Unity Among Us

Transcript

Welcome And Why Unity Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:01

They're gone. Really appreciate the hard work they put in week after week. Well, good morning, church fam. My name is Drew Littweiler. In case you don't know me or I have yet to meet you, I get uh the exciting privilege of working here as a member of the staff. Usually I'm focused with students, middle school and high school students, and every now and then uh I get to be up here, which is really exciting, part of the teaching team. I have I've been married for almost nine years on Tuesday. It's Tuesday, it's nine years, so I'm really pumped about that. It's going well so far. Um I think, I think we're out of the honeymoon phase, but I don't know, still feels like it. No, no. It's good, it's good. Um also have two uh little boys and a little girl, and my boys, they're six and four, they have been really into making and the throwing of paper airplanes lately. And I don't know what started this, but for the last several weeks it's been dad, can I have another piece of paper? Dad, can I have another piece of paper? Dad, can I have another piece of paper? And I don't know how many Wisconsin trees we've gone through at this point, um, but I think the kettle moraine is still around, so we're good. Um now they if let's say the next time they asked for another piece of paper, and I said, Yeah, I'll get you another piece of paper. If I just grabbed one and said, You each want a piece of paper, they're like, Yeah, and I just here you go. Um they would protest. They would protest quite heavily. One of them thinks the ridiculous the more ridiculous, the funnier it is. So he'd probably think it's funny and go, no, that's not what I want. The other one takes things a little more to heart, he might start crying. All right, if I were to just rip the paper that they want, even because I'm annoyed, and hand it to them, they would know that is both absurd and hurtful. Now, and it may be true that they each have what they asked for, but then what they have doesn't actually work with the design they were hoping to do with it, the design that that paper was meant for in their minds. And similarly, in today's passage, the divisions in the Corinthian church were missing what they were designed for. And the divisions they were experiencing were both absurd and hurtful. We are in a sermon series called Maturing in the Mess, or walking through the letter of 1 Corinthians. Now, Paul helped plant a church in the ancient city of Corinth, and much like its context, this church was diverse and very dynamic. But there was a little bit too much of their culture in their church, which was compromising how they lived out their faith. So they wrote letters to Paul, and Paul wrote them back, and last week we looked at 1 Corinthians 1, 10 through 17, and Mac compared the divisions in the Corinthian church and what they were experiencing with the political climate in our nation and how that's inappropriately dividing the American church broadly, and even here in this church. Now, this week we're gonna take another lap at the in the same passage, uh, but this time through the lens of pursuing unity. And if I could simplify what building unity looks like in the three steps, it would be this: reality, vision, and how. Reality defining the current divisions that do exist in our church. Secondly, vision, uh, clarifying what unity actually looks like, what it ought to look like. And third, the how is leaning into the process to get there. So that's gonna be the framework for this morning's journey. And I'm really excited to take it with you guys. Um reality, vision, and how. So we're gonna read the passage together again, then we're gonna pray and get into the discussion. Ready? Hey, we're away. Great, awesome. Let's do it. First Corinthians 1, 10 through 17. Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction. For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers and sisters, by members of Chloe's people, that there is rivalry among you. What I'm saying is this one of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Caphas, or I belong to Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in Paul's name? I thank God that I baptized none of you, except for Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say they were baptized that you were baptized in my name. I did in fact baptize the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I don't recall if I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ will not be emptied of its effect. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you in humility and adoration, giving you praise and glory for all things that we can possibly be grateful for. Thank you for getting us up this morning. Thank you very much for the adorable babies that you have given life to and that we get to see celebrated and dedicated to you. Thank you for the families coming to support these uh these these young babies on their faith journey that that is beginning even now. Heavenly Father, um, would you work in today's message to bind us together in unity, in love as we look to your son Jesus? Would you open our eyes to the ways that you're moving among us? Open our eyes to the divisions that maybe we are a part of so that we can build into unity better in the name of Jesus. And it says his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. So when trying to define the reality of the Corinthian church and then apply it to our church today, we have to admit that the reality is power struggles are a problem. Power struggles are a problem. The Corinthian church was experiencing divisions, rivalry, and factions. So let's reread verses 10 and 11 to make sure we got that. Now I urge you, brothers and sisters. Thank you. Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction. For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers and sisters, by members of Chloe's people, that there is rivalry among you. What I'm saying is this one of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Caphas, or I belong to Christ. Divisions in this passage does not just mean a piece of the whole, it actually means tearing something apart. So if the best division in the NFL, clearly the NFC North, decided, like they're just part of the, you know, the National Football Conference, half of the NFL, and that's part of the larger organization. That's a division, that's not exactly what it's getting at here. But if the NFC North, because it's so great, decided to break away, start its own football league for competition, make its own money, and compete for the affection of America, that is the kind of divisions that we're talking about here. Tearing away from something that it does belong to rightly. Rivalry, similarly, here, does not mean just competition and poking fun bears versus Packers stuff. It's actually rivalry here is more of like the wrangling for control of the church. You know, philosophers of the day, um, they'd be teaching their students and they would actually encourage personal attachments from their students to themselves, being very personality driven. And then when these students of different philosophers would get together to debate ideas and discuss ideas, sometimes it would come to physical blows and actual violence between the students, and the philosophers encourage this. Now, clearly, this is too much of the world getting in the Corinthian church, because that's what's happening here too. And this kind of power struggle is ultimately inappropriate for the people of God. Now, whatever the issue is, name a bunch of issues in the church, but whatever the issue is, if the church in the conflict starts to behave like the reputation and plot of characters of Game of Thrones, which the Corinthian church was doing in many ways, we're doing it wrong. There are factions in the Corinthian church, and they were personality-centered. And Paul talks about it in verse 12. He says, What I'm saying is one of you is saying, I belong to Paul. It's like taking the paper and saying, I belong to Paul. And why not? I mean, Paul is the founder of the Corinthian church. He's the intellectual when he gives sermons or preaches. It's very, it's very heady, and I like the depth. He's very entrepreneurial. He's trying to start stuff. It's it's empowering to be led by him. He's very widely read and very widely traveled. But some people in the Corinthian church were like, nah, I prefer Apollos. I would rather follow Apollos. He was charismatic, possibly younger. We don't know that for sure, but possibly younger, but he's charismatic, passionate teacher and preacher, and he's the developer. When Paul left, Apollos came and he he helped us be like build more of what the church ought to be. Some of the people in the Corinthian church were Jewish, and they were like, I would rather follow Caphas, which was likely the name for Peter. Now, we don't know if Peter ever went to Corinth, but I mean, why wouldn't you follow Peter? He was a leader of leaders. He was one of the original 12 followers of Jesus. And if they were Jewish, they would want to feel the Jewish connection of their faith as well. And some people were like, no, I follow Christ. And while this technically may be the right answer, probably the attitude was, I have the right answer, and I'm so above your squabbling that I should be put in charge. All right, and we just give this whole big mess of the church not being united. Now, Paul, let's be clear that Paul isn't critiquing the people who were invoked. He's not critiquing Apollos, he's not critiquing Caphas, he's not critiquing Christ, and he's not even critiquing himself. He's confronting the fact that these divisions even exist. They were all on the same team. He's even critiquing the people who would rally toward his favor, which would have been so helpful to him as he's trying to make his point, because this church is starting to question his authority, his leadership, and even his love for them. This way of thinking, of divisions being personality-centered, is both absurd and hurtful. And Paul shows this as he continues his argument in verses 13 to 16. He says this, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into Paul's name? I thank God I baptized none of you except for Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say you were baptized in my name. I did, in fact, baptize the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I don't recall if I baptized anyone else. Baptism, the link here, there is a link to the cross of Christ and to baptism. Now, this is probably more of a cultural context getting too much into