Pastor Rick Warren Sermon My Part in Fulfilling Christ’s Vision: We’re in a short series that pastor rick warren calls the awesome power vision. 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, 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.
In heaven, we’re going to experience this real community, perfectly but you know what God wants us to practice it here on earth.
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, it 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.
Jesus mentions his vision for our unity multiple times 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, my prayer for them is that, they’ll be unified as one father just as you and I are one, may they be unified and united as one.
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
How can I be an agent of unity?
The first step on how you can be an agent of harmony and unity in your church is to 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.
The second step to being an agent of unity is you 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.
The bible in, Ephesians 4:3 says this, make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit, bind yourselves together living in peace, with each other, that phrase “make every effort” means it’s going to take some work unity, it 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.
Pastor Rick Warren tells us, we should 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 and of all the different things that on the surface divide us.