UNITY GUARDED | Pr Steven Soon

You're listening to a message to go from as church.

We hope this message will light up your tea.

Today we're gonna look at unity guarded. Everyone said unity gathered. Yes,

So today we're gonna look at unity gathered. Everyone. Remember

what was last week? Last week? Last week, what did

we talk about ownership? Very good ownership promoting. That is

what we did last week. Who spoke? El the Terrans

spoke and he talked about taking ownership right. And today

actually it is a very good follow up when we

talk about unity gathered, because unity comes after ownership, especially

in regards to how we wrote down in the church,

how we sow into the House of God. You know,

unity garded is what we're gonna look at today. Now

you see the idea of unity came from God. That's

the very first thing I wanted to say. The idea

of unity came from God. How God is one holy trinity.

I've heard of that, the triune God. You guys probably

have seen this before, the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit in Genesis one one. You see that in

action when the word God was used. We of course

see in scripture the word God in English is just God.

But in the Hebrew texts is actually plural. It's talking

about tree in one God, not God's different but God

in his triune, as a triune right, the Holy and

the very beginning of scripture you already see unity in

action God himself, tree in one, imperfect communion. So unity

is actually the nature of God. It's not a preference

of God, it's not a value of God. It is

actually God's very own nature. Unity is God's nature. You

see Jesus on the night before he was crucified in

John seventeen. You can flip up in the scripture John

seventeen just to sort of like a glance through the chapter.

You will see a prayer that Jesus prayed, and we

call it the high priestly prayer. Right, this is a

prayer that Jesus prayed right before he went through what

he went through. He wrote, you know, carrying the cross,

being crucified. He prayed this prayer. You can see it.

The whole chapter of John seventeen is devo to a

single Requestgay you guys there, you guys, see the scripture

in John seventeen twenty two, it says this Jesus prayed this.

It's okay, you can go to the slights John seventeen

twenty two. Yeah, that they may be one, just as

we are one. This was Jesus's prayer. And over here

you see two things. We are one. God. The Son

was bring to God, the Father and saying that we

are one, recognizing the nature of God. And he said

this that they may be one day, meaning us, all

of us. This was a prayer that is not only

for the dan for the time being, for that present time.

This was a prayer for generations to come, that every

single generation that shall come will be one, and that

includes us, that we may be one, just as God,

just as Jesus prayed, we are one. Do you know

that salvation those who are who have received Jesus, you

know over here many of us here right. Do you

know that salvation is the product of unity. Let me

explain three persons got the Father again, got the Son,

got the Holy Spirit working together to rescue those that

are lost Again. Unity is not a preference. It is

in the very nature of who God is. Just take

a moment entertainment by imagining this, What if God himself,

the Trinity is divided. Let's take a moment to imagine

that it's impossible, but just imagine God himself, the Holy

Trinity is divided by reference. God the Father says Jesus,

I'm gonna send you to the cross, and Jesus say,

don't feel like it. Certain legions of angels are and

then the Holy Spirit goes around, Nah, don't need Jesus,

I come fuss, don't and Jesus are my father, I

come straight. Can you imagine if God himself is divided, say,

we are in trouble, but thank God that unity is

not a preference to him. It is in his nature.

So he can't be divided, No way, cannot because it's

his nature. Right. This is something that I then want

to propose to us. If unity is God's nature, and

we are creating that in God's image, then we are

to reflect God's nature right now. That means unity to us.

If we are to reflect God's nature as his creation,

that means unity to us. It's not a preference anymore.

It's not a choice anymore. Unity should be our nature.

Let that sink in a little bit. I also want

to give a little disclaimer. When we talk about unity today,

we are not just I'm not trying to share that.

Oh we should blindly just do everything or whatever, everything

in uniform. No, that's not why I'm trying to say here.

I'm trying to say that as believers and as children

of this house, unity is not just about uniformity easy.

It's not that we all have to like the same things,

do the same things, say the same way, or some

of you repeat my jokes. Yah, you guys, you guys

judge my jokes, but in the end you use it also.

H You see again, this is disclaimer. Is this and

not trying to say that we need to just blindly

follow everything. And in fact, I encourage you to question

the things that you follow and question it in a way,

not just seeking us answers from other people, seek the

answers from the Lord.

Right.

So when I talk about unity, it's not blindly following.

It's knowing what you're doing, conscious about it, and choosing.

I know, I say it's not really a choice, but

God gave us reala You have a choice to be

united or divided. So that is the disclaimer, not about

following blindly knowing what you're doing, but yet choosing to

stay united. And we're gonna look into more of that later.

