SPEAKER_00: This is an unusual occasion.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to introduce Pastor Six.
SPEAKER_00: You think, why would I do that?
SPEAKER_00: Because Pastor Styx has been at this church for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to preach a sermon this morning because I've got some special news to announce.
SPEAKER_00: The elders have approved Pastor Six planting a new church in the Washington area.
SPEAKER_00: Probably somewhere in the Falls Church area.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a different kind of church.
SPEAKER_00: And Chris will speak about that more.
SPEAKER_00: But it's my pleasure to inform you that the elders have approved this church plant.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be our privilege as the session of Alexandria Presbyterian Church to be the mother-sending church.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Chris, come and share God's word with us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, um yeah, we're going to be planting a new church called One Voice Fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be on staff all of this year.
SPEAKER_01: We're not leaving right away.
SPEAKER_01: It's leaving sometime early next year.
SPEAKER_01: But throughout the year of 2020, going to be building up the core team and some of the small groups that are going to make One Voice Fellowship a little bit different of a church, as Tom alluded to.
SPEAKER_01: Our small groups are going to be organized by language.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to have small groups that meet to study the word and pray and fellowship in the heart language of the different groups that live, especially concentrated in this Falls Church area.
SPEAKER_01: So we'll have small groups that speak Arabic and French and Spanish and Urdu and Uyghur and Farsi and Amharic so that people can grow deeper in their love and knowledge of Jesus in the language that they know best.
SPEAKER_01: But then on Sunday we will gather and worship with one voice.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll preach in English, but the sermon will be translated into those different languages.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll mix in some lyrics in different languages as we did here today with Swahili.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's going to be hard.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to be hard in ways that I both can and cannot anticipate.
SPEAKER_01: But we believe it's God's heart to see all of his people united by Christ and to experience the joy and blessings of that unity, as we have experienced here at APC with the many nations that are here.
SPEAKER_01: And so today's sermon text are the three key verses for One Voice Fellowship from Romans 15.
SPEAKER_01: Just to set it up a little bit before we look at the text.
SPEAKER_01: This is a prayer that Paul inserts into his letter to the church in Rome.
SPEAKER_01: In Romans chapter 14, Paul has been writing about loving your brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: Brothers and sisters who have differences than you.
SPEAKER_01: Accommodating them.
SPEAKER_01: He urges them to refrain from drinking alcohol if that would be a stumbling block for your brother and sister.
SPEAKER_01: Or don't eat that food if that would be problematic for your brother or sister.
SPEAKER_01: It's a other-centered kind of love.
SPEAKER_01: And the easiest way to avoid such conflicts is just don't spend time with that guy.
SPEAKER_01: If they don't eat the kind of food you do, then don't have them over for dinner.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: If he doesn't enjoy alcohol, then don't invite him to your Super Bowl party.
SPEAKER_01: But the other-centered accommodating kind of love doesn't put your own preferences and priorities first.
SPEAKER_01: With that attitude, Paul continues in Romans 15 to write at length about including the Gentiles in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Gentiles who have very different habits and practices and background.
SPEAKER_01: But God's intent from the very beginning of creation was that there would be one global family of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so Romans 14 and 15 as a whole are talking about maintaining unity amidst diversity.
SPEAKER_01: And that requires this accommodating, other-centered love that we only get from Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_01: And we need to get it from Him because, I mean, it's hard enough just to love our own family members often, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: People who are so alike by us like us that we share blood and we share the same language and accent.
SPEAKER_01: But to be united with people from very different backgrounds requires Christ's infusing empowerment.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul understands how hard this is going to be, and that's why he interrupts his letter to break into prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And he prays this prayer, Romans 15, 5 to 7.
SPEAKER_01: May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we thank you for this vision.
SPEAKER_01: It's not Paul's vision, it's not our vision today.
SPEAKER_01: It's your vision that people who are united in Christ, people who He has died to save and bring into one family of God, would experience the joy that comes when we can experience the Christian life through the lenses and eyes of different people.
SPEAKER_01: We have an expanded vision.
SPEAKER_01: We get to hear our brothers and sisters sing in Swahili with joy as we will in heaven one day and we will understand each other in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: What a glorious day that will be when we all bow together around the one central object of our worship, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Jesus, would you impart your word to our hearts for your glory now?
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to unpack this text with three points, as you're used to at this church.
SPEAKER_01: We each respond to the voice of our one shepherd, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We rejoice with one voice as we worship our one object of our faith, and we reach out to our neighbors with the good news.
SPEAKER_01: So respond, rejoice, and reach.
