Transcription
Unity is not uniformity; it is everybody being on the same agenda. And He says the Holy Spirit is the emulsifier; He is the link. And the more you can get spiritual unity, the more of God you can experience in our lives, in our homes, and most certainly in our world. Unity is oneness of purpose; it is moving in the same direction because you want God involved in the legitimacy of the goal.
My green lawn is regularly disrupted by ant hills. Many of you know what it is to have a mound on your lawn disrupting your life, the life of the greenery on your lawn. These ants are committed to a queen, and they're building a kingdom on my lawn. When these ants build this kingdom on my lawn, killing the grass in the sphere of where they are raising their kingdom in service to their queen, they fight being disrupted. If they're red ants, they're going to bite because they don't want their kingdom that's disrupting your lawn kingdom to be interfered with, 'cause they've got a queen to serve. You and I have a King to serve. Amen. Amen. Amen.
But there is an enemy who wants to disrupt the life of God with his own kingdom, with his own program, right? And one of the chief ways that this enemy seeks to disrupt the program of God and keep us from Him, even though God invites us over and over to return to Him, is through promoting disunity. Amen. Amen. Disunity is one of the enemy's cheap ways of keeping God at bay. Far too many, particularly Christians, are unaware of the spiritual implications of disunity and how that keeps us from God. And I want to talk to you today about this issue of unity because it is such a cultural calamity today. We are finding disunity on every level of life.
First of all, more and more people are disunified with themselves. And if you can't get along with [Music] you, then it's going to be hard for anybody else to get along with you either. Amen. Amen. The discontinuity of self with self, of people not being able to function in harmony with their own being, has created disruption everywhere. Amen. Amen. See, if I don't like me, I don't mind hurting you because I don't even get along with me.
Not only is there this unity within our own humanity, increasingly, as we all know, disunity has become the mantra of the family structure. Whether it is abuse, conflict, disruption, divorce, disrespect, lovelessness, this fraying, fracturing, and fissuring of the family has created cultural havoc in society. God established the family as the foundational unit for the ordering of society. So the fracturing of family between mates, between parents and children, between siblings, and on and on and on, has created chaos in a generation that is either fatherless or parentless and are growing up with wrong influence in the culture. Amen. Amen.
And now, of course, we're on the precipice of international disunity that is threatening the very existence of humanity. From a human point of view, this is no small subject. Because of the nature of God, in Ephesians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul says in verse three, "Be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Be diligent; be on target; prioritize; don't marginalize the unity of the Spirit.
Let me pause there for a moment. He says unity is a spiritual issue, the unity of the Spirit. Which means if you're not spiritual, then your propensity for disunity has exponentially increased. Amen. Let's put it another way: the more spiritual you are, the more unified you're likely to be. The more non-spiritual you are, the more disunifying you're likely to be or become. For He calls it the unity of the Spirit. So therefore, wherever you see disunity being normalized, the Spirit is missing. When a husband and wife decide to get a divorce, one or both parties have left the Spirit, even though both may be Christians. When churches divide, somebody has left the Spirit, 'cause it is the Spirit's unity. He says, "Preserve the unity that belongs in the Spirit in the bond." The word "bond" means belt, like a belt holds up your trousers. He says, "Be unified in the Spirit with a belt that holds together order or peace." Amen. So if you're living in conflict with somebody that you haven't talked to for 10 years and 20 years and 30 years because of something that happened back there, your belt is unhooked, because He calls it the belt of peace, which means the Spirit is missing.
He goes on to give his theological understanding of unity. He says in verse four, "There is one Body, one Spirit, just as you were created in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father who is over all and through all and in all." The word is the word "one." One. Unity may be defined as oneness of purpose. Unity is oneness of purpose. Unity is not sameness of persons. Amen. It's oneness of purpose. He brings the Godhead into this. He talks about the Spirit and the Lord and God. And to understand why this is a big deal, you have to understand theology proper. Theology proper starts with the Triune God: one God composed of three co-equal persons, Father, Son, Spirit, who are one in essence while being distinct in personhood. Amen. The Father's not the Son; the Son is not the Spirit, but they all three together make up the one Godhead. All of the ingredients of Godhead belong to all three members of the Godhead. Amen. But while each of the members of the Godhead are distinct as persons, they are not distinct in purpose. The unity of the Godhead is their oneness of purpose as they share in the same divine nature. The only time there was a breach in this was on the cross, when Jesus said, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" So you have a disruption of sorts that takes place. And I don't know, God would have to explain how God could stop being God without stopping to be God so He could be God for us. Because there is this Trinitarian hell that takes place on the cross. But the unity of the Godhead is the key to the unity that He has placed in humanity.
