Transcription
Amen. My title today is the kingdom blueprint for oneness. There is a blueprint for oneness. It's not just a command. It's not just a prayer in John 17. It's not just an aspiration in our hearts that we would be one, that the church would be one. It's a reality that requires a blueprint.
How many you know every system actually delivers a vision? Whatever your system is will deliver a vision for you. If you, let me put it this way, like the system of your day will deliver a vision for your day. You're going to find out throughout your day what you're designed for that day. Are you hearing me? If you wake up at a certain time and you you have an alarm clock and you you eat breakfast and you get ready and you go to work and you're there, you know, that's one system. Hello. But if you have a system of like no alarm clock and and you just hope that some the roosters wake you up. I don't know. You know what I mean? You just you just and then you show up late to work. That was a system that designed the output. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Okay. So, systems deliver vision. And there are blueprints in the scripture. There's a blueprint in the Lord's prayer actually that is a sort of system that actually will deliver the vision of oneness. There's I'm grateful to God that he hasn't fig like said, "Hey, be one." And then we say, "How?" And he says, "Figure it out." Right? Anybody glad for that? I'm glad he's not just like you figure it out. I don't know. I just told you this impossible thing to do now. Figure it out. No, he didn't do that. He said, "I have a way for you to do that." Okay. So, I want to get into that today. His his blueprint for oneness. It's right out of Matthew 6 9-10. And you know this scripture. It's the Lord's Prayer. It's very famous, but we're going to read it. It Jesus said, "Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Now, that's not the whole prayer, but that's the part that I believe carries a blueprint for oneness. And I'm going to show you why.
How many know I already said it, but oneness is hard. Loving one another is hard. Yes, spouses, this is your chance to say amen really loud. It's okay. You're allowed to say yes. That's hard. Yeah. Amen. loving each other like family is hard, right? And although there is a blueprint for oneness and although there are systems that God gave us, I don't believe that oneness or lack thereof or unity or lack thereof is an organizational problem. I don't believe we need to reorganize or organize better. I believe the church's fragmentation is not a failure of organization. It's a failure of family identity. If we knew who our father was, we would easily recognize our siblings. It's a failure of family identity. Thank you for the claps in the back row. I receive them. I struggled with this at the nine. So, we'll see what happens now. I don't know. How many know we're not operating in full oneness? How many know like it's it's it's still a struggle and we can't organize our way out of it. We can't whiteboard our way out of it. Although organization, whiteboards are important. I'm the guy. I break out the whiteboard. My staff twitches when I bring it out because they know, "Oh, everything's changing." They get triggered. I bring out the whiteboard. It barely is on wheels. It's like rickety because I abused that thing. And they're like, "Oh, no. Just got the whiteboard." They're important, but it's not the solution. Organizational planning is not the solution. Family identification is the solution. I wholeheartedly believe our struggle for oneness in the Capitol C church, not just Tampa. I'm not talking about str in this room. I'm not talking about anyone in particular. I'm saying at the heart of it, our struggle for oneness in the church is rooted in our desire to have everyone else look like us rather than every one of us looking like unique expressions of the father. I'll say it again. I wholeheartedly believe our struggle for oneness in the church is rooted in our desire to have everyone else look like us rather than every one of us looking like unique expressions of the father.
I never do this what I'm about to do. Okay? I've literally never done it. But I'm going to do it because I believe that the Lord told me to do it. I have written a book about this. Okay? I do not promote my own books. This book actually currently all the proceeds go to the resting place. I don't even touch it. They it literally has its own Amazon account. If you buy it today, the the proceeds will go directly deposited into the general account for the resting place. I don't even touch the money. Okay? You hear what I'm saying? Like I'm not going to make money off of you buying this book. All right? Are we good? This is what I swear I just feel weird and I'm trying to like be clear here. All right? But in this book, I talk about it's called Common Unity. It's the Lord's rediscovering God's blueprint for oneness. I talk about a lot of things I can't talk about today, but I felt like I needed to tell you about it so that you can get it and read it and consider the things in it. Amen. >> There's the QR code. You can search for it. You got like three more seconds of my discomfort and then I'm taking it down. Okay. All right.
