Pray Unity

We're talking about unity. We're talking about unity being unified. And not only does our church need to be unified, churches need to be unified, right? All churches need to be unified on what the kingdom of God has at hand for us. And it's hard, it's not hard to see that unity isn't really popular in our world, right?

I mean, we've got a lot of disagreements. There's political disagreements. Oh my gosh, what is going on with our nation? What is going on with our leaders? It's so, you know, polarized and all over the place.

And we're after each other, trying to put each other in jail and everything else. I mean, it's crazy. It's unbelievable the disunity that takes place. And then we have racism and cultural divisions and anger and all these things that are happening. There's so much division in this world, it's not hard to see that.

But what's hard sometimes for us to see, if we're blinded to it, is that the church can be the most critical place of them all. Especially among other ministries, amen? We can be divisive. Christians criticize churches all the time. Think about it, oh man, that video church, I don't know about that church, you know.

Or they're like a rock concert. I don't want to go to a rock concert. I'm going to go to a rock concert if I want to go to a rock concert. I want to worship Jesus this way. So there's these worship debates, you know.

Or that's shallow teaching, or that teaching's too heavy. Or there's too many young people, or too many old people. You know, we have all these... Oh, that's a cult! I've heard that.

We've actually been called a cult when we were meeting at the brewery. When we started the church, we were in a brewery. And people could not understand how a church could meet in a brewery. Hey, we weren't serving alcohol. I mean, we were just having church, you know.

It was like, we had coffee stations in front of the... And we roped off the beer areas, you know. Because we wanted to make sure that, you know, when the alcoholics coming in didn't slip in the back. They thought, what kind of church is this? You know, we're coming in.

But they were like, what kind of church meets in a brewery? And what kind of church calls them salt? I actually had somebody contact the church one time. Y'all worship salt? No, no, no, no, no.

That's not what that means, okay? I mean... With heart disease in our culture, we do not worship salt, I promise you. Okay? But we do...

There is meaning behind that. But one thing I've noticed, I noticed when I moved here. First thing I noticed is how critical people were of big name ministries in the area. I was called to come here to seminary. That's how I started here 20 years ago in Virginia Beach.

I went to Regent University. And I had no... Yeah. One of the best universities. If you're going to get a Bible degree or seminary, do your seminary.

Great. And I'm sorry. You know, the law... That's how the people are growing up. School, anything.

I mean, my wife's got a law degree there and a Master of Fine Arts there. I did my divinity studies there. Great, great, great school. And when I chose it, I chose it for what it was, a great educational institution, lots of diversity. But when I got here, I discovered quickly that there were some people that didn't like Regent because of one of the leaders that was over it.

And I was called a Pat Robertson person one time. And I'm like, a Pat Robertson person? Because apparently Pat Robertson isn't liked much in this area. And I didn't even know who Pat Robertson was. I mean, I did, but I didn't.

I was just coming here for the school. But I automatically got tagged the Pat Robertson person. No, I'm a Jesus Christ person. That's why I'm here. That's what I told this individual.

I said, I'm not a Pat Robertson. I'm not following Pat Robertson. I'm following Jesus Christ. And it's just amazing how critical people can be because of something they believe about a ministry that maybe doesn't sit right with them. I don't know what it is.

Or larger churches in the area. There were a few really large churches in the area that seemed that everybody I talked to that didn't go to that church didn't like that church for some reason. And it was like, what in the world is going on? Well, I know what's going on because I'm convinced that the enemy's number one strategy is to divide the church. Because if he could divide the church, he wins.

Because a church united is unstoppable. But a church divided is weak and ineffective. And his ploy and his tool is to divide the church, divide the kingdom of God. Paul prayed this and Jesus prayed this. If you're following in your notes, you can go to Romans 15, 5, and 7.

And we're going to look at John 17, 20, 21, and 22. And it says this, starting in Romans, And Jesus said it like this, So we accept each other. We don't criticize each other. We don't hurt each other. We're not divided.

We're united. And then it says in John 17, it says, this is what Jesus prayed. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one. He asks us all. All.

He didn't say some. He didn't say the Baptists be one. And then the Pentecostals be one. And the Methodists be one. He said, all of them be one so that they may be brought to complete unity.

