Avoid This Destructive Force

[Music] Bless your name, Lord. [Music] Jesus, Jesus, you are the Lord of this ministry; you're the Lord of every service. What that means is this: no demon of any kind has the right to interfere with anything that goes on here. No demon has the right to interfere with what each person is here to do, and that is to glorify you. [Music] Jesus. Satan is is [Music] defeated, and you proved the authority we have all throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Father, I pray that we not take that for granted, but that we take our stand and we rebuke anything that would want to enter, interfere with us praising [Music] you. Father, we are your children, and we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And I thank you that here tonight you're going to move in people's lives in this place and where people are watching. And God, I am so grateful that I have this [Music] family, so that God, there is that sense of security by being here, that sense of fellowship, and that sense of your presence. Thank you so much, Lord Jesus. We give you all the glory and all the praise. And Holy Spirit, you are welcome here, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Well, you know what you need to do? You need to find somebody that looks like they need cheering up and cheer them up. Now I don't know how you're going to do that, but you may commence to being cheerful. Thank you, folks, wherever you are watching tonight; it's good to have you with [Music] us.

Well, I woke up, up, Jo, the [Music] soul, my Lord, control. I knew I was walk[Music]in' and I lay the and now I'm [Music] feeling I want and hone there's a Shide this [Music] [Music] heart with Jesus all the time. We're walking and talking as we clim', we traveling a road to the where I know I live when I he's been me all about that land and everything is grand. And he says that a home will be mine, and now I'm feeling [Music] might. I got my mind, don't you know? [Music] [Music] I got my, you know? [Music] I over heart [Music] Yes. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I come on, put your hand together. Come on, clap your [Music] hand. Come, Downy King, Downy [Music] [Applause]. Come, He name, we come to praise; we come to praise; we come to P; we come to P. Come on, come on. [Music] [Applause] [Music] us; we come to praise; come to witness here to to come on. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Somey help, help. [Music] Come nowy now, come on, let me hear [Applause] [Music] yourself one more time. Come [Music] [Applause] down, everybody, come down, help [Music] us, come now, Al Mighty now, us name to S; we come to PR; yes, we do; yes, we [Music] do; glor, come onor. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we come to PR; put your hands together; we come to [Music] PR; glor, glor; come and come and [Music] wit; come to; we come to; we come to. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Good, good evening. All righty, what's that? Uh, let's see now, do I have any special announcements? Not really, other than this past Sunday I mentioned about the restrooms being fixed up. It's it's going to be a total re-do in the restroom; I mean, everything. So, um, that is coming up pretty soon, and it may be here within the next couple of weeks that we'll have to, you know, call off a Sunday just to make sure everything's done properly and so forth. We don't want any anyone working down there to be rushed to try to get it done, and that's okay, you know. Um, it's it's not going to hurt us to miss one Sunday; you just have to double up on your offerings the next week. That's all right. So praise God. Um, and definitely, I I really again encourage you to be praying about the conference, that the people that come in they have the finances, the that cover, you know, everything, and that the people who are supposed to—there are some folks out there are really, I believe that they are still kind of iffy on whether or not they want to attend. So yeah, I pray that uh they will get the mind of Christ on this and that they'll be here. Uh, praise God. Who knows, you know? Revival, outpouring, whatever, I mean, it could break out during the conference, and I I don't just say that; I mean, really, it could. I just don't know how that would look, but it'll be good, I know that much. So praise God, we're going to have a wonderful time. Would you please open to First John, First John chapter 5? We'll start there for a moment, then move on to a couple of places in the Old Testament. 1 John chapter 5, and if we take a look here in verse 7: "For there are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." And obviously, when it speaks of the Word, that's talking about Jesus. This is an amazing verse: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It's identifying three separate personalities, individuals, however you want to call it, but it says, "these three are one." And you know, people really get hung up on this a lot, debate it. Well, you know, you're you're talking three Gods. There aren't three Gods; there's only one God, only one, only one; his name is Jesus. Okay. Well, who was Jesus praying to when he was on Earth? You know, and along with that, um, who was it that filled Jesus when he was baptized, came up out of the water? And Jesus even speaks of the Holy Spirit as being somebody else. He said, "I'll send another comforter." So you know, you can really argue about this, and, well, you're talking about three Gods, but it's right here: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; these three are one. Be, you know, here's Jesus on Earth; he's praying to the the Father in heaven, and he gets filled with the Holy Spirit, who comes from heaven. Like it or not, that is identifying three distinct personalities, but yet they are one. Now the problem we have is when people on Earth