"My Part in Fulfilling Christ’s Vision" with Pastor Rick Warren

we're in a short series that i'm calling the awesome power vision and in the last message we looked at christ's vision for his family which is the church and i if you remember i only shared the first half of it and so today i want to share the second half of christ's vision for his family unity is the soul of fellowship if you destroy a church's unity you rip the heart out of the body of christ unity is the essence unity is the core of how god wants us to experience life together in his church unity in the church is so important i think i mentioned this last week the bible has far more to say about christians living in harmony and unity than it says about heaven or it says about hell did you know that god wants you to experience true unity true community true oneness true harmony with other believers now of course in heaven we're going to experience this real community perfectly but you know what god wants us to practice it here on earth now nothing is more valuable to god than his church it is his bride it is his body it is his flock the bible tells us that christ died for the church says that in ephesians that's why the unity of god's family was the number one topic on jesus mind as he approached the cross why he was going to die for the church if there had been something more important to jesus you can be sure he would have prayed about it right before the cross but in john 17 which is jesus prayer before his crucifixion jesus mentions his vision for our unity multiple times in john 17. remember i asked you this last week to read john 13 to 17 several times during the week because in john 17 20-21 jesus prayed this for you he said i'm praying for all who will believe in me because of my disciples testimony and my prayer for them is that they'll be unified as one father just as you and i are one may they be unified united as one now like every human parent our heavenly father wants to see his children get along with each other you want your kids to get along you want your grandkids to get along and so today we're going to look at how we can do that how we can get along better as brothers and sisters in the family of god but first let me summarize uh last week's message for those of you who missed it uh on the outline there are 12 statements that summarize why unity is so important to the church and i'm not going to try to share all the scripture verses that we looked at last week fact i'm just going to give you these 12 statements but why is unity in the church so important well here's what god's word says number one the bible teaches us that my unity with other believers is the proof that i'm saved all right number two the trinity is our model for unity number three jesus last prayer request was that the members of his church would live in unity number four god gives us his glory so that we'll be unified and number five our unity is our greatest witness to unbelievers number six unity removes fear and creates boldness if you want to be less fearful and more bold this is the key to it we talked about that last week number seven when a church is truly unified everybody's needs are met number eight baptism and communion are visible signs of unity and nine focusing on our common purpose is what creates unity number ten unity begins when we realize that we are incomplete without each other i need you you need me nobody's got all the gifts we need each other number 11 jesus died to unite us not to divide us and number 12 jesus expects me to work hard at unifying christians and expects you and me together to work on it together now with these statements as our foundation and that's what we talked about all last week the natural question is what's my part what's my role how am i supposed to do my part in fulfilling christ's vision because one day you're going to stand before god and he's going to say did you do what i asked you to do so let's talk about it how can i be an agent of unity in my church in my church well since god paid the highest price for the church he wants it protected especially from the damage that's caused by division and conflict and disharmony and god says that if you're a part of god's family then he expects you you to be an agent of unity you are commissioned by jesus whether you know it or not you know it now you're commissioned by jesus to do everything possible to preserve the unity protect the fellowship and promote the harmony in your church family and by the way to all believers among all believers now let's look at four simple steps i could have given you a dozen this week but i thought you know i gave you 12 points last week let's cut it down to just four number one here's the first step on how you can be an agent of harmony and unity in your church number one focus on what we share not our differences when you get together with other christians focus on the things we have in common what we share in common not our differences romans 14 verse 19 i love this the phillips translation it says this let us concentrate on the things which create harmony all right let us concentrate on the things that create harmony and on the growth of our fellowship together now let's think about this for a minute what does it mean to concentrate what do you do when you concentrate do you let your mind just go anywhere no no it means you focus you focus it means you give it your full attention you don't casually concentrate it's intentional when you concentrate you have chosen to concentrate you choose the focus you choose to decide to figure out what you're going to focus on and when he says let's focus on the things that create harmony in unity he's saying you're going to decide to figure out what are the common things that we share as brothers and sisters in god's family so what are they what are the things that we share in common as brothers and sisters in the family of god because we're all different we look different we act different we're from different backgrounds we different sizes and shapes