Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South
Australia. I've got to change what I what I
wanted to do because, and I want to give you context for it
because it doesn't happen often. I'm very much a person who comes
and kind of like I've prayed. I know what I want to share, but
the Bible is very clear that we see in part, we don't
necessarily see the whole thing. And I feel this morning there
has been this theme we gathered to gathered this morning to pray
and Hillary came in and said, Hey, I've really feel the unity.
I really feel unity over this morning.
And then Anne's coming up with a word that says, Hey, you know,
David and Jonathan in, in unified covenant with each
other. Like, thank God I, I had
something ages ago on unity and like, I had something different.
I wanted to preach. But I feel maybe this morning,
let's just actually, let's talk about this idea of unity
because, well, actually, why don't you open your Bibles to
Psalm 133? This is whenever we talk about
unity, this is kind of where we we sit as a Psalm.
It's one of the great chapters in the Bible that speaks of
unity. And to me, it's just an
incredible picture of what happens when God's people live
in unity. And if you remember a couple of
months ago, we talked about our eight building blocks to build
God's house. And the first one that we see
when these people gathered together to build God's house
was that they came together in unity.
They came together side by side that had one purpose, one mind.
We're going to build God's house together.
And so it is essential, you see, even at the beginning of the
early church, it says they all gathered together in one place.
They all gathered together with one mind, with one purpose, with
one heart. So this idea of unity is central
to what God wants to do. And we'll look at that text as
well. We'll look at where Jesus prays.
A similar prayer, but I want to start here.
In Psalm 133, it says, behold, how good and how pleasant it is
when brothers dwell together in unity.
It is like the precious oil upon the head running down on the
beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of
his robes. We'll stop there.
That is a, that is a lot of oil. That's like, if you, if you
think about this context here, this is so when the scriptures
talk of oil, it speaks of the anointing of God, It speaks of
the Spirit of God, right? When we see that throughout the
Scriptures, one of the pictures used to describe the anointing
of God, right? We're not talking about a little
bit of anointing here. For the oil to run down over
somebody's beard, to run down his head, run down the collar of
his robes. That's a lot of oil.
That's a lot of anointing. Like when we walk together in
unity, there's not just a little bit of what God wants to do.
Like God can do incredible amounts of stuff when these
people walk together in unity. When we walk in in division, God
could do maybe a little bit. But when we come together in
unity, when we come together with this is what we can expect
God to do. We can expect there to be such
an anointing in the place that it just runs down and, and out
and over the beard and just runs out.
Man, this is the pursuit. This is why we pursue unity.
Because I'm sure all of us, we'd be like, man, I just want more
of the anointing of God. I want more of the life of God
in our meetings. I want more of the life of God
in my family, man, for me to get there.
Pursue unity at all costs. Pursue unity at all costs
because this is a lot of oil. This is a lot of anointing oil.
And that's what they used to do in the old, old covenant.
We, we talk about anointing with oil and we might put a little
dab or something, but when they anointed, they poured heaps of
oil and it just ran down over the beard.
It was dripping with anointing unity.
When we walk in godly unity, it drips with the anointing of God.
It just drips with it like it it causes like people look at it
and they're going how does that even work because it's dripping
with the anointing of God. So important.
Next verse. It's like the Jew of Herman
descending upon the mountains of Zion for there the Lord has
commanded the blessing life forevermore.
It is one of those things that God that brings the command of
God like this is this to me is amazing, right?
Like when we live in unity, it's not just like, you know, God
might bless it if he wants to. It says where there is unity,
God commands his blessing. Like it's a definitive from God.
Like when there is godly unity, God speaks and doesn't just
suggest that there might be might be blessing or anything
like that. It's like God he commands his
blessing to be present where there is unity, where there's
godly unity. I think we do we need do need to
make sure we kind of align this here that like sometimes what we
think unity is and what God thinks unity is can be very
different. Just because we are all seated
in this room here together in one place does not necessarily
mean we are in unity. We need to be in godly unity.