Then the world will know. That's the reason, right? Then the world will know that you sent me. Let's see. Thank you.

Thanks, boss. I've loved them even as you have loved me. So the common enemy, the number one common enemy in the church is not the church down the street, okay? The common, it's not a domination, it's not a style. Satan's strategy is to divide us.

Why? Because together we are unstoppable, but divided we are weak and ineffective. Unity is so important it can be understood in our nation's history. World War II, if you go back in history and you'll see that we had a regiment, the Axis, that was Germany, Italy, and Japan that came together to basically conquer the world. And we had the allies, it was the United States, China, France, Great Britain, and many other countries that came together because together they accomplished a great mission, you know, that we had an evil coming against us and they were able to come together because apart they could not do it alone.

But together, nations coming together, they were able to do the impossible. I think about basketball. I think about sports in general. You know if you're a coach or you're a part of sports in any way, you know you have to have unity in the team. It's got to be a team effort, right?

Everybody on the team's a player. Tar Heels started off, Carolina Tar Heels, I'm a Carolina Tar Heel by the way. One of the most embarrassing years I've ever had in my life, NCAA basketball, I think it was the worst, the greatest record in history, became the worst record in history. Starting off number one in the nation and falling out of the top 25 and never getting back and never making the NCAA tournament. And it was, gosh, that was just like, what in the world is going on?

I mean, and you saw the team and it just seemed like some games they had it together and some they didn't. Most games they didn't and they were just playing by themselves. And you had one guy, one guy on the team and I watched him and I said, why is he always taking all the shots? Why is he not passing it to this guy? Why is it?

It seemed like there was two of them that just kind of didn't like each other. And they were just working opposite of each other. I'm not going to use names because, but if you're a Tar Heels fan, you probably know right away. But what I learned later on, and we blame the coach because we have a new coach and he had a great year the year before. And then this year, this past year, he didn't.

And Hubert Davis, a man of God, by the way, he loves Jesus Christ. You can hear his testimony online. I'm sure he just loves God. Dean Smith made him go to church as freshman and sophomore year in college. Amen to that, huh?

Dean Smith, who was the college basketball coach back when he played for Carolina back in the 80s. But you had this team that was just falling apart. They were the best players in the league. They were. They had some of the highest records, some of the highest recruits in just college.

Couldn't get the job done, but you found out later on, there was infighting in the team. There were leaders going up against each other and it wasn't working out and they didn't have the flow. They weren't working and operating in unity, therefore they fell out of the top 25 and never came back up. It's amazing how one or two people causing division can destroy a team. It can also destroy a church when you have division, when you have poison, when you have interruptions coming to the environment.

So write this down. Satan's desire is to do this, to steal our unity, kill the power unity brings, and he wants to destroy the body of Christ, destroy the church. Satan's desire is to steal our unity and to kill the power of unity, that unity brings, and to destroy the church. That's what he wants. So what do we do?

We pray for unity. We pray for unity. Why? I want to give you three things. Three reasons why we need to pray for unity.

First, because we desperately need each other. We need each other, people. We need each other more than we've ever needed each other before, and we've always needed each other. And we're all different, and that's good. It's good that you're different than me.

It's good that I'm different than you. Look what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 12. He says, just as our bodies have many parts, and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. Unity is not uniformity, okay?

Unity is not uniformity. A lot of us think that we've got to look alike, we've got to act alike, we've got to, you know, I'm glad we've got a very diverse church of people. I was sharing that with my wife the other day as we were riding down the road. I said, you know what, I'm kind of glad that we've got just different characters, and different people, and different flavors, and just all these. I mean, I don't want to walk into a church and see a bunch of Leons.

I'm just going to be honest with you. It would be terrible. It would be awful. A bunch of Leons running around the place. Thank the Lord for that.

We need different people. We're all different. We have different callings. We have different abilities. I mean, it would, yeah, I don't ever hear Hunter laugh.

He's laughing as hard as anybody in here. He's like, amen, hallelujah. And as I mentioned earlier, it's the same way with the church. We got to be in unity as churches. As churches.

We don't throw rocks at the church down the road. We're not like those other, you know, people. You hear it, you hear it, right? Or, you know, our church teaches truth. I went to that church, and it didn't preach truth, you know, because it had, you know, a girl come up and dance before the service or something like that.