So, this prayer in Matthew 6 is actually it contains a paradigm of prayer. Okay. It contains a paradigm of how we are to see God. Our father who is in heaven, holy is your name. It's a paradigm of how we're supposed to see God and how we're supposed to see one another. It actually shows us how to operate in the kingdom in a very important way. And it's not about organizational success. It's about a father, a family, and a future. Okay? It's about a father, a family culture, and a glorious future in God. It's all contained in that prayer. And I'll prove it to you. Here we go. Matthew 6. That prayer starts with what? It starts with our father. It doesn't say my father. It would have been fine if he said, "Pray this way. My father like you're my dad." Like, "Aba, father." No, he says, "Pray this way." Our father. Our father. This matters more than I think we understand. Paul was attempting to bring the Ephesians church into this understanding. He labored over it. How many know like the book of Ephesians is a letter and the chapter markings weren't there originally. So it's all letters. So I'm going to read you from Ephesians 3 right into Ephesians 4. So you can see the whole concept in the letter. Okay. All right. This is what Paul said. He's trying to bring them into this understanding. Ephesians 3:14-21. He says, "For this reason I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named." This is what starts off the whole unity thing. the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. This is the beginning of that concept right here. I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and earth earth is named that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than we all ask or think according to the power at work within us. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all. Help me what? >> Generations. What is that? That's a family line. Forever and ever. Amen. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, Ephesians 4 1-6, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. If that's not a family assignment, then I don't know what is. Bearing with one another in love. Where do you do that most? Your house. Okay. Hello, anybody? No. Just is it just my house? Okay. Okay. Amen. I got I have one of our elders in the back raising his hands very high. I feel affirmed. Bearing with one another in love. Eager. Say eager. >> Eager. >> Eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. It doesn't say attain. It says maintain. Eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and >> Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. What's going on here? He says, "Every family in heaven and on earth is named from one father." The glory we give to Jesus throughout throughout all generations is supposed to be as a family unit. Amen.
Now, think about this. A cruel father produces cruel children, right? But a kind father produces children of the same kind. >> Amen. >> Come on. Where are my snaps? That was poetic. That was That was clever. I'm I'm looking for my sn I got the clappers and the snappers in the back row. I'm I need it today. All right. I'm just saying. I thought that was clever. Whatever. We're called to carry our father's likeness is my point, right? We're called to carry his likeness as one family. That's the core of this blueprint. called to carry his likeness. It goes on, I'm just, you know, every family in heaven on earth, Ephesians 3. And then he goes on to say, we need to be eager to maintain the unit of the spirit because we're all in one family. We need to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in our family. Are you hearing this in familial terms? Now, the unity of the spirit is familial love. It's family love. That's what the unity of the spirit is. It says, "You're my brother. You're my sister. We're family. We have one father." That's the unity of the spirit. There's many spirits of unity, but only one unity of the spirit. I talk about this in my book, and I don't have time today, but Barabus, there was a spirit of unity. The crowd that crucified Jesus had a spirit of unity. The Tower of Babel had a spirit of unity. The Republicans have a spirit of unity. The Democrats have a spirit. It doesn't make it the unity of the spirit. And we need to be eager to maintain not a spirit or event or process or application of unity but the unity of the spirit. Unity of the spirit is not about doing the same things. It's about doing everything with the same head, the same father. Amen. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of the father. How we know the the Godhead is God the father, God the son, God the spirit. Amen. >> Yes. Okay. So our father is holy and so we should be as well, right? We should be walking in these things. And then it says maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. What holds it all together? Peace. And this is the shalom peace of God. It means nothing missing or lacking. That means we need your part and you need mine. And we need theirs and hers and his. We all need all the pieces in the same place together. Are you with me? Nothing missing or lacking. It also means no divisions. That's what that word peace means. Wholeness. Are you hearing me? So the core of heaven's blueprint, the kingdom blueprint for oneness is that we have one father. One father. Our father. We got to get this right. We got to get that right.
And then it goes on to say, "Your kingdom come, your will be done." Right? I I look at this as the family culture. The kingdom of God, the will of God is the culture of father God. Are you following me? Like this is intentional by God. It's actually intentional by the father. Like my family with my three boys, we have an intentional culture. And we actually I I've shared this many times, but we have something called the hire's way. Okay? And I every night when I put them to bed, I said, "Who can tell me the hire's way?" And they say it. They say we honor everyone. We never give up. We always be thankful and we go with Holy Spirit. I am chanting that into their soul every night. I'm branding it in there. Why? So that it's cultural for them. It's just who they are. They're agreeing with it. I'm raising them in it. Are you hearing me? God has done the same thing. They're adorable, too. Because whenever they see somebody like they say, "Oh, the Holy Spirit told me they go, "Are you a hires?" It's a like they're a hires. They never give up. They're watching a TV show. It's like a character. It's