Joshua 1:16-18
So they answered Joshua, saying, “All that you command us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we heeded Moses in all things, so we will heed you. Only the Lord your God be with you, as He was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your command and does not heed your words, in all that you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and of good courage.”
Introduction
Today we are continuing in this series on the Walls That Satan Builds. I’ll let you know that next week, we will talk about how Satan uses the past to try to put a wall between you and the Lord, and we’ll finish up on Halloween day with the topic of “by all means”, which Satan will try to unleash everything in his wily ways to try to stop people from connecting with Jesus Christ. As you can tell, we’re getting into some serious topics, and I hope that you are able to use some of this to help in your Christian walk! But today we are talking about a topic that is on the lips of many different Christian leaders today. Last week, on the Georgia Baptist Discipleship group on Facebook, one of our Georgia missionaries posted a question: if you were given the choice between more people and more unity in your church next Sunday, which would you take? Perhaps the best answer to the question that someone gave was “Give me unity or give me an ulcer!” But in reality, there is no right or wrong answer to this. The hope is that there would be unity AND more people. But unity is difficult to accomplish.
There is a story that the great African-American pastor, Ezekiel E. Smith would tell about disunity. He said that in the village of Inver Gorie, Scotland, there is the ruin of an old church building. It is said to have been built in the fifth century of the Christian era. It was one of the numerous Culdee churches that flourished in Scotland in those days, which were supposedly built by the disciples of the Apostle John, who came to Scotland as missionaries. Tradition has it that the devil was so enraged at the planting of a Christian church in the village of Inver Gorie that he flung a huge boulder from across the river Taw, which runs hard by the village, in an effort to demolish the building. But the devil was not a good marksman, for it missed its mark by about half a mile. Do you believe the story? Ask a Scotsman, and he will take you to the spot for evidence. There is the village; there is the river Taw; there is the church; there is the boulder. If you are still unconvinced, I suspect the devil also could be found there for evidence. The only link missing is the act of hurling the boulder!
Yet some people have been found who have their doubts, and there has been much, long, and unpleasant argument about it, even right there in Iver Gorie. The bitterness has passed down from generation to generation through these fourteen hundred years, and still it goes on, we are told, for there is no way of settling the dispute. But let me whisper it to you that I verily believe he did fling that boulder - no, not the boulder that one sees lying by the roadway there in Scotland, but the larger boulder of discord, of a world full of silly disputes over nothingness. Oh, the ugliness, the bitterness, the misery, the waste of time and energy, the destruction of grace and good works caused by difference of opinion concerning things that do not matter!
The wall of disunity that Satan builds is the one that most often comes into the lives of Christians. It is pervasive in our lives that we will not always be in harmony with one another. Because of sin and the sin nature, this is inevitable. How do we understand it and recognize it? And perhaps more importantly, how do we deal with it?
God Hates Disunity
The first part of this is to realize that there is disunity in our lives. There is a gravestone in Ireland that reads “Here rests in silent clay Mrs. Arabella Young/Who on the 21st of May/Began to hold her tongue.” What an epitaph, right? Apparently Mrs. Young was well known for her tongue and the way that she used it against others, it would appear! We are reminded in Proverbs 6:16-19 that the seven things that the Lord hates, that are an abomination to Him, which are a “proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.” We know that the most important aspect when one speaks about God in list form is always at the end of that list. God hates sin, and we know that this list is one of sinfulness. But what God truly hates is the one who spreads discord between those who believe!
But what causes disunity within our churches today? There are many different theories on this, but I feel that there are five basic thoughts that pertain to this for any church. The first is a lack of communication between people. When I counsel young couples before they get married, one of the things that I impress upon them is to always keep the lines of communication open with one another. I have told them that even if you are madder than you have ever been in your life, remember that if you shut that line of communication off completely, then you have decided that the person that you love is less important to you than winning an argument. I tell them that they might even be right in their argument, but if they don’t leave that open, then it’s going to lead to trouble down the road. This is the same in our churches. In James 1:19-20, James, the brother of Christ himself, wrote “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” The way that we communicate with one another is as important to ensuring that disunity isn’t happening in our lives. It’s listening to one another, and being sure that the way that we speak to one another is done in love and in true Christ-like manner.
The second cause of disunity is a lack of direction in the church. This is somewhat of an indictment on the leadership of the church. One church’s website put it this way: “so there may be great communication processes within your church, but is anything being said? Without direction, a church is bound to be pulled a million different directions by different people within the church.” Now, I will say that it is good to be able to express your opinion and your desire to see the church do different things. That way we don’t stagnate. But we always have to make sure that what we do is in line with the mission of the church! We know that the mission is to reach out to those within the community and to connect them with God in a meaningful way. By having a clear direction in the church, it means that we have a rallying point to be united around. If we truly boil down everything that we can be united over, we can know this as our ultimate rallying point: Jesus Christ died for our sins, was raised to life, and we have victory in Him when we believe in Him. When we start at that as our point of direction, we cannot go wrong.