Amen. God, godly unity is what what we
need to be in so godly unity. Let me why don't we turn to one
Samuel chapter 18, which is we this was talked about this
morning and just speaks of unity and shared this this morning
just around David and Jonathan. And I just wanted to see this
because this is this is significant.
The way that these guys walked in godly unity.
Like this just wasn't just another friendship.
Like I can say that I'm again, I can say that I'm in unity, but
it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm in godly unity and I'm in
covenantal unity with somebody else.
Just because we're all in the same room, just because we're
sitting next to each other does not mean necessarily that we are
in unity. It says here in one Samuel
chapter 18. It says now when he had finished
speaking to Saul, this is David. The soul of Jonathan was a knit
to the soul of David. The soul of Jonathan was a knit
to the soul of David on that, that to sinking that that there
is is biblical unity. If if I've knitted something
together, it is very difficult for me to separate it apart.
When my soul is knit to Colin, it is very difficult because
what happens to Colin? I feel that I'm connected to
Colin more than just that I've I've given him a hug or a
handshake. Like my soul is knitted with
Colin. What happens to Colin?
I'm affected by what happens to me.
Colin's affected by that's unity talks here.
This the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David and
Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
Biblical unity looks out for each other as if it was my own.
So when I'm, when I'm here and I'm, I'm sorry, Colin, I'm
picking on this morning just because you're there, I know
you, you'll be fine with this. I know you're fine with this,
right. But by the way, that we, we
don't have disunity, as far as I know, we don't have division as
far as we know. But like Jonathan loved him as
his own soul. Like when I think about biblical
unity, that's, that's the heart posture that I need to have that
my soul is knit with Colin and that Colin's soul is knit with
me. And that when I love Colin as
much as I love myself, the Bible is the Bible is very clear that
I need to do that. And so here's Jonathan.
He's he's connected himself with David.
He's going, we're not just going to be friends, we're going to be
in covenant. And there's a big difference
between again, earth, the unity, which we probably term more
friendship and biblical unity, which is covenant.
We walk in covenant with each other, like all of us and, and
us as a church and other churches as well.
We're called to walk in covenant, not just in
friendship. And there's a big difference.
There's a huge difference. And so we, we look at this and I
just want to pick out three, three things.
That covenant, kind of what covenant looks like.
We go on here and it says in verse 3, it actually uses the
word covenant. It said, then Jonathan and David
made a covenant. They made a covenant.
So they're kind of going, this is this steps beyond our normal
friendship, this steps beyond earthly unity.
We're making a covenant here. It says this because he loved
him as his own soul. Verse 4 And Jonathan took off
the robe that was on him and gave it to David with his armor,
or some of your Bibles might say his breastplate and even his
sword, his bow and his belt. Jonathan took off his robe, he
took off his armour and he took off his sword, his bow, and his
belt. So I want to kind of group those
into three his robe, his armour, and his sword, bow and belt.
So firstly, Jonathan in Covenant, he gives David his
robe and this is an incredible picture of honor.
When we walk in biblical unity, there's an honor that takes
place, right? It's just it's not just that I
like Colin, but I honor Colin and godly with godly honor.
It's not that just I have to submit to my leaders.
I honor my leaders, I honor each other.
I honor the gifts that all everyone brings into the church.
It says here, like this is this is Jonathan not just kind of say
he's giving, I'm not sure how much.
You know, Jonathan's the son of the king.
So this isn't just any old, any old bathrobe that he's offering
him, right? This is his kingly robe.
This is this is a robe that carries significant position
with it. And Jonathan's giving it over to
David and saying, hey, you're going to now be recognized like
me. Like this is a huge piece that
happens here. Jonathan gives David a kingly
robe. Now, when every anybody comes
from behind, what are they going to see?
They're going to see the robe. They're going to see Jonathan's
robe. They're not going to see that
it's David wearing it. So people are going to honor and
he, Jonathan's honoring David in such a significant way here.
And so when we come and we knit together in biblical unity, we
come and we honor each other. We honor the gifts, we honor
what each person contributes to the body of Christ.
We honor other churches like we're we're called to walk,
honoring each other and lifting each other up.