try to explain that from a human perspective; you can't; it's impossible. And that's where they start arguing about, "Well, you're talking about three separate Gods." No, we're talking about one God who operates in a way that is beyond human comprehension. He he knows the beginning from the end, and which is really interesting because this moment right now, right this Mo- moment where we are right now, this is both present, past, and future. You say, "Well, that doesn't make any sense." Well, God is not bound by our timeline. And if if the timeline of Eternity were stretched out like in front of him, and he could look down on it, and he would see everything in the past, everything in what we now call the present, and everything in the future happening all at the same time. Now it doesn't make any sense, not to our human minds. This is why we have to accept these types of passages by faith, because we don't understand them, and yet here they are right in front of us. But what we see in this seventh verse, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and these three are one, we are seeing the most perfect form of unity that exist exist. They are one; they coexist; they are co-equal. I don't understand how all that works, yet there it is, and so I accept it. And so here we have a situation to where God, let me say like this, um, just for the sake of this teaching, okay? God says, "Okay, here's Father, here's Son, here's Holy Spirit, but we are all one." I don't understand that. God says, "You don't have to, and you're not ever going to; just accept it. We are all one, and this is how we operate. This is a reflection of how it's supposed to be for us." If you look back in Amos chapter 3—Amos is right before Obadiah, and it's right after Joel—Amos chapter 3, look what God says, verse 3: "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" Will you can't. Now you can be in the same room together, but you're not going to be headed in the same direction. Can two walk together? If you're walking together, that means you're walking together in the same direction. And he said that that can't happen unless you're in agreement. That's absolutely impossible. Well, now look over in Ecclesiastes chapter 4. I know you probably had forgotten there were even was an Ecclesiastes; we haven't been there in a long, long time. Well, anyway, Ecclesiastes chapter 4—give you a moment to find it—comes right after Proverbs, and it's right before Song of Solomon. Ecclesiastes chapter 4, we pick this up in verse: "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour: For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up again. If two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." He's identifying unity, not the unity of of, you know, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; he's talking about here on Earth, how to have what you would call success as far as serving God is concerned. Now unity, he's revealing right in here. You know, "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" Then what we see in this passage, he's revealing here in his word that unity is a powerful force in the kingdom of God, very powerful. And the opposite of unity is disunity. Disunity is, in its own way, equally powerful, but it's powerful to bring about disruption; it is a powerfully destructive force. The proof of that, the proof of that is our government. You know, honestly, if only people would get on the word of God, you know, I mean, it's not that hard. But disunity, it's a destructive force. Relationships, and this is interesting, relationships are like the ground in which seed is sown. And when I say relationships, it's not simply a matter of two people; it's a matter of humanity relationships, because you can take the seeds of anger, unforgiveness, hostility, bitterness, uh, the desire for prestige and promotion, pride, selfish ambition—all of these produce the fruit of disunity. And this is especially destructive within the body of Christ, because it goes on, it goes on all the time, all the time. You have church chur- es, yeah, well, you know, there are pastors that they have goals in life. Well, that's okay; it it's not wrong to have goals, but some pastors have as a goal to have a really big church. I remember one pastor looked at me and he said something along—it was something like, you know, "My destiny, I'm I'm going to have a mega church someday. I I'm going to have a mega church." Well, you know, if God shows up and tells you that, "I want you to have a mega church," well, okay. But you know what, when you're doing it on your own, that's pride; you know, that that is selfish ambition, instead of Christ-centered ambition. There are pastors that um, there are people that they believe they're called to be a pastor, and so maybe they are, maybe not; I don't know. But they see small churches as nothing more than a stepping stone to bigger churches. And when they go into a small church, from their perspective, "I'm only here for a while until something bigger opens up." This goes on all the time. Well, you know what, that's selfish ambition. And as long as that pastor is focused on the next big thing or the next bigger thing to come along—bigger church and so forth—there is no way that church is walking together in unity, nowhere, no way, because that pastor is looking for the next step up, looking for promotion. And and this happens in uh denominations; it just—anyway, the bottom line is this: this unity can exist in a subtle way that you don't even pick up on it so much, like the pastor looking for a bigger opportunity. And when that bigger opportunity comes along, the pastor stands up and tells people, "Well, folks, listen, um, you know, we've been here now for three years, and God is really moving, and God's doing this, and God's doing that, but you need to know that I'm sharing this with you: God has