I don't know. The video, all those videos and all those, you know, you get those things said about the service. It's a feel good, or it's those crazy tongue-talking people, or those mega church people, or those... Seeker-sensitive people, and we're not like those frozen chosen, you know, that just, they think, or we're not like those dead boring people. You know, you hear that, right?

You should come to our church, because our church has it right. That church doesn't have it right. Who cares what everybody else thinks? Just be you. Just be you, that we all need each other.

We need different types of churches. Different types of churches speak to different types of people. And reach different types of people. We reach who we are called to reach. They reach who they're called to reach.

And here's the deal. We practice this, even for me. I'm Pentecostal, okay? I'm ordained Pentecostal. I grew up Pentecostal.

Some of my best friends in ministry are Baptists, or Methodists, or Episcopalians, or non-denominational charismatics. Non-denominational, no charismatic at all. Dead and boring, okay? No, I'm just playing. But we're unified, and we get together.

And when we're together, we love each other, and we aim for the same mission. We're not throwing rocks at each other, because guess what? We're in the foxhole together. And I'm not going to, when we're in the foxhole, we've got to operate as a team. We're in that war against Satan and his enemies.

And we're not going to be sitting in the foxhole throwing rocks at each other's head. Well, you didn't say that right, or you don't believe in this, or you don't believe in that. We're not going to do that. We're different for a reason, so we can reach more people together. And we need to be unified.

The church needs to be unified. We need to be unified. And if we're going to make a mistake, we're going to err on the side of being for other churches and not against them. And if you catch me being that way, you need to call me out, okay? I do everything I can to never bash another church, never talk about another church.

Now, let me just be straight here. I'm not talking about heretical teachings or the essentials of the faith. People are just steering from the essentials of the faith. I get that. You know, there's times where we have to be careful about teachings and stuff like that.

There's a lot of false teaching out there. Absolutely. We want to be very careful and aware of that. But essentials unity, guys. Non-essentials liberty, all things charity.

I'm sure many of you have heard that before. We come together on the essentials of the faith, on the very thing that the martyrs bled and died for. And we're together on that. Non-essentials, we can believe in little different secondary issues. But all things charity.

Amen. All things charity. So we don't throw rocks at each other. You can vigorously debate a little bit, you know, with people about things. But ultimately, we're together.

We have unity in the faith. Because, listen guys, we're sitting around arguing about what version of the Bible we should use when people are being beheaded around the world for their faith. People are dying. All the time for the faith. And guess what?

They're our brothers and sisters. We're their brothers and sisters. They need us. We need them. We need each other.

And every nation under God is a nation that God created. Amen? And we should be together in unity. Different people, men, women, children, some rich, some poor, every ethnic group, every language, right? Because one day every tongue will confess, right?

That Jesus Christ is Lord. Every tongue, meaning every nation, every nation and every tongue will be under the name of Jesus. Jesus is not a respecter of persons, right? And we have churches all over the world. We have different types of churches all over the world.

And we need to be unified because this is a season of unity and we need to pray for unity because we need each other desperately. Our brothers and sisters need us and we need our brothers and sisters. Amen? The second thing is because the world desperately needs to see the Lord's love. They need to see that God loves them.

And the way they're going to see that God loves them, as the Apostle Paul put it, as Jesus put it, so that they could see who Christ is. They desperately need love. Romans 15, 7 says, Accept one another then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. Let's accept each other. Let's love one another so that we can bring praise to God.

Accept one another is this long Greek word. It not only means to accept somebody in mind, it means to, it's got this idea, this picturesque idea of one opening their arms to somebody and receiving one in, embracing them, but not only stopping there, but taking them by the hand and walking out this thing by the hand. It's a long accepting one another, not just by word, but by action in every way of life. And we accept others as Christ accepts us. While we were sinners, he loved us.

Amen? While we were sinners, while we were hopeless, he gave us hope. When we were dead, he gave us life. When we were lost, what did Jesus Christ do? He came and found us.

Amen? So we can do the same for others. Let us do the same for others. But instead, unfortunately, the church is known more for what they are against than what they are for. If you talk to an outsider, someone who's not in church, what will they see when they look at us?

