United or Divided
What do you think God’s ideal plan is for us? Is it to be united or divided? Well, the answer to this question can be found in many places. One example is found in.
Psalm 133:1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For
brethren to dwell together in unity!
God has always wanted his
people to be united and to be of the same mind when it comes to worshiping him.
Just as Paul states in,
Philippians 1:27 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel
of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your
affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for
the faith of the gospel,
You see God wants ever
single Christian to be united in the faith of the gospel. God has always been
very serious when it comes to obeying his commands and not straying from the
truth. For example in the OT notice what he tells Joshua.
Joshua 1:6
"Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an
inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 "Only be strong and very
courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My
servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left,
that you may prosper wherever you go. 8
"This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall
meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that
is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will
have good success.
God didn’t want the
children of
In fact Paul was
continually emphasizing the need to hold fast to sound doctrine.
2 Timothy 1:13 Hold fast the pattern of sound words which
you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
Then in chapter 2 Paul tells Timothy.
2 Timothy 2:1You
therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2 And the things that you have
heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be
able to teach others also.
Paul wanted to make sure
that only the truth would be taught and that it would be passed down through
the generations. I believe there is a great need for people today to understand
that we must live our lives and worship God according to his truth. He set
forth a pattern for us in the NT that we are follow and the first century
Christian understood the necessity of following God authority even if it meant
death. For example, when Peter and John were arrested for speaking in the name
of Christ the opposing Jews tried to make them be quite by threatening them but
notice their response.
Acts 4:19 But Peter
and John answered and said to them, "Whether it is right in the sight of
God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. 20 "For we cannot but speak
the things which we have seen and heard."
This is what you
call being dedicated to the truth no matter what the cost. There have been many
Christians who have lost there life because they were willing to die for the
truth and so surely we can see that there is a great need for us to handle the
word of God with care and do our best to worship God in spirit and in truth.
Again Paul emphasizes the need for us as Christians not to turn to the left or
to the right from God’s word in,
Galatians 1:6 I
marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace
of Christ, to a different gospel, 7
which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert
the gospel of Christ. 8 But
even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what
we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone
preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be
accursed. 10 For do I now
persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I
would not be a bondservant of Christ. 11
But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is
not according to man. 12 For
I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through
the revelation of Jesus Christ.
In these verses we
see that Paul really wants to drive his point home because he repeat himself so that his listener will understand that this
is an important statement. These Christians had started moving away from unity
with God and each other and started heading toward division because they were getting farther
and farther away from God’s Word. Paul wants them to understand that the only
truth that there is, is what came by God through these inspired men and that if
anyone else comes along teaching a new truth that is adding or taking away from
God’s word then they shouldn’t listen to them and those speaking this falsehood
would be accursed and that the same thing he wants us to understand today. Paul
also emphasizes that we are not here to please mankind instead we are here to
please God by obeying his Word. This is why Paul tells us not to think beyond
that which is written in 1Cor. 4:6.
You see the only way
that we can have the kind of unity that God wants us to have is by being
unified according to his perfect will. We cannot comprise God’s Word so that we
can hold hands with those who want to add or take away from God’s Word. If we
unite ourselves with those who are not worshiping God in spirit in truth, then we
are uniting ourselves in error and God will not be pleased.
We need to realize that
humans have always had a problem with obeying God’s word and have continually
done things there own way from the time of Adam until this very day. Lets look
at a just a few examples. We might as well start with Adam and Eve. We all know
the story. God only had one restriction for them. All they had to do was to
avoid eating from the tree of knowledge, but could they love God enough to
respect his authority. No, they could not and they both ate of this forbidden
tree. From this point on we read over and over again how mankinds choose to
break their unity with God by doing things there own way.