SPEAKER_01: Point one, we respond to the voice of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The starting point of any discussion about the church, about any church, is not with us.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about our preferences, it's not about what we want.
SPEAKER_01: It's about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The church is not something we make.
SPEAKER_01: We don't plant churches, we don't build churches.
SPEAKER_01: We are made into the church.
SPEAKER_01: We are living stones that are redeemed and saved by Christ, and then he assembles us together into the church with himself as the cornerstone.
SPEAKER_01: And we become these living stones when we respond to the voice of our shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: In Mark 1, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying with his voice, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand.
SPEAKER_01: Repent and believe in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus proclaimed this good news, this invitation.
SPEAKER_01: He had come to earth to do two things: call people to repent and to believe.
SPEAKER_01: And these are the two hinges, the two halves of the hinge of the gospel, repentance and faith, repentance and believing.
SPEAKER_01: We repent of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: We repent, we acknowledge the sinfulness of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: That we see, for the first time, when we're coming to faith, it's when we first really clicks in our hearts, and we say, like David said to Nathan, I am the man, I am the woman who has done this, and my sin has hurt others, but it has most of all grieved the heart of God and offended him.
SPEAKER_01: And I humbly repent.
SPEAKER_01: And that's one half of the hinge.
SPEAKER_01: And then faith, belief is the second half that we turn from our sin and we churn with faith, we turn in belief to Christ, the object of our salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And we say, Jesus, wash me of this sin that I've just acknowledged.
SPEAKER_01: Cleanse me of the shame that I found inside.
SPEAKER_01: And then transfer to me.
SPEAKER_01: Transfer the sin from me to yourself on the cross, and transfer to me your righteousness, your life, your perfect record, your eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: And so repent and believe are the two things that each person is called to do when we hear the voice of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He said in John 10, 27, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
SPEAKER_01: I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
SPEAKER_01: And so after we respond to the voice of our shepherd, he calls us into a flock.
SPEAKER_01: He calls us into a sheepfold with other sheep that he has called in.
SPEAKER_01: And that's when we start to discover some difficulty and conflict very often.
SPEAKER_01: We start to butt heads with the other sheep.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what leads us to verse 5 of our text.
SPEAKER_01: Why we need this prayer that Paul prays.
SPEAKER_01: May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony.
SPEAKER_01: We need endurance encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to live with other sinners like me.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to live with our coworkers, our friends.
SPEAKER_01: And even with people we really like, it can be hard, let alone our enemies.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is calling us to love even our enemies, to even love those who are different with racial, ethnic, economic, religious differences.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why Paul prays for God-sized grants of endurance and encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to highlight some of the words in the text.
SPEAKER_01: Grant is a word I want to highlight.
SPEAKER_01: Our oldest, uh Lucy, is applying to colleges right now, and we're starting to get financial aid letters.
SPEAKER_01: We just got the first one yesterday.
SPEAKER_01: And they're offering a whole lot of money, but it still leaves a whole lot to be paid.
SPEAKER_01: But when you're reading that financial aid letter, you know, there's loans in there.
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
SPEAKER_01: The grant is what you want.
SPEAKER_01: Because a grant is free money.
SPEAKER_01: A grant is a transfer of resources from someone who has abundance to someone who has need.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is praying for a grant from God of endurance and encouragement because we need it.
SPEAKER_01: Our salvation is a free gift.
SPEAKER_01: God reconciles us vertically between himself, but then the horizontal reconciliation is what takes a lifetime to work out, and it depends on us getting this grant of endurance and encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: What kind of unity should we expect on this horizontal level?
SPEAKER_01: I would propose that it should be as radical as the reconciliation we experience on the vertical level.
SPEAKER_01: That if God who could, God who is holy and infinite and almighty, could reconcile those who are sinful and finite and weak, and he could reconcile us to himself and call us even his children, then how could we allow smaller differences like skin color or accent or education or language to divide us?
SPEAKER_01: And yet they so easily divide us, which makes Jesus so sad.
SPEAKER_01: Because he prayed for our unity.
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, we can make unity an idol.
SPEAKER_01: We can make the idea of diversity into a trendy idol that we do simply because it looks good on Facebook.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul prays that this unity would be not done for its own sake.
SPEAKER_01: He prays in verse 5 that they would live in harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we don't create unity.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus unites different people into his body and grants that unity to us, and then he just asks us to live out the unity that he has created.
SPEAKER_01: We put it on display for the world to see.