opened another door, and uh, my wife and I will be moving on." Well, that can be devastating to a church, but they always tell you it's God; I mean, they're not going to tell you, "Well, I can finally get out of this dump and go somewhere." They're not going to say that; it's always God; it's always God. Well, here's the thing, you know, when it comes to that whole issue of a pastor and a church: you stay where you are until God definitely moves you, and you forget about everything else. You don't still look, you don't look for greener pastures, because those greener pastures really aren't that green. You know what happens um in football when they have natural turf? They'll get out there and they'll play, and you know, sometimes the there's rain, and the ground gets all torn up and so on and so forth, and so they go in there and they patch it. But you know what, they paint the grass. Did you know that? Yeah, they paint the grass. Some of these guys, when they have like green stains on their uniform, that's not a grass stain; that's paint. That's rubbed off the grass. Seriously, they paint the grass; they want it to look good for everybody, especially on TV. Well, you know what, when it comes to unity in the body of Christ, it has to be about Christ, not about what I want. And this whole aspect of unity, the Apostle Paul addressed this, and I want you to look over in Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2, you know, when you're walking in unity with Christ, you'll be walking in unity with the body of Christ. Now that doesn't mean everybody else is going to be walking in unity with you, but as long as you're walking in unity with Christ, then you'll be walking in unity with his body, as much as the rest of the body wants to walk in unity. Now let's take a look here, Philippians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1: "If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." You know, you read that, and it's like, "Okay, that's great. Well, what's the next chapter say?" But he says in here, you know, basically verse one is, if you're really serious about your walk in Christ, I mean, if you're really serious about this born-again life and your relationship with God, then you know what, you need to be likeminded, having the same love. What, what love? What same love? Same love as God has, the same love, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Now when he says likeminded, one accord, one mind—everybody in the body of Christ—well, we're all at different levels of our spiritual growth, and the Apostle Paul addresses this. I think it's over there in Romans somewhere around chapter 13, I guess, where he's talking about, if eating meat offends your brother, don't eat meat. And he starts it out by talking uh by saying that when it comes to—and let me put it in in my own words—when it comes to dealing with other Christians who aren't as spiritually knowledgeable as you, then you need to have compassion on them, and you need to put up with their lack of knowledge. You know, the whole thing of eating meat, and he says, "Look, if eating meat is going to offend my brother, that I won't eat meat until my brother comes to understand it's okay to eat meat." And he goes on, and he talks about um honoring different days, for example. You have Christians today, man, they love God; they truly love God, but they still think you have to go to church on Saturday. They still think that they're not—well, they're not Seventh-day Adventist, but they think that they think it's still supposed to go—okay, they don't understand yet; they don't understand what the Sabbath really represents, what the Sabbath is really all about for the body of Christ; they don't understand this yet. So he he says, "Don't give him a hard time about this. You know, love them in spite of the fact that they don't yet understand, because the goal is—well, discipleship—live Christ in front of them, understand where they are in their walk with God; don't criticize them; don't give them a hard time. You know, 'Why are you so stupid to think you know, got to go to church on Saturday?'" You know, use grace in in your communication. The whole Sabbath and Saturday, okay, that's just an example. But the point is, if we're going to walk in unity, then we have to understand some people just aren't as far along as other Christians. So you know, the grace and the mercy aspect of it. Now obviously, there's an expectation that people are going to grow in the Lord, but we are to edify each other. And he says here, you know, "Be likeminded, same love, one accord, one mind." And then in in verse three and four, essentially what he's saying is, don't put yourself above anyone else; just just don't do that. You know, lowliness of mind, respect others; I mean, if they don't respect you, but respect others, and don't compromise in your own walk, and don't compromise the word of God, but show love to them. You wi- them with with your love; you're going to win them with this grace. And so he's saying there needs to be this unity, because if this unity doesn't exist, then you're going to have strife, and you're going to have a problem. And if you look over in um Ephesians chapter 4, in Ephesians chapter 4, he brings this out a little bit more, and he says, Ephesians 4:1, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, plead with you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." Now that's interesting, because when he says the vocation, it it doesn't mean the same thing that we would think of today, like vocation, "What is your job?" Well, you know, "I'm uh, I'm a plumber," or or you know, "I'm a this, I'm a that." That's not what this is talking about. This vocation and and I guess back in the 1600s this word had maybe a different connotation, I don't know, but this vocation is not speaking of your your secular job; it's talking about