Unity In Community Series

Seven keys to revival – key number 3 – “Unity within the Community.”

Thesis: The key to revival in the church is unity within His community. We need to put You back into community for unity.

Movie Illustration: A Bugs Life! From Group’s Blockbuster movie illustrations page 133, 134.

Overview – Starts at 55 minutes. Hopper explains to his gang that one ant may be harmless and unable to stop them, like throwing one seed at a gang member. Hundreds of ants joined together, though, could bury them as surely as hundreds of seeds do. This speech rallies his gang to crush the ants’ spirits before they can rise up.

Point of illustration: Christians sometimes think they can’t change the world. We ask, “What can one person do?” Yet a timid Christian voice can become a roar when the voice joins together with the voices of others in a congregation and the voices of the entire body of Christ. We will only truly impact the world by joining forces with other believers. The mission of a coordinated body of Christ can change the world on an unimaginable scale.

Questions to propose to New Life Community Church:

1. How is Hopper like the devil and his demons and the ants like Christians – note I Cor. 12:25-27.

a. “…there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a part of it.”

2. If the Body of Christ could unite together as one could anything stop them?

a. No that’s why the enemy focus’ so hard on splitting the His Community.

3. What types of things keep Christians from joining together in unity?

a. Personal preferences

b. Legalism

c. Un-forgiveness

d. Selfishness

e. Minor doctrinal issues

4. What teaching should the church rally around- what main points should we all agree too?

a. That salvation comes from Christ alone.

b. That the Bible is the word of God.

c. That we need to live by the Bibles directives.

5. How can you help to create unity in the community?

a. By being an answer to Jesus’ prayer from John 17 and from learning how to spell and define U.N.I.T.Y.

Scripture Texts:

John 17:20-23

20“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Message say’s:

“I’m praying not only for them

But also for those who will believe in me

Because of them and their witness about me.

The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—

Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,

So they might be one heart and mind with us.

Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.

Introduction:

I find it utterly amazing that with death breathing down his back and the cross in the very near future Jesus was concerned the most about unity in His community. He wholeheartedly wanted the church to be one, together, intertwined with each other. This was his primary prayer and concern for the church. Jesus knew the principle all to well that if you can divide them then you can conquer them. Jesus still today cries out for unity in His community. He knows if Christians could live a life of unity then the world would be a better place. I believe the Gospel would be impacting more people.

This characteristic is always common in any revival the community of believers is united. There are no divisions in the Body of Christ. Thigpen states it well when he says, “The Christian Community that can’t overcome its divisions can’t expect to grow up” (Discipleship Journal, issue 101, pg.36). He goes onto add “The heart of God is broken with grief over His fractured family.” Dissension and disunity have hindered more revivals and squelched more revivals than we could imagine.

The seekers are not looking to be apart of another organization that is battling over irrelevant issues. They just say, “If you can’t even agree on the truth among yourselves, how could you possibly teach us the truth?” It’s so sad that those who call themselves Christians become stumbling blocks to the seekers. They push people away rather than draw them in by the love and unity that Christ preached lived and died for.