Cultivate What Matters

This whole month is move church forward. And if I’m honest, where this message has come from, it’s been from watching all of you the last few weeks. The last few weeks, since we made the announcement about the transition we’re making, I have watched week after week people stay at church longer. They’re talking to each other, they’re meeting new people, they’re not just running out the doors to leave and be somewhere else. They are staying here in this house. And I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of joy and there’s a lot of excitement, and there’s a lot of beauty happening in our church family right now.

And you know, honestly, it could have gone a different direction. We could have unsettled people, we could have people could be nervous, but instead we’re seeing the opposite. We’re seeing this beautiful thing happen in our church. And I’ve been asking God, what is it that we’re seeing? And if I’m honest, what I believe we’re seeing is unity. I believe we are seeing each of us coming together excited with joy for the future, and we are doing something that God has asked us to do, which is come together. And it’s more than just coming and sitting in these seats, it’s joining together. And unity from God’s point of view, Psalm 133:1 says,

Behold how good and how pleasant for the brethren to dwell together in unity.

You know, everybody kind of has a different view of unity. If you were to ask everybody in here, they’d all have a different idea of what unity should be. And when I think of unity, I think of movies, which is weird. I understand that, but I like I’m the kind of person that likes movies where they do a whole bunch of them. Like there’s sequel after sequel after sequel. Why do I like that? Because I always like how they like try to put them together, like knit them together, and there’s all these little details of how they work. You know, they do that in so many ways, but like David and I watch scary movies, you guys know that. And there’s like a whole universe in horror movies that it started with the conjuring, but they all fit together in a really weird way. And David and I have watched them chronologically, we’ve watched them how they were filmed, we watched them all kinds of different ways, and it’s so we can see how they fit together. I think that’s so cool.

And Disney does this super well, right? Disney is always dropping little Easter eggs in all their movies for how their movies might link together, and there are all these crazy theories about where this movie came from and where that movie came from, and there’s all these things, and I think they do that so well. And recently, I’m a huge fan of the movie Twister, the original. Like I have it memorized, like I know all the words to it. And then the sequel came out, Twisters, and I went and saw it as soon as I could, and the whole time I was linking all the little Easter eggs together. And I think I found 11 of the 13 the first time I watched it, because I love that kind of stuff. It gets me so so excited. And the reason I like it is think about how thoughtful those people have to be to link those kinds of things together because there’s years, sometimes decades in between those things, but they all fit together.

And another thing I love, I love to do puzzles. I always have, for as long as I can remember. And the reason is I love how things fit together, and I believe that is one of the ways that God communicates to me about unity. We’re a whole bunch of different pieces, and we all have to fit together to create a big picture. It’s not a picture that we create, it’s a picture God creates. But a lot of people don’t like to do those kinds of things that I like to do. They don’t want to look for all the ways something’s linked. They don’t want to spend hours upon hours working on a puzzle or something like that. And the reason is because they think it’s hard. It takes too much attention to detail. They’ve got to really focus in. And sometimes I think that that’s how we think about unity. We don’t want to do it because it’s hard. We have to work really, really hard at it. But you know, for me, God has given me that picture of unity. It’s all these many, many parts coming together to make something beautiful.

The human body has many parts

And God makes it very clear that that’s how He sees the church. It’s in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and we’re gonna read quite a few verses here, but I think it’s important that we hear how God sees how we’re supposed to work together. So let’s start in verse 12.

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up the whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some of us are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one spirit, and we all share the same spirit. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand, that does not make it any less part of the body. And if the ears say, I am not a part of the body because I am not an eye, would that make it any less part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if the whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where He wants it. How strange a body would be if it were only one part. Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, I don’t need you. The head can’t say to the feet, I don’t need you. In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. Pay attention to this. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all parts are glad. All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.

I think that that is the, of course, the perfect picture of how God wants us to see ourselves as the body of Christ. We are individual parts coming together for one purpose. We are God’s family. We are his church. And he so designed it so intricately. There is our bodies are incredible when you take time to learn about them. And we don’t have time to do that this morning. But when you think about all it takes for a body to function properly, it’s huge. And the same is true of the body of Christ. One without the other, we don’t function the way we should. I just let’s focus in on that verse 25. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all members care for each other. We have to care about unifying with the person we’re sitting next to. We really do. Because without that, the body doesn’t function the way it should.

