Mending the Cracks in Our Culture | Tony Evans Highlight

the more you can get spiritual Unity the more of God you can experience the less you have spiritual Unity the less of God you will experience in our lives in our homes different races different backgrounds different cultures different positions but one go line Unity is Oneness of purpose it is moving in the same direction because you want God involved in the legitimacy of the goal am my Green Lawn is regularly disrupted by anthills many of you know what it is to have a mound on your lawn disrupting your life the life of the greenery on your lawn these ants are committed to a queen and they're building a kingdom on my lawn when these ants build this Kingdom on my lawn killing the grass in the sphere of where they are raising their Kingdom in service to their Queen they fight being disrupted if they're red ants they going to bite because they don't want their Kingdom that's disrupting your lawn Kingdom to be interfered with cuz they've got a queen to serve you and I have a king to serve amen amen amen but there is an enemy who wants to disrupt the life of God with his own King kdom agenda with his own program and one of the chief ways that this enemy seeks to disrupt the program of God and keep us from him even though God invites us over and over to return to him is through promoting disunity amen amen disunity is one of the enemy these Chief ways of keeping God at Bay far too many particularly Christians are unaware of the spiritual implications of disunity and how that keeps us from God so in our series called the return I want to talk to you today about this issue of unity because it is such such a cultural Calamity today we are finding disunity on every level of Life first of all more and more people are disunified with themselves and if you can't get along with you then it's going to be hard for anybody else to get along with you either amen amen the discontinuity of self with self of people not being able to function in harmony with their own being has created disruption everywhere amen amen see if if I don't like me I don't mind hurting you cuz I I don't even get along with me not only is there this Unity within our own Humanity increasingly as we all know this Unity has become the Mantra of the family structure whether it is abuse conflict disruption divorce disrespect lovelessness this fraying fracturing and fishering of the family has created cultural havoc in society God established the family as the foundational unit for The Ordering of society so the fracturing of family between mates between parents and children between siblings and on and on and on has created chaos in a generation that is either fatherless or parentless and are growing up with wrong influences in the culture amen amen we are all aware of the racial disunity the fight over CRT the fight over black lives matter the fight over 1619 project the the battle between priv non-privileged black white black Asian it mean it is replete within the culture that this disunity the political divide that has become normalized in the culture and now of course we're on the precipice of international disunity that is threatening the very existence of humanity from a human point of of you this is no small subject because of the nature of God in Ephesians chapter 4 the Apostle Paul says in verse three be diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace be diligent be on target prioritize don't marginalize the unity of the spirit let me pause there for a moment he says Unity is a spiritual issue the unity of the spirit which means if you're not spiritual then your propensity for disunity has exponentially increased amen let's put it another way the more spirit spiritual you are the more unified you're likely to be the more non-spiritual you are the more disunifying you're likely to be or become amen for he calls it the unity of the spirit so therefore wherever you see disunity being normalized the spirit is missing when a husband and wife decide to get a divorce one or both parties have left the Spirit even though both may be Christians when churches divide somebody has left the spirit because it is the spirit's Unity he says preserve the unity that belongs in the spirit in the bond the word bond means belt like a belt holds up your trousers he says be unified in the spirit with a belt that holds together order or peace amen he goes on to give his theological understanding of unity he says in verse four there is one body one Spirit just as you were created in one hope of your calling one Lord One Faith one baptism one God and Father who is over all and through all and in all the word is the word one amen one one Unity may be defined as Oneness of purpose Unity is Oneness of purpose Unity is not sameness of persons amen it's Oneness of purpose he brings the godhead into this he talks about the spirit and the Lord and God and to understand why this is a big deal you have to understand theology proper theology proper starts with the Triune God one God composes of three co-equal persons father son Spirit who are one in essence while being distinct in personhood amen the father is not the son the son is not the spirit but they all three together make up the one godhead you've heard me use the illustration of a pretzel with three holes the first hole is not the second hole the second hole is not the third hole but they all tied together by the same dough what ties the father to the son to the spirit is the divine nature or the attributes of God all of them all hold the attributes of deity so all are omnipresent omniscient omnipotent all have veracity all all of faithfulness Justice Mercy wrath all of the ingredients of godhead belongs to all three members of the godhead amen but while each of the members of the godhead are distinct as persons they are not distinct in purpose the unity of the godhead is their Oneness of purpose as they share in the same divine nature the the only