Unity

verse 1. For the choir director on a stringed instrument, a psalm of David, hear my cry, O God, give heed to my prayer. And to the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been a refuge for me, a tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever. Let me take refuge in the shelter of your wings.

For you have heard my vows, O God. You have given me the inheritance of those who fear your name. You will prolong the king's life, his years will be as many generations. He will abide before God forever. Appoint loving kindness and truth that they may preserve him. So I will sing praise to your name forever, that I may pay my vows day by day. Well, Heavenly Father, we thank you

so much for your word. We thank you that it is living and active and you still speak to us today through your word. And Father, that's what we ask for today, right now. That you would speak to each one of us. One of us individually, right where we are. From your word, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to be in Ephesians chapters three. The end of chapter three

and the beginning of chapter four. So the book of Ephesians, or the epistle to the Ephesians, written by Paul the Apostle, is written to believers in Ephesus. And that's the key word. Saints or believers. They believed in who Christ was and what he did for him. They believed in God of the Old Testament. They believed the same they believed that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life. And that

no one could come to the Father except through him. They were believers. They have been saved by grace through faith. This book is not written as a as a book to unbelievers. Like the Gospels, right? Introducing Christ to people. It is written to teach the believer how to grow into maturity. And the book of Ephesians can be split up into two parts. The first three chapters

are doctrine, or the beliefs of the believer. The last three chapters are going to be duty. What do you do as a believer because of what you've learned in the first three chapters? So, we're going to be on the tail end of the doctrine and the beginning of the duty or the call to exhortation by Paul. With that being said, I'm going to give, this is not an exhaustive

explanation of the first three chapters, but it's my version of it, so bear with me. The first chapter, Paul introduces God as the one who has chosen the believer. He chose the believer before the foundations of the earth. So, before a stone was set on the earth, he knew who he wanted, right? He knew who was going to say yes to him and who was going to say no.

And he chose the believer. So, if you're a believer here today, you were chosen by God before the foundation of the earth. And then, it says that Christ redeemed the believer. Christ the Son. He hits on all three parts of the Trinity. All three persons of the Trinity, rather. But he hits on Christ redeeming the believer. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death.

Then it also says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So, the believers that he is talking to have been redeemed in Christ Jesus. They have the debt that they could not pay was paid by their Savior, our Savior, Lord and believer, Jesus Christ. So, God chose the believer. Christ redeemed the believer. And then it says, the Holy Spirit sealed the believer.

The Holy Spirit sealed the believer. It says that the Holy Spirit is a guarantee of the inheritance that will be to come. That means he is proof. He is living proof in your life or our lives that there is more. More that God is going to give. To us. To you, me, we. So, God chose the believer. Christ redeemed the believer. The Holy Spirit sealed the believer. And then, Paul

prays for wisdom and knowledge of Christ at the end of chapter 1. He gives them all of this good news. They were chosen, redeemed and sealed. And then he prays for them. That the Lord would reveal it to them individually. Then he moves on to chapter 2. And it says that God, he made the believer alive who were dead in trespasses. Spiritually alive. We were all on our way down

on the highway to hell. Right? We have all sinned. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. But he is the one who made us alive. So, God made the believer alive. And one of my favorite key verses is verse 4 of chapter 2. It says, But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

So, God gave new life to the believer by grace. And then, a little bit after that, God brought the Gentiles in through the blood of Christ. Before, Jews and Gentiles did not have many interactions. You can read in the Gospels and see even when Christ explained the Good Samaritan, to the Pharisees. The Samaritan was willing to or, but Gentiles and Jews did not

fellowship or come together. Even when someone came into the church, there was an outer wall of separation between them. But Christ has brought the Gentile in by his blood. So, the body becomes unified in Christ. Unified. Unified in Christ. And then, Christ is the foundation. And then, Paul goes into in the beginnings of chapter 3, before we get started into the word,

he gets into that there was a mystery about, basically about the Gentiles coming into the body. And then, that God wanted it to be this way, so that all creation from all the followers of God on heaven and earth would learn to know the intense magnitude of God's wisdom. And then, it leads to Paul's prayer, which is where we're going to get started in verse 14. It leads to Paul's prayer.

