COMPLETE UNITY - Week 2

Hello, Go Church family. I'm Lara. I'm here with Pastor Matt Hataba.

Hi everyone.

And Gilbert.

Hello everyone.

Welcome back.

We're so excited.

Yes.

It's been great so far and this is getting better and better.

How was Grow Group this week? Did you guys have a good time talking about marriage?

Yeah.

I think Grow Group discussions, everyone should have the privilege of having Grow Group discussions.

Yes.

Grow Groups are really the best place to bring visitors.

And if you think, well, I'm not sure if my friends or family members would really enjoy my Grow Group.

Well, then make it fun and enjoyable for them because it is where people should connect.

It's one place where people can connect with Go Church.

Absolutely. I mean, Grow Groups are a place where you get together with your family.

Right? I mean, we are a spiritual family. This is what church is about.

Obviously, we have fellowship, right? I mean, we talked about, we touched upon this last week and we'll talk about this in more detail.

Like fellowship is when we carry things together and we pick things up and we carry a common weight and we walk in a common direction.

We have a common goal. But besides that, we also have relationship, right?

Relationship is who I am to you and who you are to me. And the truth is we have friendships.

We have family relationships in church. And Grow Groups are a place where we can cultivate those and get to really enjoy each other.

Yeah. The thing that Jesus said that he would build, Matthew 16, that he would build his church is not a building that holds a once a week or a once a month event.

It's a community. It's people living in complete unity.

Yeah, that's good.

People should come to Grow Groups because they will experience the care of our Ka'ak.

They will, from the moment they enter, they will see the care and the love between and they will want to get to know what's this love that will lead them to Jesus.

That's really good. I mean, in a nutshell, that's pretty much what we're talking about this whole month.

Which is complete unity. Right? The fact is, so let me read the purpose because this is literally what Lara just said.

So the purpose of our series is this. We want the Go Church family to grow in unity with the Father so that we can grow in unity with one another so that the world will be able to see Jesus.

When we love one another, we fulfill the commandment of God by showing Jesus to the world. And this is what we want a Grow Group to look like.

We want when someone walks into a Grow Group, we want them to be able to see Jesus in us.

We want them to be able to see that love which is not a love of the world or love from the world, but it is the love of God in us flowing from one to another.

And that is literally the commandment of Jesus. And to be honest, to me, there is no...

You know, this is not a perfect message or a complete message unless you look at the commandment of Jesus and understand that this is what He has told us to do and this is how He told us to walk.

You see, in John Chapter 13, let's turn there together and read the commandment of Jesus.

John 13 · chapter mention

John Chapter 13, verses 34 and 35 say this, A new commandment I gave to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

John 13:34

By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. That is literally the commandment of Jesus.

This is literally how Jesus expects us to live, how He has empowered us to live.

And this is a model of what living a spiritual life, living in Christ, living in unity with the Father looks like.

Yeah. You know, anyone that knows me knows I believe in the supernatural. I'm constantly praying that the Lord will use you, the Go Church family, to pour out dynamic, notable miracles.

Jesus here is speaking to His disciples. His disciples are ones who He gave authority to heal the sick, cleanse lepers, raise the dead.

That's Matthew Chapter 10. We know that these disciples came back to Him and said, Lord, we did what you said and it worked.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Even the devils went out. That's in Luke Chapter 10. And Jesus said, Yeah, praise God. That's right. It does work.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

And He said to them, the thing that will make you stand out and will let the world, the people that don't know me, know that you're my disciples, that you're following me, is if you love one another.

Not the other stuff.

Not the other stuff. Right? The other stuff does not point that you're a disciple of Him.

So how much do you want to be a disciple of Him?

And here's the end of this week's discussion is how important is it that we reflect Jesus to the world?

It's very important. Well, how important is it if we measure how much we show the love that God has given to us to one another?

Yeah. Well, that's really good. Yeah.

There's a point where when people see the hand of God at work, this is a strange thought, but they could move on, explain it away, forget about it.