That's what we have to ask because, unfortunately, a lot of times it's about what we're against. What we don't like. How we don't like each other. They hear us talking about our own people, right? And they wonder.

They don't see Christ's love. Let's be known for what we are for rather than what we are against. We are for God's love. Look at this in John 13. It says a new commandment.

I give you love one another as I... Have loved you, so you must love one another. And by this, everyone will know that you are my disciple if you love one another. How many times does he say love one another in that scripture alone? And then you go into context of it, and you see love one another over and over and over again.

I think it's very important, is what Jesus is trying to get at, is that we need to love one another. It doesn't say, love those who have right doctrine. It doesn't say, love those who are in your denomination. It doesn't say, love those who have your similar style of worship. It says, love everyone.

It says, love one another regardless. And we have to think about that going forward, you know, in unity as a church and as churches, if we are going to accomplish the mission that God has before us. Because we have, it seems impossible, but it is impossible, it is possible in Jesus Christ when we are unified. Because together, we are way more powerful. We can do way more.

We need each other, so that's why we pray. And thirdly, because we can do immeasurably more together. Immeasurably, infinitely more together. We can do so much more together. And we have to leverage what we each have.

Because we all have different giftings. We all have different talents. We, just look at scripture for a second. This small band of non-educated, roughnecks that came together, unlike by the world's standards. Just go back to the book of Acts and see who these people were.

But there was something attractive and something contagious and something greater that they saw in these people. They may not have had the accolades. They may have not been the most well-dressed. They may have not had all the things that that particular era would have required of somebody to be successful. But something about the way they loved each other.

There's something about the way they gave to each other. There's something about them. They grew and grew and grew because they had this heart for one another that the world didn't show anyone else. There was something special about that. Here's what it said in the book of Acts.

Acts 4 says, That means they were just getting together and they were selling things and they were doing things and they brought their money. They split it among people. They gave it to the church. They gave it to the apostles. The apostles split it up and nobody was without.

This is how passionate these people were. And this was a society. This was a selfish society. Let's not get it wrong. This was a very a lot of a lot of American heart is in this right like it's about me.

I pick myself up by my bootstraps. I get I get my own thing going. I'm but these people they were experiencing something they had. Never experienced before, and that was the love of Jesus Christ through the people together, and everybody loved each other so much that they were willing to sell what they had, and they brought it in. And then it says, and God's grace was so powerfully at work in them that there were no needy persons among them.

No needy person among them. And what I would say is the world is sick and tired of being, or just hearing about Jesus' love. They want to see it. They want to see Jesus' love. They want to see us loving each other.

They want to see us unified. See, outsiders, they're looking at us all the time. I like to use that term, outsiders. You know, just people who are outside the faith or outside the church, whether they're far from God or they've exited the church or whatever. They're sick and tired of hearing about Jesus' love.

They want to see it. And the greatest way to reach somebody for Jesus Christ is for them to actually see that we are unified, and we love one another, and we serve one another. And they're going to look at us. If we practice this, imagine a church that practiced this acts for type of mentality where they just absolutely loved each other to the extent of even giving their own finances, giving their own time, giving their own talent, giving their own treasure. Everything that they had, they pulled together.

Imagine what would that... They look at those people and say, you know what? I don't know about this Jesus and this raising from the dead thing. That's kind of weird. But man, I want what those people have.

I really want what they have. Amen? And I've got to have that. I've got to dig into this even more. Imagine a world like that.

If everybody was selfless and everybody thought about each other and we came together, all of us churches, not just Salt Church, but all churches together, in a week we could accomplish the impossible. Monday, starvation could be eliminated. Tuesday, every person could have drinking water. Wednesday, poverty is eradicated. Thursday, everyone with a medical need will have attention.

Friday, all orphans will be under care. Saturday, everyone who has lived will know about Jesus. And then Sunday, we pause to worship Him. If we all came together in unity. And this could happen.

I believe it could happen. Because the Lord has given us great challenge in this generation. Every generation has its challenges. But this generation is our generation. And we can sit around and complain about how bad it is or we can come together and do something about it.