your calling into Christ, number one, you're calling into Christ. Walk worthy of the fact that you've been called into the body of Christ, but secondly, it's also talking about your ministry calling, which isn't necessarily vocation, but it can be. He's talking about your ministry calling. So first and foremost, walk worthy of the fact that you've been called into the body of Christ; you know, honor that calling. And he continues on in verse two and says, "With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love." In other words, not seeing yourself better than others, but you know, being patient, being patient with the idiosyncrasies of others, extending grace to others to grow spiritually. You know, we talk about outpouring and revival, and this is something we've got to be prepared for, because when you talk about outpouring and revival, you really don't know who's coming in. I'm I'm talking baby Christians; you just don't know. You may have you may have some females who they never been to church in their life; they really don't understand that certain types of clothing are best not worn in church, and the same thing, you know, with men. But you have to extend this grace to help them understand that, you know, here at one time smoking was permitted in public buildings. Well, then before the law was passed that smoking was prohibited in public buildings, there were a couple of occasions where people were in here smoking in the restrooms. You know, we had to kind of address that, you know, "Hey, you know, you really we don't really want you doing that here in the church." "Oh, okay," you know, so they step outside and puff away. But these are you know, these are things you have to deal with, because we can get to the place we're so comfortable with each other, we're so used to way the way we all do things, when somebody comes in and it's a little bit different, it's like, "Are you sure you're even saved?" Like, "Well, okay, yeah," they are, but they're learning, all right? They're new to all of this, and they're still adjusting to that conscience that have on the inside; they're still learning to recognize that conscience and live by that. Well, he's saying, "Look, with all lowliness and meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another in love." Then he says, "Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, making the effort to maintain unity in the body of Christ and in the local within the local church. And look, let just be honest, there are some people, it's almost like they think it is their calling to put that to the test, to kind of, you know, "How far can I push things?" Some people, some Christians—now listen—they're just stubborn; they're stubborn. Um, they don't want to receive correction. But if you do it right within the church, if you walk in unity, those people eventually they'll change, or they'll leave, and it won't be because people ganged up and chased them out; it'll just the atmosphere of unity will begin to kind of irritate them. And sometimes, you know, you have to put up with it for a long time. But when we're walking in unity with Christ, there is an atmosphere that comes along with that. And then he says here in verse four, "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." In other words, all Christians are a part of the body of Christ, and we all share with the same new nature; you know, there's there's not a difference in this. And in verse five, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." There's one savior, there's one faith that comes by hearing God's word, and there's one baptism of spiritual unity into the fellowship with Christ. We're all baptized into this body; talks about that over in Romans. And then in verse six, "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." One God above all other gods, who alone is Father, the father of all of us. And here he says, "in you all," that means God is in us; he's there, spiritually speaking, his presence; he's there in all of us. So when we take up against somebody else in the body of Christ, God is very aware of that, and he's saying, "Look, do what you can to keep the unity; do what you can to keep the unity." Now one of the probably the best example of disunity within the body of Christ is over there in 1 Corinthians. So take a look at that; turn over there to First Corinthians. See, we everybody's different; everybody, we all have different personalities, and yes, we get along better with some people than others; that's just how it works out. But we can still be in unity; we can still walk in love; we can still have that, you know, meekness, the the lowliness of mind, so on and so forth; we can could still have that even though we hang around with some people more than we hang around with others. That's okay. But here in First Corinthians, these folks have gotten born again, filled with the Holy Ghost, and man, I'm telling you, it just went downhill after that. Because the Apostle Paul, in verse 10, he says, "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ"—now this is strong language; it may not come across this way in here—but he says, "Listen to me; I'm pleading with you in the name of Jesus that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." Now when he's talking here about the same mind, this doesn't mean everybody has to be right now at the same place in their spiritual understanding of the word of God or who you are in Christ. No, the same mind—one way to say that is you have the same goal; you're pressing in the same direction together; you're not divided in your approach. And he says, "Because it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you, divisions, strifes. I mean, you guys are at each other." And he says, "Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I am of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ." In other words, he's