But when they really see the heart of God for them, they will never forget it. That's right.

And that's the truth. People can hear something amazing, see something amazing and then move on. But when they receive the heart of God, when they receive the truth,

when they, you know, the difference is that it is so personal to me and to you and to them that what God did, God did for me.

You know, and when they see that and when the world understands that, you know, it's not, you know, Jesus is Lord Jesus, but Jesus is my Lord.

You know, He's my Savior. He did this for me. If even if I was the only person in the world, He would do it again and again and again.

And that's that's the reality that He did it for me. And nothing paints that picture like the love of God.

Right. And we're going to talk more about this in an upcoming series.

But the the miracles that we see throughout the Gospels, 19 different accounts of physical healing demonstrated in the ministry of Jesus and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

In each one of those, you see the compassion of Jesus at work.

And so if we're if we're starting from a place of power, we're wrong. It has to begin from a place of love.

Yeah. And Romans, Chapter five, verse four, if you're, you know, if you're thinking, man, that sounds good.

I'll do my best. I'll try. But, you know, I just I don't I don't really have love in my heart for this particular person.

Or I've I've had a lot of things happen to me in my life. And so I just I'm very guarded and I don't like to to show or share love because because I'm I've been hurt before.

Well, Romans, Chapter five, this is one of these identity pieces that we talked about in our last week's podcast.

Romans, Chapter five, verse four says that perseverance, proven character, proven character, hope, verse five, and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been.

That doesn't say will be right. This has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who he has given us.

So if we have received the new birth, then the love of God is on the inside of us. Yeah.

Not something that's like the love of God, his love. Praise God. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

And you know what? The love of God always pushes us towards unity for unity.

The the love of God will never, ever, ever lead us to a place where it is encouraging division between brothers and sisters in Christ or encouraging arguments or empty debates among believers or, you know, just just

neglecting the the reality of God's word just for an idea of I'm right. They're wrong.

You know, all of that is division. But the love of God always leads us towards unity.

And I want to read First Corinthians, Chapter 13, verses four through to eight, because this is really a it's like expounding on what what is the love of God. You know, what what does it look like?

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

And all right, let me read this First Corinthians, Chapter 13, verse four. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Not everything in there points towards unity. Yeah, everything in there points towards, you know, believing the best of someone else, lifting others up, helping others, seeing the best in others, never taking something to heart that was negative at the expense of someone else.

It's it's self-explanatory. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This one minister said that he was actually teaching from First Corinthians 13, four through eight.

And a man came up to him afterwards and he said, you know, if you acted like that, you would look very naive.

People would take advantage of you. People would just I mean, if you do these things, the world will just run right over you.

And you would just that's just naive to to act that way.

And he said that he said that without even thinking, the answer just came out of his mouth.

He said, yeah, I might look naive, but I would be victorious. Oh, yeah. Because the Bible says love never fails. Yeah.

Yeah. Love never fails. That's right.

And there's a there's a there's a truth here that is sometimes you can get kind of caught up because you start thinking, wow, I got to do this and I can't do that. And wait a minute. This makes me think I have to think differently if I'm going to practice this.

But here in verse eight says love never fails.

First, John, Chapter four says God is love. So God never fails. And God is love.

So if I put love to work in any situation, especially the real sticky ones that I'm having a lot of hard time with, if I put the love of God to work in there, I'm actually turning God, the creator loose.

Right. And, you know, in last week's podcast, we were in Genesis. But if you start in Genesis one, it says in the beginning, there was chaos. Right.

Yeah. And in that chaos, what happened?

The Spirit of God began to hover over the face of the water and the word of God came and set order and brought good.

Yeah. Guess what? He'll do the same thing today.

And it looks like this. Be patient, kind, suffer long. Don't keep an account of the evil that's been done to you.

Believe the best. Don't rejoice at unrighteousness.

I was doing pretty good for a while, I thought. And then I was just watching a TV show.

Nothing wrong. It's not not, you know, even rated R, just a regular TV show.

