Case 1

• There is this mom. She has two kids. Two different dads. Neither one is around anymore. One is in prison. The mom and kids live in an old two bedroom apartment. The kids actually sleep on the floor. They don’t even have a mattress. The mom has had more jobs than you want to count. The son is very smart and makes good grades while the daughter seems like a natural athlete. But their situation doesn’t look very hopeful.
• Across town there is this couple. They are a young couple of 34. They married in their 20’s and 3 years later decided to have a family. They started trying to have kids, but 7 years later they have this sinking feeling as they wonder if they will ever have a child.
• What if the paths of this couple somehow crossed the paths of the two kids? Maybe then end up at the same church. Maybe they end up meeting at a park. Would things change for these kids? Would the couple regain a little hope? Would the mother of these two kids find hope?

Case 2

• There is this man. He is married, but the reality is that he has struggled with porn which has deeply affected his relationships and view of women. The wife doesn’t admit it, but she often wonders that if she were just a little more beautiful, then her marriage would be better in her marriage. She is desperate, and she has a friend who recently had surgery. The wife would never say it but she wonders if that would be the answer.
• There is this other couple who have been married for 40 years. They have experienced it all. They remember how things felt the day he lost job, the day she received the call that her mom died, the time they lost a child. He has just finished chemo treatment, yet they are more in love than ever..
• What if these two couples started talking? What if in the conversation the older couple started talking about how love is more than skin deep and how they have had to work through the junk and go the distance. Would things change for the other couple?

Case 3

• There were these two people having a conversation – one was a Republican and the other person was a Democrat. What if they started commenting on each others bumper stickers? What if the one person said, “Your candidate sure seems to change his position all the time.” The other person says, “Well at least my candidate doesn’t look like he spends most of his time at a hair salon.” A third person who is independent hears the conversation and chimes in saying, “What we need is change.” One of the other individuals says, “If I hear the word change one more time, I’m going to use my ‘experience’ to change the channel.”
• There is this girl. She is single. She has a kid, but her kid lives with his dad. She just lost another job. It has been hard to keep a job because she struggles with people skills. She can lose her temper, and on top of that she suffers from depression. Once again, she is at her breaking point, and her landlord is about ready to evict her. She sees her kid occasionally but it usually doesn’t work out. What if her path crossed the path of these individuals who are arguing about politics? Maybe the girls over hears the conversation and says, “What we need is a female president.” But somehow in the conversation, these individuals hear the story of this girl, and the one person is married and their oldest kid just left to get married. They now have this room above their garage that is empty. Another individual in the conversation has a car that he was thinking about selling. The other individual has a spouse who has suffered from depression, but now has a support group that has really helped her situation. Would things change for this girl?

What if…

• What if people actually took the time to hear each other’s stories?
• What would it be like if people committed to care for each other?
• What would it be like if people were determined to find the things they have in common instead of focusing on our differences?

Central to being a Christ follower is unity.

Next Sunday we will be talking about what it means to experience community. Community comes from the word common. It refers to those things that we share that are the same. We can’t talk about experiencing community without unity.

The problem is that we live in a culture that bombards us with our differences. It is easy for someone to feel like we have nothing in common with those around us or that others would have nothing in common with us. But as Christ followers, our interest is not in focusing on our differences. Our interest is in creating unity.

We were created to live deeply with one another, to care for each other, to share life together.

The Bible opens in Genesis with this incredible story of how we were in this relationship with God and each other that had no barriers. There were no walls, no brokenness, no shame, no division. There was unity. There was partnership with God.

It is then at a certain point that we decide to do our own thing, and we find that the first consequence of sin wasn’t disease, death, famine, war – It was broken unity. The relationship that God had with us was damaged. The relationship that man and woman had with each other was damaged. Man and woman avoid God, they experience conflict and division.

In fact the whole issue that we face today of equality between people, between men and women wasn’t an issue before sin. There are people who would say that it is biblical for man to rule over the woman. One basic observation. That is a consequence of sin. That is not a direction we are supposed to be heading.

Ever since sin and the brokenness and division that it created, the Bible unfolds this story of how God has been working to restore unity. He has been working to restore our relationship with Him and ultimately even our relationships with each other.

Growing up in a small traditional church there were times we talked about the word “atonement.” We would say that Jesus was the atonement for our sins. The idea was that because of the sacrifice Jesus made by dying on a cross, we were able to be “at one” with God.

But a relationship with God isn’t just about being at one with God. It is also about being at one with each other.

When Jesus talked about His Kingdom in Matthew 5-7, over and over He talked about our relationship with others.

• “If you enter your place of worship and remember a grudge against a friend, go to your friend and make things right.” Matthew 5:23-24
• “Say you are on a street and you come across an enemy, make the first move and make things right.” Matthew 5:25
• “You have heard love your neighbor and hate your enemy. I say love your enemy.” Matthew 5:43-44
• “Here is a rule of thumb: ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them.” Matthew 7:12

When Paul talked about what it means to be at one with God,

“By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God…In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal.” Galatians 3:26-28

There is a great historian and scholar by the name of Thomas Kay Hill. He said, “In all of world literature, this is the first writer to argue that all people are equal.”

Whether you are rich or poor, whether you have dropped out of school or you have a PHD or you think PHD stands for “pile it high and deeper,” whether you own your own company or work for a company, whether you are new to this country or born here, we were created to live in unity with each other.

God has been pursuing us to bring us back to unity. To be a Christ follower is a commitment to unity. The church is at its best when committed to unity.

Perhaps the best picture of living in unity can be found when the church lived it in Acts 2:41-47.

Acts 2:41-47.

That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.

Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met.

They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

This picture opens with 3,000 people living in unity. Can you imagine the diversity? These would have been people from different backgrounds, different cultures, different languages, who heard of God and what Jesus had done and were compelled to follow Christ. Somehow they are in unity. It is this amazing picture of diversity yet somehow they were united and everyday their number grew. How? We know that…

Together they loved God.