But the truth is, like I said, unity in harmony, it’s hard. And it’s harder now more than ever. Like it really is. For everybody to come together, it’s hard. And long-term unity, like we can come together for a short time. We can all say we agree for like a little while. But long term, it feels impossible. It really did does. And why is that? Because our flesh. Our flesh gets in the way. We all have lots of strong feelings about lots of things. But those things are actually pretty little. You know, God, the way God designed it is those unique things about us are actually meant to make us work better together. But the enemy comes in and he uses those little differences, those little things that we don’t that we don’t think are a big deal, and he uses it to divide us. He makes a huge separation because the enemy, the last thing the enemy wants, is a unified church. Is for us to come in here and care more about being unified together than anything else. He wants us divided. And honestly, we make it pretty easy. We make it pretty easy.

Why does it take tragedy for unity to be present?

As I was studying, I was trying to think of examples of things that I have seen in my life where I’ve seen people come together. One of the first ones is two years ago, this month, Queen Elizabeth died. And for those of you that know me, you know royals are my thing. I just love them. And I watched for way too many hours, all the things they did to honor Queen Elizabeth. One of the most incredible things they did is you watched people gather together. They stood in line. Sounds much better than standing in line. They would stand in line together. And some of them stood in line for 12 hours to show honor to the to the queen. And they would they would just pretty much walk past her coffin. That was all they did. 12 hours. But what you heard people say, because news reporters are interviewing all those people, you know what you heard them say? I stood next to people that I would have never stood next to, and I heard stories I would have never heard. And they did that to show honor to someone that most of them had never met. But you know, that was a beautiful thing. It was a beautiful time. They’re not still doing that. They’ve moved on. The unity of that moment was fleeting.

Another example of it is, of course, we remembered this just last week was 9-11. I was a junior in high school when 9-11 occurred. And I remember it vividly, as I’m sure those of you that can remember that day, you remember where you were, you remember what was happening, you remember all those things. And we as a church were in the middle of conference, and we came together that night, debated. Do we do we have church? Do we not have church? Do we have we, of course, we came together and we prayed. And there was great unity here, but there was great unity in the nation. And for me, that’s the best I’ve ever seen, and it lasted for a while, but it didn’t last forever. We’re not there anymore 23 years later. And of course, like many of you, I saw posts that day, and I’m gonna read to you one that that I saw come up because it really struck me. And of course, this was this was posted on 9-11. It says,

On this day, 23 years ago, the world stopped turning. The fragility of life was felt as thousands of families lost loved ones, and we vowed that we would never take a moment for granted. Unity was present. Loving your neighbor was exactly that, loving your neighbor. No prerequisites necessary. Need was the only requirement. Honor, respect, awareness of sacrifice were present. Tragedy provided clarity on what was actually important and proved that light still outshines darkness, no matter how looming the darkness feels. On this day, 23 years ago, we lay in a bed painfully but powerfully aware of the gift that is life. May we never forget. Unity was present.

But you know what this made me think? Why does it take tragedy for unity to be present? Why does it take loss for us to decide to unify together? Why does it take something that’s supposed to make us angry or feel big emotions? Why is that what unifies us? I don’t think that that’s God’s picture of unity. That when tragedy strikes, we’ll come together. Or that when something’s really hard, we’ll come together. Have you ever thought about this? We should be unifying, coming together, because we serve a living God. A present God. To come together to glorify Him. He’s not dead. Why are we waiting to put down the things that are dividing us to worship a God who is living and present and answering our prayers today? We are waiting for something bad to happen to bring us together. That’s backwards. That’s backwards. Every single week we should be coming together, laying down the things that divide us, because the thing that unites us is bigger. It’s much bigger.

Unity is not uniformity or conformity

And I think the problem, I think the big reason we have trouble unifying is because we have a backwards definition of unity. For a lot of people, unity means there’s no conflict. There’s just no conflict. We’re unified because we’re there’s no conflict. We we don’t disagree with each other. Or because we agree about everything. I don’t think that’s possible. I really don’t. Agreement 100% of the time is not possible. And if you think it is, I think you might be a little crazy. Just a little bit. You know, unity is not uniformity or conformity. It’s not either one of those things.