we're different genders different races what what are the things that we share in common that god wants us to concentrate on well god tells us in ephesians 4 that we share seven big things in common this is not all but in ephesians 4 it says there are seven big things we share in common he says i want you to focus on that ephesians 4 4-6 notice how many times he used the word one in this in this paragraph he says there's only one body and there's one spirit and we've been called to one hope there's only one lord one faith one baptism and only one god who is the father of us all who is over all and is through all and is in all now let's look at these phrases he said focus on the things that you have in common we're one body jesus doesn't have multiple bodies he just has the church we have one spirit we've all been given the same holy spirit at salvation we all share one hope what's that it's the hope of the second coming of jesus he didn't stay dead he resurrected he went back to heaven and he promised to return we have one lord not we don't worship multiple gods we have one faith and that faith is contained in this one book not multiple books it's in this one book the one faith that god has given to us we have one baptism which means you don't have to be re-baptized every time you sin and of course there's only one god so what he's saying we share the same salvation we share the same forgiveness we share the same grace we share the same mercy we share the same life we share the same future these factors are far more important than your gender or your race or your age or your economic status or your background or your sins or anything else your size these are the things that god wants us to focus on not our personal differences now it's important to remember that in all of the differences that we have too not just things we have in common but in all of the differences we have guess what those all came from god too so it was god who chose to give us different personalities it was god who chose to give us different backgrounds different races it was god chose to give us you know different amounts of hair different preferences personalities all kind so that means that we should value and enjoy and learn from those differences in our church family too not just what we have in common but even celebrate our differences which are god-given now god doesn't want you to merely tolerate other christians he wants you to be united with them but unity is not uniformity did you hear that you might write that down unity is not uniformity god doesn't when he says i want you to be united he doesn't want us all to be alike if he if he'd done that he would have made us all alike uh and if you had wanted that uh sorry that's not gonna happen because god made us all different when when you say i don't like the way that person acts or lives or i don't like their race or whatever you're basically saying god you made a mistake you should have made everybody like me god wants unity but he doesn't want uniformity for unity's sake we must never let differences divide us we should celebrate them but we shouldn't let our differences divide us we have to stay focused on what matters most what is that learning to love each other as christ has loved us and fulfilling god's five purposes for each of us in his church now i i i know what you may be thinking right now uh because you're saying rick okay yeah i get it but what about all those differences in members in our church that irritate me how am i supposed to deal with them how do i be unified with somebody who just irritates me to no end well let me show you a couple verses first let me just say this conflict is usually a sign that the focus has shifted to less important issues something that the bible calls in romans 14 disputable matters there are some things we have to agree on like jesus is the son of god he died and rose again he's coming back one day the bible is god's word these are not disputable matters but disputable matters are things where well-meaning christians can have difference of opinions and in romans 14 that whole chapter's about that you might read that this week but it says this in romans 14 1 you must accept all fellow believers even weak ones without arguing or judging them for different opinions that's not an easy verse to understand oh yes it is it's just an easy verse to harder verse to do it's easy to understand the message translation of this verse amplifies it here's romans 14 1 in the message welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way you do did you hear that welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way you do and don't jump all over them every time they do or say something that you don't agree with this is scripture romans 14 1 they have their own history to deal with treat them gently now did you notice that little phrase at the end there they have their own history to deal with you know what what is he talking about well we all we always tend to look at how far a person has to go we don't know how far they've already come and if you knew how far they'd already come he'd probably be rejoicing with him go man they've come a long way but we're always judging them from where they are now to where they need to be and people are doing that with you too but they have their own history to deal with what it means that when you don't know the background of a fellow christian in your church family when you don't know the background when you don't understand their background of a brother or sister maybe they came out of an urban area or maybe they came out of a rural area or maybe they came out of a suburban area or maybe they came out in poverty or maybe they were an orphan when you don't know the background and understand it of a brother and sister in christ you know what you tend to do either dismiss them or judge them for behavior you don't understand let me give you a question okay that will change your perspective on how you deal with people that you don't like or you don't understand okay here's