saying, what's happening is you folks are following different people. And it goes on today. This right here, what you're seeing right here is the way denominations get started. And Satan was doing it right here; he was trying to get this started because, "Well, I follow this person; I follow that person." I've shared before how that if you study the history of every denomination, all of them, you can trace it all the way back to one or two people; that's it. And then it grows from there, because at some point those two people, that one person, they people start following them, and then eventually somebody says, "We need to organize," and so they organized, and they give themselves a name, and it goes from there. Every single denomination has that same process, and and each one of them has different ideas, different doctrinal beliefs, if you will. And usually—well, in fact, today the majority of all denominations came about as a result of strife and division; people couldn't get along, so they—now in some cases that's not a bad idea, you know, the whole thing of, you know, the the United Methodist Church embracing, you know, a culture of perversions and anointing that and uh you know, honoring those marriages and the people that you know, pastoring and so forth. Okay, well, there was a major split there, and now there's a new group—what are they called, the—anyway, there's a new group, new denomination that got started because they don't believe in all that. Okay, they left; division was for a good reason, a good reason. In fact, I got a an email here or or somebody contacted me by message the other day who had been um a I I forget the title, but they weren't just a pastor in the United Methodist Church; they were some sort of an overseer. And he said, "I've left that denomination because of the same-sex issue." It's like, "Well, praise God; good for you." I wondered what he was going to do when all this came about. Nevertheless, he says in verse 12, "Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, Christ: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" You know, he's laying this out there right in front of them, and he's saying, "Why are you doing this? What's going on with you folks?" Well, if you look over in chapter 3, he says, "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." Which means they should be further along than this by now. He says, "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase." See that? And so he's saying, "Look, you're esteeming people in your midst as being the ones you need to follow, and you're creating this division in your midst." And he says, "The people that are in ministry, they're only there because God called them." But then later on in this in this book—it's unreal—he goes on—we don't have to read; we're not going to read all of this—but in chapter 5 he's identifying all these problems in this church.

In chapter five, he said, "You guys are so messed up that you have a form of immorality going on that even the Gentiles don't talk about. They don't, they don't even get involved with it." And they said, "You're puffed up; you act like it's okay." He said, "Don't you understand a little leav—leev—at the whole lump?" Now what he's talking about here in chapter five is the fact that this guy was doing this, and some way, somehow he has convinced people in the church it's okay, it's acceptable. Because you see, if the people in the church had come to the conclusion it wasn't acceptable, they wouldn't have put up with this. And then Paul says, "Look, you got to deal with this." He says, "Turn this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so his spirit is saved in the day of the Lord." That's pretty heavy duty. Now think about all this, what he's writing in here just so far. I wonder what all these people thought when they heard this letter read. Let Paul know what he's talking about. I—I would not doubt that there were some people like that because, in—in part, what he's doing, he's identifying them as being the source of the division, as leading people into division.

In chapter six, he talks about they're suing each other. He also talks about who they—what they're doing for entertainment, and it includes involvement in immorality that was accepted in the city of Corinth. And he's saying, "This isn't acceptable in the body of Christ. What's wrong with you people?" Then he starts bringing about correction in the area of marriage in chapter seven, and he continues on. He gets over to chapter eight, talks about people that were fellowshipping with others who participate in idol worship, and sometimes just to get a—a good, you know, state out of the deal. He goes on, and he over and over again—chapter 10—he gets into identifying judgment, and he says, "Hey, there were some things that happened to Israel way back when as examples for us today, and if you do the same thing, you need to understand you're not going to be void of judgment." He talks about communion and how messed up they were when they were celebrating communion in chapter 11. He gets in chapter 12, 13, 13, and 14, and he's talking about how that uh they think they're big stuff because the Holy Spirit moved—for the gift of the spirit to operate through them—and he's bringing correction to that. He's saying, "No, you're not big stuff because the Holy Spirit does what the Holy Spirit does, and it's not because you're something special; it's because of what the Holy Spirit does." He gets into uh chapter 15, and he starts talking about the um, like the return of Jesus and so forth, and the—the dead being raised. And so I mean, it just—he's bringing all this correction because there was so much disunity and all these different teachings, all these different doctrines, and he's trying to bring it back in for them to stay focused on what they're supposed to be doing well in the body of Christ.

