Fostering Unity: Our Role as Believers

1. "Well, how much more than just the world being connected is the church supposed to be connected? That God said he put us together and unified us as one body. Everyone say, one body. It talks about us being jointly fit together, that he put us in a way, that he called us a family, a body, but it all stems around unity, and I'm going to talk just for a little while today about the unity of the church, and it's one of my favorite subjects because for a church to be unified, it means we have mature Christians. It talks about maturity in Christ." [37:11] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "Unity will not be present until the love of God is present. It doesn't matter how mature you are, how many scriptures you can quote, what you know in the Bible, if you do not carry the express love of God for other people, unity will not show up, peace will not show up, until the love of God is present. Amen? So, I want to talk about those things just for a few moments, give you a few things to write down so we can grow, we can learn, we can get better. Come on, look at someone and say, get better. Look at someone else and say, don't get bitter. We're getting better, not bitter. Amen?" [39:39] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Unity in Christ and the church are connected. Meaning, that if I am unified in my relationship with God, if I'm united in my relationship with Jesus, then the very next thing that should happen is I'm united in my relationship with others. So, it doesn't matter to me if it's your spouse, your friends, church members, if you are aligned with God and unified with Jesus, then automatically all of our relationships should get healthier and should be unified as well." [40:10] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "When Christ is the conductor and the church is the orchestra, unity is the music. So you have an orchestra with several different instruments from cello to violins to harps to drums to you name it. They're just an eclectic group of instruments. And if you walk into a symphony before they start when they're tuning up, it sounds like a chaotic mess. They're all playing one little part. We've talked about this before. But when the conductor strikes, come on, when he brings the wands in his hand, he strikes, they're ready. They all play those instruments in one unified piece called a symphony. There's such harmony and beauty." [48:10] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "We are God's ambassadors of peace. Unity should bring peace. When I'm unified with my wife in our home, man, there's such peace. And I've said it all along. When my wife and I are walking together, flowing together, unified together, I can charge hell with a squirt gun. But if my wife and I are off, if there's no unity or we're struggling in our home, I don't feel like I could wheel my way around a Cheerio if that was power in my muscle because I am so separated from my wife. Y'all with me? So unity promotes something that's better than we can imagine. What it promotes is peace." [53:31] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "We are not human doings. We are spiritual beings. We're not human doings. We are spiritual beings being who we choose to be. Christ has called us to be ministers of reconciliation as ambassadors in this earth. And we're not doing it. We don't have the right to complain about the world if we're not doing something to heal it. That's like saying God don't work and his, and his, his miracles don't work, but you've not opened the Bible in six years. You can't say God doesn't work if you've not opened his word and you can't say the world is lost. They stink. If you've not shared as an ambassador, the ministry of reconciliation that the father put in your heart. Amen. Y'all with me?" [01:03:59] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "When I learned this principle in my life, it changed everything about my spiritual life. The God is with me 24 seven, 365. He'll never leave me. He'll never forsake you. Everything you've done, everywhere you went, every conversation you've had, he's been there. But Pastor, last night I was at, yeah, God was with you. Yeah, but Pastor, yesterday I lost it in traffic and I said, yeah, God heard you. Yeah, but Pastor, you don't understand. This was a habit of mine and I felt God knows, but here's the cool part. God still loves you. God's not judging you. God's not doing that. He's made his dwelling place in us. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever read in the Bible to think with all of my faults, with all of my insecurities, with all my impurities, with even my humanity. God caused his spirit to live in me. That's only through grace. That's only through goodness. Amen." [01:06:24] (69 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "So now you non-Jewish people are not visitors or strangers, but you're citizens together with God's holy people. You belong to God's family. You belong to God. You believers are like a building that God owns. That building was built on the foundation that the apostles and prophets prepared. Christ Jesus himself is the most important stone in that building. The whole building is joined together in Christ and he makes it grow and become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Christ, you are being built together with his other people. You are being made into a place where God lives through his