Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we are so honored to be invited into your presence and filled with your mercy and grace to be united with one another in singing and in your word. You bestow upon us hope through your son, Jesus Christ, so that we can be filled with hopefulness in a hopeless world. What an amazing gift that is for us.

Hold us tightly Father because there are some here who need the warmth and encouragement of your sweet embrace. We need our father’s love today. Through your embrace, give restoration in our hearts and bring wholeness to our lives and an unfading unity with you.

In the culture we’re living in, the norm is to be divided, to cancel one another, to avoid, and to cheaply compromise. We are told to live that way, but that is not your way. Your way is to unite the divided at the cost of sacrifice. Catch our minds and hearts with that same attitude and perspective. We know it’s what you want from your children. Let the world be compelled to believe in your truth because we live in indivisible harmony with one another. In Jesus name. Amen.

This morning, I want to introduce you to Ms Susan Dunn to you. Susan is one of our growth group leaders here at Cedarbrook. In fact, she’s been leading a growth group for the last 15 years. Let me tell you what happens when you lead something for 15 years. There have been 250 different women from our church who have at one point or another found deep and wide friendship with others journeying toward radical discipleship in Jesus through Susan’s faithfulness.

I asked her: why did she even started leading a group, and She said, God gave her a vision where a dam is about to break open and water is going to flood the area, and he told her that she needs to teach others to swim in that water otherwise they would drown. And she said to God, “I can’t teach swimming, I can barely swim myself.” and God encouraged her spirit and said, don’t worry, I’m going with you. That affirmation from our father gave her the faith to start doing life with women and teaching others to swim through the Bible together.

Guess what, she’s not an expert. She’s not a professional. She’s a faithful disciple, living out what she caught from other faithful disciples because our father in heaven empowers us to live that way. Isn’t that amazing? Give her a round of applause.

That’s what Cedarbrook is all about. It’s about going on mission with the faith God provides to love others enough to help them become radical disciples of Jesus Christ.

Susan, thank you for serving the kingdom of God this way, can you please read from Acts 1:12-26

¹² Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. ¹³ And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. ¹⁴ All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

¹⁵ In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, ¹⁶ “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. ¹⁷ For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” ¹⁸ (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. ¹⁹ And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) ²⁰ “For it is written in the Book of Psalms,

“‘May his camp become desolate,
    and let there be no one to dwell in it’;

and

“‘Let another take his office.’

²¹ So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²² beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” ²³ And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. ²⁴ And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen ²⁵ to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” ²⁶ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:12-26 ESV)

We kicked off a series last week about the unique culture our spiritual family embodies. I postulated that culture is the thing that differentiates one family from another. That culture is not taught, but it’s caught. So, when it comes to our spiritual family, the church, there then must be a unique culture we’re throwing outward from us so that others around us would catch that culture from us and say, “hmm, that’s a unique family, let me hang out with them.”    

Today, we’re going to look at the culture of “unity” the family of God is called to embody.

That word, “unity” is taboo in our culture right now. Am I right? Some of you just got indigestion hearing that right now.

It’s taboo because everybody knows that unity is the ideal. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian, non-Christian, agnostic, or straight atheist – a world and culture that has unity or “one-ness” that’s the ideal. You know how I know this, because our country was founded on the concept of 13 different colonies uniting together to become the united states. Ben Franklin drew a cartoon of a snake with the caption, “join or die.” That’s the paradigm of all political, sports team, inspirational, and corporate messaging today. It’s the idea that goes behind an entire marketing industry—you’re with us or you’ll be outcast and die.

Here’s the problem and the reason unity is actually taboo. The cost to achieve that ideal version of unity is high, too high in fact for it to be achieved. I’m not just talking monetary, I’m talking the cost of unity requires sacrifice of agendas and affections. We’re sinful, not fully sanctified people living in close proximity with one another. We will step on toes. We will park in other people’s spots. Disagreements will happen, that’s inevitable. But sinfulness, individuality and diversity of vision and affections cannot be the reason we forgo unity with our spiritual family.

What I didn’t share with you is the fact that unity according to the culture of this world is assimilation, it’s partisan allegiance, it’s uniformity. But God’s vision of unity for his diverse family, whose members have a variety of thoughts, actions, and passions actually envisions the family using what makes them diverse and passionate to stir their brothers and sisters up for faithful obedience to Jesus’ commands.

Big Idea: Our spiritual family is unified in obeying Jesus

Obeying Jesus unifies our family because it is the response we individual and collectively have when we receive his sacrifice in our life. He extends himself to unify us to him. By extension, we become united with the Father through Jesus. Then we are given the Holy Spirit of God that never leaves us and it is this connection we have with God that unites us with every other believer united with God in Jesus Christ. When our family responds to Jesus in obedience, we are unified.

If you want to experience the unity Jesus offers start by believing you are united with Jesus in his death and united with him in his resurrection, so you can be united with God now and in eternity. Let’s flesh this out.