So look, let’s look at uniformity. Uniformity implies that everyone is alike. There isn’t space for differences. Well, we read in 1 Corinthians 12 the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body, so it is with the body of Christ. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. So if we’re many different parts, then we’re not meant to make all of us exactly the same. That’s not unity. You know, I heard a story of a friend who went to coffee with someone, and this was during a time where there was a lot of disagreement in the world. And they sat down to have coffee, and this individual said to my friend that they don’t have space for people in their lives who don’t agree with them. That is a bold statement. Like, I think my circle would get real, I’m not even sure I could be married if that’s what I was looking for. Like, just to be totally honest, I don’t I don’t think that that’s possible. The question back was kind of like, well, how do you get along with those people? And my friend just said, well, actually, those things that divide us don’t actually come up that much. Like, we just don’t focus on those things. You know, that’s a very limiting thing. Those people are making a choice to exile a whole bunch of people from their lives. Gosh, that’s such a sad perspective on what unity is.

Conformity tries to create a group by forcing individuals to become the same. That’s what conformity is. So that’s more of like a group. So, what comes to mind with this is a cult. I don’t know about you, I have a weird fascination with cults. I think they’re so interesting. I watch way too many documentaries about cults. They’re fascinating. They are so fascinating. And people will try to put the church into that category, but it’s because they don’t understand what the church is. In a cult, they’re following often people, oftentimes people are following a leader blindly. They’re not super aware of everything that they’re teaching or things like that. Also, that leader is authoritarian usually and has like no accountability, which is not the definition of a church and leadership in a church. And they also have no tolerance, and I mean no tolerance for questioning anything. Like you may not question what they’re teaching you. And that is definitely not descriptive of the church. And so these two definitions of uniformity and conformity are the world’s attempt to define unity. But that does not describe what God is talking about. God wants our differences here in this place. We are God’s created beings. And the world says that’s gonna divide you, but God said that makes you stronger. Unity actually makes space for differences. Unity makes space for differences.

You know, one of the things that I that I think is a big misconception is that everybody here is gonna believe the exact same thing about everything, even in the Bible. And there are many things that we have to believe the same. They are the absolute truths. And around here, we say it this way concerning absolutes, we have unity. So those are the things that we just really have to believe and stick to. Concerning non fundamental beliefs, we have liberty. Concerning all issues, we have charity. And you can find more about what we say about this on our website. But to me, these things are very telling. We have unity on things that we really have to. But there are a lot of things that we do not have to have. Unity in the sense that what I believe is the same as what David believes. Or that’s we have the same opinion on that. We’ve got liberty, but on everything we show charity. Everything, everything we show charity.

We need to start defining unity from God’s perspective. Biblical unity is a constant effort to treat one another with respect and to show patience when there are differences and disagreements arise. Biblical unity is about harmony, respect, love, despite our differences. It’s not going to be our human things that rub us wrong. And so if we really want unity, if we really want to move church forward, which I believe all of us do, I’ve watched you this these last six or seven weeks. I’ve watched you. You want to be together. You want to coexist. But if we don’t do something now to start cultivating that, it won’t last long. It won’t. So we’ve got to start to cultivate what really matters. And what really matters is harmony in the church. Harmony amongst believers. Charity when there’s disagreement.

And listen, I am not naive to the fact that we are 50 days away from an election. We are very close. And it is very polarizing right now in the world. When you leave these doors today, I guarantee you something will happen to make you want to be angry at someone else because they don’t believe the way you do. And everywhere you go, everything you listen to right now is working to cause you to divide. And the enemy is working hard to divide us. Not necessarily in here. When we come in here, we’re all happy and we’re all great and everything. And then we go out in the world and we learn that someone disagrees with us, and man, are we angry. Man, we’re mad. Someone is always going to try to bring you to their side. This is my side, come to my side. That’s that’s just the way it is. Every conversation, every thing you watch on the news, everything on social media, they are trying to entice you to come over to their side. Come to my side. That is not God’s picture. In God’s kingdom, there are no sides. There are no sides. We worship God. That’s the side. Period. There is no other side. And so if we’re gonna really work to cultivate unity in this house, then we are gonna have to elevate kingdom values higher than any other thing that we encounter. And that includes when we come into this place, because when we come in here, we’re gonna be fighting for unity, and the enemy is gonna be working real hard to divide us. And so instead of focusing on the things that will divide us, we need to focus on the things that are of the kingdom of God that will elevate us higher. And so this morning I have five things that we must develop within ourselves if we want to cultivate a spirit of unity in this house, but also take it from these walls out into the world.