SPEAKER_01: But because human beings are better at discord than accord, Paul prays for us, for endurance and encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: So let's move to verse 6 and point two.
SPEAKER_01: That we rejoice with one voice as we worship Jesus our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: He prays in verse 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There are 7,000 languages spoken in the world today.
SPEAKER_01: But 90% of the world speaks just 200 languages.
SPEAKER_01: So 200 languages dividing 90% of the world into these different groups that can't understand each other very well.
SPEAKER_01: In Fairfax County, just outside Alexandria City where we are, 50% of the elementary school students in Fairfax County don't speak English at home.
SPEAKER_01: But in Falls Church, specifically the Seven Corners area, which is the neighborhood we're hoping we can have Sunday worship for One Voice Fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: In the Seven Corners neighborhood, the percentage of students who don't speak English at home is 85%.
SPEAKER_01: And so the entire world is represented right here in Northern Virginia, in the DC metro area.
SPEAKER_01: We want the gospel to be available and the fellowship of the gospel to thrive among all these different groups.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts 2, we read about people who spoke different languages from all over the world, gathering in Jerusalem for Pentecost, gathering together, and the Holy Spirit came down upon them.
SPEAKER_01: And when it did, they experienced the curse of Babel being reversed.
SPEAKER_01: That suddenly these people of different languages could understand each other.
SPEAKER_01: But not just so they could enjoy suddenly understanding each other, it was so they could understand Peter's sermon, so they could hear the gospel, so thousands could come to faith.
SPEAKER_01: You see, reversing the curse was not intended to allow them to build impressive buildings or make business or government function more smoothly.
SPEAKER_01: The purpose of them understanding was to receive the gospel and to unite them with one voice that they could sing together in praise, despite their ethnic and linguistic differences.
SPEAKER_01: This was the beginning of the church.
SPEAKER_01: The church began with that kind of diversity, but it's often lost it along the way.
SPEAKER_01: Diversity is a popular buzzword to talk about.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about it in schools and workplace and in the church.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, most church plants, when I talk to other church planters, you won't find a vision statement of a current church plant that doesn't have multicultural in it.
SPEAKER_01: It's like almost required, if you're planting a church, to say you're going to be multicultural.
SPEAKER_01: But we don't do it because it's a new trendy idea.
SPEAKER_01: Just as the Reformation 500 years ago wasn't about new theological ideas, it was about recovering some of the doctrines and theologies that had been lost or obscured.
SPEAKER_01: And so the congregation at Pentecost included these many languages because Jesus, in his final command to the apostles, was casting that vision.
SPEAKER_01: He says in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples of all ethne, baptizing them in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_01: Ethne is that word that is translated nations in most of our English Bibles.
SPEAKER_01: Ethne means a body of persons united by kinship, culture, and common tradition.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we read nations in our text, it's not a bad translation, but nations, in my mind, makes me think of political terms of different countries.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus wasn't saying go to different countries.
SPEAKER_01: He was saying go to all people.
SPEAKER_01: No matter who they are or where they are.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go overseas to reach all ethne.
SPEAKER_01: Not if you live around here.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus told him to go do things that only the church does: make disciples, baptize, and disciple them in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: And so the New Testament tells us how the apostles fulfilled Jesus' command by going around the Mediterranean, planting churches everywhere they went.
SPEAKER_01: One of them was in Antioch, where believers were first called Christians.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to tell you about the diverse leadership in that church in Antioch, because the diverse leadership here at APC has been one of the really encouraging things.
SPEAKER_01: That we have deacons on our deacon board, three African immigrant brothers serving on our deacon board, and one from Central America.
SPEAKER_01: They serve our entire church as deacons.
SPEAKER_01: And that kind of leadership is a critical component for the vision of One Voice Fellowship, that we would not just reach all the variety of ethne, but the ethne would be represented in the leadership itself to enrich our wisdom and our vision.
SPEAKER_01: The church in Antioch, the leaders included Barnabas, who was from Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean.
SPEAKER_01: It included Simon Niger.
SPEAKER_01: Niger's a Latin name meaning black, he was from Africa.
SPEAKER_01: Lucius was from Cyrene in North Africa, where modern-day Libya is.
SPEAKER_01: Minaan was from a royal family in Edom, down south of the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul was a Jew and a Roman citizen from Tarsus in modern-day Turkey.
SPEAKER_01: And so you had this diverse leadership in Antioch.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think it's insignificant that Paul and Barnabas did not launch their church planting mission.
SPEAKER_01: The missionary journeys they went on planting church.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't launched out of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: It was launched out of Antioch.