We really see this
disobedience occur continuously in the book of Judges. From our recent lessons
in the OT on Sunday nights we have learned how King Saul started out a humble
servant of the Lord and then how he
changed and began to do things his way instead of God’s way and because of his
actions the spirit of God left him. There are many more examples from the OT on
how the children of
As we move into the
NT time we know that there were many division among the Jews as we talked about
these groups in detail in our Wednesday night Bible class. Just to name a few
there were Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and Herodians all having there
different way of thinking. To use a modern day term, many of these
denominations had made up there own man made traditions and they tried to make
others adhere to them. But on many occasion Jesus would correct these different
groups on what that the Law of Moses actually said. For example notice the
incident in,
Matthew 15:1 Then
the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 2 "Why do Your disciples
transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when
they eat bread." 3 He
answered and said to them, "Why do you also transgress the commandment of
God because of your tradition? 4
"For God commanded, saying, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'He
who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.' 5 "But you say, 'Whoever says
to his father or mother, "Whatever profit you might have received from me is
a gift to God" -- 6
'then he need not honor his father or mother.' Thus you have made the
commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. 7 "Hypocrites! Well did
Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 8
'These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me. 9
And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of
men.' "
Here we see Jesus
dealing with these 2 different religious groups who are trying to force their
man made doctrines know as the traditions of the elders. These were oral
traditions that were passed down from generation to generation and Jesus wants
them to understand that man made traditions are not binding, however the Word
of God is and this is why we see Jesus telling them about written law of honoring
there mother and there father. He was showing them how the traditions of men
had made to the point to where they allowed their tradition to override the
word of God. Jesus tells the very plainly that when people start worshiping God
by man made traditions they are worshiping God in vain.
This is exactly what
many have done today in the religious world. There are thousands of
denominations today who have chosen to divide themselves based upon their way
of doing things. Many of them have added or taking away from God’s Word and
they do many things to try and please themselves and others instead of pleasing
God. If you don’t believe me just do a little a digging. Pick up your phone and
call some of these denominations in our area and ask them how they conduct
their worship service and you will find out that there are many things that
they do that are not authorized in God’s word.
We live in society
where we have all kind of choices we can make. We go eat any where we want, we
choose what kind of car we want and the
list goes on and on. Since we have this kind of mentality in our society we
have made this way of thinking apply to worshiping God. All you have to do to
see this is by an newspaper and you will see ads that say worship at a
church of your choice. You see there are many people today that are not
looking for the truth instead they are looking for a place that they can come
together and socialize and be entertained. All you have to do is look as some
of these Mega churches that have thousands of people attending them and you
will see that they will have big bands and famous signers coming and
performing. You will see them encouraging the people to get up and shout and
dance where they are standing. I had man tell me one time that he was shopping
for churches and then preceded to tell me the crazy the better he like them.
You see, he wanting to be entertained and wasn’t really all that concerned
about what God wants.
Friends people like
this man who are going to church to be entertained are doing so for themselves
and have truly missed the whole purpose of coming together. When we come
together to form the body of Christ we do not come to entertain ourselves we
come to worship God and to be pleasing to him. Those who do otherwise are not
in unity with God and if they are not in unity with God then we cannot be in unity
with them. This is why we should not be in full open fellowship with those who
call themselves a denomination or with a religious group that doesn’t follow
the NT pattern. Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t talk to them or try to
reach them and show them what the Bible teaches. I am saying that we shouldn’t
be sharing pulpits with them at our workshops, lectureships or swapping pulpits
with on the Lords day. Does it make since for eldership who is suppose to be
watching out for its flock and making sure that is feed the truth to allow a
false teacher to speak to flock? Even if they don’t speak a single word about
their man made belief just there mere presence and knowing who they are and
what they represent can influence the flock making some to start thinking that
what they stand for is ok. So we should be very careful of who we allow to
preach to our people and who join ourselves with in open fellowship.