Faith over cynicism

The first thing we must choose is faith over cynicism. I think that cynicism is cool now. That’s the way people make it seem. It’s just cool to be critical and question and knock everything down because that’s the cool thing to do. That’s not the cool thing to do. It’s the easy thing to do. It’s easy to be cynical. It’s easy to criticize. That’s that’s just like our human nature. It’s like you see something, I want to change it, I’m gonna be critical of it. We all do it. We all do it every day, multiple times, and we don’t even notice. And we do it when we come in here. We walk in these doors and we’re we’re critical and we’re cynical and we don’t even realize it. We don’t even notice it. The definition of cynicism is an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest. Cynical means we are deeply distrustful. I think that’s pretty descriptive of what pretty much any interaction you have. Everybody’s always questioning everybody about all kinds of different things. But our entire belief system, everything we believe is built on faith. Everything. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9 says,

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from ourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

We are saved by grace through faith. Where does our faith go? In people. David will say, Well, did you do your best? Because most of us are working real hard to at least do our best. And it may not be to the standard that we want or the standard that you want, but but most of the people in this room, most of the people you’re sitting next to, are absolutely doing their best. I promise you they are.

You know, sometimes we don’t really know the amount of work and time it takes to get ready for a church service on a Sunday morning. I would say the average person doesn’t. So I’ve got a few examples. Pastor Dov each week sends a text to the team that will be leading us and asks them a few questions. Some are logistical because that’s just the way it is. We still have logistics, we have to work, but others are spiritual. He’ll ask why the church would need to pray the lyrics to this song. So he’s asking his leaders to put thought into the songs we’re singing and why they’re important. And he will also ask them to send at least a scripture, but if there are multiple scriptures that support a part of this song. So to me, that says that there are people working, volunteers, not just staff members, volunteers working during their week to prepare for you. And we’re critical of the song they’re singing. But they prayed about it. They put time and effort into preparing to come ready to sing it to us and to lead us in worship. And we go, I don’t like that song. That’s not my favorite song. People prepared, and we’ve lost faith. They think they just like close their eyes and said, That one. That’s not how it works.

Did you know that Lauren and Shirley weekly and daily pray over the kids, the families, and the schools in the city? And they ask their team to do that during the week. They send that to their teams during the week to pray over families. Do you know that they get here early to do a run through of their service? So that when your kids come in, they are ready not to play with them and have a good time with them. They do that to minister to our children. They care that deeply. And we just want to drop our kids off and not think about it. And but no, those people took time to prepare. You know, one of my first memories of Lauren is you would walk into her office and it was hidden. You’d have to close the door. But she had post-it notes on her wall of the names of every kid that had ever checked into kids and the names of their families. You know why she did that? To be praying over them. Because we are so self-focused. We have got to change that if we want unity to be a part of what we do.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we all walked into this room and instead of being critical, we were full of faith for what God was gonna do in this place? Imagine what God could do. If instead of us thinking about how this is serving us or how this is serving the person next to me, or anything like that, we were just saying, God, what do you want to do? Could you imagine what this place would look like and what this place would feel like? God could do something because we got out of the way. So we have got to put our cynicism aside and lift up our faith and believe the best in other people, but also like be honest, believe what God can do. Believe what God can do. And I just want to add, you know, the reason that we say we want 100% participation is not so we can get more. It’s because we believe that when we each have a little bit to give, God can do something with it. It’s a unifying moment. It’s a spiritual moment. It has nothing to do with your money. It has to do what God can do with our faith of saying, I believe you’re gonna do something in the future that I may or may not see, and I want to be a part of it. And I want to do it with the people who are in this room. So instead of being critical about where that money might go, say, God, what do you want to do with it? And I want to participate. I think that is a very, very key, big key to us being unified is to be more faith-filled than we are cynical.

Perspective over reactions

Number two, we have to choose perspective over reactions. A reaction is what we feel in a moment. It’s just what we feel quickly. And I don’t know about you, but there’s a lot of times that I’ve reacted to something and then I learned something else, and I wish I wouldn’t have reacted that way. Like I don’t, that happens to me a lot. And if I’m the only one, then okay, fine, it’s me. But the truth is, I think we’re all pretty short-sighted about the things that happen and the things that we react to. And our constant reactions, we think, oh, it’s just a reaction, it’s fine, it’ll go away. What our reactions actually do is it builds walls. As we’re constantly reacting to situations, we’re building up walls between us and other people. Because we’re just so short-sighted about what our feelings on an issue, how that affects someone else. We’re just really short-sighted about that. We’ve got to kind of shift our thinking. And again, this is very much like a how I feel about me personally and elevating it to a place of what God has to say. So if you value getting perspective over your reaction, then God can do something to bring us together. He really can.