the question stop asking when you see somebody that does things and you go that just irritates me no end stop asking in your mind what's wrong with you and start asking this what happened to you what happened to you because there's always a trauma there's always a reason a crisis behind behavior hurt people hurt people and if you find somebody who's hurting other people if you dig deep enough you'll find that they have been hurt and they and the people who deserve it the least are those who need the most massive doses of love stop asking when you see people that irritate you what's wrong with them and start asking a much more sympathetic empathetic question what happened to them i wonder what warped and what caused them to be so whatever it is now paul understood the great importance of unity in the family of god so he's passionate when he talks about unity in first corinthians 1 10 in the new living it says this let there be real harmony real harmony so there are no divisions in the church this is what jesus wants this is his vision the church i want no divisions in the church i plead with you to be of one mind united in thought and purpose if you take a note circle the word plead and circle the word purpose those two words plead in purpose for real unity to take place for it to happen in your church it takes both passion paul's pleading i plead you i i'm begging you to get along with each other for unity there has to be passion and there has to be a common purpose that's why we've never in 41 years never had a split in in saddleback church not once why because we've had the same common purposes for 41 years so that's the starting point all right now let me give you a second step to being an agent of unity number two realize that i must continually work at unity i have to realize this is not something just happens it's not accidental if i'm going to be close to other people if i'm going to be in harmony with other people if i'm going to be unified in a small group or unified in our church i've got to work at it now the bible says that ephesians 4 3 says this make every effort you're taking notes underline that make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit bind yourselves together living in peace with each other now that phrase make every effort means it's going to take some work unity just doesn't happen in your family in your marriage in a relationship in our church unity happens only when you are intentional about it and you say i'm going to make it happen we're going to make every effort to build unity he said well how do i do that well i'm giving you some tips i could give you a bunch more but these are ones we can work on right now let me give you a couple things to not do because these destroy unity these create division instead of vision division always destroys vision number one here's something not to do don't bring worldly values into the church yeah why because every time you bring worldly values into the church it causes division it causes division now one of the world's values and we see it everywhere today is the idolizing of celebrities you know we now live in a celebrity culture there's a celebrity on the cover of every magazine practically every week and with the advent of social media everybody now wants to be their own little celebrity and they're turning their lives into reality shows and and everybody i mean junior high girls and and sixth grade boys are doing everything for an audience today and people are being marketed as if they're a product and many people are actually doing it to themselves they're they're marketing themselves as a product and so actors and musicians and politicians and practically everybody else are being packaged and produced they're long on reputation but they're short on character it can't be that way in the church because in the church character matters not reputation not fame there's a difference between fame and character a lot of people famous just for being famous they've never really even done anything but god says what matters is not your reputation but your character why does it matter because god says it matters now whenever we focus on personalities or preferences or power or pleasure or prestige or popularity guess what division is always going to happen you're not going to have unity when you focus on the other thing but if we concentrate on our relationships and loving each other then harmony results and paul is pleading for this in his letter to the corinthians you know let me give you a little background on this in the church at corinth they were having a lot of conflict and they started having conflict and division in their church family for many many different reasons but the biggest one of all was because they started placing their loyalty and giving their loyalty to leaders over their common loyalty to christ and each other and all of a sudden they started dividing up over well i like this leader and i like that leader and i'm of that party and i'm of this party and that's my guy and that's your guy and then they brought it all into the church so paul actually had to write a letter to them to rebuke them and that book that letter is called first corinthians and it's filled with rebukes to christians who had started acting like unbelievers in fact in every chapter in first corinthians paul deals with a different cause of division in the church now let me just show you one in chapter three he's talking about when you're showing favoritism of different leaders he says this first corinthians three verses two to five he says you're acting talking about in the church you're acting in the same way unbelievers act in the world he says the proof of your immaturity is you're arguing and quarreling the proof of immaturity is your arguing and quarreling and the divisions you've created he says whatever you find create a division quarreling argument it says the people that are immature he said it still proves proves that you still belong to the world and that you're living by worldly values and then he