the Corinthian church because in the mystery cults of the day, the person who would initiate a younger member into the cult or religion or whatever you want to say, that younger person would often look to the person who introduced them, they would call them father. And so being baptized into somebody's name really means to being baptized into fellowship and to allegiance to that name. And they were not baptized in the name of Paul. We just got to celebrate baptisms a couple weeks ago, and it was a great Sunday. I love Baptist. In the same month, we've had Baptism Sunday and Child Dedication Sunday. This is May is great, okay? It is a great time here at Cross Point. And when we baptize people, we baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, wherever you're coming from today, whether you're kind of just here, you're starting to visit, you're somewhat new, you've been here longer than I have, or you're here to support the families who are dedicating their children today, wherever you're coming from, if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, if that is your identity, then like our Christian, our our Corinthian brothers and sisters, excuse me, we confess one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father. But we also like to have our cliques too. When attempting to define the divisions and power struggles impacting our church here and now, you know, a little bit of a qualifier, I've been here a year and a half. Um and there are a lot of things that could be addressed. So what I'm gonna do is focus on three. Um, and these are three that I've noticed in my church experience broadly, so not just here, but also potential divisions that I that I see here in the last year and a half. The first one is worship styles. I feel really um privileged to have had a very diverse sampling of worship styles in my life. I haven't experienced it all, but I've experienced like rigid liturgy. Um I grew up in a church that was almost like only hymns, and there's some richness to that. I've also experienced the worship choruses of the 90s. Um part of churches who are more contemporary and trending in looking at popularity charts to define how they worship. Some more contemplative, some more charismatic. That was eye-opening from a from a hymn-raised person like me. But no matter where I go, somebody is usually on a mission to change the worship culture to better fit how they want their emotions stirred. It's too loud, it's too quiet, too many songs I don't know, it's too trendy, not enough communion, I don't like the drums, change the hymnals, whatever you want to say. When the style preference of worship music becomes the focus, we miss out on the real point. And that's just worshiping our God. Second thing I notice, second observation that can cause divisions is theological traditions and convictions. Now, at a church like Cross Point, I see a high probability for theological diversity here. And with the growing population of Economic and Lake Country at large, we will likely continue to interact with a range of theological points of view within our church family. I didn't really know much about Lutherans until I moved here. And I've learned I've learned a lot in the last year, and I've learned that just calling somebody Lutheran isn't good enough, that's not clear enough. I've learned about Wells and ELCA and the Missouri synod. So whether you have a Lutheran background or a Catholic background, non-denomin, non-denominational, Baptist, episcopal, Pentecostal, Orthodox, Mennonite, that was me growing up. There's all, these are all traditions and categories that can be helpful to understand, like to get to know somebody and to understand their background. And theological terms like Reformed, Arminian, Anabaptist can also be helpful in understanding someone's convictions as they're trying to follow Jesus and helpful to understand them as we get to know them. But when these labels become identity markers, oftentimes it's too easy for us to exchange the opportunity to love people in front of us for the opportunity to be proven right and to hold our ground. Now, as a relative newcomer to cross point into our denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, I have a deep appreciation already for what we're trying to be, a deep appreciation for our approach to unity in the midst of theological diversity. I've heard this statement a lot. Our denomination is a big tent. I've just heard that over and over. We're a big tent, we're a big tent. There's a lot of different points of view. And something that is reflected on our website under the, if you're curious to see it and have more things spelled out for you, our our mission, vision, and beliefs page on our website uh quotes the nomination and what we try to live out here when we try to live out unity in the midst of theological diversity is this phrase, in essentials of the faith, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things love. I really admire that. So worship styles, theological traditions or convictions. But the third thing, and one of the greatest potentials we have for love here at Cross Point that I've noticed is the representation that we have across all generations. From boomers to Gen Alpha or even beyond that, one of the greatest potentials that we also have here for division