You know, I think that a powerful way of thinking about it is when you get that gut reaction to be angry or frustrated with someone, we need to take a step back. We need to pause and say, God, how do you feel about this? How do you feel about this person? How do you feel about this situation? We’ve got to cultivate patience in ourselves and always be asking God, what’s his perspective, not mine, because his perspective will be better. I think I’ve shared this prayer with you before, but I do think it is worth repeating. I have this prayer in a few different journals and different places, but it’s this Father, I have my thoughts about this issue, but I want your thoughts. Amen. It’s very short. It’s not long. It’s something you can say to yourself in a moment. And you know what? In that moment, instead of reacting in a way that you’ll regret later, you might close your mouth. And you might actually build a bridge instead of tearing down a bridge. If you are the type of person that reacts often, I encourage you to take that and put it lots of places where you can see it all the time. And the reason I say that is not to be saying that you can’t remember it, it’s because we need constant reminders that we need a better perspective than what we’re feeling. We really do need to get God’s point of view. James 1, 19 through 20 says,

understand this, my dear brothers and sisters. You must all, okay, all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.

We must all listen more, speak less, and we need God’s perspective. Because our human perspective often misses what God could have us do in a moment. So we need to choose perspective over reactions.

Connection over assumption

Number three is we need to choose connection over assumption. Assumption is a tricky thing. The problem is we all assume a lot more than we realize. Like we assume often. And it has gotten so much worse since social media became a thing. So much worse. We see a snapshot or we see a headline. Important things happen. And we just see a little bit of it, and we think, I got the whole thing. I’ve got it. And you know, if you’re on any of those, you’ve probably seen the letters T L D R. For those of you who are over 30, that means too long didn’t read. So, like we’re sitting there, people are sitting there, they’re writing things, and they know people aren’t gonna read it. Like they just straight up know they’re not gonna read it. And then we think, like, oh, they’ve got the whole story. We’re missing it, guys. We are assuming so much.

You know, we see a headline, and a headline is meant to what? Grab your attention. Do you know that the headline is usually not even chosen by the person who wrote the article? It’s usually their editor who chose what the headline is. Like we’re not even getting the headline from the person who did the work to write the article. And we think we’ve got the whole story just from seeing the headline. I was listening to a podcast the other day, and she’s talking about how she’s looking for a sound bite to cut it down to three minutes. Why? Because that’s our attention span. Three minutes. And we think we know the whole story after three minutes. Guys, we are using scrolling, snapshots, sound bites, all these little things to think we’ve got everything we need up here about things happening in the world, but also about the people sitting next to you. We think we know their whole life story, we think that we we know and understand their entire belief system from snapshots.

We have lost the art of connection. Social media was supposed to connect us more. It has not. Because now we don’t know how to have face-to-face conversations. We don’t know how to actively listen. We don’t know how to get the whole story. Because I understand. But they would never say it to my face. And by unfollowing them, now when I see them face to face, I can love them purely. I cannot be angry from a distance and arguing with them in my head. Social media was meant to be fun, but it’s become harmful. And it’s because we are losing the ability to connect. You know, Jesus had this incredible gift of connecting with people. And he did not need to ask questions. He actually did know everything about the people he was helping. But you know what he valued more? Connecting with them, having relationship with them, listening to them. And when he did that, those individuals felt valued. So when we start to put down our phones and decide to have real connection, and don’t kid yourself. And we need to get back to a place where we are choosing connection. True biblical connection where we listen and we hear because when we do that, unity will come. Unity will come.

Stability over inconsistency

Number four is stability over inconsistency. Stability over inconsistency. If the world feels or the things around us feel unstable, it’s a lot harder to find unity. And listen, you many of you know this about me. I am a person who is at my best when I have routines and I have plans and you don’t mess with them. That’s my preferred place to be. I don’t like change. I don’t like when you mess with my schedule. I don’t like those things. They make me very anxious, they make me unstable. But here’s the truth, and I know this to be true. Those are not the things that actually create stability. Those are not the things that create stability in our lives. Stability comes from consistency in our behaviors. That’s where stability comes. Hebrews 13 8 says,

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He is stable. But think about this. If Jesus were to come now, do you think the way he taught then would be the exact same? Like it probably wouldn’t connect with people today. So his methods and his strategies would have to change. What doesn’t change are the things he said to be true. Who he is as a person, that’s very consistent. We know that to be true. And the promises he made are still true today. So what’s stable about our walk with Christ is Jesus. It’s not anything else. And when we as believers choose to make our lives consistent, and by that I mean in how we behave, in how we treat people, in how we express our opinions, then people will feel safe coming in these doors.