SPEAKER_01: It was launched by this diverse leadership team.
SPEAKER_01: I wish we could go back and worship with them in Antioch and see what that was like.
SPEAKER_01: But as Stuart read earlier in Revelation 7, we'll get to worship one day like that.
SPEAKER_01: What John saw, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, all tribes, peoples, languages, standing before the throne, before the Lamb, crying out with a loud voice, with one voice.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to hear the harmonies that we're going to sing together one day.
SPEAKER_01: Paul uses the word harmony to describe this vision of these different people living together.
SPEAKER_01: And I've had to do some research on the word harmony because I have no musical talent whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01: Can't sing at all, but I can recognize good from bad.
SPEAKER_01: I remember a conference once that Tom and I were at, and we were singing a praise song, and neither Tom nor I can sing very well, if you've ever stood near us in worship.
SPEAKER_01: But we were singing a praise song, and uh there was a woman singing in front of us, and she had a much worse singing voice.
SPEAKER_01: She was singing, she seemed to be oblivious to how awful she sounded.
SPEAKER_01: Wonderful, merciful Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And I could barely focus because it was so bad.
SPEAKER_01: And then I felt the weight of conviction from the Holy Spirit just way down on my shoulders.
SPEAKER_01: I realized that I was so focused on judging this woman for the way she was singing.
SPEAKER_01: That I wasn't worshiping.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure that God loved every bad note she sang.
SPEAKER_01: Because she sang with her whole heart.
SPEAKER_01: You see, she wasn't the one ruining the harmony there.
SPEAKER_01: I was.
SPEAKER_01: I was ruining the harmony of that song with my judgmental heart.
SPEAKER_01: My critical spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Musical harmony, as I've learned in my brief research, is when different notes come together to make something beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: When Serenity plays a chord on the piano, she's hitting three keys at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you sing in harmony, it's three people singing those three different notes.
SPEAKER_01: And they sound better together because of the differences in the notes.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul prays that we would experience harmony, which means we don't all sing the same note.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean we're all speaking with the same accent or we don't have the same gifts.
SPEAKER_01: But our differences make something more beautiful than if we were identical.
SPEAKER_01: Like my wife has different gifts than I do and different strengths and weaknesses.
SPEAKER_01: But those different weaknesses and strengths match up in this beautiful, God-ordained way that make us stronger together.
SPEAKER_01: And the church should be like that: a body that isn't all hands or ears or mouths, that lives together, enriched by our differences.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 that each of us is different, yet God arranged the parts in the body, every one of them as he chose.
SPEAKER_01: So your brother or sister's differences are by his design.
SPEAKER_01: He creates diversity in his universal body.
SPEAKER_01: But whether or not we get to experience the blessing of that is up to us.
SPEAKER_01: And do we see the differences in our brothers or sisters as an opportunity to learn and grow?
SPEAKER_01: Didier and Sifa are leading us with the praise team today, and I asked him if I could share this story when Didier and Sifa moved into their home a few years ago.
SPEAKER_01: DDA called me and asked if I could come and pray a blessing over the house before they slept there.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I couldn't do it that day.
SPEAKER_01: I told him, and he said, well, that he told me that they wouldn't sleep there until someone came and prayed over the house.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, well, that's kind of superstitious.
SPEAKER_01: I'll have to talk with DDA about that one day, about his superstitions.
SPEAKER_01: But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had something to learn from DDA.
SPEAKER_01: And from my Pakistani brother who recently asked me to pray over his car that he just got.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you see, I don't let my children start eating dinner until we pray over the food.
SPEAKER_01: But I've learned from my brothers from Congo and Pakistan that it is wise and good to recognize that we have a need for God's blessing and protection in every area of life.
SPEAKER_01: Think of all that happens in your home.
SPEAKER_01: Why would you not ask before you live there for God to pray, for God to provide his blessing and protection over everything that will happen in that home and over your car before you get on the beltway for God's sake?
SPEAKER_01: Shouldn't we pray for safety and protection?
SPEAKER_01: And so perhaps we all have something to learn from our brothers and sisters, from those who've experienced often persecution and danger, and maybe understand a little bit more about how necessary God's protection and blessing is every day.
SPEAKER_01: So, point three, we reach out to our neighbors with the good news.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul writes in verse 7, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, Paul's asking us to consider how Christ has welcomed us.
SPEAKER_01: Did he welcome you on the basis of your holiness?
SPEAKER_01: Did he welcome you because you have achieved a certain level of moral standard?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: And so will we withhold a welcome from fellow sinners?