This kind of stuff is still going on, you know. Um, you—you've all heard of leukemia. Well, very briefly, very briefly, leukemia—IIA—is when your body overproduces white blood cells, and they kind of go into a mutation; they begin attacking red blood cells. Now that's—that's the simple version of it, extremely simple, and there's all kinds of sickness and so forth as a result. Well, disunity is similar to that because it's like an overproduction of the white blood cells; Christians begin to see others as a threat and attack them. Well, it doesn't work that way if you're following these principles in scripture. And then another example would be leprosy. Leprosy um, it begins killing the nerves in the body; it kind of starts out with the extremities and then begins working its way further up through the legs and arms, so on. And when those nerves die, the people don't have any feeling, so they can get a cut and not even realize they've got a cut; it can get infected; they don't even realize it's infected. The infection gets worse and worse and worse to the point to where literally the—the finger, the limbs, whatever, they begin to be eaten off, and they—they just—they lose their fingers, lose their hands; they can lose their nose, their ears, whatever. It's terrible, absolutely terrible. Well, disunity is like leprosy in the body of Christ because it numbs us to what kingdom service is all about, and we start focusing on what we want; we start focusing on how much we don't like so-and-so; we start—you know, I've told this story before, but we were in a church service one time—it was a church service uh within a denomination—and the churches that were part of that denomination within the—the local um jurisdiction, they were coming together for a unified service. They did that like once a quarter or something like that. So we're there; we're in the—the service; we're in there. Service is about to begin and so forth. Your organ player is playing, and the piano player is playing and trying to, you know, follow along with the organ player, and the piano player didn't do exactly what she was supposed to, and man, all of a sudden that organ player, she looks over, and I mean, if she—if she could have, I think she'd have shot death rays out of her eyes, and I felt sorry for the piano player because she had this look on her—in her face was like, "I'm trying, you know, I—I don't know what else to do." Well, you know what? That was done in front of everybody in the whole church. Now what do you think people were believing at that point, like, you know, this organ player, what is her problem? Obviously, there's something wrong on that platform that has an impact on the entire service, and it literally—it—it can hinder—it will hinder—what the Holy Spirit wants to do in a service. Well, things kind of picked up from that point on, and the service continued, and it wasn't a terrible service, but what we see here in 1 Corinthians is a perfect example of what goes on in the body of Christ concerning disunity.

Now the question would be, "Well, then what do we do to avoid this unity? I mean, how can we—what can we do to try to maintain the—the unity?" We'll look over Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18, and really these—I wouldn't say they're in any specific order that we're going to see, but in Matthew chapter 18, verse one, "At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, 'Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?'" Self-exaltation, right there it is, man. And Jesus called a little child unto him and set him in the midst of them and said, "Verily I say unto you, except you be converted—that means except you be born again—and become as little children—that means born again as a baby in Christ—you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." So first off, they're asking this question, "Who's the greatest in the kingdom?" And he says, "Fellas, first off, you got to get into the kingdom before you can start talking about who's the greatest in the Kingdom." So if you want to—if you want to be the greatest, here's what you got to do to get into the kingdom. Then he says in verse four, "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." There it is: humble yourself as a little child. Okay, little kids—little kids—I—I don't know—even some kids have strong personalities, but you know, little kids, they follow mommy and daddy, you know what I mean? Little kids, they are followers more than they are leaders. But one thing about little kids, they are teachable. That's how you can have kids—you know, this kind of stuff gets me in trouble—but they believe in Santa Claus, and it shouldn't get me in trouble when I say something like that, but you know, you got parents that might think, well, you know, my kids, they—they believe in Santa Claus; we're going to start watching another church. Look, a lie is a lie; I mean, there's just no way to get around it. I—I don't mean to be offensive, but see, when you tell kids about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and you know, the moon's made out of green cheese, and the cow jumps over the moon, and whatever it is, you know, kids hear that and they believe it; they accept it; they're teachable. And so Jesus is saying, "Look, you're going to have to be like a little child; you're going to have to be teachable." The problem we have is that so many Christians, as they get older, they tend to lose their teachability—if