You know, I want you to think about this. We have a seven-year old. She’s not a morning person, never has been, not once, since like that time she was a baby. She really hates the mornings. And I was even reading a post from another person, like the mom was in there, she’s praying over her daughter at night, and the little girls in her sleep says, get off me. That is grace, okay? Like you go in, you’re so sweet. Good morning. You’re so wonderful, you’re so get out. That’s okay for her. She’s seven, okay? She doesn’t know how to control her emotions. Some of us do that at church. Good morning. Don’t talk to me. Do you think that makes people feel very stable? Like this is a safe place to be. Probably not. And it’s not just that. Like, we all get to have a bad day. We all get to have days where we need to be lifted up. We we all have those days. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is that place where we’re living from our feelings, and so people just never know what they’re gonna get from us. Like, if we want people to come to know Jesus, then we need to display Jesus. And that means we display Jesus even when everything feels like it’s falling apart. Because Jesus is gonna bring us back to put ourselves back together if we really believe that, then we believe that in that moment God can still use us to help someone feel stable in this environment. So we need to be when when we’re unified, and and when we as individuals are trying to bring unity, then we have control over ourselves, which will help people when they come in these doors week after week, know what to expect. It also helps your fellow people in this room. You know, if you’re consistent in your attendance and they know you’re gonna be here, you’re gonna develop relationships, which will create stability. If you’re consistent in your serving, and we know that you’re gonna show up when you say you’re gonna show up, stability. We think those things don’t matter, but they hold kingdom value because they bring unity and stability to the house. They’re very, very important.

Succession over competition

My last point is, and this is a big one, succession over competition. Now you’ve heard us talk for weeks about building generationally. You’ve heard us talk about it for weeks, and it’s because it’s that important that we build generationally. You have to think about succession in your own personal life. As the church, we are many people coming together, fulfilling roles that God has asked us to fulfill. Have you ever asked who will take my place? And I don’t mean that from the point of view of who will take my place when I’m gone. But there will be a time where you’re not maybe physically able. You need some time to for yourself or for other people, and someone else needs to step into the role that you have. Nobody really likes to think about that. Nobody really likes to process out who’s gonna take my place because we want to hold tight to what is ours. That’s not Jesus’ plan. It’s really not. In John chapter 20, this is right after Jesus has risen from the dead, and it’s the first time most of Jesus’ followers have seen him. And Jesus delivers words that are about succession. John chapter 20, it’s 19 verses 19 through 22. It says that

Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly Jesus was standing there among them. Peace be with you, he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord. Again, he said, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. Then he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.

As the Father sent me, so I send you. Those were his words to the disciples, and those are his words to us. Elijah anointed a mentor or in mentored Elisha. Paul intentionally invested in young leaders like Timothy and Titus, entrusting them with very significant responsibilities. For that to happen, they could not be competing. Have you ever thought about what if those people instead were like, no, this is my place? I’m not giving it up. Where would Christianity be? If they hadn’t given what they knew to the people coming behind them. Where would Christianity be if Moses had said no? Or if Paul hadn’t given more direction? Like, where would we be? And thank God they did, but we’re in the same place. Where does Christianity go if we hold our post because we don’t want someone to take our place? That’s a worldly idea. It’s a worldly idea. We climb to the top, we make it to the top, it’s our spot until we say it’s not. God’s way is gonna say, who can I teach? Who can I train? Who can I give my experience to? That’s how God wants it to be.

Succession is a selfless thing. It’s choosing to think of others coming up behind us, maybe even people we don’t even know yet. It’s going farther than the people just in our kids’ area in our nursery. It’s saying, what comes after that? It’s being selfless, that it’s really not about me. It’s about those that still need to meet Jesus. And if we are constantly competing with each other for the best spot, for the best role, for the thing that we believed we worked hard for, please don’t forget that the very things you worked hard for, the things that you have are gifts from God. They’re God given, they’re not man given. The things we do here, the things we do each week, whether it’s in this building or outside, they’re gifts from God. And even in your job, do you know you should be thinking, who’s gonna take my place? Who’s gonna step in? Who’s gonna do it next? And and I really hope they do it better than I did. And you know how they go farther? By learning all we learned younger. You learn it younger, you get to go, you get to build on it. That’s what we’re always hoping for. We want to build, we want to be builders. But if we’re going to succeed in this, we’ve got to stop competing with each other. This is not a place for competition. This is a place for unity. And if we’re unified, we’re teaching, we’re training, we’re passing on so that future generations get to experience all we did and more.