The enemy understands that God functions in a unified way. Therefore, if he wants to keep God out, he creates dysfunction because he knows God won't show up and show off where this unity has been normalized. So he can get you fussing, cussing, and fighting within yourself, within your home, within the nation, or the races, or the culture. If he can do that, then he knows God won't hear your prayers. 1 Peter 3:7 says the husband who's disunified from his wife, his prayers are hindered. But he comes right around in 1 Corinthians 7:5 and says, "But the husband and wife who come together in agreement can get through to Heaven." It was their unity. So the reason Satan has y'all fighting is because he knows your church attendance won't matter. He knows your prayer meetings won't matter. Have you ever noticed how somebody in your life who you're in conflict with, you start off fighting about one thing that's small, but like David Ruffin says, it's growing. You know, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Now you're cussing each other out over something that was tiny when you started. That's because Satan intervened into the argument in order to create the discord, in order to keep God away.
Unity is oneness of purpose. Jesus comes and He says, "I'm coming to glorify the Father." The Holy Spirit says, "I'm coming to glorify Christ," because they are all in the glory, involved in the glory of God. That's why Romans chapter 16, verse 17. In fact, I'll read that. Read a couple of scriptures today because this is so critical to get God back involved. He says in verse 17, "Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own appetites." He says, "Watch out for dis-unifiers. Watch out for folk who want to turn race into a cudgel because they don't want unity; they want to keep division going." And so they'll stir up things to keep the racial divide intact, even in the kingdom of God, so that God will be kept at bay. No matter how many "Can't we all get along?" meetings that you have, says, "Watch out for dissenters, dis-unifiers." One of the things we have to do in counseling is determine which party, or whether it's both parties, are keeping this unity going because they don't want it fixed. Because if they do, then God is not involved. Watch out for dis-unifiers.
Unity is not uniformity; it's not everybody being the same. It is everybody being on the same agenda. Amen. Amen. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:10-13 condemns the church of Corinth for developing a personality cult, yeah, where people were choosing personalities that they would align with, that was creating havoc and disunity in the church. A hundred pianos tuned to the same tuning fork will intrinsically be tuned to one another. And He says the Holy Spirit is the emulsifier; He is the link that pulls together the unity. And the more you can get spiritual unity, the more of God you can experience. The less you have spiritual unity, the less of God you will experience. It's that key and that important in our lives, in our homes, and most certainly in our world. A football team is made up of 11 different positions on each side of the ball. Last time I checked, there's only one goal line. Because the different positions are only moving toward that common purpose, which is that goal line. Different races, different backgrounds, different cultures, different positions, but one goal line. Unity is oneness of purpose. It is moving in the same direction because you want God involved in the legitimacy of the goal. Amen.
Now, there's a standard for for unity because there are limitations. In Ephesians 4, he says this a little bit later in the chapter. He says in verse 13, "Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be tossed around here and there by waves and carried by every wind of doctrine, by the trickiness of men, by craftiness of deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into all aspects under Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." He says, "Until we all attain to the unity of the faith." You divide over two things: sin and false doctrine. Those two things you divide over. Sin and false doctrine. They are designed to create divinely ordained division. But apart from those two things, he says, "You all attain." And you have a goalpost here: speaking the truth in love. You want truth and love. You want God's standard being proclaimed; that's truth. You want God's heart being felt; that's love. And once you have those two goalposts, you can kick unity for your success. When God's standard can rule and God's heart can be expressed, you can have unity in the situation that you face, I face, or we face, which will give us the privilege of returning to God, because then God will feel free to return to us. Amen. Unless the church does something with all that's happening in the culture, there is no hope. He says in this passage, the unity of the faith. And then he says, "For the body to build itself up in love."