We lost all three to eight years from not to cost. Whatever as To Doof is worth suffering or war, It seems like he wins. And when we call him. The French would think the passion and the attraction will have white blood But how could he live with other people and live? In the name of Jesus.

So ask us to pray. To pray for unity. Will you join me in our prayer for unity? Will you join me by taking even a next step and saying, I don't want to just talk about the love of Jesus. I want to be the love of Jesus.

Maybe joining in and maybe taking next step in serving in our church. Maybe taking a next step in getting involved in a group. Maybe taking a next step in getting involved in a team. An outreach team. Whatever it takes.

Us coming together. Maybe it's just giving for the first time. Maybe it's just time like the Lord spoke to my heart. And I need to give a tithing or an offering because I don't do that. It could be your talent.

You know, you've got something special. And I'm going to tell you this. If you are not involved, if you are a believer. I'm not talking about Salt Church. I'm talking about church in general.

If you are a believer. And you have something that God's giving you a gift. I don't care how little that gift is. And you're not a part of a believing body of Christ. And that body of Christ is really missing something super important.

And it's harder to accomplish what God has ahead of us. And if we all came together. We all brought our gifts and all of our talents and all of our treasures and unified. And didn't throw rocks at each other. And not argue about whether you should use the King James Version or the NIV.

And focus on what really matters. And not argue about how many videos or how weak or how strong the messages are or whatever it is. And start focusing on what really matters. That Jesus, Jesus left 99 and went for one. Think about that for a second.

The Good Shepherd, in his parable, he talks about leaving a 99. That's a lot of people. But he saw that one lost. Are we willing to leave our 99 different reasons for why we like church? So that maybe one that doesn't get any of those 99 things that we believe about church.

That are non-essentials anyway. So they can be reached for Jesus Christ. It takes unity. It takes unity in that belief. So I would challenge you.

Let's pray. You pray for unity. I pray for unity. We all pray for unity. Why won't we pray together now?

Let's just pray for unity. If you're a loud prayer person, that's fine. If you're a soft prayer person, that's fine. Let's just everybody pray together in unity. God, I just pray.

I thank you for your word. I thank you that it's like a two-edged sword. It really pierces. It really separates. It's flesh from bone because it helps us think, it helps us see, it helps us become more like you.

And help us, Lord, by the way of your Spirit to connect with us and challenge us and convict us if there's anything in us keeping us from being unified, Lord. I pray for our churches around us. I pray from the left to the right, the north, the south, the east, the west, Lord, I pray for all of our churches, God, today. That we would all be unified. That we wouldn't be divisive, but we would communicate clearly the message that you left us.

You left us a very clear vision that you, we are to go out and make disciples of the entire world leading them to you, God. Help us keep focused on that because you said in your scripture that salt always makes a difference and a little bit of salt goes a long way. You said, I am the salt of the earth, I am the light of the world. You are a city on a hill. That's what you said.

We are salt, we are light, we are cities on a hill. What do cities do, Lord? They project light and beauty. What does light do? It lights the world.

What does salt do? It flavors the world. But the only way it can flavor and light and do all those glorious things, God, is if we are unified and we love one another. So help us just love one another so much, Lord. So much more than we're even doing, God.

Make this heart a stone, a heart of flesh. And if there's one person here today, God, that has not considered you, Lord, may they give their life, make a decision for you, or rededicate their life to you if they're walking away from you by confessing that they need you, Lord. Lord, I give my life to you today, Jesus, in your name. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Pastor Leon. And thank you, everybody, for being here, being unified in the spirit and not forsaking the fellowship of believers together. If you would like to support Salt Church, of course you can. As you know, we don't pass around buckets or anything, but you can always put something in the box on your way out. You can also text the amount you want to give to 84321.

You can give securely via the Church Center app, or you can even mail something into our PO Box Old School. I like writing a check every once in a while. It's just fun. Make sure I still know how to do cursive. They don't teach it anymore.

You're going to have to, like, write some checks if you want to practice your cursive in this day and age. If you are first-time guests with us, please don't feel compelled to give. We're just really grateful that you gave us your presents today. Thank you, everybody, for being here. I hope you have a wonderful first week.

If anybody has kids going back to school this week, good luck and Godspeed. And we will see you all back here next Sunday.