like a cartoon like I think such and such is a hires. They're never giving up. They're not quitting. That's the lesson. I'm like that doesn't make Okay, fine. Yeah, whatever. They're adopted. Whatever. It's adorable. But Jesus said in John 18 uh 36 or John 8:36, I believe it is. Yeah, John 8:36. Typo. I might be wrong. My brain is spinning right now. He said this before Pilate. I know when it happened. He said, "My kingdom is not of this world." He said my kingdom is not this world. So what does that mean? We can't look to the world for a blueprint for oneness in the kingdom. We cannot look to the world for a blueprint to advance his kingdom. And yet the church has adopted so many worldly systems. Just oh help me Holy Ghost in the org chart again. It's not about the organization. It's not about the system. But like if the org chart shows a dude at the top and then people in a triangle and top down, literally Jesus said, "You will not lead that way." So how does it make it on an orc chart? We adopted a worldly system. Pastors are CEOs. Not here. Look at our chart. We are I'm I'm fighting for the bottom. You don't sit under my teachings. I'm not your covering. I'm too heavy to be your covering. I'm a foundation piece. All right. You take the foundation of this building, you put it on the roof. What's going to happen? Everybody gets hurt. Welcome to the Western church. We got foundations trying to be coverings. There's no language for leadership and for coverings in the Bible. Like I know my friends and my my people I respect use this language of covering. I can't find it. I can find it in one place. 1 Corinthians 11, women should pray with their head covered for the sake of the angels. You want to know what that's about? not church leadership. It's about the Nephilim and the Watchers and Yeah, absolutely it is. It's the only reference to the Old Testament. It's the only way you can make it a witness. Okay. Sorry, Caleb. You're on live stream. All right. Okay. Back to the notes. If the king is holy, then the kingdom is holy. Amen. He has a way. We need to walk in the way. He's called the way. >> The ends don't justify the means. The way matters. The way we do it matters. He called himself the way, the truth, the life. If we don't do it his way, we're not doing his thing. >> I know this is simple, but we need to be reminded. The culture of the father's family is love expressed through holiness. How does that what does that look like? It looks like the fruit of the spirit. Amen. How many you know the fruit of the spirit? Galatians 5:22 23 is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Just like my children are the fruit of my loins. All right. There's the fruit of the spirit. I knew a couple of you would like that. I was literally looking at one person I thought would laugh at that. Amen. I see you, Robert. It's okay. It's offspring. It's fruit. Hello. It even says in Romans 7 that we should bear fruit for God. What is fruit? It's fruit. It's what grows on the vine, right? Amen. And it has the likeness of what it's rooted in. So the culture of the family of God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. Amen. And so the blueprint has to be executed with love, with joy, with peace, with patience. Are you with me? There's too much. There's I have observed people doing things in the name of the father very unlike the father. Doing things in the name of Jesus in a way that Jesus said you will never do it. Uh I'm grateful that today in Washington DC there's a rededication to God. I'm I'm grateful. That's awesome. It's amazing. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. They're doing it in the name of Jesus. Praise God. I just hope it's by heaven's blueprint. Moving on.
All right, finally, we have the father, the family. Now, third bucket. Are you following me? Trying to give you buckets. The future. Our heavenly future here. Where's that? Where's that in the in the prayer? On earth as it is in heaven. Right. There's a glorious future that we all have in the Lord. It's actually in the scriptures for us in Revelation 7. This is what it says. John's having a vision of heaven. He says, "After this, I looked." Revelation 7:9 through10. I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb cl clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb." The blueprint is a family because we have one father, not because we all look or talk or sound the same. Every nation, tribe, people, and language said our God sounds like our father, right? Let me get let me get this like go with me here. They didn't all get into heaven and learn a new language. They took their language with them. They said the same thing in their own language. And we're down here trying to get everybody to say the same thing in our language. That's not the kingdom blueprint. We have to retain our unique expression in order to have oneness. Just like the body is many parts. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. Pastor Sam did a great job from Activation Church, right? Many parts, one body. Like the the eye should not be telling the elbow. You need to be more eyeike. Need to be I I like me. I right. You need to you need to change that elbow stuff. We need to be eyeike. Everybody should be eyeike. We we can see with eyes. What can an elbow do? I mean, really can't see anything. We we bicker like that. But they're exalting our God and the lamb that was slain at the same time with the same phrase in different languages. Have you thought about this? Have you ever thought about it? Like they're not all saying it in one language. Come on, somebody get with me here. They're saying in there's different diverse languages, but they're saying the same thing. And we're trying to get everybody to sound the same while we say the same thing. You're like, "What are you talking about, Caleb?" Well, I'm getting there. Okay? Because there's that's not the only picture in the book of Revelation. That's not the only thing in heaven that needs to be on earth. In Revelation 21, it gives us this picture that I've I've been showing you here. This is the new Jerusalem has 12 gates. Many gates, but there's one way. There's one throne. There's one center. Okay? This is what it says. Revelation 21:9-14. Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of seven last plagues and spoke to me saying, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb." Who's that? Us, the whole church, right? And he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain. And he showed me the holy city. Wait a minute. I thought we were going to see a girl, right? I thought we're going to see a bride. You are seeing the bride. It's a holy city. Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God having the glory of God. its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had great high walls with 12 gates. Say 12 gates. And at the gates, 12 angels. And on the gates, the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed. On the east, three gates, on the north, three gates, on the south, three gates, and on the west, three gates. And the wall of the city had 12 foundations. And on them were the 12 names of the twel apostles of the lamb. What's going on here? It's this. It's the blueprint for oneness, y'all. The gates are all named after the 12 sons of Israel, 12 sons of Jacob. There is one father, 12 boys. Hello. Are you seeing this? This is the blueprint. It's not just it's not one. There is the eternal son in the middle, but it's many sons and daughters that actually are the gate for that way. They all have their own personalities. All 12. Look, if you read the Old Testament, you can see Judah acted one way, had certain things. Levi, Simeon, they all had all these different, you know, things. There's there's Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Napali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin. All them are named in the book of Revelation. All right, those 12 are named there. And there they represent 12 gates for the one way. I talk about this in my book. What I see this as is every ministry has its own expression at its own gate. Are you hearing me? I've talked about this a little bit before, but we have a gate. All right. The resting place is Judah. All right. My firstborn, his name is Judah. And there was a whole prophetic word about me and Jamati having twins. I think we did. All right. We have Judah, my son, and we have Judah, the resting place. All right. What is Judah in the Bible? Judah historically is the kingmaker. That's where kings are anointed. All right. They're the entrepreneurials, the the business people. How many business owners we have in here? Like half the room almost. And we got new businesses popping up all over the place, right? We're uh Yeah. So, we're kingmakers, entrepreneurial, we're celebrationoriented, and we're loud. Judah means shout. You're like, why are they always shouting in worship? Because we got a gate to operate here. All right. There's a shout that's got to come out of the resting place. I know the irony. Nobody can sleep while you're shouting. I understand. I get it. But this is just the way the Lord's designed it. I don't know. All right. Why would the resting place be the loud place? I don't know. I don't know. But we're just one gate. Do you hear what I'm saying? We're one gate. And we we're actually only really one part of one gate. Others even in Tampa operate from the same gate of Judah. Are you hearing me? Does this make sense? And they have throughout time and region. So there are other in other gates in our city. There are other ministries that operate a different gate. All 12 are needed for the kingdom to get for the kingdom blueprint for oneness. Are you seeing this? Why didn't he make one gate? Why didn't God say here's the new Jerusalem? You got to go in one way. Isn't there one one shepherd, one one way? Isn't there one? Yeah, he is the way, but he's in the middle. And he's designed it so that we would be gateways for the way. The gate for the way. Are you hearing me? And this ministry is one gate. Listen to me now. We should not have dividing walls between us. We should have connecting ones. This matters. There should be dividing walls. There should be walls, but they shouldn't be divisive. All right? There should be walls between us. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Like there's a gate here, wall gate, right? There should be walls between us, but those walls should be strong, built to last. And they should connect us, not divide us. We need to be locked gate to gate to gate with strong walls of connection. And that means we need physical moments where we are literally connected and all together. This is why together Pentecost is a prophetic moment. It's a true picture of one family celebrating one father with its unique expressions as 12 children's many gates one way. We have to do it. We have to do it in the face of difficulty, in the face of hardship. We have to do it. It's God's blueprint for oneness. The kingdom blueprint for oneness has one king of kings. It has one lord of lords. It has one head of a diverse body made of many parts. It has one church with many congregations. It has one father with many diverse children. The blueprint is a father, a family, and a glorious future. The question is, will we build from that blueprint or will we choose another? Are we going to choose the system of the world? Are we going to choose a way that another congregation or another even another region is doing it because it worked for them? Or are we gonna let God's blueprint birth God's vision? This matters to me. I'm laying my life down. I'm literally laying down hours and energy and time for this. It matters. And listen to me. The resting place will be there next week. The resting place will be at the crossing next week. I don't care your problems. I don't care your past. It's not about you. It's our father who's calling us together in one place. And we're going to be there and we're going to celebrate him. Him. Listen, I'll say the resting place will be there. If you feel you can't be there, maybe this isn't your gate. I'm fine with that. I'm actually fine with that. This is who we are. You understand? I knew that would get the room quiet because you're like, "Are you kidding me?" Yeah. I mean it. Can you tell? This is what we're going to do. And if that's too difficult for you, grow up. Let this moment mature you. Nothing Nothing about it is easy. Nothing about it is easy. I'm not having an easy time. I'm not even having a good time. Okay, this has been a rough few weeks. Ask those closest to me. It's painful, actually. And it's worth it. This is us submitting to the blueprint the father gave us. Showing up next week, worshiping the Lord, not needing our brand or our way, our gate. Come on. We're gathering at the throne. We're gathering at the throne and we're letting him be enthroned in Tampa Bay. The authority over Tampa is Jesus. Amen.