All of us are acquainted with cancer at various levels. Some because we've heard about it, read about it. Some because we've experienced it ourselves or have had loved ones who have experienced it. Amen. Amen. Cancer are renegade cells; they're cells who don't want to go with the program anymore. Now, that would be fine if they would leave your body to do it, but these cancer cells want to create disunity inside you. So the cancer cells decide, "I don't like this program; I'm gonna do my own thing." But I'm gonna do it and stay in your body to do it. Not only am I going to do my own thing in your body, I'm gonna get my posse to join me. So I'm going to reduplicate after my kind, and I'm going to turn my cell into a lump. So now a cell, or a series of cells that are renegade, have become a lump. Then they decide, "We don't like staying in one place; we're going to metastasize and investigate the rest of your humanity because our ultimate goal is to shut you down and to ruin your life." We may start small, but we have an agenda, and that agenda is to overrule the order of your body.
He says in verse 16 that when the church is unified around, when Christians and people are unified spiritually around truth and love, based on us growing up spiritually, that the body builds itself up. I was talking to a physician not too long ago, and he said to me, "What most people don't know is that they have already had cancer." I said, "What do you mean?" "Oh," he said, "most people have already had cancer, but what happened was the white blood cells identified it and said, 'We got a fool up in here that don't want to go with the program.' The white blood cells quoted Romans 16 and said, 'Mark the dissenter among you,' and they alerted the army, 'Get him!'" And the army of the white blood cells and a strengthened immune system went and attacked the renegade cell before it could make itself at home in your body. He said, "Most have already had cancer, but because the immune system was so strong, it eradicated it before it became a [Applause] problem." Paul says that the church is supposed to be so strong, Christians are supposed to be so mature, that when the devil is trying to bring up disunity, that is an attack from the kingdom of God, in order to get rid of it before it is able to [Applause] metastasize, so that the body builds itself up. They tell me, you know, you're healthy when your body heals itself before you even need medication.
Now, the reason why this is key in your life, being able to be unified with yourself, which is a spiritual issue, disunified in your family, church, and of course, the culture, is devoid of the Spirit. Here it is: God will create disunity when you try to unify without Him. Said that again now, 'cause I know that I don't want that shoot over your head. God will create disunity if you want unity, but you don't want Him. Amen.
Nimrod organizes the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. So let me look at Genesis 11 to show you how God reacts when you want unity, but you don't want Him. Verse one says, "Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. And it came about as they journeyed East." In Genesis, East meant always journeying away from God. As they journeyed East, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." Technology back then. And they used bricks for stones and they used tar for mortar. Now, here it is. They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, civilization, and a tower, a religious symbol whose top will reach into heaven. And let us make for ourselves a name, that is, a reputation, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the earth." We do not want to be scattered abroad over the face of the earth. God had already told them to scatter abroad over the face of the earth. They said, "We ain't doing that. We ain't doing that. We're going to build our own civilization, city. We're going to build our own tower, religious order, and we're going to move from theocracy to homocracy." Theocracy is God-centered; homocracy is man-centered. So we're not going to start with heaven and come down; we're going to start with earth and go up. That's humanism. Humanism is when you start with man, and man dictates to heaven. So they said, "We're going to build a tower, and we're going to tell heaven what to do." So they said, "We're going to do this, and we're going to grow, and we're gonna have unity, and we're gonna come together. We're not going to scatter." Verse five: "The Lord came down." So let me just say something, man. Can I just say something right here? I don't care how big you get, yes, with your BA, your MA, your PhD, I don't care how much money is in your bank account, how popular you become, how much notoriety you have, how many people know you. Now, I don't care how type-dog you get, God has to come down 'cause you can't get but so [Applause] high. So don't start getting bougie up in here 'cause God knows how to come down when you think you're getting too high. And that goes for individuals, nations, it goes for anybody, it goes for the whole world, as we're seeing right now. So it says, "God came down to see." That is, investigate the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. Look at what they're doing. Look at them. The Lord said, "Now the man was talking at first. Now God said, 'Now I'm talking.'" The Lord said, "Behold, look, they are one people." Okay, unity. "And they all have the same