Unity, not Uniformity

Oct 24, 2025

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“Yeah, this ever expanding kingdom. It's the only kingdom that's going to outlast all the other kingdoms that's going to cover the whole earth with the glory of the one true King Jesus. Yeah, this is so good. And that the ascending and the descending on that. I've, I feel like as well, like I used to read that and be like, what are they saying? Like, this is just so confusing. It's like this quote actually comes from the Old Testament. And I think for me, even just the idea that like this whole Bible, not just this little bit that we're looking at, it's like this massive when you, it's kind of almost like you're going up in a airplane and then, oh my goodness, this is overarching meta narrative that God is weaving from right from the beginning of history of time before beginning of history, all the way, through to the ending. That's this kind of on a trajectory towards, you know, everything being healed, everything being made perfect and beautiful and united with Jesus.”
“So you've got like the roots, uh, like your truest identity. And then the fruit is, is how you live in your behavior. It's not something that you separately work on. They're not like two distinct things like, well, I need to know what I believe and what I feel about myself. And, but I also need to do these things. And this is what Christianity is, is keeping to these rules. It's like, no, no, no. Like this is who God is. And this is who you are. And then out of that, this fruit just is a natural byproduct. All these beautiful words that we've been hearing of like, um, you know, patience and gentleness and love. And these things, they, they're going to be the fruit that flows out of you. If you really deep down, know who you are in Jesus.”
“The world answers that question of identity, our particular culture anyway, particularly answers it by saying, I am what I have. I am what I do, or I am what others say about me. Whereas we saw that Jesus followers, they say, I am what God says about me, which primarily is I'm his beloved child. I'm loved. I'm loved is at the very core of who you are. And if you know you're loved, it changes everything.”
“But what's interesting about, and we're coming to what we're looking at today is interesting about what this Jesus worldview is. The identity isn't just solely like an individual thing. I think as you were saying, oh, I think, yeah, you were saying about the oneness. Um, it's actually a, there's a communal aspect to our identity.”
“You might've heard that word. Like, uh, one of our biggest purposes as a follower of Jesus is to reflect what God is like. And you could say that this aspect of God being a Trinitarian God, one God, but three distinct persons, which is kind of mind blowing. But this idea we can't, we can't reflect that by ourselves. So it's, it's really important that we get this communal understanding of our identity.”
“So, cause you could say that the aspect, this, this aspect of our choice identity could only be lived into and grown to full potential in the community of the church, the father, the Trinity of the father, son, and spirit in perfect community of love. And then his church being welcomed into that love and then displaying what he's like.”
“So I just felt like today, that God just really wanted to kind of like blow our minds with the massive, like vision and revelation of our identity as part of his church, that the church is not like a static institution or like a moral club that we can kind of choose our participation membership level in, or, you know, I'm a platinum member or, you know, I'm just a bronze or, you know, just, you know, but it's like, or, or it's like, you know, the church, the idea of the church is like, we're just coming to like a human priest or pastor that can like, give us our little spiritual espresso shot for the week or month. But the church is the very bride of Christ. It's like Jesus wants a relationship with his people. That is so unique, so beautiful, so wonderful. Like the most intimate connection he describes as his bride, a living, growing, maturing, dynamic community of diversity of this, like this multifaceted, diamond and interconnected body of many roles and many contributions and the number one chosen vehicle for the mission of spreading of almighty God's glory, love and kingdom across the whole of planet earth.”
“It affects how I think about all of you guys. It affects how I operate in community. It affects whether I bother showing up. It affects, you know, it's just like it affects how we feel about and our identity, how we feel about ourselves.”
“And I just felt like there was maybe somebody or maybe a few people. Who just feel like that little kind of dimly lit and candle like, oh, I'm just going out and I'm like feeling there's a sense of like isolation and almost like despair and you're wanting to like withdraw. And I just felt like God was saying, I see you, I see you and I don't quench a dimly burning flame. Actually, what I do is provide fresh fuel and I want to reignite you and I breathe on you with my Holy Spirit.”
“And the amazing thing is that or that the only God kind of way is that actually pain that has been caused in community can really only be healed in community and through his spirit.”
“So verse 16, it talks about growing and full of love in verse two and three talks about bearing with one another in love talks about patience, gentleness, humility is this beautiful description like I want to be like that. I want to be around people who are like that forgiveness. It talks about the idea of forgiveness within the community. And verse 15, says to for us to speak the truth in love. This this fruit that comes from this knowing that we're loved enables us to speak honestly with people and the motivation being love.”
“Jesus wants a people who have soft hearts but hard skin. But the reality is that we're often people. People who have hard hearts and soft skin. And by that, you know, I mean, it's sort of like we're just like, oh, they've just said this to me or they looked at me funny or, you know, we just so I know I'm so easy to like take offense and to get offended by people or to feel, you know, annoyed or and my heart can be hard rather than actually God wants to create in us these people who are like just so full of compassion and love, but also like our skin is pretty thick. Like we can let's work it out. Let's be honest. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about how we feel. Share forgive ask for forgiveness and we can move on together. That's the kind of people that God is wanting to create in his family.”
