Oneness in Christ

by Pastor Paddick Van Zyl
(Jhb, SA)

Sermon by Paddick Van Zyl (MTh)
27 Nov 2014

Title: Oneness in Christ

Theme: Unity

Intro:
I want you to picture a scene today: see in your minds eye a large parade ground where thousands of soldiers are preparing for war. The sergeant major shouts a whole lot of commands in succession to the troops. They don't move. Instead they start looking around to their friends and start questioning the commands they where given. No one knows what to do. They start getting unruly and loud as they try to figure out what they need to do. Some even leave the parade ground to go an sit under the trees. What happened? The sergeant major gave his troops their instructions in a foreign language they did not understand. A mighty force, but unable to do anything together as a whole. All the weapons on hand but of no use. What happened on this parade ground? There was no unity! It was chaos instead of order....sound familiar?

Vance Havner said -"Christians, like snowflakes, are frail, but when they stick together they can stop traffic." *
Text:
Psalm 133 Read

Sermon:
Why is unity so important in our daily lives, marriages, families and the body of Christ?
Simply: because unity unites and empowers and fosters peace and blessing! Unity ushers in the anointing. The kingdom of darkness is opposed to unity.
God desires unity in His body and our lives and relationships since He is a God of unity. Heaven is a place of unity not chaos.

There is power in unity. It fosters love, strengthens prayer, minimizes differences, it releases the supernatural power of God and it ministers to the lost.

In our text, Psalm 133, unity is compared to oil, the anointing and the presence and power of God manifested among people.
It is pleasant when unity is present. And when unity is present God commands His blessing and anointing to be present as well (v.3)
Where God's blessing and anointing is not present, we need to look if unity has been lost.

Psalm 86: 11 Read NLT
Unite my heart = give me singleness of heart

2 Chronicles 30:8-13, 17-23, 26-27 NKJV Read
V 12 says God's hand (anointing) was on Judah to give them singleness of heart. Because they received God's anointing to be of one mind and heart, unity prevailed and God's blessing came on them. Our heart attitude is important to God. He looks at the heart not the body, mind or anything else. Unity starts in the heart and flows through to the rest of our life.

Acts 2:42 NKJV Read
On the day of Pentecost, the people were unified in the Spirit and they started to live in unity, fellowshiping and sharing bread and prayer. That is what the body of Christ, the Church is supposed to do and supposed to be like.

The Christians continued in the Word of God and prayer steadfastly, this speaks of their relationship with God. And they shared their bread in fellowship, this speaks of their relationship to one another.
To have singleness of heart is as important as singleness of sight. If our heart is divided we will stagnate and fall by the wayside eventually. A house divided, like a heart, can not stand.

We need to get back to having unity of heart and sharing our bread and praying together.

Acts 4:23-31 Read
Peter & John were preaching Jesus but was forbidden by the legalistic leaders to stop. They did not run away or kept quiet, instead 'with one accord' or in unity they cried out to God for more boldness to preach and the Holy Spirit came down in an amazing way to shake the place they were in. The secret? The prayed in unity.
If we can grasp the amazing power of unity of being of one heart, we will see more miracles, more salvations and more of God's power being displayed in the lives of people. Miracles speaks louder than anything else. No one can deny a miracle....

Illustration:
How do you 'Unify a Church'?
Well, former pastor Eric Daniel Harris, aged 37, has the following advice: he pled guilty to the November 1996 arson that burned down the Kentucky Missionary Baptist Church in Saline County, Arkansas.  According to a federal prosecutor, Harris said he did it because "there was a division among church members, and they needed a project to unify them."**
Why do we usually need a major catastrophe to help unite us?

Closing:
Drawing to a close - Unity and faith are siamese twins that can not be separated. The one needs the other to survive. They share. Take away faith and nothings happens in your life. You are a non-pleasing Christian to God. Take away unity and faith is worthless. True spiritual unity flows from the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the people of God- the Body of Christ.

Credits:
*Vance Havner http://www.kentcrockett.com/illustrations/
**News of the Weird, March 30, 2000 http://www.kentcrockett.com/illustrations/
**News of the Weird, March 30, 2000