language." Ooh, unity. "And this is what they begin to do. And now watch this, watch this, you don't want to miss this: Nothing which they propose to do will be impossible for them." Oh, no! He didn't do it! Did you just hear what God said? God said, "If we don't stop this, yes, nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them." But He's talking about people in rebellion. He says, "Even the rebels, if they ever get unified, will become unstoppable." Even the evil people who are disobeying me, if I don't do something, they're going to get unity. So come verse seven: "Let us go down." That's the Trinity. Come on, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. "Let us go down and they confuse their language so that they will not understand one another's speech." So the Lord scattered them abroad from over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city. He shut that mama down. He will shut down black people, white people, he'll shut down Democrats, politics. He will say, "Y'all want to be unified without me? Watch this up in here." When you leave God out, He will carve out disunity to show you you were not supposed to do this without Him. He ain't playing up in here. So all of this chaos that you're seeing, if you want to blame somebody, blame God. Yes. 2 Chronicles 15:6 says, "There was no peace to him who went in to him who came out. There was no peace in the city; there was no peace in the nation." And verse six says, "For God troubled them with every kind of distress." God shut it down. So you keep kicking God to the curb, and you'll keep chaos on the agenda because you've opened the door for Satan. Not so in the family of God. The PhD is no better than the [Music] [Applause] GED. He says in 2 Corinthians 5:116, "We no longer look at men after the flesh." We no longer start with their physical appearance, their whiteness, their blackness. He said that's not where we start. Not in the kingdom. We start with their character, not with their color. Paul told Peter, he says, "Your racism is embarrassing the gospel, and I'm going to call you out on that because you're messing up the truth of who you are to be in Christ."
But when there is unity, meditate on three verses. Psalm 133: "How good and how pleasant it is for Brethren to dwell together in unity." And then he closes the short psalm with these words: "From that space of unity, God commands a blessing." As the only place I know in the Bible where blessing is commanded. He commands, He says, "You better bless them. You better, you be blessing. You better flow into that life. You better flow into that home. You better flow into that church. You better flow into that community because they are operating on my definition of unity." Yeah. Not the culture's definition of unity, not the chaos definition of unity, but the biblical definition of unity. Because that's the only definition. The only definition on anything is God's definition. If you disagree with that, you're wrong. Your people are wrong. Your mama's wrong. Your daddy's wrong. Your race is wrong. They're all wrong. Let God be true and every man a liar.
In John chapter 17, John chapter 17, Jesus is praying. He's praying. It's called the High Priestly Prayer. Jesus is waxing eloquent with His Father, praying for His people. And when He's praying for His people, He keeps using this word "one." I think it's used like 10 times. Like verse 11, He ends verse 11 of John 17, "that they may be one as We are." Notice, "as We are." Like us. Oneness of purpose. Then it comes, He says in verse 21, "that they may all, that they may all be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that also they may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me." Amen. Ooh. He says, "If I could ever get the church right, then the world will have something to look [Applause] at." I mean, look at it. People do drugs together, they play ball together, you know, they get drunk together, then they separate. When it comes to the kingdom, He says, "No, no." So that the world may see. Verse 22, second verse. "That they may be one, just as We are one." We are the standard for unity. He says in verse 23, "Perfect them in unity. Make them good at it." And then I love verse 24: "Father, I desire that they also whom You have given Me be one with Me where I am, so that they may see My [Music] glory." I want them to see Me at work. God's glory is where He manifests Himself. I want them to see what I can do. Amen. But in order for them to see My glory, they got to be unified. Yes. In order for God to answer prayers in your house, you and your mate better get spiritually unified. You praying for a wayward child? You and your mate better get spiritually unified. You got something going on in your sphere of business? You Christians get you unified.
I'm reminded of the story of Peanuts and the peanut. Lucy and Linus. Lucy came in, and Lucy, Lucy told Linus, "Change the channel." He said, "What do you mean?" "I said, change the channel." Linus said, "Who gave you the right to tell me to change the channel?" Lucy says, "You see this hand? Yeah. These are five fingers. But when I do this, it's something terrible to behold." Linus has changed the channel. Then he came and looked at his hand and he said, "Why can't y'all do that?" See, what the enemy was, he wants to keep everything separated because he knows if God ever unifies us like this, the power of Heaven can be made manifest on Earth.