Strength in Unity: Embracing Godly Love Together

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There was an old man who had seven sons who always fought one another on the point of death of the old man he summoned his sons around him to give them a parting advice he ordered his servants to bring a bundle of sticks and said to the oldest son break it the sun strained and strained but with all his efforts was unable to break the bundle. [00:03:57]

The other sons also tried but none of them was successful then he said untie the bundle and each of you take a stick so tied us here give the boys that tried already um we could go and tie that bundle but that way it can keep being passed around i guess and give them a stick and see if they can break one stick. [00:04:23]

You see the meaning said the father individually you can easily be conquered but together you have strength and that's my that's what my opening is this morning about it's just a short um object lesson um i would like to take this principle or this story a little closer home i'll start with little children often. [00:05:13]

As you go a little older oh this one as you get a little older into adolescence people children tend to think more for themselves young is just pretty quick it's about a toy it's about something they want just up and down but as they get older um we start thinking more for ourselves and guess what almost 100 percent of the time we have the best idea in our own estimation. [00:06:19]

And it forms a disunity when you look at the other person that likes a dewalt and you like it milwaukee and you're like he's not getting it if he'd use his brains he'd surely understand why there's certain tools better or whatever it may be um and in that sense the division or the slight maybe tension or just the lack of unity comes from a person that feels that his idea is superior to the rest so. [00:08:07]

This creates a jealous disunity where there's just something in between you and that other person this is typically i mean i think in the more worldly sense it gets settled sometimes pretty violently as people get older but in more of a um setting like this this is how i feel it can go down. [00:09:23]

And history repeats itself i know most of us probably to some degree or another dealt with something similar to that and as young children growing up you're more than likely going to deal with something like that and i this is my um advice is if you know um this is the best thing to remember in my opinion is that that boy or girl is not yours it's not and um so keep your feelings turned off and don't let this sort of tensions build up secretly. [00:10:20]

Then as we get into adulthood we strive to serve christ and this is where this this is still touching on unity and disunity there are things that our conscience as individuals does not allow us to do and other people's conscience are not bugged by this for whatever reason paul touches on some of those subjects and it can be hard to know what is critical and what is not critical where to show mercy or not. [00:11:44]

The question this is where the question needs to be what is holding us together there are many clubs fraternities cert uh churches and so on tied together with something but not with the strings that stand the fire of christ i thought of bringing a torch and doing an example but we will skip that this time um they look fairly strong and invincible some of these clubs are very strong clubs and the people are united pretty tight but it's a facade. [00:12:27]

If a fellowship is tied with brotherly godly love that's one thing if they're tied with some other thing that's another thing both of them will not simultaneously exist and uh i actually did bring something the boys can't break even though they may be able to bend it this now at the surface it may not look like that much but it has steel in the middle so it will not you cannot break that. [00:14:00]

If we're tied with love and godliness with christ as our core it will not give you cannot break that and that's the most important thing but the devil won't stop there and i wanted to touch on a few um things here's a stack of sticks that i went and carved a bunch of of um oh what's it indentions on it not just whatever and i was thinking as as something um as an example if we have bitterness towards a brother. [00:14:43]

A brotherhood is very important if you're alone it's impossible to see both sides of the picture i wanted to um illustrate something here let's see max what do you see could be a good deal or idea idea and leroy what do you see and inversely if i do this um good plan let's do it doesn't look very good my my point with that is when you're alone regardless if it's circumstantial or not there are things that you cannot see by yourself it just works that way. [00:16:45]

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