It says this, for this reason, verse 14, for this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width, the length, and the depth and height, to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now

to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray one more time. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for the depth of your word, Lord, that Lord, just speak to us here. In Jesus'

name, amen. So he starts out with saying, for this reason, I'm bowing my knees, to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. All of this has been for Paul, and should be for every believer, has been about glorifying the Father. Even Christ on his last day said, in John 17, 4, he says, Father, I've glorified you here on earth. It's all been about glorifying the Father. And here Paul is,

he's praying to the Father. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord is a title. In this portion, it's Kyrios in the Greek, but Lord means absolute ruler. Absolute ruler. Have you, I'm assuming, I'm making the assumption, maybe I shouldn't make the assumption, but I'm going to make the assumption that we're all believers here. That we've all accepted Christ

as our Lord and Savior. As a young person, right? I've always thought that I accepted Christ as a young, from a young age. I definitely accepted him as my Savior. I believed that he had the ability to save me. I never didn't believe in him, but what I didn't do is have him as my Lord. Have him as the absolute ruler in my heart. Have him have absolute authority over

every thought, decision, every, everything that I wanted to do. Because growing up, I wanted to be in the army. I didn't care if God wanted me to be there. I knew I wanted to be a soldier. That was it. I wanted to serve my country, but I didn't go to God and ask him if that's what he wanted for me. It wasn't until later on that I learned that the call to service that God put

on my heart was correct, but I had it aimed in the wrong direction. I wanted to serve my country instead of serve him. And so my question to you, it's a question that I hope for each one of you to take before the Lord and ask him to reveal your heart and me as well. But who is the Lord of your life? Who has absolute authority in your heart? Are you willing to submit and give everything

to the God who gave everything for you? So he prays to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then it says, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. This means everyone in heaven and earth gets their identity from this God. And I really love that. That we have, as believers, we have identity in God. We're no longer dead in our sin. We're no longer

just walking around with no purpose or meaning to life, right? That's what evolution teaches, or eventually teaches, right? That there really isn't any purpose. It's the strong will survive, the weak die. And other than that, you know, eat, die, eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow you die. It means nothing. But in Christ we have identity. In God we have a purpose.

So he he's just identifying, the first couple of verses, just him identifying who he's praying to. And I love I really love how deep Paul gets into this prayer, because if you look into it, he's basically, and I'm maybe simplifying it a little bit too much, but he's basically asking for them to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But he's giving us like a little bit of more of an in-depth idea of what that really means, and what that will really look like from day to day in the believer. So he asks, in verse 16, he would grant you, according to, to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man.

So this was one of the desires of Paul's heart. He first just gave them the first three chapters were all about here, this is what you need to know as a believer. This is what you need to know. It's by grace you are saved through faith. It's not of works, man. Right? It's God chose you, Christ redeemed you, the Holy Spirit sealed you. This is what you need to know. But now,

my prayer is that you would be filled with his strength, that you would be filled with his spirit. Because you can't start in the duty if you haven't been filled with the spirit. It's the God, like my mom would always tell us this verse growing up, and I was used to get annoyed by it, but I memorized it even when I was walking in the world. But it's Zechariah 4, 6.

Not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. And for any true work of God, it must be that way. For any true Christian life, in order to bring glory to God, it must be done that way. It must be done by his strength, by his spirit, not by our own. I know we as American men, right, and American ladies, have a tendency to try to just put the Christian backpack on

and carry the load ourselves. But that's not what God wants. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want us to work for it. And he wants to give us his spirit to do that. So my question to you is, do you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis? Are you absolutely aware of your need for the Holy Spirit to indwell you, to give you his strength?

The strength that, and are you willing to accept or admit that apart from him, you don't have the strength to do it? That's something that the Lord has been very clearly showing me in the last few weeks. That if he doesn't do it in me, I don't got it. I can't do it. I'm the laziest man I know. And if God doesn't, by his spirit, give me the willingness and the

energy and the strength to get up and go do it, I'm not gonna do it. I'm as stubborn as my little husky. I am so stubborn. I will sit and sit and sit unless the Lord makes me willing. I think one of the reasons why he's called me is to show that if he can change my stubborn heart, he can also change the most stubborn of hearts. So, are you filled with the Spirit?

And it says, verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you being rooted up, Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So Christ isn't literally gonna come down from heaven and jump into your heart, right? And be like a little guy in your heart. It's through faith. It's through believing. It's through the Holy Spirit that he's able to

indwell into our hearts as a believer.

