Where We Stand Together

"WHERE WE STAND TOGETHER"

(1 Corinthians 1:10-18)

Introduction:

LET THERE BE NO DIVISIONS AMONG YOU Paul says)

Let All of You Agree With One Another Paul says)

Be perfectly united and of one mind! In other words, Paul is saying that the church should stand together ,agree with each other, never disagree,

Because the church should be of one mind!

Let there be no divisions among you! Good friends, Paul, is wrong! Or at the very least he is extremely disillusioned

There was a certain pastor who, during his Children’s time, was speaking to the children about unity. He said to the children, "God wants us to be one"

At which point one of the youngest children

immediately protested. He stood up and crossed his arms and said, "I don’t want to be one" There were tears in his eyes, I mean this young man was upset.

The pastor said, "What’s the matter? Why don’t you want to be one like the rest of us?" Little boy said, "Cause I’ve already been one, I’m four now and I want to be five!"

The Thing Is We Never Can And Never Will Be Totally United. We will always disagree because like the little boy in the story, we have come from different perspectives in life. It’s hard enough for us to speak the same language, much less agree all the time

If you don’t believe me then let’s take a little test:

Are you ready?!

Hoobastank, Papa Roach, Smashmouth.

Now raise your hand if you have any idea who these people are. Keep your hand raised if you like them. Let’s try it again!

Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Glenn Miller

Raise your hands if you know who these people are. Keep your hands raised if you’ve ever listened to their music. If we aren’t even of one mind in music, what makes us think we can be of one mind on other things.

Let’s Take It Up A Notch, Shall We? Democrats raise your hands. Republicans raise your hands. See what I mean! Already some of you are looking around the church and you’re saying to yourself, "O.K. now that explains it!, that’s why he’s so messed up!"

And an even larger group of you are wanting desperately for the preacher to raise his hand, just so you know what side of the fence he’s on. And we haven’t really gotten to the controversial stuff yet, not really. I could start asking you to raise your hands on topics like, abortion, gun control, the death penalty, same sex marriages, the War in Iraq, and before we ever reached the hymn of sending forth we could very well start a riot

Body:

WE ARE NOT OF ONE MIND AND WE NEVER WILL BE

There Will Always Be Divisions Because When God Created Human Beings We Were Already Divided

As soon as God created Adam and then created Eve and made her different then Adam,you had division. And friends if you don’t think there are major differences between men and women, not just physically but emotionally and even spiritually, then you’ve obviously not been to Venus.

The book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus is right on the money. Men if you’ve ever been to Venus then you know, that’s a strange place. They’re different there! Not only do they not look or act like we look and act on Mars, but they think differently then we Martians think. The very concept of getting all the men and all the women to agree; that concept alone is proof that Paul was just asking for too much. It will never happen! Because I for one have no intention of moving to Venus,and I gave up the battle a long time ago of trying to get the women to move to Mars; and think like I think

And This Division Is Represented In Virtually Every Strata of Our Society. We are divided by social class and economics. We are divided by age and generational differences. We are divided along the lines of race and ethnicity. We are divided geographically, and if you don’t believe me then travel to Minnesota or New York, and you will realize those Yankees are different. And it’s not only the fact that they have no idea what good Mexican food is, but they can’t speak English

You travel too far up North and you say to them

"Yawl go over yonder I’m fixin to be there in a minute!" They will look at you like you’re on drugs!

Then they might say something strange like "You’s guys" or tell you that they’re from Maaanhaten and your English is raaten

And You Might Say To Yourself That This Is Not What Paul Is Talking About. Paul is not wrong because he’s not talking about the world, or about being black or white or brown, male or female, but Paul is talking about being the church. And if you said that then you would be partly right. But you would be mostly wrong!