I have also found it interesting how many of
the denominations that we have today don’t even call themselves by a name that
brings glory to God. Instead they name themselves after a man or act such as
baptism. This shows us just how divided denominations are. For instance when someone
asks person what is your faith. Some will say, I’m a Methodist, I’m a Mormon,
I’m a Baptist or I am a Lutheran. These kind of responses have division written
all over them. You see whenever are united with God according to his word, when
someone ask us what are faith is our response should simply be I am Christian,
nothing more or nothing less and when it comes to giving a designation for a
church it should be one that gives God glory after all according to Acts 20:7
Jesus purchased the church with own blood. The church belongs to him.
There are several
names given in the NT for designating a church. There is the
Now some might say
Cougan don’t you know that may be offending those who are in the denominations and
since we live in society were we are to be politically correct don’t you think
its unwise to speak on such matters? Well, I promise that I am not trying to
offend anyone I am just trying my best to preach the truth and preaching the
truth sometimes involves pointing out that denominations are a division and this
goes against God commands of being united in the faith.
Did you know that
Jesus had to deal with a similar question from his disciples? I want you notice
the question they asked him right after he had told those scribes and Pharisees
that were worshiping God in vain.
Matthew 15:12 Then
His disciples came and said to Him, "Do You know that the Pharisees were
offended when they heard this saying?"
13 But He answered and said, "Every plant which My
heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 "Let them alone. They are
blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall
into a ditch."
You see Jesus didn’t not
apologize for teaching the truth nor did he try to talk around the truth
because he understood better than anyone, that Gods way is the only way and
that mans way is like a blind man leading the blind who will end up in the
ditch. We don’t do our friends and loved ones in denominations any favors by
being politically correct or by walking on eggshells when it comes to God’s
truth because ignoring the problem isn’t gong to change God’s truth. We are
told to be shining lights and to be ready to teach others about God’s truth and
that is what we must learn to do. We may be the only person that has a chance
of planting a seed of truth with our friends or loved ones. We need to realize
that if we never throw the seed out there it will never have a chance to grow. So
don’t ever be afraid of speaking the truth.
Now the finally point I
want to make about being united or divided is the fact that religious division
is explicitly forbidden by the Word of God. In Paul’s letter to Corinthians he
was dealing with the problems of division. Notice what he says in,
1 Corinthians 1:10:10 Now I
plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all
speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that
you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. 11 For it has been
declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, that
there are contentions among you. 12
Now I say this, that each of you says, "I am of Paul," or "I am
of Apollos," or "I am of Cephas," or "I am of
Christ." 13 Is Christ
divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Paul was a man who
expressed his concern for the churches over and over again. In fact we learn
from Acts 20 that he even shed tears over his concerns for the church at
When allow ourselves to
be divided in different religious groups, worshiping in different ways, and
calling ourselves by different names all we are doing is causing confusion and
we all know that God is not author of confusion. So, it is imperative as
Christians today that we don’t accept denomationalism because God doesn’t want his people to be
divided. If you don’t get anything else out of this lesson I want you to
understand this one point from our lesson. The only way that we can truly be
united with God and with each other is by allowing God’s word and his word only
to be our guide. If we add or take away from his authority we will not be in
unity with him. This also means that we should not be in open fellowship
spiritually with those who choose to divide themselves from God’s pattern of
worship. Again, so I am not misunderstood I am not talking about ceasing from
reaching out to them but we should not be sharing our pulpits with them or
doing things that imply that we agree with additions or subtractions from God’s
Word.
From this lesson we have
seen with clarity that God wants his people to be united and not divided. I
want to close this lesson out by reading part of Jesus prayer to the father for
us to be united.
John 17:14 "I
have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of
the world, just as I am not of the world.
15 "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world,
but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 "They are not of the
world, just as I am not of the world. 17
"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 "As You sent Me into the
world, I also have sent them into the world.
19 "And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they
also may be sanctified by the truth. 20
" I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me
through their word; 21
"that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You;
that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent
Me. 22 "And the glory
which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are
one: 23 "I in them, and
You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know
that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. 24 "Father, I desire that
they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My
glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the
world. 25 "O righteous
Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known
that You sent Me. 26
"And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that
the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."