Following Jesus #13 - In the Way of Unity

Message Description

Dr. Kurt Bjorklund finishes the section on the Upper Room Discourse and discusses unity between God's followers-and misconceptions about "insiders" and "outsiders" in our world and church community.

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Message Transcript

Well, it's always great to celebrate the baptisms and dedications as we did earlier this morning and again in the next service. And we traditionally do that on Thanksgiving weekend here. And part of the reason is it allows family who might be out of town to have a reason to be in town for the weekend to celebrate with their families. But it also means that we're moving into the Christmas season. And you heard Chris just a little bit ago talk about that you've been gifted kind of initiative this year with the invitation cards. Invitation cards are available this weekend for all of the Christmas Eve services. There are 15 of them here at our Wexford location this year. So great chance just to invite people and also on December 4th this coming Wednesday night, we have our annual prayer gathering to pray about Christmas. And so people will come into this space and pray over all of the seats and throughout the building just for God to work in and through that time. And so if this is your church home, we'd love to have you come and just participate in knowing that it really is God's work throughout this whole season.

So let's take a moment and pray together. Father we thank you just for a chance to gather today. Lord, we ask that you would speak to each of us wherever we're coming from, whatever situations we bring. Father, I pray that my words would reflect your word in content and in tone and in emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

So you saw a video of two ladies who were from different cultures, moved to Pittsburgh at the same time and found community in part through the church. And today we're at the end of a series going through John 14 through 17 which is known as the upper room discourse. And Jesus is praying, he's praying for his followers of all time saying, "I want them to be united, to be one, to be together." And what he says is he says that, "You being one, if you're my followers, is so that the world may believe." And his implication is simple. And that is a lot of times it's the lack of people getting along within the church that becomes so problematic for people outside the church where they say, "I don't want to be part of a church if that's what people there are like if they can't get along." That's part of what Jesus is saying and yet we live in a world that loves to create insiders and outsiders around all kinds of things.

People do it around your education and maybe not your formal education, but what you know or don't know. If you're tech savvy or not tech savvy. They like to do it around things, around culture, sometimes around race, maybe about how woke you are around certain issues. They like to do it... In today's world, I read an article in the Hedgehog Review recently that said people are doing it around food nowadays. Do you eat clean? How do you eat? And it's almost replacing the religion of the past in terms of how do you eat? And it creates insiders and outsiders and we do it about resources. People who have, people who don't, people who work hard, people who don't. But I'd like to suggest that it happens sometimes in the church in inadvertently.

Here are just a few quotes of some things that different people have said about Christianity, about following Jesus. Here's one. It says, "If Jesus isn't Lord of all, he isn't Lord at all." It's an idea. Here's another thing. This is a well known Christian leader said this, "Christianity can rightly be described as a whole hearted unflinching devotion to Jesus." Another person put it this way, "The thought of a person calling himself or herself a Christian without being an unqualified follower of Christ is absurd." And then somebody else put it this way, "A Christian is one who lives in absolute submission to God."

So let me ask you, do you agree with those quotes? Some of you probably do. Some of you probably say, "I'm not sure." If you've been around Orchard Hill, I hope that your antenna went up just a little bit because here's what they're saying, wholehearted, unflinching devotion to Jesus. Are you unflinching and wholehearted in anything in your life completely? To say that the only way you can be a follower of Jesus is to have an unflinching, wholehearted devotion to Jesus creates this sense of I'm an insider. You're an outsider. I'm one of the wholehearted unflinching people, or an unqualified or absolute surrender. Now, here's why I bring it up that way. Because what so often happens inside the church is people say, "Here is what it means to be a real follower of Jesus." I mean, you have the weak followers who are out here, but then here's the real followers.

By the way, I don't know if you've paid attention to any of the political kind of candidates for president. There's like 20 Democratic presidential candidates. I saw a poll that said who was strongly committed? Like what percent of people were strongly committed to their presidential candidate of choice? And even though they had different things, they were very low percents, like five, 10%, strongly committed. Then I saw another survey that asks the question of people that were strongly committed to their deodorant and it was like 70%. And that doesn't feel very good if you're a political candidate these days saying, "I'm lower than the deodorant that people use."