that's even a right word—they—there's a tendency to hold on to whatever they've heard before, and they're no longer teachable. And I've encountered Christians like that. You know what? You just—it's no use talking to them because they've got it set in their mind, "This is the way it's going to be," and there's—"Yeah, but it's right—right here in the Bible," it says—"Well, it may say that, but"—they're not teachable. Let me tell you what: if you want to get promoted by God, be teachable. Be teachable. And when you hear something that you're not too sure about, then you know what you do? Look over to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2, and right here in verse 18, Ephesians chapter 2, verse 18, "For through him—through Jesus—we both—born—you know, the Jews and Gentiles—have access by one Spirit—that's your born-again nature—unto the Father. Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the Chief Cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto—to a holy Temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the spirit." And then in chapter 4, verse 13, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man—that's fully mature—unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." In other words, be teachable. And when you hear something, it's like, "Well, I don't know about this," you know what you do? You go back to the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ, the Chief Cornerstone, and you leave it in context. Get in the word first and foremost; get in the word. Every now and then I've had Christians come to me, "Well, you know, I read this book by so-and-so, and he says—and she says—" It's like, "Well, what's in the word? What's in—in the word?" And you know, most of the time they can't even tell me, but they sure know what Brother so-and-so said or what Sister so-and-so wrote. Well, you know, I was—I was watching this preacher the other day on YouTube, and he said—" Okay, but what's in the word? What is—right here it is—this is what you do. You—if you're going to do—be established on the teaching of the Apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself the Chief Cornerstone, you have got to get in the word and leave it in context. You can't say, "Well, Brother so-and-so said this; this verse right here says such and such; so you know, Brother Martin, what do you think about that? What's your opinion on that?" I—I really—I'm going to be nice to you; I don't—not—I want to give you my opinion—what's in the word? What does God have to say about it in His word? "Well, yeah, but—but Brother Martin, I want your input; I want you to tell me, you know, what you think." Okay, I think you need to get in the word; that's what I think. So not only do you have to get in the word, but you got to pray in the Spirit, because when you start living your life on commentaries and "he said," "she said," "he wrote," "she wrote," you know what you're getting away from the word. Now there are a lot of really good books out there; I get that. There are a lot of really good sermons out there; I get that too. But you got to start right here, right here with the word. "Well, my pastor, he always says, 'What's in the word? What is in the word?'" And you know what? When you make that your standard, you're going to find out how many Christians really aren't that teachable because it can be a challenge sometime.

Well, what else can we do to avoid disunity? First John, turn over there, First John, because when Paul was talking to those folks about speaking the same thing, it has to do with doctrine—what they believe and what they teach. Well, here in 1 John 4:7, "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." There it is: love. God overlooked everything in our lives so that we could be born again. You know, you go to Him, you go, "God, you know, they tell me I can be born again, but I—I want to remind you of how I've lived my life." God says, "Hey, I knew about it before you did it, but we're still offering you here salvation. All right, now, do you want it?" "Yeah, but God, you know, I got a lot of baggage." He says, "You know what? Once you step into the kingdom, as far as I'm concerned, that baggage is out by the dumpster. Okay, you're brand new." So yeah, we can have a whole lot of junk, but God says, "I forgive you." Here He's saying, "If we want unity, we have to love the way that God loves us." Well, then, right along with that, look over in Ephesians chapter 4, and in verse 32, "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." You want unity? You got to walk in forgiveness. May not like everything that people do, but you have to walk in forgiveness. And let's be honest, sometimes that can be kind of difficult because some people are just—they're like professional jerks. Well, you still have to walk in that forgiveness. And love is—God loved—this is—see, we're after preventing disunity; that's what we have to do. I want to show you—look over in Acts chapter 2—an incredible example of unity. Acts chapter 2—this is the day of Pentecost. Peter stands up, and he preaches this sermon—incredible sermon—and in verse 41, it says, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." Three thousand, one day, three thousand. "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." All those that were—that wanted to be born again. One of the factors that influenced people to be born again was the unity that they were seeing. But I want you to think