“It also talks in verse 13 to 15 about maturing love. I think Tim brought this aspect out this like ongoing growing expansion and and deepening, you know, not being like a little baby that's like tossed around in this terrifying like I don't even know where I am. But like now we know who we are. We're growing in maturity. We're becoming more like Jesus.”
“The idea of an apprentice is somebody who becomes more and more like them. Master. And so it's this kind of ongoing growing relationship deepening and maturing in character to become like the master.”
“So the idea I think again was brought out the beginning unity doesn't mean uniformity. So we have the Trinity who is one God and yet three distinct people. And if you look throughout the Bible, you get the flavor of the different roles and aspects that you know, like the for just one example, the father's role is to send the son Jesus and Jesus his role. He he was on the earth and he died in our place and he was raised back to life. He did this amazing that was like his role. And then he said now I'm going to send the spirit. So then the spirit who is the presence of God on the earth comes and then he makes what Jesus did like experiential in our hearts. And it's just like these different aspects of they're still one God and yet they kind of have different jobs that they do.”
“Becoming like Jesus means that individualism isolation competition and selfish ambition have no place. In the family of God.”
“This is the amazing this I just love this so much about Christianity that it's not God saying this is what you should be and do. But I see later when you've done it. It's like right. This is this is the best way to live. Now, let me empower you. Let me help you. Let me literally walk every step holding your hand. Here we go. And we'll do it together and I'll give you when you can't do it. No, you can't do that because it's impossible for you to do that. I can do that. I'm going to put that into your heart and it's like this incredible like, oh, yeah, I don't have to strive and like make everything happen. It's like the love of God within me and his power within me changes me.”
“So Jesus by dying on the cross, he did battle against the greatest enemies sin, Satan death in the most magnificent act ever of sacrificial love. And then three days later, he actually smashed through death by coming out of the grave. So this victorious rescuer he now shares the spoils of his victory with his people, but it's not simply well, not simply it is eternal life that. He's sharing with us, which is an amazing, but it's not simply just like resources or power or special skills. But as we are reading here, the gifts are people. So God just doesn't just give grace to people, but he gives people to people. Isn't that amazing? So I'm a gift to you and you're a gift to me in the family of God.”
“That means if if you don't play your part, we miss out like we're all needed. We all have a role to play and there's this you might have heard this phrase priesthood of all believers. It's something during the Reformation in early church history. That was really fought for because it got to this point where it was just the kind of the person the one priest, who spoke in Latin where people could go to them and they connected them with God as opposed to going straight to to Jesus the ultimate high priest and and although that was fought for in the Reformation, it's interesting that actually it can still that mindset can still seep into the church today where we think that we need like a one professional pastor to go to to connect with God or you know, if I just like hear the the right, you know fire teaching then I'll be okay or or even like what's done on the stage. It's the most important thing that is said during our time together on a Sunday morning. Whereas actually it's about the participation of every single person in the body.”
“So for Apostles the result of having Apostles in the church would be extension to have profits in the church. They're there the result of that would be integration or like kind of an integrated. Life. So I like walking in intimacy with God and to have evangelists in the church means that there's expansion having pastors in the church means that there is nurture and then having teachers in the church means that there's understanding. So there's different roles and different outcomes from having these different kinds of people and we would see like a biblical definition of an Apostle as somebody that sort of helps to establish new communities. He's of disciples laying biblical foundations and it might be like initially where particularly in a lot of the and completely like people who you know parts of the world where they've never heard of Christianity then it might be initially kind of like telling people about Jesus and and his what he's done in the gospel and then kind of growing those small groups or it may be that a church is like started but Apostle can come alongside and and help to lay good biblical foundations and be kind of like a father figure.”
“And then we have evangelists. And one commentator describes an evangelist as a gospeller. So people who tell the wondrous story of the gospel of salvation, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. But the idea again being with all of these ministries actually is that they equip other people. So for example with the evangelist, I may not necessarily be gifted in evangelism, but it doesn't mean that I just leave the work of telling other people about Jesus to the other. It's actually the role of an evangelist would be to come alongside the rest of the church and equip them for the work of ministry and say actually have you thought about like, why don't you join some clubs so you could get to know some people in your area or how could you show the love of Jesus by inviting some neighbors over for dinner? You know, it's like they're equipping other people to like let's don't forget. There's so many people outside who feel lost and broken. And so it's kind of like the evangelist equip the rest of the church for also doing that work.”
“So all of these ministries are for the building up of the church and equipping of the saints for the work of ministry so that we can go and also help in these ways and we can all play our part.”
“And could be said that you know, one of the biggest roles of leaders in churches actually to spot other people's callings and bring that out and give them a you know, like this is who you are. This is the part that God wants you to play or this is some skills that I see in you or some giftings I see in you rather.”
“So just in summary to that we God really wants us to kind of have this like a big vision of the church that Jesus has in mind his church multiplying local communities where unity doesn't mean uniformity, but everyone plays their part for the health of the whole being like outposts of the coming Heavenly Kingdom. The living growing loving family of God to be the primary way that the lost are reached the hopeless find hope the lonely are welcomed into welcomed into families and all for the glory of Jesus to cover the entire universe.”
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