Verse 12.

¹² Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven on the clouds, he told his disciples to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the promise of God. We’re seeing that the disciples united in obedience to the command of Jesus.

How many of us would be more united with God and each other if we simply obeyed what Jesus said? I know a bunch of teenagers here that would be more united with their parents if they simply obeyed what their parents said.

Raise your hand if you believe you’d be more united with Jesus if you simply obeyed Jesus. Just look around you, most of us. If you didn’t raise your hand, God bless you, Pastor Ken will refer you to some professional help for your narcissism. But for the rest of us, take heart, the people who raised their hands, they’re united with you to help you on your journey to obeying Jesus and vice versa. We’re united this way because we’re all in the same pursuit of obeying Jesus.

The reason most of us raised our hands is because we all intrinsically know that we’d be more united with God if we chose to obey because disobedience is what actually separates. We call that sin. Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, rebelling against him by living without reference to him, not being or doing what he requires in his law and the disunity created by sin results in death.

If there is sin your life that you have not repented of, you’ll never find unity with God. So I’m appealing to all of us who are divided, separated, and at odds with God – go repent and obey God and find unity.

Verse 13.

 ¹³ And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James.¹⁴ All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. (Acts 1:12-14 ESV)

Here’s my first point in embodying a culture of unity:

Point 1: The church is united through prayer (v14)

Jesus told his spiritual family to go to Jerusalem and wait for God’s promise. So what did they do in their waiting? They prayed together, waiting for God’s promise. One thing that unifies a group of diverse individuals with different backgrounds and customs is corporate prayer—praying with others.

Praying together unites us as a spiritual family because of who we’re praying to. We’re praying to “our Father.” We’re not praying to some Father, or some dude’s father or to my spouse’s father. That would be horrible for most of us. We’re praying to our father. Yours and mine. Jesus emphasizes this when he teaches his disciples the Lord’s prayer.

When we pray with our spiritual family we are united because our collective father in heaven hears us. If you want to experience unity with others in your spiritual family, pray with them. When we pray with somebody it changes your relationship with that person – it brings you from superficial to deep and personal. 

I mentioned it earlier, but next Sunday, from 6pm to 8pm, we’re hosting a night of prayer so we can pray to our father with our spiritual family.

I hear two things about praying with others or praying in general.

1. They don’t pray with other people, which… okay, you’re not ready to be transparent with others.
2. They don’t have time to pray, period. Which just means you’re living inefficiently.

Now, there’s a third reason people don’t pray that I rarely hear and I think it’s actually the root cause of the first two things. It’s that they don’t know how to pray, so they won’t and don’t.

If that’s true for you let me share a simple method of prayer called “ACTS.” If you know how to pray but aren’t doing it, start praying. You have no real excuses not to pray individually or with others, especially if you want to embody a culture of unity with your spiritual family and with God.

The book of Acts is actually a story of how the family of God continues to be united with one another and with God through prayer even as their family becomes much more dispersed, and diverse. There are 31 instances in the Book of Acts of the early church uniting with one another and with God through prayer. That’s how vital praying is to embodying a culture of unity.

So the ACTS method of praying:

• Adoration –recognize who you’re talking to. Our father. What an honor to call the God who created the universe and everything and everyone into being, Our father. Open prayer by recognizing who God is, his character, and his being.
• Confession – Confess who we are, our shortcomings, our sins, our failures to our father, he is big enough to receive it.
• Thanksgiving – Give thanks. God doesn’t have any obligation to us, but he provides for us, forgives us, and redeems us through Jesus Christ.
• Supplication – Ask God to help us be more like our savior. To reflect the attributes of Jesus. To submit to his will, plan, and vision for our lives.

Use this method to pray individually, or with others. Practice prayer and you will embody unity. Unity is not found in:

• talking about the weather.
• Or asking about weekend plans.

Unity is found in praying with your spiritual family adoring God, confessing to God, giving thanks to God, and supplicating to God yours and your brothers’ and sisters desire to obey the commands of Jesus.

Verse 15.

¹⁵ In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, ¹⁶ “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. (Psalm 41:9) ¹⁷ For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” ¹⁸ (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. ¹⁹ And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) ²⁰ “For it is written in the Book of Psalms,

“‘May his camp become desolate,
    and let there be no one to dwell in it’; (Psalm 69:25)

and

“‘Let another take his office. (Psalm 109:8)

Luke says there are about 120 people gathered in this upper room praying in unity when Peter gets up to preach. I want all of us to understand what’s going on here. Peter is preaching. Preaching is expounding the written word of God for the purposes of enabling the spiritual family to obey the commands of God. That’s the job of whoever is here on a Sunday when we gather together as a spiritual family. I can promise that when you’re worshipping here, we’re going to open the Bible together and be convicted by the Scripture we are studying that day so that we can be united and enabled to obey the commands of Jesus. This is my second point:

Point 2. The church is united by Scriptures (v16)

I think the reason Luke uses the number 120 here is to  subtly draw the reader’s attention to reveal a potential problem the early church faced. The problem being that in classical Jewish governance, there needed to be 1 rabbi for every ten people. That’s what was required when forming a Sanhedrin within a Jewish community.