at Cross Point is all the preferences across these generations. You know, with the growing number of families coming to Cross Point, it means some exciting things. It means there are babies that need to be held. There are kids who need to be loved. There are students, and I can talk to this from experience. There are students who are hungry for something they are realizing the world can't give them. There are young adults who desire mentors, and it is a little bit surprising that we don't have a stampede of people excited to join where God is moving and to meet a community need. If I can talk from an adult perspective as well, um and speaking of a parent of young kids, we are exhausted. We are exhausted trying to provide for our families and maintain community connections. We need support. Other generations, both younger and older, we need you to call that out gently. But to do so. There are adults feeling lonely in our congregation and without purpose who could use a fresh breath of compassion and just let them know that they are seen. And if I could hazard a guess on the needs of this part of our community, we have many representing the older generations who may be feeling lost in the rapid culture change of our country. It does not look like the same like it did 20 years ago. And also the rapid culture change in our church. Now, as I understand it, this church has seen immense change in the last eight years. And it may leave some wondering who we are, especially if it's been one way for so long. And most of the time, and I'm talking to the younger generations right now, if you want to show love to the older generations, most of the time it's just gonna take a little patience and just listening to demonstrate that they are a vital part of our church. If you're part of what you would consider the older generation, you are a vital part of our church. And it is okay that you don't know all the trends, but what I've experienced from students, it's not about being trendy, it's about being authentic. And if you can be an authentic follower of Jesus, you can connect with people from any generation. We need you. So that's my little soapbox moment. Those are just three areas I can sense potential for a power struggle within our church. And these divisions become problems really when we give gold to second place. When we give gold to second place. When we take a good thing, like the preferences we desire to worship God, twist it to become the main thing, you know, instead of loving each other, because we're seeking stability and control, and that produces idolatry. Then it looks like needing an in-group to protect our fragile identities that we've built, and an out-group to contend with, because ironically, we feel safer knowing the boundary lines, and that's how we get our sense of safety. But that is not in keeping with the way of Jesus, it's keeping with immaturity, settling in the mess instead of maturing in it. And and personally, when I really allow myself to think about Christ's sacrifice on the cross, I know his body was broken for me once already. I don't, and if the church is Christ's body, I don't want to be guilty of dividing it again. So, how do we identify divisiveness among us? Here's some prayerful reflection before we get to hopefully some more encouraging, more encouraging part of the morning. First off, asking God in prayer, do I have the impulse to defend certain influencers from critique? And talking, having conversations in our church family and a political figurehead gets critiqued, do I need to defend that? A certain podcaster or pastor that might be across the country, do I need to like come to their defense? When I experience friction within our church, do I seek to end the conflict and take out the conflict, or do I react by seeking allies and support within my own little camp? And also, hey, where are my preferences competing with the way of Jesus? The preferences I have for my family and kids, or my schedule competing with the way of Jesus, my desire for comfort, for money, or maybe the easier road of apathy in the church. How does that compete with the way of Jesus? Okay, we've defined the reality, we've defined the division. So let's focus on the vision for where we ought to grow, and that's this. This our church should reflect unity. Our church should reflect unity. Paul says so in verse 10. Let's check out verse 10. Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction. Defining the words here, agree, can be translated literally, say the same thing. Now that's a classical expression for unity. It does not mean that we need to become theological clones of one another. But rather more like a theological football defense. Okay, it's it's getting warm out, and I know it's just spring, but I'm excited for football season already. So I'm football on the brain this week. Sorry about that, guys. But the same way that a good football defense needs a lot of different types of people in order to be successful, that's what we need to be in the church. There are people of different builds, different gifts, different stories and roles, but a defense moves with the same purpose and shutting down the offense. Similarly, uh the church needs people of different builds, different gifts, different stories, different roles, but moving toward worshiping our Lord