about this now: these people were Jews, all right? Their whole lives, what have they heard? Law, offer animals, blood's got to be shed, this feast, that feast, don't eat this, don't eat that—all their lives, that—that's all they've ever known. And then here on the day of Pentecost, the only miracle that we see documented here in this chapter—speaking in tongues—that's it. Then Peter preaches this message, and about 3,000 people get born again. Now here—here these Jews, they're going through a massive transition because they're being called—the Messiah has come, and He was crucified. Here's how He fulfilled the—the prophets and the law and so on and so forth. This is what He did; He rose again, just like David prophesied, so on and so forth. They're going through this massive, massive transition, but look at this: they made a decision that they were going to continue in the apostles' doctrine. They're hearing something they've never heard before, and then it says that um, you know, in—in the breaking of bread, but in verse 46, "Continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house." Now this doesn't mean there is this, you know, you had 3,000 people showing up at somebody's home every day, all right? No, what it means is they were having these home meetings, and the Apostles—think of it like this: 120 houses, and people are going into these houses, and each house has one of the 120 teaching. Now I don't know that it happened exactly like that, okay? The point I'm getting at is there had to have been a lot of questions here, and 3,000 people and 120 in the upper room—I mean, seriously, you think they all had the same personality? I don't think so. But they overlooked all of that for the sake of going deeper into God and learning who they have become in Christ, what this baptism of the Holy Spirit was all about, on and on it went. And the result—people every day were being born again, every single day. This right here is an example of what unity can produce because what you don't see in here is that they were going house to house knocking on doors and witnessing, "Let me tell you about Jesus. You know, have you been to church lately?" No, they're doing this on their own, but yet, you know what would have happened? Their neighbors—"What's going on at your house here? Well, why don't you come over? Come on, we're going to have dinner. Why don't you come over, join us?" And people are hearing this message, and people are getting born again. But it all goes back to that standard of unity that was established. We see no disunity in here at all, even though I'm sure there were some minor uh arguments—"Are you sure about this? I mean, do you really—I mean, Jesus, He was this man—I don't know—I'm never—you know, our Rabbi never taught us about that." Well, here's what's going on; here's the law; here's the prophets; here's how it went. These people wanted more of God, and because of that, they overlooked differences, and they kept pressing into God, and the church grew. What you're seeing—outpouring and revival going—and it's producing this unity, and the unity is producing more people being harvested into the kingdom. This is why it's so critical.

So does that mean every single one of us has to be best buds? Well, folks, that's not going to happen, and I understand it; God knows that. But even if we're not best buds, we can still walk in unity, and we can still walk in love, and we can still walk in forgiveness, and we can still get along, and we can still have full unity within this fellowship, and people are going to be one to Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord. We have to—disunity is a destructive force, and we have to avoid it. Praise God. Well, please stand. Well, Father, I thank You for Your word, and You know, Father, there are times in Scripture where You reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly—the kind of things that um other people would want to hide. But Father, You pull the curtain back, and You show us problems, but You show us how they were overcome; You show us how to address them, and I thank You for that. And Father, I pray that here in this church, the people that currently attend and those who will be attending in the future, including those who watch, that Father, we will be sensitive to walk in unity and to have unity together with each other, founded on the unity we have with Christ, to be the dominant force in here as far as our relationships are concerned. I thank You for it, Father. And Father, um, you know, I want to lift up all the—the remodeling that's going on here in the church, and whoever—all the folks being involved with this, I'm asking You, minister wisdom and insight so that everything is done the way it's supposed to be done. And maybe, Father, pass along ideas that they hadn't heard—hadn't thought of before—but that would be very beneficial to all the work being finished. And I thank You, God, that You're helping us to get this building more beautiful than it's ever been since it was first constructed. Now, as we leave tonight, I want to thank You for watching over and protecting us. Jesus, we give You all the praise and all the glory for loving us, dying for us, accepting us, giving us Your word in written form, and being with us every moment of every day. Thank You for it, in Your name, Jesus. Amen. Amen. All right, well, folks, look, you have an instruction; have a blessed remainder this evening, and we'll see you.