And the other thing here, which is quite interesting is Jonathan
takes off his rope. I want like he didn't go and go
to his bag and pick up another robe and say, here you have a
robe, right? I've, I've got a spare.
You can have my spare robe. It's OK.
I've got the actual robe, right? He took the robe off himself and
he gave it to David. That is an incredible act of
humility. This is an incredible act of
humility. Biblical unity requires
humility. Because it's not enough for me
to say, hey, you know, I, I honour Alan, but I still think
I'm pretty good. But I honour Alan, but not quite
as much as I honour myself, because I give him my spare
robe. I give him the honour that's
leftover. But you know, you still need to
honour me. Jonathan's not doing that.
Jonathan's kind of Jonathan is giving.
He's taking off his robe and saying, actually, I'm going to
walk in humility here. You're going to get all the
honour. You're going to get the honor
that I should actually get, but you're going to get it because
I'm giving you my robe. I think for us, we need to
understand here the great picture of this is Jesus, right?
The great picture of this is Jesus, who the Bible says in
Philippians chapter 2 that who made himself nothing.
He was God. He is in the very image of God,
but he made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a
servant. He takes off any kingly robe
that he had any, any right of claim to that.
And then the Bible speaks that he then gives us a robe of
righteousness like he came in such humility, in such humility.
And that's the attitude that God calls us to walk in with each
other, to walk in such humility, honoring one another above
yourself. And that's that's what we see
here with Jonathan and David. Jonathan Carnes, he says, I'm
going to honor you above my myself.
I've nipped my soul to you and I'm going to honor you above
myself. The next thing we see with
Jonathan and David is he takes off his armor.
He gives David his armor. And this here is obviously
Jonathan's protection. Biblical unity looks out for
each other. Like if if somebody is coming
under attack, if somebody's being attacked by the enemy or
being attacked by people. I remember when I was young,
younger, when I was when I was at primary school, Let's go
there. When I was at primary school, I
got in trouble quite a bit, but the common thread of the reason
I got in trouble was because people were picking on my
brothers. People were picking on my
younger brothers who were new to the school.
And I'm like, hang on, I'm, I'm the older brother here.
I've got to, I have to go and protect these guys with
everything that I have. Why we were, we were blood
related. That is kind of the, the unity
that the, the Bible speaks of, right?
It isn't just yeah, oh, you're getting attacked.
OK, you stand up. Come on, you fight.
No, no, no. Like I'm coming alongside of you
and I'm protecting you with everything that I have.
It's not like I give up out of the battle.
And I say, you know what? It's getting a bit hard for me
now. You're on your own.
You've got to fight for me. No, I'm fighting in the secret
place for you. I'm fighting for you to see the
breakthrough. I'm fighting for you to come
into the fullness of God. Biblical unity is about
protecting each other. And it's not just even
protecting each other just from spiritual stuff.
Like this is protecting each other with our words.
It's protecting each other from the words of others.
Like Jonathan is giving all of his armor his breastplate.
It's it's protecting their heart.
It's it's helping, helping them be protected in here and
protected in their mind. It's it's us coming alongside
and encouraging, But that also means that nothing out of here
comes down to put you down, right?
When I walk in biblical unity, you should not see anything
coming out of my mouth that's going to bring you down because
like that's not biblical unity because I'm out to protect you
at all costs. Like Jonathan gives his armor to
David. He says, not only am I giving
you honor and position, but I'm also protecting you.
I'm also going to do everything in my power to protect you from
the enemy, to protect you from what's coming.
And it's quite interesting, even down the tracks, Saul, King Saul
is out to try and kill David. So that's Jonathan's dad.
So Jonathan's dad is out to kill David.
And so you can imagine Jonathan's now in this quandary.
He's like, well, I've got my dad's and I've got this guy I'm
in covenant relationship with. It's quite interesting.
Do you know who he sides with? The majority of it, his eyes
with David, he goes, well, let me go find out the truth.
And if it's true, I will do everything I can to get you out
of the city and to protect you. And he finds out it's true.
He's going OK. I'm going to look.