My point is just this. And that is here's what happens sometimes in the church. And that is this idea of being one is a great idea people say it'd be great to get along, but then there's all kinds of insider outsider groups. And being one is a simple idea of being unified in that it means that you have a similar purpose. And I don't think that being unified means that you necessarily are always endorsing what somebody else thinks or that you agree with somebody else. But it means that you're able to put aside those things and say, "Here is what we're about."

And here's what I'd like to do just with the time that we have here today, is just simply ask two questions. What promotes unity? And then what prevents unity?

So first, what prevents unity? For this, I just want to turn over to Luke chapter 18. There's a well known story here of the Pharisee and the tax collector going to pray and here's what it says, verse 9. It says, "To some who were confident of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable." Now my guess is very few of us read this story and identify with the Pharisee. Very few of us say, "Oh yeah, I'm like the Pharisee in this story." Because if you remember the story, if you've never heard the story, what the story is, is Jesus says they both went up to pray and one man said, "God, I thank you that I'm not like that guy over there." In other words, I'm the insider, and then what does he do? He says, "I tithe, I do all the right stuff, I'm not like that person." In other words, "I'm one of the wholehearted unflinching followers of Jesus, people. Not like him." Did he see it?

And we don't tend to want to identify with that person. But let me ask you, who's in your look down on group? Who is it that in your life you say, "Those are the people. That's the person that I don't care much for." You may not use the word righteousness, but that's self-righteousness. Period. It doesn't have to be around spiritual things. It can be around anything that you start to say, "My way of thinking, my way of doing things is superior to other people's way of doing things or seeing things." And here's the real challenge of this and that is that when we do that, we are creating insiders and outsiders. In Luke 18, what we see is this. It says, "But the tax collector..." This is after the Pharisee stood and prayed and said, "Thank you that I'm not like other people, those robbers, those evil doers, those adulterers or even that tax collector."

"But the tax collector stood at a distance," verse 13. "He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his heart and said, 'God have mercy on me, the sinner.'" And Jesus said this, "I tell you that this man, rather than the other man, went home justified before God for all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted." And what we see in this story is that a lot of times the reason that people of faith don't get along is because don't see ourselves correctly and we don't understand our need for grace.

In 2 Corinthians 12, there's a verse that just gives a list of relational things that cause disharmony. This is 2 Corinthians 12:20. It says this, "For I'm afraid that when I come to you, I may not find you as I want you to be and that you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder." And what he's doing is he's going through this list of things and saying there's discord or quarreling, there's jealousy where people want what other people have, outbursts of anger. There's factions where you're saying so and so thinks. There's slander. There's gossip. In other words, talking about people when they're not present in ways that are derogatory. There's arrogance. And what those things all are is they're a result of basically a view that says, "My way is better than other people's ways. I'm superior to other people."

And so what promotes unity? The second question. There's a hint of it in John 17. It may not be expressly clear right away, but here's what he says. Verse 23, "I in them and you and me, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." Now, if you follow the story of the Bible, what you'll see is that God's love for people is not conditional love. In other words it isn't, "You perform then I'll love you." It is, "I love you even though you haven't performed." In fact, if you're looking for a verse that says that very clearly, it's Romans 5:8. It says that, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." That's how he demonstrates his love. That's what it says. He demonstrated his love for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In other words, the basis of Christian unity is genuine Christianity that says, "I come to God, not with what I bring, not because I'm one of the insiders and other people are the outsiders. I come because of Jesus and only because of Jesus."

You see, if you're here today and your thought about Christianity is, "I don't need it." You don't understand Christianity because what you're doing is you're saying, "I'm pretty good, and whoever God is, whatever God is like, I'll take my chances because of course God would like me." Or maybe your thought is around Christianity, not I don't need it, but the whole thing is just of kind of ridiculous because there is no real need for anything but what Jesus does here is he says, "I want you to be United around something, but it isn't your goodness, but it's really your brokenness."