But, what does this word dwell mean? Well, it already said, right? He already called Christ Lord. But if Christ is going to dwell in your heart, that means he's going to have absolute rule over what is inside. Are there things in your heart that you're holding on to that you don't want to give control over to the Lord about? The Lord has showed me that there are some things that I need to

submit to the Lord and give to the Lord. And I think this prayer is a very good one. I want to pray individually and personally and as well as for our brothers and sisters. But, for me personally, that there's areas in my heart that I need to submit to the Lord and say, hey Lord, this is your heart. Make it your dwelling place. Make it as comfortable as you like. If you want to renovate

the whole thing, scrap it. Whatever you want to do. So, he wants Christ to dwell in their hearts. Through faith. That you being rooted and grounded in love. That you being rooted and grounded in love. This whole Christian faith is not a, it's not just an empty religion of rights and wrongs and do's and don'ts. It's a religion of love. Right? 1 John 4, 19 says, we love

him because he first loved us. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Ephesians 2, 4, but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. This religion, and Christianity is a religion. I hate to call it a religion because I think the word

religion, in my mind, maybe not yours, but in my mind, the word religion has gotten a bad connotation in my mind because of you know, traditions and people. But, Christianity is a religion, but it is a religion of love rather than a religion of rules. And, Paul knows, and maybe you know this, but for any of you guys who are bosses, isn't it hard to get someone to do something if they don't want to do it? Right? To force

someone into it? But, if they know you love them, they know you care, and they know that you actually want what's best for them, and you're not just using them or manipulating them, it's almost like they'll want to do it. Right? They'll be like, oh, dude, this boss loves me. Why wouldn't I want to go, you know, sweep the back room for him? Why wouldn't I want to go

help any way I can? And, Paul is wanting this to be taking place in the life of the believer. That, if the believer recognizes and understands the love that God has for him, and he becomes, he or she becomes rooted in it, established, and grounded in that love, that he'll be able to, he or she will want to do what is right. Right? One of my favorite quotes is from

Augustine, and it says this, Love the Lord with all your heart, and do what you want. If you love the Lord above all things, then whatever you're going to do is going to be honoring to God. Whatever you're going to want to do is going to be honoring to God. And it's the same thing. Paul wants the believer to be established and stable in the love that God has

for the believer. Then he says in verse 18, May he be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width, length, and depth, and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. So, in this verse, he uses two different no's. Right? There's knowledge, which is just simply like what you would get in a book, that kind of

knowledge, like really, you know, science books and stuff. And then there's to know, which is in the Greek, gnosko, which is an intimate, experiential no. Like, I can know my friend Bryson here, you know, because we go to the same school, right? Like, oh, I've seen him around. I know of him. I know who he is. But there's a difference between he's my best friend

and I know what he likes, right? Then I can be like, hey, Bryson, his favorite ice cream? His favorite ice cream is rainbow sherbet, right? Bryson's favorite color is purple, right? And Paul wants the believer to intimately know that love of Christ. To personally and experientially know the love of Christ. Not just be able to have a good conversation about how much God

loves me. Right? It's not something you're going to learn in a book. I mean, you are. But it's not something you're going to learn in a theology class. It's not something you're going to learn at a seminary or a Bible college or a really holy man. Or what we perceive to be a really holy man. It's going to be a personal and intimate relationship with our creator

through our Savior, Jesus Christ. So, Paul wants the believer to know the love. And I haven't defined it, but the love here is translated in the Greek which is agape love. And it's a Greek word for love that means selfless. It means benevolence. It means everything done for the other person, basically. It's an unselfish love.

And this is the kind of love that God has for the believer and as well as Christ has. And then the end of 19, it says, that you may be filled with all of the fullness of God. All of the fullness of God. So, he starts off with saying and praying that the believer would be strengthened with his might through his spirit. Then he says, I pray that you would be rooted and grounded

in his agape love. And I pray that you would know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. You would experience personally the love of Christ.

And all of these things entail the fullness of God. Being filled with the fullness of God. The only way that we can be filled with the fullness of God is by the power and the infilling and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It's through the Holy Spirit we can have intimate and personal relationship with our Savior. And it's through Christ that we have access,

by the Spirit, to the Father. Where we can boldly have an intimate relationship with each one of the Trinity. We can have a relationship with Christ. We can have a relationship with the Father.