gives an example he says you know when one of you says you know i support paul i'm from the party of paul and another says i support apollos i'm from the party of apollos he said you're acting like unbelievers not like christ he says is apollos important no he says if paul is paul important no so he says here when you start when when you're when you start having personality issues and people are choosing up well i like this leader but i don't like that leader he said you know what then you're going to have division if you let me listen if you ever let me or a tv preacher or a radio preacher or a politician or even yourself cause uh division in a church you're gonna know that worldly values have seeped into the church okay so avoid bringing what the world thinks is important into the church second thing to avoid is to work at unity is this don't be sucked into the world's fights don't be sucked into the world's fights now i don't have to tell you that there's a lot of conflict out there in society in our culture in the world people are arguing about everything and today it's gotten worse because we have the communication tools through the internet where anybody can argue about anything and they do and they do you know i i was interviewed the other day and one of the first questions they always want to ask me about politics and i couldn't care less about that but the first question they asked was what did jesus think and say about politics and my answer was not much not much in fact in all my studies of jesus ministry and i've read through the gospels hundreds of times i've only found two statements that jesus made that were political statements in three and a half years now i distinguish between moral statements which are about right or wrong political statements which are often a matter of opinion but moral statements you can back up with scripture but there's no verse in the bible for instance there's no verse in the bible it tells you that taxes should be higher or lower this is not a verse but i do know that jesus said this in john 18 36 when he was asked a political question he said my kingdom is not of this world if it were my certain servants would fight my kingdom is not of this world if it were my servants would fight this is not our fight the fight that's going on out there that's not our fight we got a battle but it's not that one okay and our weapons are different too now as christians we are called to speak up for the truth we are called to speak up for the vulnerable we are called to speak up for the elderly for the unborn for the poor we are called in scripture to speak up for those imprisoned for immigrants as the bible calls them foreigners or strangers or aliens we are called to speak up for those denied justice now those are moral issues that can be backed up with hundreds of verses in the bible in fact did you know over 2 000 verses in the bible about taking care of the poor 2 000 and they're about that same number about making sure everybody is treated fairly and justly justice has a couple thousand verses too so we gotta wonder about what are we gonna do with those but there are a lot of issues out there that people are fighting over the bible is silent about it just says nothing if it's not our fight it's not our fight now if you've ever been on social media you know that there are a lot of christians out there who are ready to pick a fight with you because they're addicted to anger as much as some people are addicted to drugs what do you do with those people this is i'm trying to be practical in this message what do i do with internet trolls who they just want to pick a fight and many of them are christians well here's what the bible says we always go back to the word it's not my opinion is worthless what what matters is what does god say about these questions and in second timothy chapter 2 verses 23 and 24 it says this about dealing with people who are just like the fight like to get in arguments ii timothy 2 23 and 24 says this don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments that's pretty clear don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because you know they produce quarrels and then it says this listen the lord's servant must never quarrel are you a servant of god well that's scripture and the bible says the lord's servant must never quarrel as a servant of god i am not allowed to quarrel the lord's servant must never quarrel instead it says you must be kind to everybody if you're going to be a servant of god if you're going to be a woman of god you're going to be a man of god the lord's servant must never quarrel instead you must be kind to everybody able to teach and patient with everyone you must be humble gently teaching those who oppose the truth so what does that mean it means in the world in a world where everybody likes to argue today don't start arguments don't get into arguments don't get hooked into an argument don't participate in an argument in many many places in scripture particularly psalms and proverbs particularly proverbs we are told to stay clear of argumentative people did you know that just go read some proverbs we are told to stay clear people who like to quarrel like to argue and yet you know i've heard actually heard of small groups and churches that split up because they argued over secondary issues and they allowed non-essentials to take precedent over our commitment to each other as brothers and sisters in christ that makes our heavenly father sad but it's not new no it's not new it's been going on for 2000 years in fact in the church meeting in rome the church that met in rome and paul had to write to them they got into a big conflict and you know what the conflict over was there in the church in rome food the church in rome started having a split because they had a conflict over rules about what you could and couldn't eat and paul had to write them this word romans 12 20. it's a word we need in 2021. romans 12 20 says this don't tear apart the work of god don't tear apart the work of god over