Jesus and having more people come to know him. And unity in this passage doesn't just mean, okay, yep, we're we're together. It means like men did. Like when you tear a cloth and you sew it back together, it's being restored to the right condition. So, what does it look like to be unified when the distinctions and differences are a reality? Well, let me give an illustration and then and then a mindset here. I'm gonna move over. I'm gonna try this. Can we unmute the keys for a moment? Josiah tells me that's a C. Okay. No, I did I did I did look into this a little bit. Um if we just hit the same no all the time, that would be pretty dull. Barely called music. But if we are heading in the same key, if we are heading, um getting people of different roles, different builds, different theological points of view, and we can agree on the essentials enough, we can create a beautiful harmony. As simple as a C chord is. Now, Paul will address the importance of diversity, living in unity later in the passage. But what he's doing right here and right now is that he's modeling the approach the Corinthians want to take, or he wants the Corinthians to have, I should say, as brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters, instead of looking at each other through lines in the sand, perhaps uh instead of looking at each other through mental labels, what if our first instinct was to see each other as brothers and sisters, same family, same older oldest brother, same heavenly father. In trying to communicate some of these truths to our boys, uh we we have a bunch of different sayings and slogans, little liturgies, I guess you could say, and we tell our boys, I think we got this from uh Justin Whitmel early, and from he has this book called Habits of the Household, and something he tells his boy, he's got four boys in his house, which is like, all right, good for you. We have two, and we're good. But something we tell our boys a lot is brothers stick together. And we say it so much now that we just say brothers, and they go, stick together. Okay, they most of the time they say it, and some of the time they live it. Um, but like imagine with me for a moment what a Sunday could look like if we all had that brother-sister mentality. What could a Sunday look like if we had this stick together mindset? I imagine that that when issues come up, compassion for people we don't understand would replace frustration. I imagine that patience in in our conversations would replace dismissal of others. I imagine that interruptions would become opportunities with this new mindset. I imagine that sorrows would be easier to bear because we're sharing that, and joys would be multiplied because we're sharing them. I imagine that a longer sermon would become more time to love on kids in classrooms. I imagine that encouragement would replace gossip in our church. I imagine, and this is a little bit coming from where I've seen things, I imagine that students would have an increasingly significant role in the service and not just secluded to a room downstairs, but that they are needed in order to make Sundays happen. I imagine a lot of different things. And in our context today, when I first moved here, I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. There's a it's a relatively small town in America, but there's churches everywhere. Okay, we're all on the same team. And then the last year and a half, I'm like, are we? Not necessarily because all the church leadership and all the different areas are necessarily against each other, but there's for a second I was like, oh, there might be a lot of people who already believe, we're trying to grow in believers. But I wonder if we're actually in seeing increasing um conversions or devotion to Christ and we're just seeing more flock trading. And I wonder if changing churches is more about a battle for preference and personality rather than responding to the voice of God. What I admire about Cross Point that I've picked up in the last year is that we're trying not to be a Netflix church. This is not something for you to scroll through and pick out a couple things you want to be entertained with for a while, and then, well, you know, while you just eat breakfast on the couch and your jammy jams. But the problem with Netflix that I've found in my relationship with Netflix is to become there's so many options and so much entertainment that's prioritized on me that I don't know what I want. I end us just end up scrolling aimlessly till bedtime. We're trying not to be a Netflix church. We're trying to be a community of brothers and sisters living on mission in the way of Jesus, doing our best to love each other in the mess. And one bright spot that I do want to point out in our community is the Lake Country Youth Collective. If you've not heard of this, it's it's fairly new, but the last year, year and a half that um at least that I've gotten to witness it, it's youth workers all across Lake Country gathering together to pray and to find ways to have Jesus' name be glorified amongst the student population here. There's like 10,000 students in the middle school and high schools in Lake Country, and we're trying to take bit by bit have people know about the name of Jesus. Now, this crosses church boundary lines, this crosses ministry philosophies, it