So, Paul wants the believer to be filled with the fullness of God. Verse 20 and 21. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. So, he ends this prayer in a beautiful way. He's glorifying God the Father.

Once again, he opens with glorifying God by speaking directly to God the Father. But then he closes with honoring and recognizing that God can do more than our imagines can contain or can think up. Right? He can do more than what exceedingly abundantly more than what I can think about asking him or requesting from him. This is the God that we serve. He's not contained

by human imagination. Right? I was just watching Lord of the Rings, one of the Lord of the Rings movies, and J.R.R. Tolkien was a Christian, a believer, and he had an unbelievable imagination. Right? To write... I have never read the books, but I've watched all the movies. They're great. Right? And to think that the books go into so much more detail than the movies is mind-boggling to me.

And for someone to have that kind of imagination, those kinds of ways of thinking, he had to be an extremely intelligent man. But even his mind could not contain the things that God can do. The things that God is able to do.

And then it says, according to the power that works in us, which is crazy. Right? The same power that rose Christ up from the dead indwells the believer. And we have intimate relationship with him because he indwells us as a believer. And then to him be the glory in the church by Christ to all generations forever and ever. Amen. So, the whole goal of all of this, of

Paul writing this epistle, writing all of the epistles of the New Testament that he wrote, it's simply that God would be glorified in the church as a whole. Right? That as the believer would come to a personal and intimate relationship with God, that his life would translate to glorifying God. And then as the individual believer has an intimate relationship with God, then he would find, he or she would find a group of believers that would become intimately involved and having a relationship with God.

Then the believers would come together and glorify God together. Right? Not just on a Sunday morning worship service, but throughout the week, throughout the day, throughout their lives. Right? You read in the book of Acts, right? The first church, they just go off living together, figuring it out. I wouldn't say that's the best way to, it's not the idealist,

I mean, maybe it is the ideal way the church should be, but you know, it was still flawed. They still messed up, but they lived life together in fellowship, right? Super Christian word for fellowship, which means really intimate relationship. Basically, you hang out with your best boys all the time, right? You're always with your people. You're always with your people. So

Paul wants God to be glorified in the church by Christ to all generations forever and ever. Amen. So he ends this prayer. Like you said, it's a simple, it's not a complicated, but a more detailed version of basically asking for the filling of the Holy Spirit and the fullness of God to be indwelt in the believer. But then he switches over into the duty, the exhortation to the believer.

Now me as a believer, what do I do now that I've taken in all of this knowledge? Well, first I must be filled with the Holy Spirit and then move on into how do I do this? What do I do? Practically, what does it look like? And here Paul is going to tell us and tell the believers in Ephesians and Ephesus what that practically will look like. It says, verse 1 of chapter 4.

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. Paul identifies himself here as a prisoner of the Lord. I didn't reference this earlier, but Ephesians is one of the four prison epistles, I believe four. Four prison epistles. Meaning, Paul was legitimately in prison when he was writing this epistle.

He's writing about the richness of God in prison. Right? Where you I mean, I'm assuming prison back then was a little bit worse than it is now. You got nothing, it's dark. Right? They didn't have electricity so, probably smelled. No, maybe they had, I don't know if they had plumbing, but he's in prison. And he's writing about the richness the believer can have in Christ. Right?

The first verse, the third verse of chapter 1, he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Can't say that unless you believe it. And homeboy's in prison, believing that he has been blessed with every spiritual blessing that he needs. And he is spiritually richer than anything he needs.

So, Paul, he calls himself a prisoner of the Lord rather than a prisoner of Rome too. I love that. I love that. A prisoner of the Lord. I beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. So, I exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. He wants the believer, right, to take in the knowledge but walk worthy of what that knowledge

should be. Right? In verse 4 of chapter 1, he says this, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. He wants the believer to be walking in holiness. Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. Verse 2, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another

in love. So, this kind of sounds like if you've read the book of Galatians, like the fruits of the Spirit, part of the fruits of the Spirit, right? Gentleness, patience, lowliness, or humility. But, the believer practically should be walking in humility. Humility is not thinking, oh, I'm worse than everyone else. It's thinking of yourself less and putting others first, right?

Joy is Jesus first, others second, you last.