I have to stay with my dad. I'm kind of the son of the king.
But I'm going to get you out safely.
I'm going to send you on your way.
Covenant unity, biblical unity looks out for each other.
It means when somebody's missing, like today, becoming a
man, are they OK, man? Do they need anything?
Is there anything I could do to help them?
Can I pray, can I visit? Can I prepare something for
them? How can I protect them?
Biblical unity seeks to protect. And the third thing here, it
says that Jonathan gave David his sword, his bow and his belt.
It speaks of purpose. Biblical unity has a unified
purpose. When there's like, if there's,
it's a funny statement like when there's two visions, call it
division. Biblical unity has a single
singular purpose. But I can't come and I can't
say, hey, Colin, we're a unity. But you're going to go that way.
I'm going to go this way. And by the way, we're not, we're
not going to be doing the same thing, right?
I think there's a couple of ways we can, we can kind of slice
this like we could, we could still be doing the same thing in
God, like, and I think when we're talking about doing
different things, right, it still comes back to God's
purpose, right? What we're talking about here,
we're not talking about the fact that, you know, Colin might be
ministering over here to these people.
I'm ministering to these people. That's not division because,
well, hopefully it's not division like because we're
still serving the purposes of God, right?
It's when I'm going off and I'm trying to make a name for myself
over here and I'm trying to do this thing and I don't care what
Colin is doing Jonathan here is kind of going we're going to
we're going to be on the same purpose.
We're going to be on the same team.
Biblical unity is about being on the same team when we're talking
about unified purpose. Ephesians when it talks about
this is going I pray you're going to be of 1 heart and one
mind under 1 Lord you're going to be really going after all,
contending for the gospel as one man.
In other words, when people. When people look at us, they
don't see two different individuals trying to fight for
their own thing. They see us together standing
for the same thing. And I think there's there's a
great unfortunate reality that's happening around us where
different Christians, different churches, different groups of
people, they're kind of running after their own thing.
And it's not about running after our thing, right?
This is not about running after our thing.
This is about running after his thing.
And when Jonathan comes and he says, here, have my sword and
have my bow, have my belt, you're coming into me with one
purpose. We're going to be on the same
team here. And we're going to do the same
thing. And that's not about Jonathan
saying, hey, now you're going to take on my purpose.
He's going to go, no, no, we're, we're, we're on the same team
and we're fulfilling the same purpose.
And that's, that's ultimately making much of him.
But here Jonathan and David, as we, we read earlier, like
they're knitted together in Seoul, which means if one of
them starts going the other way, like they're, they're together
on this, right? We're, we're in unity with each
other. I think when we come together in
unity and pursue godly unity, we need to make sure that we are
honoring each other. We're honoring God, we're
honoring each other, we're looking out and protecting each
other and we're encouraging each other in the same purpose, the
purposes of God. We're coming together in one
purpose with one mind, one heart, contending for one
gospel, contending as one man for the gospel and the purposes
of God. I think we can, we can get so
sidetracked when we start going after our purposes and our
plans. And sometimes I know I have been
in this place where we kind of disguise our purposes and our
plans as God's plans, but they're not really God's plans.
Like if we, if we really searched our hearts, we're like,
this is this is what God is saying.
This is God's plans. But if we really searched in our
heart, it's not really God's plan.
I think #1 we need to make sure that we're on the purposes of
God. But they're then together, we're
encouraging each other and saying, hey, this isn't about
getting on my team. It's about getting on his team.
And us sharing one purpose, contending as one man for the
gospel. And when we come together, it's
not necessarily about who's leading a meeting or whose
church do we go to Paul, Paul has a God that says, hey, you
guys are like chasing after this leader in that church.
And this thing in that church is going, hey, Christ isn't divided
like Christ is not divided. Guys like we remember, come
together on one purpose as one parent, as one man contending as
one man for the gospel. And so we speak of godly unity.
We need to make sure that our hearts are needed, that we come
with honor for each other. We're looking out for each
other, and we're contending as one man for the gospel side by
side. It's again, it's not about me
doing my thing, you doing your thing.