But in the show, the good guy in the show was a bad guy.

And so the point of the show, like the hero of the show was was breaking the law, but for good reasons.

But he was breaking the law and watching this show.

And it was one of these, you know, where you could watch episode after episode.

And in the in the midst of it, just on the inside, I heard this.

The Lord didn't speak to me. I just the Holy Spirit reminded me of this verse. Rejoice, not at unrighteousness.

I can't watch this show. Not not the Lord didn't tell me I can't watch the show.

I'm I'm not going to rejoice at unrighteousness. That's right.

There's there's other stuff to do. Yes.

You know what? The world will always tell you that the ends justify the means. Right.

But the word of God and the truth will say that the the the end is nothing without the means.

That's right. I'm cheapening it. It's not even matter. Yeah, that's not even right.

It's not even the right way to say it. But the but the nature that you reveal will reach will will lead to the right end.

Because it's our testimony. Yeah. Yeah.

Praise the Lord. You know, the the love of God never fails.

And the way that we are supposed to walk in love will help us see things and see people the way God sees them.

Because so in Matthew, chapter five, verse forty four, Jesus says, I say to you, love your enemies,

bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,

that you may be sons of your father in heaven. And like Pastor Maggis said,

yeah, if you do those things, you look naive to the world. You know, people walk over you.

That's what the world tells you. But that's a lot. But that's and that's a lie.

And the truth is that when you do those things, you start seeing people the way God sees them.

You take yourself out of that equation. You stop, you know, trying to find your own right and your own way among people.

You let you know, you let God reveal who those people are to him.

You start seeing people through his heart, through his eyes, and you're able to act accordingly.

You know, you're able to help people, minister to people, reach out to people, help them with your words,

help them with your actions and actually get people to a place where they need to get.

You see, you're not you're not going to be able to effectively minister to people or help people if you see them from your own selfish eyes.

But if you see them from through God's eyes, you're going to be able to really see who they are,

really see what they need, really see where, you know, where the love of God is going to fill gaps in their lives.

Let me let me challenge challenge us all. You know, I'm going to read First John, Chapter four.

I quoted this, but we'll just read it. Verse seven and eight.

Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

By this, the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him.

Sometimes you might find people that will say you might hear this.

No one in the Go Church family talks like this. Thank God.

But you might hear people say, well, I love I love God.

I love the Bible. I love Jesus. I love to worship Jesus. I love to pray.

But I don't really like people. And I don't really want to volunteer in this area of the ministry or this area of the church, because I don't really like people.

Guess what? God loves people. Yeah. And you don't really know him.

If you don't love people. That's right. I'm going to say that again.

You don't really know him and you don't really love him.

And our our relationship with the Lord is a riff.

You can see your relationship with the Lord in your relationship with other people because he passionately loves people.

He passionately loves people that don't like him.

He loves people that curse him, that despitefully use him.

He he loves people who use him.

And he gave his very best to them.

That is our standard. Yep, that's right. That's our measure.

And so for for any for me to turn and look at someone that Jesus poured out his precious blood for and say, I think that you're wrong.

What you said was wrong. You didn't treat me right. And I'm just going to have nothing to do with you.

That is foolish, immature and ungodly. Yeah. Yeah.

Division is of the devil. It's absolutely of the devil.

Yeah. And to to see that is to see him something most of many of you maybe have had the privilege of meeting Pastor Tripp when he was here for two years.

There would be no go church if there wasn't Pastor Tripp and Rachel there pastoring in the United States now.

But he said this once he he had to have a difficult conversation with someone.

And, you know, there was there was a lot of things had happened and he was going to have to just have a direct conversation with this person.

He said, so he's telling me about it. He says, so I got up real early because I wanted to pray before I talked to him because I knew I was going to have a hard conversation with him.

And as we were talking, I asked him, I said, so what did you pray about?

He says, well, I always I always take the time to pray for someone so that I can see them the way God sees them before I talk to him.