Everyone following so far see unity. The first point is this,

you're see it in your booklet Unity is powerful. We

all know this. This is textbook for everyone. We know

unity is powerful. Right, you cannot easily bring down a

family that is truly one, correct or not? If any

of our family members go through a hard time. If

a family is united, it's very hard to bring down

the family. Some of us have got the opportunity to

experience a spectrum from being united to being divided in

a family. Right, and you see the difference when a

family stands strong together and when family choose to be divided.

You will also realize when a family choose to stand

strong together, it's no longer about what I want, It's

about what we need. You see that very apparent when

a family goes through a difficult time. Oh man, Right now,

if finances is an issue, maybe maybe maybe I cannot

continue buying the things I buy usually for the sake

of my family. Maybe usually I get to sleep a

bit longer, but because of what my family is going through,

I probably have to do more things at home. I

have to wake up a little bit earlier. It's no

longer about what we want. Right. The same goes to church.

As a church, I know this sometimes. I know for

those of you in corporates, right, you're doing, you know,

your working nine to five. Some of you cringe when

you hear we are family, I see correct, correct? So

in a church, I think when we say that sometimes

that you're spell into it. You feel like your family.

That will take a moment to pause that thought and

go like, actually, as a church, we are our family

because that is instituted by God. The church is instituted

by God, and we are called to be a fellowship

of saints to look up for one another. As the

terrans shed very extensively about that last week. So if

you're listening to Hit the Kid or X chapter two,

you can listen back to the message to go from

last week. So I won't dive too deep into that.

So we are indeed a family, even though you may

cringe because of when you hear corporate say that, when

you hear your bosses say that we are family. No,

I just want my pay, thanks all right, some of

us just want that. May or not speaking truth, you

cannot easily bring up. Point is says, as a church,

when we stand together know whether what storms may come

we get to stand together strong. When someone is down

and we are strong together as a church, we get

to live that person up different one of ones of

us here have gone through tough times, even these few years,

and I hope the church have come around you. If not,

I apologize on behalf. But I pray that we will

continue to be a strong church, standing together united, so

that whatever tough times may come to any of us here,

the Church will be able to be of strong support.

We will be there for each other. Unity is a

very powerful thing I did. Okay, so kennef you follow me? Uh,

there is there's a picture. Don't show yet that you

see two pictures and don't show yet. Okay. I used

to play this sport called floorball. Some of you may know.

I used to play competitively. I love the spoiler so

much that I haven't played for years. But I say,

have the floor but stick at home. Last time I

didn't play play for so long, right, it became a

stick to go and red cock coroach. But yeah, it's

very effective, very effective. But you see back then when

we play football in competition, what we would do as

a team. We would when we are in the league season, tournament, season.

We will go and observe the different matches, even matches

that we are not on. Why this is what we'll do.

And I used to play that role. I used to

be the one to observe and I would actually break

down each team's strongest players and weakest players. I will

break down what would potentially be their weak points. And

I will always always try to spot that one person

in the team that gets very emotional. I was spotted.

I was spotted. Uh if the if didn't score, ah,

work the stick on the ground. Okay, very good. Mark

the number down, number ten, number ten. That's the person.

And in the team briefing before the match, that is

where I would chair. There's this person in the team

that gets frustrated very fast. We are gonna make him frustrated.

That means every time he has the ball, usually we'll

have one on one man mark we call it. But

for him, two on one, we're gonna do that. So

we have strategies like this because what we recognize is

this the moment this player gets frustrated, he's gonna make

silly mistakes. He's gonna get frustrated as his own teammates

and his whole team will get frustrated at him, and

ladies and gentlemen, this is how you crumble the team

in theory, that's what we did that. But not every times, Soula,

not every time. But you see, the point is we

recognize that whenever something like this happens, that a player

breaks down and there starts to be inviting. We have

one half the match, half the match with one and

then you see them shouting at each other, and over

here in our team, we're just smiling. Keep it up,

Let's keep going, keep pressing that one person, keep pressing,

keep pressing. Right, That's what we do because we recognize

unity is powerful. This unity is equally powerful, but it

works in opposite directions. Mark three, verse twenty five staates this,

and if a house is divided against itself, that house

cannot stand. Division is the enemy's greatest weapon against us.

And when I say us, I mean the church, because

he knows that the house divided cannot stand. But the

house that is united again, there's a different story. Unity

is powerful, This unity is powerful. What do we choose today?