The third part is the lack of expectations. Have you ever been in a job where you either had very low expectations of what that job could do for you, or in reverse, there were very low expectations of you? It could have been low expectations that you would succeed at the job you were given. Or even the task given to you was truly below your experience and knowledge? What happens sometimes if you don’t have a great deal of expectation for that particular job? You might get sloppy, you might get bored, and you might mentally check out of it. Now, that might sound harsh when you think of it in the church sense, but that is truly what is happening within our country right now. Go and ask any pastor what they feel the greatest problem will be for churches coming out of Covid, and it’s inevitably going to be “how do we get people to raise their expectations of the church so that they will return?” There’s no good answers right now, and I feel that this is because we are still in the midst of all this with Covid right now. But let’s put it in another light. Think about the body itself. If a hand tried to do what the foot does, it wouldn’t do it very well, would it? When the body of Christ tries to do its own thing, disunity will inevitably be at hand. It falls apart quickly.
A lack of inclusiveness is another great hurdle for unity in churches. We can get pretty insular, can’t we? One thing that I cannot fathom to this day, having been exposed to it well before being here as your pastor, is how churches can get to the point where there is a mindset that someone will not go to a church because so and so went there, or so and so goes there, or this type of person is in that church. I feel that our church is extremely welcoming, and is extremely aware of the fact that we don’t want to be the kind of church where people can say “well, you’re ‘that’ kind of church”. It hurts when people say such things about our church, or any church for that matter! I can tell you that I have been in churches all my life, and there have been some that have been too insular. You know my experience at Sandy Springs Baptist, where they wouldn’t allow for a Farsi-language church to be there because they didn’t want “those people” at “their church”. But there were also churches where they had certain families that wanted to run the church as their own personal chapel rather than a church. I know of one that has for years struggled to keep pastors because there is one man there, and his family is there with him, and they will have someone preach for a while there, and after about a month or two, the one man tells the preacher to not come back. In fact, that church was one that I guest spoke at, and was supposed to be there for two weeks. I was told after the first week not to come back! They were too comfortable in their way of doing things, and had decided that being inclusive towards others was too much of a step. Again in Galatians, Paul reminds us in 3:28 that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” We are truly one in Christ, no matter our differences, and should be inclusive towards those who are seeking Christ.
Finally, there is a lack of focus on God that provides the greatest opportunity for Satan to sow disunity within our congregations. This includes sinfulness in our churches, which can present itself in many different ways, such as pride, haughtiness, or even the tolerance of sin itself. When we look at things that can cause division and disunity in our churches, it all comes down to a sin issue. And they have to be dealt with appropriately, or else it will be like a poisoned arrow that has hit us. The poison arrow must be removed, and yes, it will hurt taking it out. But if we don’t take that poisoned arrow out, then we are doomed to die.
It can also be the lack of prayer. We talked a great deal a while back about prayer and how it can change things. We know from personal experience what prayer can do for us. But are we praying also for unity in our lives and in the life of our church? This was something that hit me hard this week because I will admit to you that it is something that had slipped my mind often. I know that we are a praying church because we have seen the power of prayer working in the lives of so many just during my time as pastor here at this church. But we need to add to our list weekly for the unity of our church, and specifically for the preservation of that unity.
The final part of the lack of focus with God for the church is to understand that lack of relationship with God. How is your relationship with God right now? Are you invested in it? Are you taking time daily to talk with God? When we did See You at the Pole a few weeks ago, I asked the kids there what their day would be like if they didn’t talk to their best friend for a day. The response from their faces was immediate! You could tell that they couldn’t imagine a day without talking to their best friend. It’s disconcerting to not talk to your best friend, and for many of us, we know the sting of knowing that you cannot talk to them because they have passed on to glory. But we have to maintain that relationship with the Lord like we do with someone who is our best friend. Jesus is that, plus our Lord, our intercessor, and our High Priest. And when we all unite in that kind of relationship with the Lord, we see so many of our disputes wane away because we are being more Christ-like in our lives.
Some Solutions for Disunity
You might be thinking to yourself at this point, though, that this is all good and fair that we can recognize the dangers of disunity and how to spot it, but what are we to do to actually solve it? Well, I’m glad you’re thinking that now, even if I just said it. We have no better place to look than at the early church to find out how to solve disunity within the church. So many of the early churches had some major disputes, be it over how to distribute aid to those in need, or even to the rise of false teachings. But there are five basic things that the early church did to solve those problems.
First, they prayed about it. We know that prayer is one of the things lacking that causes problems, so it seems obvious that the solution to disunity would be to increase our praying, right? Acts 1:14 tells us that “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” The early church was constantly in prayer with one another to seek God’s will, but also to be in unity with one another. Paul reminded the Romans in 12:12 to “rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer”. James reminded his reader to call for the elders of the church to pray over those that were sick, and in turn to have all those who are gathered to pray for those who are sick.
The early church also studied the scriptures. This is in line with making sure that they were on mission together still. How often do we not consult the scriptures to help us along the journey and along in our mission in life? 2 Timothy 3:16 reminds us that “all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. In reading for this week, I came across an interesting article that pointed towards the fact that the early church often had public readings of the scriptures. This was somewhat a leftover of Jewish worship, but it was beneficial for the early church to do this because it gave them the opportunity to tell others about how Christ fulfilled the Law! This is still profitable for us to do today, too, because it truly does show us how we can be in one accord with each other.
