Series: I Love My Church The Power of ALL 4-2-17 By

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Series: I Love My Church The Power of ALL 4-2-17 By Pastor Keshia Heath

Today I want to continue with our I LOVE MY CHURCH series that we are in, how many of you love this church? We have an amazing church, amazing Pastors, staff, leadership, and volunteers! We are truly blessed to be a part of such an awesome church! Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 ESV “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” My teaching today is titled, The Power of ALL. We are talking about unity. How many of you know there is more power in multiple, you can do greater things with more people. It’s really a given that you can get more done, more accomplished when you have more people, and not just more people but more people that are in unity with one another. Think about a basketball team-I used to play middle school through high school, every week we got together practiced together, conditioned together, and learned different plays offensive and defensive. This helped us grow to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses as a team. We also, built relationship outside of the court to grow closer and be more unified. What would happen if we didn’t do that? We would go out on the court and have no idea how to work with one another. We would not be successful in the slightest and we would not be able to accomplish what we set out to do! It goes the same with us as a church, Church is more than just coming in a building, signing songs, and listening to a sermon, church is about us being a family, it’s about praying with one another, building relationships with one another outside of this building, it’s about lifting up one another when we are down or hurting, it’s about rejoicing with one another when great things come our way!

Church is about Unity. And there is POWER that is released when there is unity. Let’s look at some examples of this in the Word, starting with Paul and Silas. Acts 16:22-31 22A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas, and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. 23They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. 24So the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks. 25Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off! 27The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself. 28But Paul shouted to him, “Stop! Don’t kill yourself! We are all here!” 29The jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household. The scripture doesn’t say that just Paul or just Silas was praying or singing hymns, they were together and they were both praying and singing hymns to God. We see here where there was power in their unity, as they were praying and singing together an earthquake came and set them free! Okay let’s read about Peter for a minute. Acts 12:1-16 About that time King Herod Agrippa Greek Herod the king. He was the nephew of Herod Antipas and a grandson of Herod the Great. began to persecute some believers in the church. 2He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword. 3When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. (This took place during the Passover celebration. Greek the days of unleavened bread.) 4Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. 5But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.

6The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. 7Suddenly,there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists. 8Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me,” the angel ordered. 9So Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn’t realize it was actually happening. 10They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this opened for them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him. 11Peter finally came to his senses. “It’s really true!” he said. “The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jewish leaders or the Jewish people. had planned to do to me!” 12When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer. 13He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. 14When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone, “Peter is standing at the door!” 15“You’re out of your mind!” they said. When she insisted, they decided, “It must be his angel.” 16Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally opened the door and saw him, they were amazed. I truly believe the reason why God set Peter free that night was because the church was gathering together to pray for him. Because they were in unity, they moved heaven on his behalf. Last story to look at is Esther. Esther 4:15-17 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16“Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.” 17So Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. Esther was able to enter the inner courts of the king and was granted favor, and the Jews were saved, but look at what happened, all of the Jews began to fast and pray together on her behalf, and things happened!

I wanted to share these with you so you can have a better picture of what I mean when I say there is Power in ALL. Something incredible happens when we are able to come together, with one mind, one focus, one heart. There should be no division among us. Even though we all come different backgrounds, different families, different neighborhoods, we are all brothers and sisters. No one is greater than the other. In all of these stories we see that powerful things happened because there were more than one person in unity with one another. The Bible tells us that where 2 or 3 are gathered He will be there in the midst of them, not one, but two. Honestly I could go on and on about how much the Word of God emphasizes UNITY for the children of God. The question is how do we maintain and have that unity? First things first, there must be LOVE. This is something Pastor Brendon spoke on last Sunday. God EXPECTS us to love one another. Love binds us together. John 13:34-35 “34So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” We must love one another. It says it right there. We need to be better at expressing love to each other. Loving each other despite what we see in the physical, but looking with spiritual eyes, looking to the heart, loving past all of our shortcomings. This one brings me to my second point. Watching our Mouths. 1 Corinthians 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. To me one of the biggest causes of division, is the things that come out of our mouth we all know that our tongue holds the power of life and death,

that’s how much the words that come out of your mouth towards or about your brothers and sisters affect this house. If you are over there talking bad about the person that sits on the other side of the church, or about one of the leaders, then you are bringing division to this house. We have to be careful about what we say. Just like I taught on in ELEV8 last Wednesday for our “Weights: What’s Holding You Back?” series, there is Weight to our Words. We see a perfect example of this in the story of the woman who was caught in adultery, the Pharisees and Teachers of the religious law, threw her in front of Jesus, saying “the law of Moses tells us to stone her, what do you have to say?” Jesus then tells them that whoever is without sin can cast the first stone. We see here where Jesus is the only one without sin, the only one who had the right to throw the first stone, but instead He got down to where she was, so He could look her in the eyes with His love, He told her just as they don’t condemn you, neither do I, and told her to go and sin no more. We have the power to injure or heal, divide or restore with our words! We want to bring people closer to Jesus, not push them further away. Thirdly, PRAYER Prayer for one another. There is a connection that takes place when you pray for one another, it is a spiritual connection. I can’t explain it but I know that it does. You can be praying for someone and they may not know it but for some reason there is a connection there. As you pray for this church, this family, there are times where the Holy Spirit may put someone on your heart, so you feel led to call or text them jut to check in on them, or share a verse with them, which continually causes unity to take place. How I see it, is whenever we are all praying for one another, there is this spiritual rope that begins to connect each of us together, so tightly that no enemy can come between us. Praying together. There is so much power that comes when the church is united in prayer. We saw it in the stories that we read before. They found favor, they saw God move mightily on their behalf when there was two or more in prayer. When we are in unity nothing can stop us!

Cinder-Block illustration You see the enemy will bring obstacles; offense, depression, hurt, anger, loneliness, and so many more, and we can’t just expect our Pastor to move it all on her own, with one it is nearly impossible to get it out of the way, but when there are two, three…it is easily removed! I hope that you understand what God is telling us today. If we want to see God move even more in this house, in this city, we have got to be unified. Looking past the physical and seeing in the spiritual that we are all brothers and sisters, no one greater than the other. Let’s come together in unity church! There is nothing greater, then when you come to church on Sunday and Wednesday and feel apart, feel connected with one another. And then when we praise and worship, when we pray the force of that unity breaking through to heaven is powerful!