a rule about food now it may not be a rule about food it may be who you voted for it may be some other issue don't tear apart the work of god over a secondary issue you know as i mentioned earlier the church in corinth was a very divided church and they fought over everything but their favorite conflict was over leadership and so in chapter 3 paul had to remind them that if we allow our support of any leader of any kind to create division or tension in the church between us and our brothers and our sisters god says our priorities are out of whack it's not a god it's not christ-like and it's a sin that god will judge now first corinthians chapter 3 verse 2-5 paul says you know what i wanted to teach you some deeper truths from the word of god but i couldn't because you were arguing all the time and he said it just showed your level of maturity in fact here's what scripture says first corinthians 3 2-5 paul says i had to feed you with milk not solid food for you still aren't mature you're not mature enough to digest it you're acting in church the same way unbelievers act in the world and this proof of your immaturities you're arguing and quarreling and the divisions you created and it proves you still belong to the world you're living by worldly values so he's talking about this thing about who says well i'm of this club and i'm of that club and i'm supporting this guy and i'm supporting that guy it doesn't really matter now the third step the third step in creating uh unity in your small group unity in your church unity in your family unity in your marriage here's a big one be realistic in my expectations be realistic in my expectations all of us had unrealistic expectations when we got married all of us bring unrealistic expectations to church and to expect any church to always do everything right and to minister perfectly to everyone all the time that's fantasy in the first place the church is filled with imperfect people sinners like me you're looking at number one i'm the chief of sinners the church is filled with imperfect people so a group of imperfect people will never be able to create a perfect community it's like in a marriage i'm a sinner my wife's a sinner she married a bigger center me and two sinners can't create a perfect relationship we need to remember psalm 119 96 it says this nothing is perfect except your word psalm 119 96 nothing is perfect except your words everything is broken on this planet the weather the economy our bodies marriages our relationships our minds nothing on this planet works perfectly except god's word it's perfect so to expect perfection in your church is to set yourself up for massive disappointment now a church can be healthy without being perfect okay just like your kids or grandkids okay my kids are are not perfect but they're healthy they're healthy my grandkids have never been perfect but they're healthy and a church can be healthy without being perfect you know one of the things i've noticed is that when people read a lot of books about the ideal church and the way it ought to be it just makes them cynical why because they're hoping for something that doesn't exist and when you discover that what god intends in real fellowship to be it's easy to get discouraged by the gap between the ideal and the real all right you know you read all these books about the ideal church and then you go live in the real church you just get cynical but let me say this and i want you to listen closely even with all its faults and all its favors failures and all its mistakes and all its sin jesus passionately loves his church and he wants us to do the same if we're going to be christ-like a lot of people use the church but don't love it we must passionately love the church in spite of its perfections longing for the ideal while criticizing the real is evidence of spiritual immaturity on the other hand setting settling for the real without striving for the ideal is complacency you know what maturity is maturity is living with the tension for 41 years i have lived with the tension of saddleback church between the ideal what i knew it could be and the real what it was i have loved our church deeply at every stage of its growth when we had five people i loved it when we had 15 people i loved it when we had 30 people i loved it when we had 30 000 i loved it but i of all people can see the glaring weaknesses in our church because i'm intimate i've seen it from day one and i have lived for 41 years with the tension between yeah it's really good this is good but it could be here see it's like parenting and parenting you don't wait for your kids to grow up before you start loving them you don't wait for your kids to be mature before you start loving them you love them at every stage of maturity when when my kids would bring me a picture at two years old and and it would be just scribbling and i'd say that's perfect honey that's just perfect what i mean by that it's perfect for that stage of maturity now if amy brought that to me you know in her 30s i i'd go there's a problem here but it's perfect at each stage you need to learn to love people at every stage of their growth and you need to learn to love our church as a whole in every stage of growth let me be honest with you as somebody who has walked with jesus now for over 60 years and i'll just tell you this from experience other believers will disappoint you other believers are going to let you down in life but that's no excuse to stop fellowshipping with them it's no excuse to stop loving them god wants you to love the real church not the ideal church these people the people you you have a hard time with they're your family you're gonna live with them for eternity and when they don't act like it you can't just walk out on them instead god tells us this ephesians 4 2 new living translation be patient with each other making allowances for each other's faults because of your love believe me in all of the counseling that i've done with people in our church people can become disillusioned with the church for