Here's a something that a lady named Heather Kopp wrote a few years ago from a book called Sober Mercies, and she's talking about the community that she experienced in the recovery community. So after some addiction issues, she found community and hope in a recovery community. Here's what she said, "The particular brand of love and loyalty that seemed to flow so easily here in recovery meetings wasn't like anything I'd ever experienced inside or outside the church. But how could this be? How could a bunch of addicts and alcoholics managed to succeed at creating the kind of intimate fellowship so many of my Christian groups had tried to achieve and failed? Many months would pass before I understood the bond that people bond more deeply over shared brokenness than they do over shared beliefs. Aha. Clearly, a lot of you have shared my experience. Felt a lack of community in a church setting or been surprised by the depos community in another kind of group. I think my conclusion resonated because it hints at the reason why."

And here's what she says, "When folks gather around a system of shared beliefs, the price of acceptance in the group is usually agreement, which means the greatest value whether it's stated or not is being right. Unfortunately, this often creates an atmosphere of fear and performance, which in turns invites conformity. But when people gather around a shared need for healing, the price of acceptance in the group is usually vulnerability, which means the greatest value stated or not is being real. And this tends to foster an atmosphere of safety and participation, which in turn invites community." Do you hear what she's saying?

She's saying that real unity doesn't happen because everyone agrees, but it happens because people are willing to be real and say, "This is where I am." And the reason that that can happen profoundly inside the context of a church that understands and teaches and lives the reality and creates an atmosphere of the gospel, is because the gospel is the statement that says, "It isn't how good you are that gives you status, but it's Jesus' goodness on your behalf." And Jesus says here in verse 26 again about this love and his love for the people and what he's doing again, is he's saying, "I love regardless of where you've come from." Now, certainly that doesn't mean that you never push to try to do something or be something that you aren't today, but what it means is that even when those things are true, you don't turn around and look at others and say, "They're not like me." Instead you say, "I still need what Jesus has done for my standing with God." You see when that's shared, then there's a place where people can come from anywhere and say, "I want to be a part of that. I want to experience being loved regardless of what I do."

You see, we live in a world that's all about performance. You know this. Just think about different areas of your life and the performance that you try to attain in order to feel like you're doing well enough. You see, the message really of Jesus of the cross is that no one's really an insider, and yet anyone can be an insider, because it isn't about what we do it's about what Jesus Christ has done.

Here's my hope just for Orchard Hill. And that is that more than cool music, certainly we hope we have that even at Christmas. More than a great Christmas Eve service or cool facilities, that the atmosphere that permeates this place would be what Jesus is talking about here. Not where people say we all agree with everything, everything is the same, but where we're able to say the price of admission is a recognition that we need Jesus. Not anything else.

Well, some of us are here today and as I said earlier, we don't think we need Jesus. We don't think we need God. We don't need Christianity. I would say to you, you probably don't understand the Christian message because what you've thought is either, "This message is so demanding and I don't want to try it. I'd rather take my life and live at my way." Or, "I'm doing well enough. I don't need it." But if you really understand what it is, is it's saying, "Yeah, the standard's high but that's why Jesus died. And he invites you to something that's better than what you will find on your own."

And if you're here and you say, "I'm somebody who has believed for a long time." Can I just encourage you to lead with vulnerability and with realness rather than with all the things that you do that you think are good and right because it's the creation of the insider, outsider that creates the whole brokenness of unity. It's the who's on your, I looked down at list, instead of saying, "God, have mercy on me because I know I need."

Father, we thank you for a chance just to gather today. Lord, we ask that that those who are here would be people who would lead with brokenness, with need rather than with trying to put together something that looks or feels to us like it's somehow acceptable and therefore the insider. God, I pray that even in this moment that there would be some who would be able to say, "I've always thought Christianity was about trying harder, doing better rather than about trusting what Jesus Christ has done. That his death, his resurrection was for me." God, I pray even in this moment, there would just be an acknowledgement to you, a cry to you for you to work and to take our place through what Jesus has done. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Thanks for being here. Have a great weekend.