If you remember from verse 13, Luke only lists 11 disciples who could be rabbis to exhort the people with the scriptures to obey Jesus. The correct ratio between rabbis and the community wasn’t met. The 12^th rabbi was supposed to be Judas Iscariot, but he committed suicide after betraying Jesus for 30 coins.

Using Psalm 41, Psalm 69, and Palm 109, Peter gives the first century church a lens to understand how they can be united in having faith to trust God. When we see scripture the way the apostles saw scripture, we would see at the heart of this anthology of books we call the Bible, is an unfolding story showing people how our Father in heaven pursued disobedient, sinful men and women, who wanted no part of a loving God, by sending his one and only son as a sacrifice to pay the penalty we were guilty of.

God pursued us in love first. He wooed us and we eventually accepted the free gift of salvation from Jesus. When we believe the truth of our sinless savior dying for you and me, our sins are atoned for and we are adopted into the family of God. But the story of God doesn’t end there, the story continues so his children can be equipped for the work he prepared for us. That’s how we know God is a good and loving Father because he not only pursues, and adopts, he equips.

The Apostle Paul teaches in 2 Timothy 3, that Scripture is given to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the people of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work… The good work of witnessing of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to the people, and places we tread and to the entire world. We’re united by the story of scripture and equipped by scripture to obey Jesus’ mission for us.

Verse 21.

²¹ So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²² beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” ²³ And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias.

The criteria Peter uses for somebody to join the apostolic office as one of the 12 disciples was somebody who witnessed the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Barsabbas and Matthias were both qualified for the vacant role. Not only did the first church not have the right ratio of rabbis to people, they now had two people for one spot and 120 different, opinionated voices.

Have you ever had to get 120 people to unanimously agree on two choices? Forget 120 people, have you gotten the people in your family to harmoniously agree on watching one thing on Netflix together? I’ll tell you what, you probably all watched something, but I bet not all of you were happy watching Encanto for the 700^th time.

Look at what the spiritual family does, verse 24.

 ²⁴ And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen ²⁵ to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” 

I’m just reiterating a point – they prayed. Verse 26

²⁶ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

I know the idea of casting lots is a little weird in the 21^st century. To us, it may seem like chance who draws the winning straw. But Luke was showing us that the early church was unified in accepting God’s provision for his family regardless of their opinions. They trusted God to provide the right thing for his family. This is my third point:

Point 3. God unifies by providing for the church (v26)

Isn’t it great to have a father that cares for us and takes care of our needs? God is faithful to equip us for the work he prepared for us. That’s what our heavenly father does for his spiritual family. He provides. Don’t forget this – Jesus was ransomed to unify us as family!

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

• Not our affections,
• not our problems,
• not our perspectives,
• not our hurts,
• not our opinions.

The grace of God comes upon us to unify us to him, his will, and one another through his provision. Seek God’s provision and you will be unified with him because he is faithful. He is our father. He loves us.

Unity comes from God. It’s who God is. He himself forever existed in perfect unity as Father, Son, and Spirit. The unity of God in the trinity shows us that unique gifts, abilities, and distinctions each person embodies is not erased through one-ness. Rather, it’s the diversity in that unity that allows space for each person to love one another in perfect harmony. Our God shows his family how to be united through distinction of gender, age, preferences, abilities, giftings, heritage, social classes because he provides unity for his family.

That’s our culture, an inseparable unity with God and with each other in our spiritual family by and through his provisions for us. If there is division and disunity in our spiritual family, then we need to be united in prayer, scripture, and accepting God’s provision for us because we’re united in pursuing obedience to Jesus Christ.

Imagine what would happen if the people and places around us caught our spiritual family’s culture of unity when we

• pray together
• read scripture together
• receive God’s blessings together

Lets be united in obeying Jesus for our lives.

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, you are God, three persons in one. What an incredibly mindboggling concept that we can only scratch the surface of in this life time. We thank you for allowing us to glimpse the beauty and majesty of who you are – the embodiment of unity. Lord, we know that on our own we would never achieve unity with you no matter how hard we tried or what methods we used. In our unworthiness, our divisions, you came for us. To unite us with you. Without you we only had strife and separation. But no more. Thank you for providing a way toward embodying a one-ness we witness in you through Jesus. Thank you for giving us a savior.

Lord, I ask today that if any here are suffering from disunity and division that you provide an overflow of grace that can only come from your gospel. Give them the faith to accept your son as their savior, and step forward in unity with you. Lord help us lean into your life, death, and resurrection as the source of unity that will rule our hearts, minds, and actions. Allow us to serve one another in our diversity, being united in obeying your son. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.