many understandable reasons and the list could be what quite long i could give you a long list of legitimate reasons for becoming disillusioned with the church conflict hurt hypocrisy neglect pettiness legalism other sins but rather than being shocked and surprised we just got to remember the church is made up of real people sinners including ourselves and because of that we hurt each other sometimes intentionally sometimes unintentionally but if you walk out of every situation in a church that you have difficulty with where are you going to build christ-like character huh where where are you going to build it if you run from a problem every time you have a problem where are you going to build character you see becoming like christ requires problems and pressure and pain and persecution a lot of other things we don't like but as i told you many times god's not interested in your comfort as much as he's interested in your character because you're not taking your comfort to heaven you're taking your character to heaven and the comfort is going to be in heaven this is the get ready stage so let me just give you a practical assignment if you know somebody who's thinking about leaving their small group or leaving their church family you might encourage them to stay and work out their problem for their own character development reconciliation not running away is always the road to stronger character and deeper fellowship it's always better to resolve a relationship than to replace it always on the other hand divorcing your church at the first sign of disappointment or disillusionment that's just a mark of immaturity it represents the same values of the world which has no commitment to anything i don't like it i'm leading you i'm out of here and and they're serial divorces listen god has things he wants to teach you in your church in if you remember saddleback in saddleback church with people who think differently you have different background than you look differently from you and you're never going to learn those lessons unless you become friends with them as i already said there's no perfect church to escape to because every church has its own set of weaknesses and problems and you go join another church you just soon be deported disappointed again why there's no perfect church by the way if you could find one um you shouldn't join it because once you join it it's not gonna be perfect anymore uh you know groucho marx was famous for saying he wouldn't want to belong to any club that would let him in [Laughter] that's pretty pretty smart because if a church has to be perfect to satisfy you that same perfection is going to exclude you from membership because you're not perfect i'm making light of this but it's a serious issue dietrich bonhoeffer the german pastor who is martyred for resisting the nazis and hitler wrote a classic book on genuine community and fellowship it's called life together it was one of the greatest books on church membership ever written and in life together he suggests that disillusionment with our local churches is a good thing because it destroys our false expectation of perfection he said you know the sooner you give up the illusion that a church has to be perfect in order to love it the sooner you're going to quit pretending and will start admitting that we're all imperfect we all need grace and that that that is the beginning of real community you know every church could put out a sign no perfect people need apply this is the only place where people admit they're sinners that we need grace so we all need to grow bonhoeffer said he who loves his dream of community more than christian community itself becomes the destroyer of the latter so we don't give thanks for the christian fellowship which we have been placed he said even when there's no great experience and no discoverable riches and a lot of weakness and small faith and difficulty if on the contrary we keep complaining that everything is paltry and petty he said we hinder god from letting our fellowship grow that's strong words from a strong man colossians 3 14 says this most of all let love guide your life for then the whole church will stay together in perfect harmony what's gates not rocket science let love light guide your life first peter 4 8 says this powerful in the message love each other as if your life depended on it do you do that you do that with other christians you love each other as if your life depended on it love makes up for practically anything you know i found that to be true that saddleback church when we had no buildings we had no money we had no uh we had no big programs we had no large staff you know we had a tent on a moonscape and that was about it and yet thousands came why because people want to be where love is if you have a church that genuinely loves people genuinely loves each other you'd have to lock the door to keep people out people don't come because of a fancy program or a fancy preaching or fancy this or that they come because their lives are changed by love now finally let me give you one other principle that i think we all need to work on uh this year because we're in a in an age where there's more division going on in society we just have to insulate ourselves from all of that uh conflict and love each other because if people like what they see in us they'll listen to what we say so let me give you one other principle from god's word that you can use to be an agent of unity an agent of reconciliation number four here it is offer encouragement instead of criticism all right just when you're talking to people offer encouragement instead of criticism that is so counter-culture our culture doesn't offer encouragement it offers criticism that's all it offers people make a living being critics nobody makes a living being an encourager romans 14 verses 19 and 20 says this in the message let's use all our energy okay listen let's use all our energy in getting along with each other you want to you want to direct your energy in the right way use all our energy and