Wow. There's a lot of wisdom in that. Yeah. Yeah.

I find I'm learning that the more I pray about the people who I'm going to be honest, who annoy me on a regular basis, I'm not annoyed anymore.

Yeah. It lessons. Sure. Because when you see when you start seeing people the way he sees them, you can't see them the other way anymore.

Yeah. And then and then you're you're like, well, honey, you don't want to do that.

You don't want to act like that because there's this other thing that the Lord has for you.

And then you become an ambassador for Jesus.

And what Paul said, were you you pick up his voice and you through your voice, let them hear God's heart. Hey, be reconciled to him.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know what?

Like when I whenever I do come to God and, you know, I say it's prayer, but it's actually complaint.

I start talking to and I just of course, like if you're if you're in the wrong state and you started just, you know, Lord, this is what they did.

And, you know, why are they being this way? And this and to be honest, like the last time I did that, I'm sure I shared about this, but I'll share it about it again.

I started complaining and, you know, I don't feel like I was getting much out of him like, Lord, why don't you ever like entertain my feelings about this?

And like he he responded to my heart and he said, because I will never gratify your flesh. Yeah.

And that is the truth. When you are talking about someone else to God, you are talking about his child to him.

You know, if I'm talking about my wife, who may have annoyed me, may or may not have annoyed me to him, I'm talking to him about his daughter.

You know, he he poured out his blood for her as much as for me. And he loves her as much as he loves me.

And more than that, I, you know, if I say that I'm, you know, spiritually mature, he expects more of me and more from me to see her and to see others the way he sees them.

And that is the reality. How could he trust me with taking care of his most precious possession, which is his children?

If I can't prove myself worthy of that in love, you know, and there, you know, this is something that we let's take a step further and talk about this

because we're not only talking about unity as a whole, but we're talking also about unity in the church because we were baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ when we were born again.

This is what First Corinthians, Chapter 12, verses 12 and 13 say that when we were born again, the Holy Spirit literally picked us up and put us in the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:12

You know, this is who we are. And actually, when you see it, where it pleased him. Yeah. He didn't say, hey, would you, would you prefer to be here?

He's connected us to a place and there's maybe this is a side point, but the Bible says that God set us in the body where it pleased him and where he set us matters.

Yeah. Yeah. Because he's put us where there's stuff for us. I, you know, many of you have had the privilege of hearing from Pastor Mark Hankins.

He made a comment. He said that the Lord spoke to him once and said, there are things that you need to know.

I won't tell you because I've revealed it to people you're supposed to be in relationship with. I'm going to say that again. Yeah.

Because by the way, this is Ephesians, Chapter three. It's not just something extra extra biblical, but it came as a revelation to him.

He said there are things that you need to know, but I'm not going to tell you because I've revealed them to I've revealed them to someone that you're supposed to be in relationship with.

And why that matters is, especially in today's world where information comes so easily and we can get the idea that, well, I can go over here.

But, you know, actually, I don't really I'm either bored over there or I got mad or I don't I don't feel like I fit in and I'm not finding myself there anymore.

So now I'm going to switch and go over there. And that's why I go church. We make a big deal out of we don't where you go to church and you shouldn't be just hopping around.

You need to be planted and grow. There's lots of great things that the Lord is doing all over the earth.

There's lots of great ministries and great ministers that are doing amazing things for Jesus.

I know where the Lord planted me. I know where he connected me.

And so I just I don't stray because there's stuff I need to get.

And it's where he put me in the body. He put us in the body where it pleased him.

And to divide myself from that, especially to divide myself from that over some emotional thing is silly. And it is the work of the devil to rob from me.

Yes. You know, the the picture of a body is is specific. And the the point is a body is a body. It's one body.

It's we're talking about unity. It's oneness. Right. It's not like we talk about different body parts and it helps us understand the way the body works and the way the body moves together.

But every body part is still part of this one body. And what you're saying about, well, I don't find my fit here.

