When One + One Doesn't Equal Two

When One + One Doesn’t Equal Two

Scripture: Genesis 2:24; First Corinthians 1:10; 12:12-13; Ephesians 4:1-6

In my previous two messages discussing what it means to be independent together with God and God’s plumb line, I talked about what happens when we come into agreement with God and begin walking in agreement with Him. I told you that we are to be independent as it relates to being in this world but not a part of it while we are dependent on God for everything. This can only happen when we come into agreement with Him and establish our standards for living in this world according to God’s standards, His plumb line. These two messages laid the foundation for what I want to talk about this morning – what it means mathematically to walk in faith. The title of my message this morning is “When One + One Doesn’t Equal Two.”

When I was in school, I enjoyed some areas of study more than others. One of my favorite subjects in school was math and it was a subject that I excelled in once I learned the multiplication table. In math, just as all of you, I learned early on that one plus one equals two. This was fundamental, simple math. One plus one always equals two. If you have one of something and you add another something to it then you will have two somethings. We do not have to be rocket scientists to understand this simple concept. One plus one equals two – it did yesterday, it does today and it will tomorrow. It’s a fundamental truth, plain and simple! However, what I want you to understand this morning that spiritually that is not always the case.

Now some of you are wondering how in the world I could deliver a sermon titled “When One + One Doesn’t Equal Two” after everything I just said in my opening about simple math. Well when it comes to simple math, one + one always equals two, but what I am going to share with you this morning is not simple math. No, this morning we are going to be talking about the spiritual math where one + one equals one. Say it with me, spiritually, by faith, one + one equals one. I want you to get this in your spirits because as we adapt our thinking to understand this, our lives will change.

Let’s talk about one + one equaling two in the natural. In the natural whenever you have one thing and you add another to it then you now have two separate things. It might be two of the same things or you could have two different things that are totally unique from each other but still equal two things. Each individual thing maintains its own uniqueness although it is numbered in the same counting process as the other thing. Nothing changes about it from a material perspective as it is still unique. This is how this happens in the natural. Now let me use a natural example to demonstrate what happens spiritually by faith. If you have a box of yellow cake mix and some cocoa you have two different things. You could use each accordingly to make something special. You could bake a yellow cake with the mix and create some chocolate frosting with the cocoa. That would become a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. But what would happen if you mixed the cocoa in with the yellow cake mix? Then you would have a totally different cake. Instead of a yellow cake, you would now have a chocolate-looking and chocolate-tasting cake.

If you had a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, its one cake made up of two separate elements. You could actually eat the cake and the frosting separately as many people do. But, if you added the cocoa to the yellow cake mix, the yellow cake ceases to be and a new cake is born. It’s becomes a chocolate-looking cake thereby known as a chocolate cake. There are no components that can be eaten separately. I want you to keep these two cakes in mind because for some Christians, their relationship with Christ is like the yellow cake with chocolate frosting – they maintain their individuality while loosely being connected to Christ as to how they live their lives based on what they believe. For these Christians spiritually one + one continues to equal two. Then there are those Christians whose relationship with Christ is like the yellow cake which was turned into the chocolate cake when the cocoa was added. When Jesus was added to their lives and they connected with Him and their lives were forever changed into something new. They lost themselves in Him. In other words, for these Christians, by faith, one + one now equaled one, not two. Let’s look at what the Word says about one + one equaling one. Turn with me to Genesis 2:24 for a very familiar verse of Scripture that is often quoted during marriage ceremonies.