definitely crosses denominational lines. But the cool thing about when we get together is that uh when Jesus is the focus and serving others as our motivation, those lines we draw just kind of fade away. It's a really special thing. So as we move into our third part of the sermon, and it's much shorter than the first two, divisions and power struggles, to review a little bit, are a problem within the church, and we ought to reflect unity. So now we get to the how. And the how is the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ. Jesus' death on the cross and thus his resurrection is the power of God to save us and to unite us and ultimately bring all the cosmos back to Shalom. So the way of Jesus, the way of the cross, imitated by his followers, is the process toward unification. Now, Paul will have a lot to say more on the power of the cross, and we'll get into that next week, I believe, as we continue through this letter. But I do want to borrow a few uh passages from some of his other letters to help um uh bring some clarity onto what cruciformity can look like. And I'm looking at Philippians 2, verses 1 through 4 go like this. If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, same expression, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Cruciformity looks like surrendering all of your life and allegiance to Jesus, trusting that the new life he will give you is better than what you could hold on to for yourself. Philippians 2, 5 through 11, Paul continues in this passage. He says, Oh, I did not read that part, did I? My bad, we should definitely read it. That's good. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not only to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. Let's move to verse 5 then, too. Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, by taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. And for this reason, God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. If you are sitting here today and you don't know Jesus, and you are sick and tired of the divisions, the fractures that are going on within humanity, there is one name that can unite us, and that is Jesus Christ. Through his death and resurrection, we can know what love is. We can have true life in his name, and we can have really, and we can have real fellowship with one another, with people who are even different from us. Our bottom line for today is this allegiance to Jesus includes unity with our brothers and sisters. Allegiance to Jesus includes unity with our brothers and sisters. And if that kind of, if you're willing to give that allegiance to Jesus, if you want to experience what unity with God and brothers and sisters looks like, would love to have that conversation with you. I'll be down here for just a little bit to pray with you, discuss what that might look like. And there are so many people in our congregation who would love to pray and listen to you and begin that journey today. But as we're wrapping up, a couple of application points when it comes to giving our allegiance to Jesus and unity with our brothers and sisters. Some prayer and reflection. I mentioned a lot of these already. There are a couple of them that I added here. I'll just go over these two. Um, one, could I be holding any of my preferences as essential identity markers? Another thing to ask God in prayer is, hey, can you reveal to me how often I complain about my church? If you are more of a type A like me and need some practical, I want to do this, here's some action steps for you. And as always, if God is already spurring something in your heart in order to build unity, please do that. These are just hopefully helpful suggestions based on the text of today. Number one is meditate on Philippians 2 this week. If it's allowed to have a favorite book of the Bible, Philippians might be mine. Um, and Philippians 2 is just a gold mine when it comes to trying to seek unity in the midst of suffering and difference. Love it. Meditate on Philippians 2, chew on it, savor it. Secondly, this is something you can do uh before you even leave the big doors uh and go outside today, is just reach across the gap. If there's somebody that you've seen here before for several weeks, but you know their face, you kind of recognize them, but you don't know their name yet, just reach across the gap and talk to them, introduce yourself, shake a hand. Thirdly, take on the brothers and sisters' mindset. Take on the brothers and sisters mindset. One way to start taking on this mindset and seeing people in your church family as brothers and sisters first is to practice reorienting your language from them, from those people to that's my church family. If you are here today and you are aware of a conflict that is ongoing right now, something you can do before we head out of this room, even, and I'll trust that you're doing this if you're on your phone, but just get out of the phone and text to text that person. I would like to be made right with you, if at all possible. Can we talk? Initiate the restoration. Allegiance to Jesus includes unity with our brothers and sisters. And so I'd like to close with with a benediction, and it's gonna be very familiar, but I think it's the perfect verse to end with today. So I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction. Amen and amen. Go in peace.