spirit. Come on. Everyone say through his spirit." [01:07:57] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "So how do we do that? Well, the church has to be focused on God's love. So focused on God's love that matters. Think about that. When is the last time you were so in love with God that no one could upset your apple cart? That you could just live in a place of almost what we would call blissful ignorance. I always say to people, I say, how are you doing? I say, if I got problems, please don't tell me. I love my ignorance. It's bliss. And so we can say to ourselves, if we believe the word of God, all things work together for good for those who love him, those called according to his purpose, even what we call a problem, God's already got it all worked out. Don't worry about a thing. Because every little thing gonna be all right. Don't worry about a ting. You got to say ting. Because every little ting." [01:09:36] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "When I tried to do it by my own strength, by my own power, by my own knowledge, by my own intelligence, by my own gift, by my own talent, I came in so far below the bar. And some of you, you have that. You have your own effort. You have your own will. You faith. And you're wondering why you're miserable. We just sang about it. It's his breath in our lungs. So what do we do? We pour out our praise. I'm going to say pour out our praise. Let me show you how personal this gets. The church is the dwelling place of God. If you go back to the Old Testament and you look at the tabernacle, it was built with three compartments. We'll say three compartments. That outside compartment known as the outer court, everyone could come into. Everyone worshiped there. Everyone praised God in that outer court. Then there was the next place called the holy place where the high priest would walk into. There he would prepare the showbread, burn the incense. He prepped himself in that room. And then once a year beyond that room, there was a big thick veil up to six feet wide is what I've read. Pastor Terry can correct me later if it's wider, but it took two oxen to pull that apart. And after prepping in the holy place, once a year, the high priest would go into the next compartment, which was the holy of holies. That's where the ark of the covenant was. That's where the presence of God was. And that's where he made atonement for the people's sins and covered their sins every year. It was in that ark. In fact, when he went in, his robe had a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and pomegranate around the bottom. And it was one of those things to where they would listen as he was in the room because they tied a rope around his ankle as he walked in. And when they closed it, they would listen for the ringing of those bells. As long as those bells were ringing, everything was fine. Because he was ministering before God, he was moving and constantly ministering before God. And if those bells stopped, he did something wrong in the prep room and he was struck dead in the presence of God. And they would drag him out by that rope. So glad I live in the New Testament. I'm so glad I have the grace of God. But I think worship would be more pure if you walked in. We said, here, just put this rope around your ankle. You might reconsider how you walked into the house then. But just think about that. Then he said, we are the dwelling place of God. You are the temple. Now think about this. God, in all of his infinite wisdom, created man already before this, before the temple, with three parts. Everyone say body, soul, and spirit. That's how he created this. So the new temple, created in the fashion of the old temple, is to house the presence of God. And there's that body known as the outer court. Everyone say outer court. That's where we clap. That's where we sing. Everyone rejoices. We shout. We do all those things. And we can see it. And everyone can do that. But then we have our soul. Everyone say, the soul. That would be the holy place. That's where we prepare ourself for worship. That's where we prepare ourself for serving. That's where we prepare ourself to live in unity. That's where we renew our mind. That's where we come to a place where we're getting closer to God. That's what the Bible says. The soul is being saved. What's it preparing us for? A spiritual work. That part of our spirit, that holy of holies. The place where God lives. The place where God already caused you to be born again. You know, you're not going to be more spiritual than you are right now. We're going to grow in our prepared place. We're going to grow in our souls who have great understanding. And we can apply it better. But God has prepared you to be his dwelling place. Why does that matter? Because when I remember that everywhere I go, everything I do, everything I say, this holy God is with me. It begins to change what I say. It begins to change where I go. It begins to change some of my habits. It begins to make sure when I'm in a conversation with others at church, I'm an ambassador speaking only things of peace. It reminds me that I'm connected to a great big group of people to make a difference in the world. We forget that. We forget that. We forget that everything we own, we don't own. That everything we are is only because he did it. It's your breath. In our lungs. So we pour out our praise to you only." [01:11:11] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)