven, Amen.

And that of heaven only found through the 1 Lord and Savior

Jesus Christ.