I'm going to pick up and move there. I don't, you know, if my foot hurts, I don't just cut my foot off and say, here, Lara, you might need this.

I'm sorry for the gory picture, but that is that is the reality.

You know, you don't you don't just pick up and bounce from the body because your foot hurts.

You know, you don't how do you say even worse than that, you don't pick up or start dividing yourself against another member of the body.

You know what? This is this is something that is as clear as day to me. And I just I see it, you know, in the natural, if your body starts fighting itself,

that is one of the worst things that could happen. And you call that an autoimmune disease. Yeah. And yet in the church, you know,

it should be completely unacceptable that there is a body part or a member of the body fighting another member of the body.

That that is that is autoimmune disease. That is self destruction.

And that is by default something that goes against the design, the very design of the body.

And so just looking looking at this picture of the body and this is something that, you know,

this is going to be the discussion point for this week's growth groups. And it's going to be such a great discussion.

It's such a, you know, such a nice way to look at how we are supposed to be working together.

Like, you know, we can only grow as much as we grow together.

And this is what you see when when a baby is born.

I always find it funny because the head is always way bigger than the body in proportion.

I somehow feel like this is this is what the church looks like until we start growing into what we were designed to be.

The head is always bigger than the body in the sense that, you know, Jesus is already who he is.

He's the head of this body. Yes.

And the rest of the body needs to grow together in order to become a fully functioning body to accomplish the things that it was called to accomplish.

And so we never want to stay in that babyhood state where we are completely.

How do you say not able to move, not able to act and we're just carrying around this massive head and we're just like little tiny body parts, you know, just kind of floating around waiting for nutrition.

We should be growing together, you know, the every single part of the body, you know, internally and externally just is supposed to work together and grow together.

And that is the Ephesians, Ephesians, Chapter three prayer. And it's it's not a coincidence.

And it's not, you know, it's not a random thing that this prayer is talking about comprehending with all of the saints, all of the body of Christ to comprehend the love of God.

Because when we comprehend the love of God together, only then can we grow together and what God has called us into because we like like Pastor Matt was just talking about how how how Mark Hankins was saying this is that we are supposed to work with one another, feed off one another and and coexist and cooperate in order to accomplish the plan of God in order for us to go further.

So let me read Ephesians, Chapter three prayer in Ephesians, Chapter three.

So let's start in verse 14.

Paul says this for this reason I bow my knee, my knees to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named that he would grant to you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man, the Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

That you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints. What is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So here he's talking about us growing together in this love that Christ may dwell in our hearts that we being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with with all the saints.

And all together, we would be able to see all these great dimensions of this love, so that we would know this love which surpasses knowledge because the love of God is not limited to my brain the love of God is is something that I can see and experience and and and and allow to grow out of my heart because the love of God is in my heart.

And when that starts to happen, all together when we are in unity, then we are able to be filled with all the fullness of God.

And so, this prayer is is massively important and this prayer never separates one from another in the church.

So we're, we're we see that the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to pray that we would have a revelation of our connection, but then also that we would live in the reality of that unity.

And you may be maybe you're listening to this and you think, yeah, that all sounds pretty good, but, but, but they did me wrong.

What they said was wrong it's not right. It's wrong.

And you know what?

The reality is, people will let you down.

Not may. If the more confidence you put in people, the more susceptible you are to being disappointed.

And so it is very possible that you may have encountered a wrong at the hands of someone and maybe it's a fellow believer.

And you might say, well, what should I do?

And of course, if you ask me that question, I'm going to say, what does the Bible say?

And the Bible says in First Corinthians, Chapter six, is this is such this is such freedom and liberty.

If you hear it through the years of faith.

First Corinthians, Chapter six, verse seven.

Paul says.

Then it's already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits one with another.

So the case here is the church at Corinth.

You have members of the Corinth church family are actually taking one another to court.

And then Paul asked this question, he says, why not rather just be wronged?

So that's my question. Like you're you're nursing some hurt.

Someone did something or didn't do.

They said something that they didn't say they should have done this or they would have done that.