A liturgy for relationship conflict in the church

Would you all stand with me? I hope the part about this that you get is that in order for us to be unified, is we really have to make a choice. We have to make a choice to value the kingdom more than we value ourselves. And we’ve got to cultivate that in our lives, day in and day out. And unity is hard to find. And I’m not gonna pretend that it’s not. But I believe if we start to value some of these other things, then we can walk in these doors full of faith, linking arms instead of fighting or being self-motivated.

As I close today, there’s a prayer I want to read, and it’s from this book. I’ve mentioned them before. This book is called Every Moment Holy. This is volume three. I love these books, and we have them in the bookstore. I have all of them, I think. But what they are is their prayers, and they’re prayers for everything you could ever imagine. Every little thing. I mean, it’s got dropping your kids off at school, it’s got before you study God’s Word, it’s before anything. They’re beautiful, beautiful prayers. And I want to read one this morning. It’s about, it’s it’s a liturgy for those experiencing relationship conflict in the church. And I’m gonna ask that you bear with me as I read this, but it’s also going to be our prayer as we close. So I’m gonna ask that you engage your heart. I’m gonna ask that you don’t disconnect in this moment because this is a holy moment where God can do something in our hearts. And so I’m gonna ask you that you focus in for your three minutes, because that’s about how long it took me to read it, and allow God to speak to you. The words are gonna be there to help you, but I just ask that you really try to stay connected.

Father, you have formed us as your family and called us by your name. Oh Christ, you have prayed for us that we would come to know your unifying power. You have joined us together as one body, and yet we find ourselves now riven by strains of discord, our unity fractured by rumblings of dispute and discontent. Heal us, O Lord. For we, your children, have made such a mess of things. Our conflicting desires have estranged us. Pride, rivalries, covetousness, bitterness, greed, petty jealousies, selfish ambition, vain conceit, and unmet expectations have grown like unseen cancers whose spread now threaten the life and health and vitality of this body. We have been disappointed and hurt by the offenses of our brothers and sisters, and we surely and surely we have offended them sometimes in turn. Though we your children of the covenant, we have too often entered your house with arms folded and skepticism. We have been too easily led by our appetites, flattering our own preferences, engaging, engaging with your body not as those present to serve, but as consumers demanding their felt needs be met and their pet ideologies affirmed. Humble our hearts, O Lord, and break these self-defeating cycles of ego. Convict us, O Christ, of the selfish tendencies that spark tensions among us. Help us forgive. Help us give to you those burdens too big for us to carry. Let us find you again in the faces of our friends whom we have friction. Let us be renamed by your name and made more like you as we seek to reconcile our differences. Teach us to speak clearly and truthfully. Let love be made simple and sure, that it might address our confusion and isolation. Warm our affections. Transform us with habits of confession. Draw us back to gospel sanity, where sacrifice and generosity free us from our self-centered positions. Let us become people joined and unified, made one in you, shaped by your revealed truth, enlivened by your love. Let us become a body animated by your great power manifest in our compassion, humility, and kindness one to another. Help us see what we cannot see without your spirit, O God. Give us conviction, discernment, insight, and charity, that we would be free to love one another as you have loved us. Deal with the dissonance in each of our hearts, then graciously give us back to one another in unity, truth, and peace. O Spirit, remove the barriers lodged between us, barriers we are powerless to move by our own strength or insight. Teach us interdependence, let us be fluent in forgiveness. Make us to be a garden of shade and fruitfulness, a lamp in our neighborhood, a lighthouse to the nations. Minister your presence to your people and through your people. Do not forget your promises that your steadfast love would be the heartbeat of our life together. We choose again to trust in your faithfulness to us, O God. We choose to depend on you afresh, confident in the good works you will accomplish among us, confident that you will repair what we have sundered, that you will bind us together in Christ, and you will call forth new songs of praise from our lips. Your name has been praised through all generations, and for all generations yet to come, you will be praised. Restore us, O Lord, in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, who has drawn us into his glorious communion. Amen.