The Church Walking In Unity

I believe we all would concur with that statement.

The Psalmist must have also felt this way, because he said in Psalm 133:1, “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

Unity is a very important part of our life. It is important-

• In the Home

• In the Work place

• In the church

Illus: Mark Twain used to say:

• He put a dog and a cat in a cage together as an experiment, to see if they could get along. They did!

• So he put in a bird, pig and goat. They, too, got along fine after a few adjustments.

• Then he put in a Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist; soon there was not a living thing left.

Illus: During a recent wedding, the bride and groom put the individual candles back into their holders with the flames burning. Then the bride, with a mischievous gleam in her eye, bent over and blew out her husband’s candle. The congregation burst into laughter. Later, one fellow commented: “During the marriage ceremony two become one - on the honeymoon they discover which one.” (from Parables, etc 5/83 pg. 5)

Unity is essential to the life of a Christian. But it is not only true in the Christian life….

(1) It is true in sports.

Illus: In 2002 when the San Francisco Giants starting line up was announced, during the World Series, each player would jog over to the first base line, and they would give five or shake hands with one another, then they’d get in line.

However, when their star player Barry Bonds, was introduced, he jogged to his spot in line, avoiding the other players.

When you think about a team, it takes all the players on a baseball team to win or lose. Bonds may be the best hitter in baseball, but he is not the only player on the Giants team.

Illus: On the other hand, the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots didn’t announce their star players before the game, so that the star could run onto the field to the cheering crowd, instead, the team was announced and they all ran onto the field together. You see, they were unified — Win as One or Lose as One.

As we can all remember, they didn’t have a player to win the Super Bowl, but they did have unity and the Patriots beat the Rams 20 to 17.

Possibly they won because, in part they were unified.

Unity is so important in all areas of our life.

But even though unity is important in our life, it seems to be something missing in many areas of our life.

Instead of seeing UNITY today, it seems in many areas of our life we see a lot of DISUNITY.

WHY DO WE HAVE DISUNITY? It is because of a number of reasons.

(1) SOMETIMES IT IS A CULTURE DIFFERENCE

Many times we who live in the South see things differently from those who live in the North.

I am not trying to start a civil war again, I am only pointing the fact there is a culture difference between the North and the South.

• In fact, we in the south think those who live in the North talk funny.

• And I guess those in the north think we people in the south talk funny.

• Every now and then we see the bumper stickers in the south that read, “We don’t care how you did things up North!

• And the people up north probably have their bumper stickers telling the people in the South they do not care how they do things in the south.

Culture differences sometime is a big problem in having unity.

But then there are other kinds of differences, such as the-

(2) GENDER DIFFERENCE

I believe the fact that God made men and women so different proves God has a sense of humor.

• Men are always trying to figure out women,

• Women are always trying to figure out men.

Illus: A man was walking along a beach when he stumbled across an old old bottle. He picked up the bottle took off the cap of the bottle, and out popped a genie.

The genie said: "OK, you only have one wish."

The man sat and thought about it for a while and said, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii but I'm too scared to fly, and I cannot travel by boat because I get seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive there?"

The genie laughed and replied, "That's impossible.”

• “Think of the logistics of that. How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific?”

• “Think of how much concrete.... how much steel !!!!” “No, think of another wish."