The early church also solved disunity by evaluating everything based upon the mission of Christ. This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? When we spoke last week about Satan trying to build a wall between us and God through the change of leadership, one of the ways to overcome that wall was to make sure that the leadership still was doing the mission of God. This is true for us when we look at unity as well! The early church certainly was aware of the true words of Christ, where he told them to go and make disciples. But think about when Pentecost happened in the early church. They had been promised the Holy Spirit, and it had come upon them in a way that could have sown discord amongst themselves. How would you have reacted to something happening where you could suddenly speak in a different language that you had never once known? But look at the end of Peter’s sermon in 2:40. It says “and with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.” The mission of the church was at stake that day, and because they stayed focused on that mission, three thousand people were saved!
Besides evaluating everything based on the mission, the early church also had clear lines of communication open with one another. Look at Acts 15:2: it says “therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders, about this question.” The question being asked at that point was to see if the men who were coming into Christian faith would have to be circumcised per the custom of Moses or not. This ended up being a major dispute within the early church. They would go and discuss it with those in Jerusalem, and even though they did not agree with one another until the council had decided what to do, we should note that this did not keep these believers from worshipping together, nor did it cause true disunity with one another. In 15:3, it states that “so, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy to all the brethren.” They had joy, true joy in Christ, because people had been saved along the way back to Jerusalem! Because they were able to keep their lines of communication open with one another, they were able to stay on mission, and they were able to see the mission continue through.
Finally, the early church trusted one another enough that when they made a decision, they moved on with that mission. Concerning the circumcision of those who were coming to faith, the Jerusalem council decided that they would not require the Gentiles to do this act since it was not part of their custom, nor part of the reason to believe in Christ and his redemption in their lives. They wrote a letter to people to ensure that they knew this, but also to put off the old life that they had once lived, including to not offer anything to idols, from sexual immorality. But here is what the amazing thing was: we see in the end of chapter 15 that they went to Antioch and gathered the multitude together to read the letter. It says in verses 32 and 33 that those that were sent to them “exhorted and strengthened the brethren with many words. And after they had stayed there for a time, they were sent back with greetings from the brethren to the apostles.” It is clear that the people were in unity with one another, and it provides us a basic plan for how we are to react as a church towards disunity!
Now that we know what we have to do as a church to avoid disunity, how in the world are we supposed to do this on our own and in our own lives?! We have to realize that Satan will absolutely use your emotions, thoughts, and feelings towards others to stir up disunity within your life. As one pastor put it, “Satan stirred up dissention in the first couple, hence the fall of the human race!” We also have to know that when we strive against disunity that we are doing what Jesus himself wanted for us in our lives. In John 17:20-21, Jesus said “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” Jesus was speaking to his Heavenly Father here, and his fervent prayer was that we would be united as one in Him in our faith and in the resurrection.
Remember one other verse, which is Titus 3:10. Paul tells Titus in Titus 3:10 to “Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.” In other words, Paul reminds us that if we have to reject a person for sowing discord and disunity twice, we should have nothing to do with them after that, unless they acknowledge their sinfulness and ask forgiveness for it.
Look at what it says from our focus verses today. We remember from last week that Joshua had been selected by Moses and then ordained by God to lead the chosen people into the Promised Land. We remember that Joshua had reminded the people that they had to be with him all the way to the end of the job of taking the land that God had promised them. In these verses, the people answered Joshua telling him that they would do as he commanded, and do as they were told to go. They reminded themselves that they followed Moses to the letter (which we see in verse 17), and acknowledged the fact that their mission had not changed with the leadership change. But look at verse 18: they take the charge of unity to the extreme! “Whoever rebels against your command and does not heed your words, in all that you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and of good courage.” We see it once again: be strong and courageous, this time not coming from Moses, not coming from God, but coming from the people that Joshua is commanding. They have realized that if they have disunity within their ranks that they will likely fail in their mission!
Conclusion
When we look at disunity in the way that the Israelites did, we see the seriousness in which we must take it. While I’m not advocating that we go and kill someone if they don’t agree with me (brings a whole new thought to “what would the Bible have us do”, doesn’t it?!), I would say that we must do what Paul tells us in Galatians 2:20. He reminds us that “I have been crucified with Christ; it is not longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” The disunity of our lives, in our church, comes from a place that is from the old self, not from the new in Christ. And we must be known for being united. Does this mean that we’ll agree with everything that is said to one another in this congregation? Absolutely not! Nor would anyone expect it to be that way. But we have a choice today. We know that God hates division, hates disunity, and hates it when people spread it amongst the believers. He hates it when people stir up disunity because it is contrary to His nature and His plan for the Church. It goes against the mission that we have to stick to. We have to ask ourselves today, are we uniting under the mission that God has given to us, or are we going to allow Satan to build that wall of disunity, diving not only ourselves, but dividing us against God? Let’s pray.
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