God's Method to Touch Lives
God's Method to Touch Lives - UNITY
Last week we considered God’s strategy to touch lives - church
This week we are to consider the way God intends to touch people’s lives – His method and it may surprise you. – it is UNITY
There has been much written on the pragmatic approaches to advance the gospel in our world today, how to build and grow churches, how to share the gospel with people, how to discover and meet people’s needs where they live – all so people’s lives can be touched and made new and whole again. But the greatest strength a church can have is it’s unity – There is power & influence in unity. God’s glory is in Unity.
Justin, our son loved to play soccer, as he grew up, and Diana and I loved to watch him play. Over many years we watched him and his team grow and develop. In the beginning you always new where the ball was but you very rarely saw it because they played as a herd, all the boys were going for the ball at the same time and there was a herd of boys that ran up and down the field. Games tended to be very low scoring but there was a lot of running in a pack everyone after the ball. As they grew into young teenagers the coaches began to teach them how to play in positions in the field, but for several years they really struggled to work as a team, the boys each wanted to be the star so they would move out of position so they could make themselves look good. They would forget where they were supposed to be on the field and then when the other team would get a breakaway there would be a whole because the boy wasn’t where he was supposed to be and the other team would score. Often through the game the team would break down and get very frustrated with one another and you would see these blowout scores. As the boys matured and learned they could not win at soccer as individuals but only as a team and that each person had a position to play. Justin often played defence, he didn’t particularly like playing defence because he never scored but he played defence because he was fast and good at it – better than the other boys on the team at defence and so he was needed in that position. Justin stopped lots of balls from getting to the keeper and frustrated the other teams strikers. Justin and His team had to learn how to play soccer as a team. Just knowing how to kick a ball, how to move it down the field, how to get it in the net was not sufficient to win, just because he could play a position didn’t mean he was the one to play it. Justin and His team had to learn how to play together, with each boys strengths and weakness, they were a team. As the boys matured and the games got tougher they each had to face the challenges of their own character – like the faithfulness to show up for practice and to work hard when they were there. They had to face other challenges too, some that were beyond their control, some had natural talents that others didn’t have, that was no ones fault, but they were a team and they had to learn to help one another succeed. As a team they had to learn how to work with all their collective strengths and weaknesses not just to win, but to be a team and then they got the glory of winning.
The coaches job was to make the whole – unified – team the best they could be in all of their differences in personality, different skill, varying natural talents.
Gods method in touching a world is by taking different kinds of people and knitting them together into a body that He works in and through to demonstrate His love.
That is glorious.
John 17:20-23
20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me
How God uses the church to touch people’s lives - UNITY
they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me
Unity is an Attitude that drives Action
Jesus did not seek to be the Father – he knew who He was and what His part was to play. His part was to lay aside his divinity, live among us to show us who he was and what God’s love looked like and then to sacrifice himself and die for us and then to come back to life – to live again that we might know that eternal life is real and available to us through Jesus. That was Jesus’ part to play – it is not the whole story. He didnt’ determine when he was to come, why the standard was in place that demanded that he had to die, he wasn’t the one who knew everything and set the plan in place – that was the Father, and Jesus didn’t did not seek to be the Father
Phil 2:5-7
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very naturea God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
Attitude before Action
Before Justin’s team could play well as a team, they each had to have a significant attitude adjustment, it was only together that they could win. There are no individual contributors – no stars – no room for self-promotion on a soccer team. Even David Becham knows that he cannot win without his team.
20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one,
Prayer builds unity; prayer is adjusting my mind, desires and attitude to God’s mind, desires and attitude. Prayer changes me. to know what it is to be connected to God, Christ and others
All believers are connected with God through Christ – therefore you and I are to be connected together
- Unity is a process of giving and receiving – give myself to God, To Christ and to others = I receive the glory that Jesus has given me = the glory of oneness, unity
The glory of God is the connectedness of differents
- Allows each person to be and do what they are responsible for the benefit of the whole.
- I am not the complete package! When we seek independence we declare to ourselves that I need no one. And that is what leads to exclusivity - and everyone looses -
Unity builds value in the individuals –
21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
they are needed, necessary, and unique. It is not in what they do that brings them value but that they are a part of the whole. We celebrate every part, every person, we celebrate not what they do, but that they do what they are supposed to do, they are faithful to their role in the whole.
Unity must be made obvious – that is God’s GLORY
22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:
The glory of God is a great mystery – but when we are in Unity with one another and with God we have the unique opportunity to be part of expressing God’s glory. God’s glory is demonstrated, is seen and obvious when His children are living in unity with one another.
It is in this relationship that people’s lives can be changed, in the presence of God, in the presence of His people. He leaves us in the world to demonstrate His glory to the nations. That we willingly choose to be in unity with one another, and that is glorious.
Our differences have to be highlighted not hidden, celebrated not tolerated and Always, always with the first and primary attitude that our differences will not separate us but help us discover ourselves, the significance of others and discover the richness and depth of our God.
Unity is not Uniformity
We choose to be in unity that is not dependent on us all looking, acting & thinking alike.
Unity is not unanimous – there is room for difference but that difference will not divide us and that is an attitude. Unity is recognizing that there is something of greater worth and importance than the individual parts, an attitude that says there is something greater than the sum of the parts
Eph 4:11-13
11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
We will each have different gifts, different responsibilities, different roles to play in the body – those are designed, determined and distributed by God. Our question is what will we do with what we have. What will our attitude be about it.
Today, the Leadership Structure Team has delivered their work to us regarding how the development of an eldership should happen at The Bridge. They have sought the scriptures, and council, through prayer and discussion this team determined what the roles and responsibilities of an elder are and should look like in our context. An Elder is to be a picture of a model citizen of God’s kingdom and they have the responsibility to guide and guard our congregation. The standards are pretty high and yet the requirement that some may have the most difficulty with is something no one has control over, their gender.
Issues relating to gender is something we are acutely aware of and highly sensitive to - and rightly so. This is not a statement that one gender is more valued, significant or important than another. I believe this was truly a desire of the team to understand what God has said in scripture and live it out as a church as best as we can.
The LST spent a great deal of time in study, meditation and prayer both individually and together as a team regarding the issue of whether elders should be only male or indifferent to gender. The team considered both sides of this issue in depth and the position the team took was that the eldership should be male. This was not a decision that was made lightly and nor was it unanimous.
When we commissioned the LST last January, I told you that you had a role to play in this process and it was to pray. That what this team was doing was very important to the longterm development of The Bridge and together, we needed this group of people to hear from God and respond in faith to how God was leading us as a church to take our next steps.
Some may say, well if the team was not unanimous in this very important point then they must not have heard from God. And I will tell you that would be a wrong conclusion. To have unity, we must have an environment where all voices are heard, valued, respected. I can assure you there was no coercion – nothing but value and respect for each other and the others thoughts in those discussions. In the end, and after healthy prayer, everyone agreed that while it may not reflect their own opinion this was how God was leading The Bridge.
Unity looks like this – we may not all agree on a decision but it doesn’t change the fact that we are together and seeking the benefit of the whole so God would be glorified in our church.
At The Bridge we have some guiding principles that we call our Heart Attitudes. These are scriptural truths that guide us to maintain unity.
- We seek to put the needs and interests of others ahead of ourselves
- We seek to live an open and honest life
- We seek to build and maintain healthy relationships
- We are willing to give and receive spiritual correction
- We are committed to faithfully being together
- We support this ministry financially
-