Living Hope Fellowship Church

STRENGTH IN THE UNITY

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

STRENGTH IN THE UNITY

Preface

(unity of God’s children)

The Lord binds us together in unity, and together, it is amazing the kind of pressure we can take.  Ephesians 4:3 says, “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  You keep unity by being peaceable.  We have to work at keeping unity!

How can we grow and win sinners to the Lord, if we have trouble with one another?  The devil is doing his work when he comes to divide and conquer.  A bundle of sticks, separated and broken one at a time, represents the body of Christ and how the devil tears us apart one at a time, thus defeating whole congregations.

          If we don’t stand together, defeat is guaranteed. Know who your real enemy is.  Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”  No matter how much we disdain somebody, the enemy is not them.

STRENGTH IN THE UNITY

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

For this illustrated sermon I chose a large size man (Mike) and a small girl (Angela).  The man’s arms are bigger than the girl’s legs.  I took a 2’ x 6’ board and cut it up into thin strips.  Then I bound the bundle of wood strips together tightly with tape.  Mike decided he would not even try to break the bundle of wood, because he was sure that he could not do it. 

In woodworking, pieces of wood can be laminated, stuck together.  Laminated timber is stronger than the original piece.  It won’t warp or twist like a single piece of wood.  It is made of smaller parts closely adhered together by glue, nails, etc. 

One stick by itself is easy to break.  Angela can eventually break the whole pile of sticks one by one that big Mike couldn’t phase when they are all together.  They had to be separated.  One of the sticks stuck its head up a little higher than the rest.  It was the first one to work on, but the backside was a little shorter than every other one, making it not on its foundation any more.  When you get to the end of the bundle, you can just slip the tape off.  It was the binding that held them all together. 

How long do you think you will last by yourself?  With all due respect to Mike and Angela, in this illustration they represent two devils that work in your life and in the church!       

There is one stick she couldn’t break, so she gave it to the big guy, and he broke it.  There is a pile of broken sticks.  The stoutest form of building material is a laminated beam, but if it is ever pulled apart, it falls all to pieces.  One at a time the devil will try to pull you apart from your binding together in Christ.  The enemy comes in to break down your ability to cooperate and work together.  Pretty soon he will get you away from the rest of the body.  Proverbs 24:6 says, “. . . in multitude of counsellors there is safety.”  The Lord binds us together in unity.  Together, it is amazing the kind of pressure we can take. 

Not all of the boards were the same thickness.  Some were harder to break.  However, individually, they broke.  The body and the mind should work together.  There has to be a unity in order for things to function.  Colossians 1:18 says, “And he is the head of the body, the church. . . .”  The Bible says Jesus is the head.

The Bible says to separate yourselves from all form of sin, yet we are in this world.  John 17:15 says, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” 

Don’t you pick out a college according to the curriculum rather than how many students are passing?  Not everybody there is saved.  When you buy a product, you don’t know that everybody who is making money off of it is saved.  You have to have a proper balance.  When I am out doing carpentry and other things, I work around sinners.  Somewhere along the line we have to meet with each other and talk and reason with each other.  God has placed us as salt in the earth and light for a reason.  Folks, it is all about souls.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:47, “And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others. . . .”

God spoke to us when we were without hope.  Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”  He was talking to the sinner! 

God reasoned with me.  He spoke to me three times and said, “Ask me to forgive you.”  A holy God talked to me, a sinner.  If I don’t mingle with sinners, I don’t know their needs.  There are times God says, I want you to go here or there and talk to someone.  In day to day work we are around sinners many times.

I know some of these sticks (persons) I can’t stand, but I have to live with them, so I have to come to an understanding.  Ephesians 4:3 says, “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  You keep unity by being peaceable. 

Ephesians 4:13 says, “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:”

Not everybody believes alike, but you can be willing to come together to seek the Lord.  We all need to learn more.  How can we grow and win sinners to the Lord, if we have trouble with one another?  The devil is doing his work.  He is coming to divide and conquer.  That is what the bundle of sticks being separated and broken one at a time represented. 

Solomon 2:15 says, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.”  Lying devils can take a portion of truth and pluck it off the tree and bring it to you to see.  I’ve found that a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing with some people. 

          I looked over the twelve disciples of Jesus, and I wondered about some of them.  Judas betrayed him.  He was the church treasurer, and he was a thief.  James and John wanted to burn up one crowd, because they wouldn’t have Jesus come to them.  Jesus told James and John that they did not know what spirit they were of.  Peter repeatedly denied Him, and they ALL forsook Him.  Jesus picked out His disciples.  What was wrong?  If God only picked out perfect people, He would still be looking.           I believe Jesus sent Judas off with somebody to work with when He sent them two by two, so somewhere along the line, Judas cast out devils.  He was a bishop (see Acts 1:20).