Why not just be wronged and move on?

Instead of building a prison for yourself in that in that hurt,

why not set yourself free in the love of God and say, I'm OK.

That doesn't matter.

Because as important as you and your feelings are,

there is something greater.

And I'm not making light of that.

I'm saying there is something greater.

And that's First John, Chapter four, verse four, that greater one.

He lives on the inside of you.

And if you'll let your emotions not be your rule and do what Paul says,

just take the loss and move on.

You'll move on into that thing that we started reading about in First Corinthians 13,

the love that never fails.

Yeah, praise the Lord. You know, that's that's a lot to digest.

But once you do digest it, that is your path to victory.

You know, that that is your path to really seeing yourself grow in the Lord, in the plan of God.

Seeing, you know, the Lord can only trust you with as much as you grow.

And that is that is the reality, because he's not, you know,

he can't put more in your hands if you don't see what he sees with the things that he put in your hands.

And through the eyes of love, all of this becomes clear and people become clear and your purpose and your plan.

And, you know, let's let's go even further.

The the power of God starts to make sense.

The gifts of the spirit start to make sense.

Prayer and tongues and congregation, you know, and a believer's gathering starts to make sense.

All of it starts to make sense when you understand, when you see the love of God.

This the people that I know that walk in the greatest level of victory practically in their everyday life are people who are completely unoffendable.

I love that. And it's just true.

And I've seen it all my life.

You know, I thank God for my my upbringing, where I've I've witnessed different examples, not all of them great, but some of them very great.

And someone asked me once, they said, Matt, how do you respond when someone says something bad or hurtful to you?

And this person had recently been to a funeral.

So I just asked them, you know, the funeral that you were just at.

If and I'm sure that you didn't do it, but, you know, maybe you could imagine walking up to the casket and opening the lid.

And there's the the deceased person lying there and you look at them and say, man, you are fat.

Wow, you're fat and ugly and even dead.

You stink. That's rude.

Right. That's unmanor Lee. That's that's I even.

Yeah.

But, you know, it's.

A hundred percent guaranteed that the the dead person wouldn't care.

Like they wouldn't care. They were like, no reaction.

No, no, not not even hear you.

Not even a little little tear.

It's it's like they don't hear you because they're dead.

If you read the book of Romans, it says, I have been crucified with Christ.

Galatians, Chapter 22 says the same thing.

I'm crucified with Christ.

Paul said it is a very little thing that I'm judged of you.

Yeah.

And to count myself as one dead, what do I mean?

I mean, my my emotional state, my my fleshly opinions from.

I don't put my happiness in other people's pockets.

It's it's not based on what they think or what they say.

It's based on who I am in Christ, which is what we talked about last week.

And so I if I want to live free, I'm going to live unoffendable.

How do I live unoffendable?

I live like I'm that person lying in the casket.

You can come up and say the meanest thing to me, do the meanest thing to me.

And I'm I'm just going to do what the Bible says.

Why? Because I like being in union with him.

And I like what we're going to talk about next week, which is the results of unity.

I like that more. Yeah.

You know, it's like Keith Moore when when someone like just walked up to him and said, I don't like you.

He's like, no, you don't know me. If you knew me, if you knew me, you would like you'd like me.

I just I find that so funny.

But but it is it is so true that you know what?

If someone doesn't like you, they don't they don't see the love of God in you.

They don't see who God made you.

You know, they don't see everything that you are.

But God sees you. And and so it's important to disconnect from the world's opinions and God's opinions and heavenly opinions.

And so let me let me look at the flip side of this, which is, you know, division is considered carnal.

It's considered if we are so in First Corinthians, Chapter three, verses one through to four.

We are literally Paul is literally talking to the church and saying that I'm not speaking to you as spiritual people,

but as carnal and as babies in Christ. And the reality is that when we entertain division

or when we allow division to come to the front of our thinking and our acting,

we are we are likened to carnal people, to worldly people, and we are likened to spiritual babies.