getting along with each other help each other by using encouraging words help each other by using encouraging words don't drag others down by finding fault okay more encouragement less criticism don't drag each other down by by just finding fault now i know what you're thinking you say rick i am all for encouragement uh but what do you do when something is wrong and everybody knows it and it's just wrong do you ignore it you don't criticize it you ignore it the answer is of course not but listen and this is a mark of leadership you can learn the skill of sharing a rebuke or pointing out a problem in a positive way that's a skill okay you can always learn how to share a rebuke or point out a negative make a critique but you say it in such a positive way that they're able to receive it see there's always two ways to say something you can say it the nice way and you can say it the not nice way you've always got a choice it is possible to speak a difficult truth in a positive way i do it every week and i can teach you how to do that too and over the past 30 40 years i've taught a lot of pastors literally hundreds of thousands of them around the world how to do it how to talk about a negative concept in a positive way one of my eight questions that i use in preparing a message and i teach this in the preaching seminar is what is the most positive way to say it why why would you be interested in saying it in a positive way well if you're interested in being persuasive then you're going to need to learn that skill why because the bible says it proverbs 16 verse 21 says this a wise mature person is known for his understanding the more pleasant his words the more persuasive he is that's scripture that's the bible the more pleasant your words the more persuasive you'll be you might write this down i am never persuasive when i'm abrasive all right i'm never persuasive when i'm abrasive if i say something offensively it will be received defensively if i wanted to i could get up here every week and put you on the defense in about 30 seconds and just tell you all the things you're doing wrong you go yeah you're right no no that doesn't change anybody telling it like it is doesn't change anybody telling it like it could be does telling it like could be a speaking preaching teaching for faith now i'll be honest with you it's not hard to be negative when so much of our culture is negative i mean really you're bombarded with a continual diet of criticisms and attacks and slanders and malicious talk on all the cable news channels we don't have news anymore on cable we have three hours of opinion every night on every channel just different opinions and there's stereotyping and ad hominem attacks on people every single night on tv and every day on talk radio so we live like fish in a culture of sea water we live in a culture of negativity and it's always easier to stand on the sidelines and take shots than it is to get involved and make a contribution but god warns us over and over and over not to criticize not to compare not to judge each other he says that literally a hundred times in scripture now you may not realize this but when you criticize another believer who is doing something in faith and you criticize what another believer is doing in faith and from a sincere heart conviction you're actually interfering with god's business did you know that when you criticize another fellow christian a brother or sister in christ who to the best of their knowledge they're doing what they're doing in faith maybe you don't like it maybe you think it's wrong but they're doing it in faith with a clear conscience and you criticize them you are interfering with god's business that's romans 14. romans 14 verse 4 says this what right do you have to criticize somebody else's servants they're not your servant they're god's servant god says what right do you have to criticize somebody else servant only the lord can decide if they are doing right that's verse 4 of romans 14. down in verse 10 same chapter paul adds that we must not stand in judgment or look down on other believers whose convictions differ from ours did you know that romans 14 verse 10 here's what it says phillips translation why do you criticize your brother's actions why do you try to make him look small we'll all be judged one day not by each other's standards or even by our own but by the judgment of god do you know that when i judge you if you're a believer or when i judge any other believer four things instantly happen the bible says this number one i lose fellowship with god number two i expose my own pride and insecurity number three i set myself up to be judged by god and number four i harm the fellowship of the church all of those are in the book of romans a critical spirit is a costly advice of ice you can't you can't afford it you know the bible calls satan the accuser of the brethren the accuser of our brothers and sisters um and that's that's in revelation 12 verse 10 but in in that it's the devil's job to blame to complain it's the devil's job to criticize members of god's own family which means when i do that or when you do that we're being duped into doing satan's work for him because he's the accuser of christians and when i accuse other christians when i criticize and i judge other christians when you do that you're basically satan takes a holiday well i don't need to do that they're doing it for me you're being the accuser remember other christians no matter how much you disagree with them are not the real enemy anytime we spend comparing or criticizing our fellow believers is time that should have been spent building up the unity of our fellowship now i've got a lot more i can say about this but our time's up there at least a dozen more principles i could teach you about being an asian of unity but time's up so let me sum it up with just two more verses and in many ways these two verses uh represent the two different choices that you have today and that you have every day every single day of your life you you choose which of