Coming back to the floorball, I can we can show

the picture, see if you can spot me. This was

twenty ten. Yeah, I can spot my dad. Yeah, my

dad's a coach twenty ten the most every are. I

don't know why I like pink. You know that time

my sike is pink, the brightness on the clot. Yeah, yeah,

I'm here, I mean i'm here. Yeah, that's me number three.

Where am i eyes? Okay, I'll spot me here. Oh

yeah yeah that's me. Yeah, the naddy boy, Yes, that

was me. Yeah. So floorball was great back then. We

played a lot of tournaments. This was after our very

first tournament and surprisingly Division two we got runner up,

so we got promoted to Division one, right, so shut

division wha. We feel very good after one to onament

first run our silver medal. Following year Division one we

went in Spirits. I trained very hard for one year

and we thought Canana last year, first time competing already

second plazer, Carona Carona we go in twenty seven to one.

We were won. I'm not making the numbers up. It's true.

This was against the team Spear Hit. I remember twenty

seven to one following week thirty two zero. This is

contact the very first floor ball club in Penang. We

were trashed, bad, really bad. But why I'm sharing this

is because we were so united as a team that

as we see the numbers were conceding the goals one, two, three, ten, teen, fifteen, eighteen, twenty,

twenty two, twenty four, twenty seven, no one gave up.

And I still remember the team captain saying this, you

guys were losing, but you guys have greater heart than us,

because you chase after every ball. You never gave up.

And this wasn't an individual effort, friends, it was a

team effort. It was us telling each other it's okay, lose, adima,

what else to lose? Play all the wheeler change that

on fight. I still remember we play so hard after

the match, and that we line aground, everyone cramped together,

our legs all cramping, and then the different ones came,

tried to help, one help us out cramping again, and

you run over to try and push our legs. We

played our hearts out and we lost like champions. We

lost like champions. When a team is truly united, even

in the team's greatest losses, they stand together. They stand

together with their fights. There were, but we kept in mind, hey,

we are one team. We don't shief blame. If someone

made a mistake, it's our mistake. We come back. We

come back together. Unity is powerful, but it also comes

with personal cost. We love the word unity sounds very pretty.

We love it, but many times we don't realize that

unity comes with a personal cost. We always want to

reap the benefits of unity, but we don't realize that

there's something to pay from each of us to be united.

Whether it's your preferences, it's your ones, and sometimes even

your own comfort and convenience. If unity is what we

are striving for, my friends, as a church, then we've

got to be ready to be uncomfortable. We gotta be

ready to let go of certain things that we want

to see. We gotta be ready to give up comfort

and convenience. I don't know. You see times of day,

you see that in this generation we are and me included.

We are very quick to be offended. We are very

quick to withdraw. We're very quick to sometimes even speak

against our own We can do one hundred things and

ninety nine things are correct, but all it takes is

one bad day for us to say the wrong thing,

and then it seems like the person who we say

that too. We have become the greatest feeling of the

person's life. It's just a generation of today. I know.

Maybe this is just one of the ways the enemy

seeks to just mess us up. Right. We are very

quick to separate this generation, very very quick. I have

multiple occasions because of certain stances. I hope years of

friendship build gone just over one different opinion. Guarding unity

takes real effort and real submission. And when I say submission,

I mean this. Sometimes we need to submit to one

another LA meaning keiller. Some days I don't need to

win LA. I can take losses. Also, different opinions is

okay okay. Sometimes you know, if people say something wrong

to us, maybe the person is having a bad day,

don't be so quick to go like' don't be so

cock take personal, take it personally. A funny story. This

is a revelation I got two years ago. I have

a lot of like driving stories as a penning night,

so I had this revelation. You know, when we drive

on the road right and when someone didn't signal, cuts in,

or someone does something that is not lawful on the road,

we immediately see the person has a really bad person

correct or not? You didn't even say hi to the

person yet the person here I even have an opportunity

to introduce himself or herself, but immediately we have a picture.

This is the worst person ever. This person confirm got

anger issues. This person confirm is an angry father at home.

We give labels like that on the road and maybe

it's just Mila, Maybe it's just MEA. Maybe it's just me.

Maybe it's just me La. Okay, maybe it's me I

need Jesus more. But you see it. And then one

day a holy spirit minister to me. You know, in

that moment of labeling and anger, I'm like, how can

this person that one right? How can these person say

I have a license? This must be a horrible person.

And the Holy Spirit minister to me this person could

be a loving father and a loving husband at home.