That's what Paul wants. Paul wants, if I don't know about you guys, but I know in big groups of people, when you stick them in a room for long enough, tensions rise, attitudes flitter up, people suck, people are annoying sometimes, right? It's just, it is what it is. A good friend once told me, do you want to be right, or do you want to make a friend? When you're in an

argument, like, do you want to be right? Is being right more important to you than your friendship? When it comes to pride, the fight is going to be worth it every time. When it comes to pride, I'm going to want to win the argument rather than win the friend. But if I'm walking in lowliness or humility, winning the argument doesn't matter to me. Winning the argument

is not the main focus. Loving my brother and serving my friend is the main focus. Coming alongside him, and if I have a disagreement, taking it up with the Lord rather than with them. Because God's the only one that can change their mind, or change mine if I'm wrong. So lowliness, humility, willing to be wrong and willing to be teachable. I'm a big fan of fighting, alright? I love

UFC, MMA, boxing, anything. But the one thing you hear from all of the great coaches when they're speaking about great fighters, is they'll say, he was teachable. George St. Pierre, who is arguably the GOAT, or the greatest of all time in MMA, is widely known as being humble. As in, he would go to any random gym and be willing to be taught by anyone there. Not saying, hey, I'm the greatest

fighter in the world, I can take you all on. And, you know what? Let me teach the class, you know? Let me take over from here. Sensei, you know, I'm the one that's beating everyone in the world. You're not doing anything. No. He would walk into the gym and be willing to be taught. Be willing to be taught. So, with all lowliness and gentleness. Gentleness, it's not a fun word if you're

a man, right? Like, if you're a tough, tough man. You know how to build stuff, build houses and stuff, right? You know how to shoot guns, right? Gentleness does not go with guns. But that is a characteristic that must mark the believer. Gentleness. Like, do you remember when Jesus was being surrounded by all the little kids? His disciples were like, get away, get away.

He's like, no. Let them come to me. Let them come. Gentleness. Are you gentle? Do you have a gentle spirit about you? Do you have a gentleness? Does gentleness mark your life? With long suffering, patience, right? The one word we all hate. We all dislike with a passion. Because we live in America, which is fast food culture, right? Fast food everything. I can even go to

Walmart and order it online and just go pick it up, right? Everything is about quickness and speed. And I know they used to do for pizza deliveries, right? If they didn't get it in 30 minutes, it was free. Not anymore, but that's why we like to live, right? No patience. But patience must mark the life of a believer. Long suffering. Willing to suffer for a long period of time.

Not what I want to do, but the believer, his characteristic will have that. And Paul, these are the characteristics Paul wants in the church, wants in the believer. That the Holy Spirit has inspired him to write about to the believer. He's like, hey, be humble. Be humble. Hey, think of yourself less. Hey, be gentle with each other. Hey, be patient with each other.

Hey, be filled with the Spirit, right? If you do these things, this is what characterizes a healthy church. Not numbers. Numbers means absolutely nothing. You can have the biggest church and still the most fruitless church. It's not about numbers. It's about the interactions. How are they living together? Are they living life with one another? Are they gentle with each other?

Are they patient with each other? If you've known me for any length of time, you know that I need a lot of patience because I'm a dummy. I make a lot of mistakes. I go back and do a lot of the same mistakes. Straight up idiot, I swear.

I need patience. I need gentleness.

I'm sure you're not much better than me, right? You guys need patience too. You need gentleness. You need someone to come to you in humility. When it talks about restoring a brother or correcting a brother, he says to do it with gentleness. Not trying to prove him wrong, but in gentleness. Does this signify your life? And then it says bearing with one another in love. Basically

carrying each other's burdens. Helping each other live life. Helping each other move along. Right? And I love that it ends it. It says with love. Because if it just said bearing with one another, we'd be just like I guess Bryson's my burden to bear. Right? Guess I gotta help him get along. Gotta help him get past his problems. Right? He keeps messing up. The Bible says I gotta do this.

But if it's in love, because of the love that God has for me and the love that he's given me for Bryson, it's not a burden. I'm able to do it willingly. And that's what the Lord wants. But verse three. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. This is the main verse that I really actually wanted to hit. Because the Bible doesn't really talk about

striving or endeavoring in good light a lot of the times. Right? Don't labor for things that will fade away. Right? Don't work hard. It's salvations by grace through faith. But here Paul gives us, gives the believer the encouragement to strive to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Endeavoring means to exert yourself for it. Right? Work for it.