           When you sow discord it is like the sticks that were all corded up together, and you separate them.  Proverbs 6:16-19 tells us some of the things the Lord hates!  Verse 19 says, “A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.”

There are few places in the Bible where God says He hated anybody.  He said he hated Esau and loved Jacob.  When God has passed wrath and got into hate, He is waiting for judgment.  I don’t want to be in that place.  I want to do everything I can, without compromise, to keep people together. 

When a man gets saved and filled with the Holy Ghost, and his wife is not, I don’t tell him to leave her.  Folks, the Holy Ghost is living right next to the devil in that situation.  He calls the sanctity of marriage like holding on to Jesus and the church.  God has something about this unity thing.  The devil hates unity, because there is strength in numbers, and in the unity of marriage, families, and churches. 

          The Bible says charity covers the multitude of sins.  You find out all about the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 12, but Verse 31 says, “. . . covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.”  Then he said in Chapter 13 that if you could do all this, and still don’t have charity, you are nothing! 

If we do not have a bond together in the Lord, how are we going to go on with the Lord?  As the saints get purified, the chances of sinners getting saved gets greater.  If you don’t like what sinners are doing, get so close to God that they can’t be around you without getting saved themselves!  That is why God put us here and knitted us together. 

A lot of times we don’t like where we are, especially if we have to hear trash all day long on the job, but God ordains that you win sinners to Jesus.  I have preached for years that there is sin in the camp and the weaknesses thereof, but you can’t capitulate and the body be broken up. 

Psalm 133:1 says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”  A fabulous moment in human endeavor is when the battle is in array and opposing sides are about to meet each other.  Moments before the charge to attack everyone stands there deciding, Live or die, we have to win.  You can see it in their faces.  They look to the right and to the left.  All are different sizes and shapes, but for this one time, You and me are tight!  If we don’t stand together, defeat is guaranteed. 

Know who your real enemy is.  Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

No matter how much we disdain somebody, the enemy is not them.  It is the devil using them and hammering them.  We ought to have more compassion for them, but we get mad.  We do and say stuff, and distance ourselves in such a way that we isolate ourselves.  Don’t do that.

Ministers that I trust agreed that the one thing that gets you before the devil nails you is that you feel isolated and all alone.  Nobody knows and nobody cares.  From that point on how you react determines whether or not the devil picks you off or you are bound back up in God.

The Word says we have to work at keeping the unity of the spirit.  Someone can tell a couple of lies about people, and pretty soon those two will be mad at each other who haven’t even talked to each other.  If you start a conversation, you will find that so and so said the thing, and you get it rectified right there.  You find out you have to pray for so and so, because they are trying to stir up trouble. 

The devil depends on us not doing that.  The United States Christians are sometimes bad about that, because we are so very independent.  We all have to stand alone before God, but when we seek the Lord, we can seek Him with people who already seek Him in the same measure we do.  God says there is an anointing with that, and the devil doesn’t know what to do with it.

I found out that a little knowledge is like a load of money.  Knowledge is power and money is power.  If God gave me a million dollars, or a lot of knowledge, or discernment, He wants to know what I am going to do with it.  Woe be to us if we don’t have the anointing of the Holy Ghost.

Genesis 34:25-26 tells us that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, killed all the males of a city for revenge, and took Dinah back home.  What happened to Dinah was wrong, but what the sons of Jacob did in revenge was just as wrong. 

I have noticed something in my years as a pastor.  When people see someone who deserves it - get nailed, they get a rush.  Yes, finally, justice.  However, if that is your child who did the crime, you look everywhere for mercy.  James 2:13 says, “For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.”  Keep your perspective, saints of God, lest we fall into condemnation. 

God has killed people over sin, and He sent the flood because almost everyone was sold out to the devil.  Noah found grace, but everybody else had a chance.  Every time God sends judgment I see mercy.  Mercy just follows Him around.  I don’t understand.  About the time I am done, God tells me to pray another time. 

People will get angry with you as a pastor, because you don’t deal with things.  When you do, I find that they still get angry.  I want every facet, every ministry, every part the church to go on for God in the love of God, caring for each other, and praying for one another like we have not before. 

God wants us to come on and trust Him.  Romans 5:8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” 

All power in heaven and in earth has been given to the Lord Jesus.  God is love (see 1 John 4:8).  Therefore the love of God is all powerful in heaven and in earth.  John 13:35 says, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 

We need to ask the Lord to forgive us for grieving Him in any way. I pray that God will bind up broken hearts and deliver us as we walk forward in Him.  Colossians 3:14 says, “And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” 

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.