Maybe the person had a bad day out today, but

you just made the person an evil person. That changed

the way I drove in a way where I'm not

so quick to judge people on the road. Maybe the

person didn't signal cutting driving very fast. Maybe there's a

medical emergency, maybe there is a job interview. So happened

the person rock woke up in the wrong side of

the bed, and the person is rushing, but immediately we

labeled this is a heartless person. Heartless. I share this

explicitly because us we are very quick to judge my friends,

very very quick, very quick. Sharon and I were doing groceries, yes, example,

we were doing groceries two saturd days ago. We were

in lotus and then we were just pushing the troy.

There was a worker worker putting stuff detergent onto the

rack and there was a very big thing that they

used to put the the trolleyla right, and we are

trying to just slowly squeeze through, and the person's slady

just lashed out, you know, bang the trolley very hard

right now. To be honest, we have every right to

be angrier. Why are you doing this? Right? We have

every right to be angry. But again in that moment,

the Holy Spirit ministered to me again and say, Stephen,

you had times like diesel, so yourself. It's not personal.

The person is going through something and that's why I

share with share it. The person is probably having a

really bad day on the words of virtual breaking. Really,

I had those days myself. Church. We all have those days,

and sometimes so happened. We are on the version of

breaking while we're in church, and then because of that,

maybe a slip of a tongue, maybe you didn't say

hello to anyone. You will hope that people will understand right,

same goes to others, same goes to others. Can we

be a church that protects first before accusing? Can we

be a church that sometimes choose to defer when you

would rather win? Can we be a church that chooses

to build even when times every fiber of our being

one to tear things down. Guarding unity will have an effectfulness.

And this is the second point. Unity will guide you.

Every investment you make in protecting unity will one day

come back to protect you. There will be moments when

you fall. Me too, I've fallen many times. I still

am falling. And those moments when you fall, you will

hope that you're greeted by grace, right, not disgrace, but

small letter grace, small letter g all right, imagine every

time you fall, grace is there. Can I help you?

But every time we are going to a tough time,

every time we mess up, we will hope that we

are greeted by forgiveness. Right understanding? Can we be a

church like that Bible says you read what you saw

would you sol unity? And again, sowing unity means there

is a personal cost. Would you do that to God?

The house of the Lord? These God's house are And

again by inheritance is our house? It's God's house? Are

we We've spoke about this as well in the different

core values. Are we going to unpack and route down

this house and call this house our own and take ownership?

We talked about that last week. Take ownership and see

this as our house that we ought to take care

of it. Then we've got a part to play. Some days,

we've got to do chores at home. Yeah, can not

everything that Dimami do. We got to play our part.

Would you take ownership of guarding the unity of this house?

And with this I come to an energy actually very

fast shot message today. But I think God has spoken

to us. I've got a few points for us as

a conclusion. You can see this, you guys recognize this right.

For those who play team sports, it's a scoreboard, all right.

How do we win as a team? How do we

become united and not divided even in times of disagreement,

even in times of difference of opinion, even in terms

of offense offenses happen a lot in church. If you

think coming to church, we'll read you of offenses. No, no,

we are very close as a family in a setting. Right.

That means we'll rap each other. We'll step on each

other's toeser and sometimes you feel like oneting to pull

each other's hair out. And it's fine. It's not that

the church has something wrong. It's normal. It's natural. Sometimes

you'll be angry at each other. It's fine. I'm just

saying it's fine. It's okay. But what would you What

you do with it matters. How you deal with it

is important and it will pretty much determine whether you

got unity or you choose to be divided. Your response

to offenses, your response to difference of opinions, your responses

to needs in this house will show to yourself whether

you're standing by or guarding the unity of the church

or you're just choosing to be a visitor. Visitors. You

get what I mean, right, You go into a house,

eat ready. Then sometimes the houseowners will say it's okay,

I just leave the plaza. Then you leave happily. Right,

But as people of the house, we will take care

right of the things. So these are a few points

that I hope will help us get to a point

of unity in this church. Number one, give one and

another the benefit of a doubt. Yeah, the person may

be having a rough day. It's okay, Like, yeah, those

words think, but don't they give personal law? It's not

personal and it's not personal. This is something I try

to practice and sharing. Sometimes say I practice too much.

The people step all over me. But for me, this

is something I believe. It's of the lot. We would

hope that people will give us a benefit of a doubt.

Give one another the benefit of a doubt. Especially when

someone doesn't respond in a way that you appreciate, give

that person a benefit of doubt, give a second chance.

Number two, don't oh sorry, I got a type there.

It's not rich. Don't react. Yeah, don't react and defend,

but pause and protect. What does that mean when something

bad happens. Don't be so quick to defend ourselves. It's okay.