It's about us doing his thing together.
While you turn with me. We'll move across into John, the
Gospel of John. John chapter 17, it's the the
chapter, it could be the great high priestly prayer.
It's it's where we get a glimpse into what Jesus potentially
prayed in the gun in the Gethsemane.
This is this is what he prays in verse 20 and this is he doesn't
pray this just he says, I do not pray for these alone.
So he's kind of he's prayed for himself.
He's prayed for his disciples. He's going, I do not pray for
these alone, but also for all those who will believe in me
through their word that's referring to us.
So Jesus directly now saying I'm praying for them, praying for
us, that they may all be one as you Father are in me and I in
you. We speak of the Trinity, the
three persons. God is 3 persons in one,
indistinguishable. You can't separate one from the
other. You can't say we got Jesus, the
Holy Spirit of Father like you. You can't do that.
They are so one person that you cannot separate them.
And that's the picture that Jesus is praying for.
Now is unity. He's saying like again, that
knitting of your soul. So I pray that they're going to
be as one, just as you, Father, are in me and we are one that
the world may believe that you sent me.
This to me is remarkable. When we walk in biblical unity,
it is one of the biggest displays to the world that Jesus
is here and he is present and he's in our midst.
It is one of the biggest displays when his people walk in
unity. I think we can.
So often we can say, man, we can preach the gospel and that's
great. We should be preaching the
gospel. We can go pray for the sick.
Yes, we can. But when people stand to unity,
it is something that Jesus said. This is how the world will know
that you've sent me. When the Church lives together
in unity, that's when people will know we move on.
The glory which you gave me, I have given them that they may be
one, just as we are one, I in them, you in me, that they may
be made perfect in one. And again, that the world may
know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have
loved me. This is phenomenal.
Again, I'm just when we speak of unity, it isn't just for our
sake. Hey, I want to I want to relate
better to Colin. This is one of those things that
God commands his blessing on. But he also says this is one of
the great witnesses to the world around us.
When the church lives together in unity, not only does God
command his blessing, not only is there incredible honor and
protection and unity of purpose, but it is one of the great
evangelism tools of the church. It's one of the great evangelism
tools. Jesus said, And I think we we
always need to my Bible's got it in red letters.
It's like, pay attention to what Jesus says and he says that the
world may know that you have sent me the purpose.
We walk in unity ultimately it's not just so that we have a good
relationship with each other and that we receive the blessing of
God, but the reason we pursue unity ultimately is to show the
world, hey, God exists. Jesus exists and there to show
them that Jesus has been sent by God as a great witness that when
people look in and go, I want that again.
Jesus says they may be made perfect in one and that the
world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as
you loved me. I want to encourage us like we
spoke again a few weeks ago, what one of the building, core
building blocks of building God's church was coming together
in unity. And it is hard sometimes to
build in unity because anything that the enemy is trying to do
is bring division. He sow seeds of division.
He sow seeds of of deception and just ideas in our head that is
simply not true. He's trying to bring division at
all costs. But let's be people who who
pursue unity at all costs, who deal with things in our heart
quickly, who seek to honor and seek to protect when things come
in that they try and tell me that Colin has done such and
such like, sorry, Colin, we have a good relationship.
But like when think when the enemy comes in, he's sowing
cords, seeds of kind of deception and disunity.
I'm very quick to say, no, I'm going to protect this
relationship at all costs, at all costs.
I'm going into my prayer room and I'm going to be praying for
this relationship because the Bible tells me like this is
important. Biblical unity is important and
as much as it is a physical thing that we have to work
towards, it is a spiritual thing.
We are up against a real spiritual enemy that's trying to
bring division because he knows that when he brings division,
the world will ignore the church.
He knows that Jesus said where there is unity, then the world
will know that you have sent me. Where there is unity, the world
will know that you have sent me. Let's be a people that in every
way pursue unity. Pursue biblical unity at all
costs. Amen.
Thank you for joining us for today's message.
For more information about The Way Church, please visit
ourwebsite@thewaychurch.com dot AU.
Have a blessed day.