SPEAKER_01: Those that he is washed and redeemed, even if maybe their sins are a little more visible than ours or different than ours?
SPEAKER_01: We can't hold a higher standard than Christ Himself, for who belongs in his family.
SPEAKER_01: What about income or education?
SPEAKER_01: Did Christ welcome you because you were a good investment?
SPEAKER_01: Because he knew that you would contribute so much to the kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: Does Jesus only pick the best players for his kickball team?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you have gifts that he uses for the kingdom, where did the gifts come from?
SPEAKER_01: They came from him anyway.
SPEAKER_01: So we can't use our gifts as a reason to think that we are somehow entitled to belong in this family.
SPEAKER_01: Each of our gift packages, each of our spiritual gift inventories are different by his design.
SPEAKER_01: And none of us reflect the image of God completely on our own.
SPEAKER_01: The image of God is made more complete and clear when we see it expressed in others.
SPEAKER_01: Our churches are handicapped, literally, when we don't have the fullness of the body.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus doesn't show preference for people of one language or skin color or part of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity began in the context of Judaism, but the book of Acts show how quickly it moved outside.
SPEAKER_01: The apostles took seriously what Jesus said in Acts 1.8.
SPEAKER_01: You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul was particularly gifted for this mission in a way that Peter wasn't.
SPEAKER_01: Peter's not the one who goes and plants churches all around.
SPEAKER_01: Peter had grown up in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Peter and James were leaders of the church there in Jerusalem, and they were Jerusalem Jews.
SPEAKER_01: They were from that area.
SPEAKER_01: When Peter was told by the Holy Spirit to go talk to a Roman centurion, Peter said no.
SPEAKER_01: Three times to God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to that Gentile's house.
SPEAKER_01: Contrast that with Philip, who was a Greek-speaking Jew.
SPEAKER_01: And when the Holy Spirit said to Philip, go talk to that Ethiopian court official, Philip says, sure.
SPEAKER_01: Goes and shares the gospel with him and baptizes him.
SPEAKER_01: You see, because of Paul and Philip's background, they were drawn to these different cities and people groups.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Paul writes in Romans 15, 20, I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, but as it is written, that those who have never been told of him will see, that those who have never heard will understand.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul writes to the church in Rome in this letter that he's coming to see them, but after he's there for a bit, he's headed to Spain, and that's where he's planning to go.
SPEAKER_01: Preach the gospel, to take the gospel to as many people on earth as long as he had breath.
SPEAKER_01: That each new group would enrich the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Andrew Walls, a professor who studies missions, writes: the metaphors of the temple and the body show each culture as necessary to the body, but incomplete in itself.
SPEAKER_01: Only in Christ does completion and fullness dwell.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ's completion comes from all humanity.
SPEAKER_01: None of us can reach Christ's completeness on our own.
SPEAKER_01: We need each other's vision to correct and enlarge and focus our own.
SPEAKER_01: Only together are we complete in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so today's passage ends with the sole reason to do all of this work for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: If it isn't done for his glory, if it's not his vision, it's doomed to fail.
SPEAKER_01: If we pursue harmony, if we pursue unity in our church because it makes life easier, or because it feels good, or any other earthly reason, then it's not going to last long.
SPEAKER_01: It's not really going to be good.
SPEAKER_01: But we live this way and we welcome one another to live this way for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in closing, let me say that when we live this way in the church, in our home groups, in our communities, we bring glory to God, and we are also the answer to Jesus' prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We get to be the answer to Jesus' prayer.
SPEAKER_01: He prayed in John 17, 22.
SPEAKER_01: The glory that you have given me, Father, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one.
SPEAKER_01: I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has given us union with himself and with God the Father, and He's united us with brothers and sisters, and we bring Him great glory when we celebrate that unity and put it on display for the world because there's no other earthly explanation but the gospel for how such different people could live together in harmony and love.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, Jesus, we don't take lightly the fact that we can pray to the Father in your name, and that no matter what language we speak, no matter where we're from, we all have access.
SPEAKER_01: We have access not because of who we are, but because whose we are, because who we have been made into when we respond to the voice of our shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: As we sing now and as we worship together, we rejoice as your body.
SPEAKER_01: Would you grow us in love for you and one another, and then would you use us to reach our neighbors, to welcome them into this fellowship?
SPEAKER_01: We don't do these things because they're fashionable or because they have any human goal in mind, but because it is your heart and you are glorified as we worship together.
SPEAKER_01: Would we do this for our good and your glory in Jesus' name?
SPEAKER_01: Amen.