these verses you're going to do now the first choice is to live a self-centered life not worry about those who we hurt and walk around being critical and judgmental of other people even other christians the second choice is to live a christ-centered life instead of a self-centered life that cares about what he cares about most that we learn how to really love let me show you the two verses first one is galatians chapter 5. galatians 5 verses 13 to 15 says this you have been called to live in freedom you've been called to live in freedom not freedom to indulge your selfish nature though but freedom to serve freedom to serve each other in love god's entire law is summed up in this phrase love your neighbor as yourself but if you keep biting this is scripture i'm reading if you keep biting and devouring each other and tearing each other apart i call them cannibal christians you will be destroyed by each other you know what's sad is that verb describes a lot of christians in culture today a lot of christians are as mean and demeaning and vitriolic and what they put in the comment sections of social media you'd expect it from non-believers but what's happened is the gospel has not penetrated their character but there is an alternative and it's this next verse first peter 3 8. first peter 3 8 niv says this let me sum it up for all of you live in harmony with each other and then he says how how we live in harmony be sympathetic love each other as family have compassion and be humble okay he says you the way you live in harmony with each other is these four things you be sympathetic you love each other's family you have compassion and you be humble peter gives us four essential qualities that we all need to work on this year in this culture he says they're the keys to living in harmony with christians that you disagree with they're the keys to maintaining unity in the church that god expects us to protect peter tells us that we will get to enjoy listen we get to enjoy all the benefits of a united church a unified church if we do four things and by the way when the church is as unified as the book of acts then you have the power and the miracles of acts but he says it takes four things to enjoy the benefits that god wants to give us give us and give our church number one if we sympathize with each other instead of criticize or antagonize or polarize over our differences if we value the most if our the thing we value the most is our relationship to each other in god's eternal family instead of any other identity which isn't going to last all those others are temporary you know i said this to somebody the other day i am a six foot two white male american overweight but i have more in common with a five-foot asian woman who's a christian than i do with a six foot two and a half white guy who's an american why because he's not going to heaven he's not my brother she is my sister for eternity she i'm already a family member with her so it has nothing to do with the externals it has everything to do with the heart and that's the next one he says if we show compassion if we show compassion instead of derision if we show compassion instead of condescension if we show compassion instead of division then we'll have the benefits of unity and then he says if we act with humility we act with humility instead of within flexibility instead of with irritability instead of with animosity i ended the message last week the first half of this message on unity with a question and i i and a point that you probably hadn't thought about and i want to say it again jesus is still waiting for us to be the answer to his prayer the last thing jesus said before he went to the cross is father may they be one we're anything but that the church is not one it's divided it's divided by politics it's divided by covid it's divided by wearing a mask it's divided by racism it's divided by all kinds of different stuff jesus is still waiting for his prayer to be answered will we be that generation that answers the prayer the prayer that they may be won as we are one father will we be that amen i'm in i hope you are too let's bow our heads father uh we've looked at a lot of scriptures today we want your church to not be a a thermometer that just looks like the same thing in culture and just registers what everybody else is doing around us we want to be a thermostat we want to set the culture we want to change the culture we want to be able to turn the temperature up or down we don't want to be thermometers we want to be thermostats the only way we're going to do that is if we do it together so i pray that we would have a new commitment to love each other regardless of our background of our race of our politics of our economic status of our gender of all the different things that on the surface divide us help us to realize that the only thing that's going to last in the entire universe is your church your family is the reason you created the universe and we're part of that thank you for that privilege help us to love the real church not the ideal church now you pray in your heart if there's something you say lord i want to be more loving say that to him i want to be more loving i want to be an agent of unity i don't want to be a divider i want to be a unifier if you've never invited christ into your life he's the one who starts making peace with you and then you can make peace with others just say jesus christ come into my life i want to get to know you and learn to trust you i want to follow you as best i know how forgive me for all stuff i've done wrong and i ask you to humbly accept me into your family i pray this in your name amen

Channel: Pastor Rick

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Keywords: Pastor Rick Warren, Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, Pastor Rick, Rick Warren sermon, Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, Saddleback, christianity, church, church sermon

Id: 6CcdwhiqTxA

Length: 58min 50sec (3530 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021