time there was a breach in this was on the cross when Jesus said my God my God while hast Thou forsaken me so you have H A disruption of sorts that takes place and and I I don't God would have to explain how God could stop being god without stopping to be God so he could be God for us because there is this Trinity Aran hell that takes place on the cross but the unity of the godhead is the key to the unity that he has placed in humanity the enemy understands that God functions in a unified way therefore if he wants to keep God out he creates dysfunction because he knows God won't show up and show off where this Unity has been normalized so he if he can get you fussing cussing and fighting within yourself within your home within the nation or the races or the culture if he can do that then he knows God won't hear your prayer 1 Peter 3:7 he says the husband who's disunified from his wife his prayers are hindered but he comes right around in 1 Corinthians 7:5 and he says but the husband and wife who come together in agreement can get through to Heaven it was their Unity so the reason s Satan has y'all fighting is because he knows your church attendance won't matter he knows your prayer meetings won't matter have you ever noticed how somebody in your life who you're in conflict with you start off fighting about one thing that's small but like David Ruffin says it's growing you know it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger now you cussing each other out over something that was Tiny when you started that's because Satan intervened into the ARG in order to create the Discord in order to keep God away Unity is Oneness of purpose Jesus comes and he says I'm coming to glorify the Father the holy spirit says I'm coming to glorify Christ because they are all in the glory involved in the glory of God that's why Romans chapter 16 verse 17 in fact I'll read that read a couple of scriptures today because this is so critical to get God back involved he says in verse 17 now I urge you Brethren keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned and turn away from them for such men are slaves not of the Lord Christ but of their own appetites he says watch out for dis unifiers watch out for folk who want to turn race into a cudel because they don't want Unity they want to keep division going and so they'll stir up things to keep the racial divide intact even in the kingdom of God so that God will be kept at Bay no matter how many can't we all get along meetings that you have says watch out for dis centers dis unifiers one of the things we have to do is counseling is determine which party or whether it's both parties are keeping this Unity going because they don't want it fixed because if they do then God is not involved watch out for this un ifers Unity is not uniformity it's not everybody being the same it is everybody being on the same agenda amen amen Paul in 1 Corinthians 1: 10-13 condemns the Church of Corinth for developing a personality cult yeah where people were choosing personalities that they were align with that was creating havoc and disunity in the church a 100 pianos tuned to the same tuning fork will intrinsically be tuned to one another and he says the holy spirit is the emulsifier he is the link that pulls together the unity and the more you can get spiritual Unity the more of God you can experience the less you have spiritual Unity the less of God you will experience it's it's it's that key and that important in our lives in our homes and most certainly in our world a football team is made up of 11 different positions on each side of the ball last time I checked there's only one goal line because the different positions are only moving toward that common purpose which is that goal line different races different backgrounds different cultures different positions but one goal line Unity is Oneness of purpose it is moving in the same direction because you want God involved in the legitimacy of the goal amen now there's a standard for for Unity because U there are limitations in Ephesians 4 he says this a little bit later in the chapter he says in verse 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the statue which belongs to the fullness of Christ as a result we are no longer to be tossed around here and there by waves and carried by every wind of Doctrine by the trickiness of men by craftiness of deceitful scheming but speaking the truth in love we are to grow up into all aspects unto him who is the head even Christ from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the Body for the building up of itself in love he says until we all attain to the unity of the faith you divide over two things sin and false Doctrine those two things you divide over sin and false Doctrine they are designed to create divinely ordained division but apart from those two things he says you all attain and you have a goalpost here speaking the truth in love you want truth and love you want God's standard being Proclaim that's truth you want God's heart being felt that's love and once you have those two goalposts you can kick Unity for for your success when God's standard can rule and God's heart can be expressed you can have unity in the situation that you face I face or we face which will give us the privilege of returning to God because then God will feel free to return to us amen amen he says when you get Divine unity in yourself in your home in this church the Church of Jesus Christ I've been involved here lately in some major meetings with universities and and um publishing houses and uh yesterday the president of the uh whole Southern Baptist convention came and spent the whole day over this Unity question and he says unless the church does something with all that's happening in the culture there is no hope he wanted to come and hear more about the philosophy or the the the agenda that we're setting forth but the point is that Unity if it is not spiritually based will only be temporary