Relationships are hard. Right? They're not always easy. Especially the people that are closest to you. You gotta work to maintain that. You gotta you know, really commit yourself to working at making the relationship better. Here Paul is encouraging the believer to work to keep the unity of the spirit. Work for that.

And then he explains why. Why unity? Why? What gives Paul? He says verse four, there's one body and one spirit. Just as you were called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is above all and through you all and in you all. God doesn't look at church buildings and say, oh, that's my church there. That's my church there.

The church as a whole is one body from Cyprus to Ark City to if there's a church, an Antarctica. I don't think there is maybe not, but it's one body in one spirit, right? The same spirit that is in me is the same spirit that dwells in the pastor in Romania or in Russia. If you're a believer in Christ, right? It doesn't matter who you are. If you have been saved by grace through faith, you've been

filled with the Holy Spirit. Whether I like you or not doesn't mean anything. You're my brother or sister in Christ. Therefore, I must endeavor to keep the spirit of unity. I must work at it. And that's what I want to talk about. It's uncomfortable meeting new people or even just old people that you haven't talked to in a while or even, this is my problem, maybe not yours, but remembering

people's names. I can hear someone's name 80 times and then I just start calling them dude because I'm embarrassed to say, what's your name again? I'm like, thank you, sir. What's up, dude? How you doing, brother?

But putting myself out there, putting ourselves out there to seek to unify each other, unify the body in love, unify the body in spirit. So that we can all be on the same page. So we can all be about our father's business like Christ. Right? So we, was it a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a There's the phrase that birds of a feather flock together, but I'm thinking of

like, I think I watched it in the mighty ducks, but they talked about ducks flying, right? One duck can fly so far, but if they're in a group, they can fly farther. Same thing with the body. You can't be an isolated Christian.

Find fellowship. Find community. And it's uncomfortable. I was talking to a friend not too long ago and he's telling me about how he was at a place with that was filled with a bunch of believers. Um, but no one was talking to him. Hey, and he's like, I sat there for a while and no one said anything to me. I was like, well, did you say anything? Hey, I know it's uncomfortable and I know you're the only one, but did you go out of your way?

Right? Paul says with all lowliness, humility, you have to be humble enough to be embarrassed. Get embarrassed. Go talk to someone. Go say, hey, you look cool. What's your favorite color? Do you remember like when kids, I love watching little kids, right? When they just meet a new kid, they're like, hey, what's your name? Cool. You want to be friends? Awesome.

Let's go. That's how it should be in the body of Christ. And I feel like some, for some reason and somehow we've all gotten too old and too cool to go say hi to someone we don't know to say, hey, do you want to go grab lunch after church? Do you want to come over for dinner sometime this week? This is what glorifies God. Not a bunch of people in one building

singing a cool song, listening to a super hip sermon. It's the body of Christ dwelling in unity, living life together. So I want to encourage you in that. There's a whole bunch of churches here that we can be in fellowship with, people that we can be in fellowship with. Right? Not just look at someone just just because they're a different denomination or a different church

and be like, ah, I can't be with you because I'm Calvary. Right? But if they're a believer in Christ, that's one Lord, one Savior, one baptism, one spirit, one body, and then saying, hey, you want to grab coffee? Right? Randomly. So my encouragement to you is to seek unity. Seek unity. Strive for unity, even when it's uncomfortable. Be willing to be uncomfortable.

Put yourself out there. Make a new friend. Ask them for lunch. Ask them for dinner. Tell them, I don't got money for lunch, but I can make a mean sandwich at my house. Right? Take them out. Bring them over. Do something. But unity in the Spirit is what I encourage. So, Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your Word. We thank you so much for your Spirit. We thank

you for the love that you have for us, Lord. The love that encourages us. The love that pushes us, Lord. And I just want to lift up all of my brothers and sisters to you, Father. Would you pour out your Spirit of peace upon them, Lord? Would you pour out your Spirit to empower them to live a victorious Christian life? Would you lead them by your Spirit? To each other, Lord, in unity.

In Jesus' name, Amen. If y'all are standing or not, but go ahead if you would. Can't remember. Just give me this Word.

Come to us. Give us. The Lord bless y'all. Have a great week.