And the reality is division and strife are from the devil.

These are the direct manifestation of the devil. And we we see this in a couple of a couple of examples.

So in in Second Corinthians, in Chapter two, verses five through to eleven,

Paul is talking to the Corinthian church about someone who did something wrong.

And the people in the church were were basically as far as what's the right word.

They were, you know, they were trying to correct them. They're trying to correct the situation.

Yeah. And and at some point, Paul talks about, OK, now we need to forgive him.

Now we need to move on from the situation. Now we need to reaffirm our love to him,

to restore him back into his place. And in verse eleven, he ties this up by saying,

so that we would not be exploited by the adversary Satan because we know his clever schemes.

He's literally talking about entertaining division in the church for too long is like entertaining the devil in your life.

It's like entertaining the devil in our relationships, because this is his scheme.

His scheme is to steal, kill, destroy. His scheme is to prowl around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

As a child, I watched a lot of National Geographic, a lot of Discovery Channel. I know how predators operate.

They look for the weakest person. They look not the person they look for the weakest prey.

They look for the what kind of discovery channel I can explain.

They look for the weakest prey. They look for the slowest animal.

They look for the one that has a broken leg or is mad at the other, I don't know, 30 members of the herd.

And it's just on his own or whatever. That is the one that gets attacked. That is the one that gets eaten up.

And so causing division literally opens the door for the devil to walk in, steal, kill and destroy.

Ultimately, his aim is to keep us useless.

Yes, that's right.

This word keeps coming in my heart while we're talking. Useless.

He wants to keep us useless when we're divided, when we're up thinking about this person offended me, this person did that to me.

I'm sad. I'm whatever feeling all my feelings. I'm useless.

That's good. Right. That's true. Right.

And if you think about it, that that turns that turns us from if I'm going to look at offense, I'm going to look at what someone's done or what someone said.

I'm not looking forward. I'm not moving forward. I'm looking backward or I'm stuck. I'm withdrawing.

I'm drawing back. And the scripture is very clear. Faith moves forward. We're not to draw back.

We're not to be those that draw back. And useless is the perfect term.

And when when we you identify it from Corinthians here as the schemes of the devil, that's what I want you to take away from that passage of scripture.

The devil has a strategy. That strategy is to divide, divide who divide you from those who he has set you in the body together with.

Now, if if the Lord sets us together, we should walk together.

If we're walking together, it's probably going to happen that I'm going to step wrong and end up stepping on your foot or you're going to step on my foot.

If we're if we're close enough together, we're probably going to bump into each other.

And guess what? That's OK, because we have already been made one.

So we just live unoffendable. Driven by love. Yes.

Yeah, you should see Ciela and I in the kitchen trying to cook a meal together.

Just keep bumping into each other. But at the end, it's like we're trying to make the same meal. Right.

Do you want to eat tonight or do you want to have a fight? No, I'm just joking.

But the but the reality is that, you know, the devil loves the vision.

He loves getting, you know, your feelings worked up against you and you against you.

And Laura, what you're saying is so good about he wants to keep us useless because the reality is all he needs to do is make me useless today.

And then tomorrow when tomorrow's here and it's today, all he needs to do again is make me useless today.

And then the next day, all he needs to do again is make me useless today.

You know, if I'm if I'm if I have this issue against this person, this issue here, this issue there, they may not seem very big.

But, you know, that's enough. That's enough to get me off track.

That's enough to get me offended. That's enough to to disqualify me from more of what the Lord is trying to put in my hands.

You know, and and so I know that we're running out of time.

I know that we are probably over time. I don't know if this is the new norm.

Well, I mean, the subject where I want to take, you know, time to kind of talk through this and what I'm hoping as you're listening to this,

you're examining yourself and seeing areas where you can set yourself free in.

And that's what I'm going to say. You know, the change and this all requires change, that change equals liberty for you.

And that's that's my goal. And, you know, in our discussions, we're going to talk about the the picture that the Holy Spirit used to depict what the church is as a body.