Take a pause and go like, do I really need

to defend myself and win this argument? Do I really

have to make my rights known? Do I really have

to make the person feel what I'm feeling? Take a

moment and pause. Okay, take a moment and pause because

many times it's just a momentary situation. Let's see that

the wind blow next day. Okay, right, don't need to

be so quick to react and defend. I used to

be like that, very quick to react. But can we

horst and protect protect the person that's going through something? Right?

And I believe when we start protecting one another, maybe

we don't have to defend ourselves so much. Really. Number three,

take interest in other people's lives. Yeah, we are very

we are. We are in a very self what's the

word self absorbed self? A lot of self interest. We're

in a society or it's a lot about us. Okay,

you play in your lane, I play in mind. It's okay.

You do your thing. You mind your own business. I

mind my own business. Okay, But I pray that we

can take interest in each other's lives loud. Right, we

are not a company right where? Okay, afterward, you have

your personal life. I have mine. Sometimes during lunch, I

will also if you're a lunch always mind, don't disturb

me me and my lunch box on my own. I'm happy.

But I pray church will be different for you. Take

interest in one another's life. Ask them, actually, how are

you doing? And I can tell you this as Asians,

our very first answer is usually good, me too. I

say that a lot, ask againer, no, hang on, how

are you really doing? Usually that's when the real answer

will start coming out, how are you really doing? And

that's when you hear, actually, this week has been rough?

Find out more why has this week been rough for you?

And pray for the person. Then the following week follow abbah, Hey,

last week you mentioned right you're going through this? Is

it better now? Did you think that? It's such a

good feeling, right person? We feel very supported and if

someone does that to us, it feels good. Right. Wow,

people care? Can we be a church that cares? Take interest?

You're not being a busy body, You're actually being caring. Okay,

celebrate each other's wins. I always believe this, right. The

loneliest times is not when you're going through some difficult

time and there's no one there. I feel the loneliest

time is when you have something to celebrate but no

one to celebrate with. Yeah, can we celebrate one in

the other's winds. I have this conversation with I if

every once in a while, what is what is the

most recent win that you have and I celebrate together

because maybe we are not in a We don't have

the culture of celebrating a lot very Asian. I know, lie,

this one not a luck luck luck lucky Uni, lucky Uni.

Yeah yeah too humble sometimes yeah, But celebrate each other's wins.

When you see someone doing well, WILLI we celebrate you? Willieve?

Are you advocate and solicitor? Chah WAITI celebrate you? Hey

low very hard. We got a lot of lawyers in

the house, and lawyers say amen, low very hard. Sixty

pages of minutes to type out, really sixty pages. They

did it first phase, right. We celebrate. We celebrate wins together,

celebrate one another. It doesn't take hard to celebrate friends, attacks,

a call, your presence, celebrate one another. That's how unity

can be fostered. As you celebrate each other's wins. Let's

associare other's losses and someone go through a difficult time,

be there. Don't need to have answersain minister your presence,

Just be there. Anything I can do to help, anything

I can do to just give you a breeder. Ask

those questions as you celebrate each other's wins, as you

share in each other's losses. Let's also remember the next one.

To serve one another and not be self serving. That

was the word I was looking for, self serving society.

Let's not be self serving, but let's always serve others,

always put others first. My prayer is that we will

have true oneness in this church, not a fabricated one,

not a picture of unity, not ah smiles and all that,

but actually inside we don't really know each other. I

pray that we will really become a church that is

really one. That's my desire for X MEU. I think

we're doing quite okay, but I think we can do better. Also, right,

Let's celebrate each other, be there for each other during

difficult times, serve one another. Serving means to humble ourself,

you know, meaning putting others' needs first. We try our best.

We can't do everything, but if everybody does something, I

think we can cover everything. Right, we can cover everyone. Oh,

it takes it's one person to care for another. If

everyone here does that, everyone will be cared for. Isn't

that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Because we all want the

same thing. Also, we all want to be cared for.

We all want someone to pray for us in difficult time,

to present God's truth to us in difficult times. We

all need one another. And I pray that we have

true oneness in this church as God has true oneness

in himself as well. May we reflect that? Yeah, always

look out for others as well outside the church. That's

my heart that you know. Can we see people who

are outside who are not usually welcoming church? Can we

invite them for church? Yeah? Can we do that? And

that is how we can God unity, promote unity and

actually be united. Right. That's all for the message. I

have a short one just to remind us that unity

is God's nature and we are to reflect God's nature.

We are to be united.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more

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this week is going to be a good week. I

hit for you. God bless