Gilbert, you mentioned autoimmune disease where parts of the body fight against one another.

I see the same thing with cancer. Cancer is this terrible thing where things starts to grow against the body that it's in.

Any of those any of those are great pictures.

I will. I'll I'll finish us with this kind of anecdote.

I say anecdote. It's, you know, growing up in churches means that for all of my life, I've always been around church and church things, church meetings, church families, church people.

And occasionally I can remember even as a young kid, there being maybe a family in the church and they say, well, we're we're going to move away from where we live because maybe the husband or had gotten a job offer.

So they're moving to a different city. And this one particular case, the the city where they were moving to the pastor asked this question.

He said, where are you going to go to church there?

And he and the guy said, I don't know, we'll find something.

And I remember I wasn't, you know, I was probably I wasn't driving yet. I was, you know, at that age. And it just when I heard him say that because I was we were sitting around a table, I heard him say that.

And I thought, I don't know why that's wrong. But that seems wrong.

Just

I don't know. You know, but I just a kid sitting around all the grownups are talking.

And so then the pastor asked, you know, started asking some questions, more questions.

And, you know, have you have you looked for churches there? Have you contacted anyone in that area?

Of course, you know, this is back in the nineteen hundred. So there was no Google.

But they are hundred.

But yeah, that family, they moved away and they they actually ended up divorcing.

And it was a really sad story. And the the kind of that signaled in my head or in my life, something like where where you are set in the body really matters.

And later, the church that we were a part of actually planted another church in a different location, another campus and another location.

And the Lord dealt with my father that we should be part of that new church plant.

That was two and a half hours from where we lived one way.

And so we drove to that church two and a half hours one way every time we went to church.

And we didn't live in the house of do you want to go this week?

You know, we we just what time are we leaving kind of family?

Because my because my father and mother prioritized where we were connected in the body.

There are things there are tragedies there. There are things that just never happen to us.

Yeah, just we just never experienced them. Yeah, it gives it's a new dimension of right place, right time.

Exactly. I'm telling you, there's like I had a when people ask me now in my adult years what my childhood was like, I'll say it was ideal.

When I was a kid, though, it was so boring. Nothing ever happened.

Thank God. Yeah, nothing ever happened.

No one was in the hospital. We didn't have huge tragedies.

Nothing burnt down. We didn't get robbed. There was nothing.

It was just praise God. Yeah. Yeah.

And why? Because being in the right place starts with where you are set in the body and the connections with the people in those places.

Yes, because that that is the unity that we're talking about.

You know, you cannot fulfill the commandment of God, the commandment of Jesus if you're not around people.

That's right. Love one another. Love who? The wall. I'm sitting here alone. No, of course not.

I'm supposed to be part of a church, part of a body. You know, I'm I'm called into a body.

In fact, the Holy Spirit himself put me or baptized me or landed me in a place in the body.

And this is actually our discussion in Grow Groups this week, which is we're going to read First Corinthians,

1 Corinthians 12:12

Chapter 12, verses 12 through to 31 together, which is the picture of the body.

And we're just going to dig into a conversation about different members, how they work together.

You know, why does Paul compare the church to a human body? How do we see ourselves in the body?

How do we see others in the body? If we really believe that this was like a body, how would we treat others in the body?

Like, is their success my success? You know, all those kind of questions.

We're going to talk about that in Grow Groups this week. It's going to be amazing. Yeah.

Well, if no one told you yet, I want to know. I want you to know, rather, that we love you.

And I also want you to think about everyone that you see this week, everyone.

Jesus decided that they were worth his life. Yeah. Yeah.

So you hear it from us. We love you. Let's show that love to others and spend some time praying for others this week.

We'll see you in Grow Groups. God bless you.

Thank you for listening to this message.

We want everyone to experience the unconditional love of God, grow in his love and go with his love to the rest of their world.

We invite you to connect with us at one of our groups for our next gathering.

And if no one told you yet today, we love you and believe God's very best for you.