One in Christ

Amen. Let’s give it up for our college. Please be praying for Alex Chloe Ryan Zain faith Derek john as they are doing collegiate ministry on your behalf at U. N. L. This next couple weeks. This is go time. So welcome college students. If you’re on the livestream, welcome. If you’re from Solar Church, welcome. If you’re from Restoration City Church, welcome. If this is your first time visiting us welcome. There’s a lot going on this morning. It’s our first ever joint merge church worship experience. So if you’re new or you like more info, we have questions you have or would like to have coffee if one of us staff or one of the pastors at our church, we have a connect table there in the lobby, feel free to fill out some physical card or a QR card or, or you can meet people the old fashioned way handshakes and scheduling on your own discretion. So welcome. Thank you for coming. It’s an honor to be a few this morning. My name is mike. I’m on the five pastors that leads Solar Church and this is an exciting morning for all of us. First impressions are being made and it’s good. I’ve uh, I don’t always hit on first impression. Sometimes I swing and I miss heavily on first impressions. Um, I think a couple of years ago, I don’t remember exactly a while ago, I went to a gospel coalition training lunch teaching and I saw dan coke and I thought I want to shake dance hand. So I went over today and I shook his hand. I took a neon like dan, just confession. It’s good for the soul dan. I uh, I can’t sleep at night some nights and you know his past three of things in your mind and so what I do is I, I listened to you preach and dan looked at me and I’m like, and then I listened to three or four of your sermons and you wrecked my whole night and you wreck the next morning because I didn’t sleep at night and we have a, it’s an honor to be a few, it’s an honorable to split the first service together, split our time. Um, uh, split this message with dan coke so we’re in for a treat. I’m glad dan is gonna be my pastor, I’m glad dan is going to be in my life going forward. This is a blessing for us on many levels church. So dan and I want to kick off a joint shared church service together with a shared message. This is a big moment for us. So let’s pray, let’s pray. There’s a lot going on but there’s a lot more going on God’s mind. So let’s, let’s pray God, we just commit this time to you, we just want to glorify your name, make your name famous, we just wanna be used by you um, at your capacity that you want us to be used. We just want to be available for you, use us to advance the cause of christ to advance the mission to make disciples help us to live a life and be found faithful at the end of our life. We just love you. We thank you for the RCC faith family and thank you for the solar faith family. Thank you for the new family members that are new to our church that walked in this morning. I thank you for college kids Lord, I pray you’re writing a story in all of our lives. I prayed you would write and unite our stories together as one unified front to reach the lost and advance the cause of christ we purchased bless and lead us and protect us as a church. We commit this to you in jesus name, amen. All right. I have 12 more minutes that I’m going to wrap it up so I’m gonna move quickly into my passage that I’m looking at if you would read with me up here or turn to Ephesians for I think this really sets the stage for what this message is going to be about. The title Damn and I have picked is one in christ and this is from Ephesians for starting a verse one, it says this therefore I paul a prisoner in the Lord urge you to live worthy of the calling you have received with all humility and gentleness with patients bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body, one spirit just as you were called to one hope at your calling one lord one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is above all and through all and in all the picture here that is painted as an amazing, powerful, compelling story of narrative of one in christ, how this church in Ephesians, this effusion church should be unified force, a unified sledgehammer to bring the gospel of the kingdom of God to their city. It is an amazing, compelling message of oneness and unity at every level of the kingdom of heaven into the kingdom, a man, how we should be a unified front as a church and that brings us to our first point. One faith in christ jesus, one faith in jesus. Our first point, if you look at me at acts for verse 12, it says this, there is salvation in no one else and there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved. This is a merger, this is a marriage of of two faith families who have one Lord King, Jesus is the head of those families. We have one unifying factor from both churches and that’s what christ has done in you in your life, What God is doing to reach you and draw you closer to him to grow you to spiritual maturity, we have a shared common heritage of one faith, built on christ jesus believers, we have this common need for christ, we know that we have a common dependence on the work of jesus believers. We gather and talk and speak and think and pray to jesus and then we scattered throughout the city to all of our community groups, all over the city, all 11 or so community groups. I don’t know how many in the college, a whole bunch of community groups that we have that look and focus on the personal work of your relationship with jesus christ. We worship jesus, we sing to jesus, we pray to jesus by jesus by him. This church exists, your faith exists, your walk with christ exists because of the work of jesus. We have a shared space at the foot of the cross and there’s room for all of us at the foot of jesus, there’s room for all of us at the foot of the cross of what christ has done in your life and what he’s drawing you to him, we have a shared common father figure in our souls. Our bones is jesus christ, I have a shared faith in jesus. There’s a core truth here. We have one faith in jesus, we have a cord faith in jesus, we are saved through jesus, we are saved by jesus in jesus because of jesus, you got in this christian game because jesus work in your life drawing you and wooing you with his chords of love, jesus in your life is what is compelling you to this moment in your life, and jesus in your life will compel you forward in your life, jesus, that unifying banner, that rally cry of the gospel, the christian church for the individuals. And as a whole, churches under the umbrella of jesus christ lives are changed through jesus, peoples are made disciples and growing maturity through jesus, there’s many counterfeit gospels, many counterfeit fake news narratives about who jesus is and who jesus not, and what actually saves people. Look at me at john 14 6, jesus talking, he says this, I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me, jesus that have all and all be all, end all of everything that is occurring in your life as a christian. It’s jesus christ, We have this common faith in jesus. If you’re new to us, grab that, connect table, you can’t pick it up. It’s too heavy, grab a grab a gospel booklet that says the Gospel on. It explains in detail what this relationship looks like with Jesus, grab that booklet, we’d love to grab coffee. If you can talk through that with you, we have an essential unifying factor of jesus christ. The most essential thing of the christian walk is who the personal work of jesus is and we have that shared heritage that shared faith in, jesus christ. So this next next passages, I’m going to look at, I like to ask you a question to help you focus on something. How old are you? I’m 36 I’m 36 years old, doesn’t matter what I do every day. I get older every day. I get a little grayer, a little more wrinkly, er a little slower, a little softer. I’m just getting older as I get old. Here’s a, here’s a photo of a app you’ll probably enjoyed years ago when it dropped to show my maturity. I’m not doing the face, the face app of all the other five pastors in our church. I’ve not done, I’m just second just to me right now, but I just get older. I just looks like my father on the left. You’re right, that looks like my older, my father, but how old are you physically? How old are you? Spiritually, I got saved as a 10 year old boy. I started in the bible when I was 13, I started to be actually disciple and making steps in my faith intentionally. At the age of 18 I started sharing my faith maybe when I was 20 I mean, but how old am I physically? How old are my spiritually? That’s not a linear answer. That’s not as cut and dry as my license says I’m 36 years old, how old am I spiritually, those two numbers might not be the same because when you take steps and you grow just because you have been saved at a certain age and time goes by, it does not mean you’re making progress and progressing in. Your faith does not mean you’re growing up spiritually. Like the bible calls us to like paul exhorts his churches to to be printing and making disciples who are fully mature in christ, that is our destiny. That’s our design as people to live a life that grows us to spiritual maturity. How old are you spiritually? I think there’s a warning, there’s a danger. There’s a threat to what what causes churches have trouble your spiritual maturity. Look at that in a second, I’m just trying to dramatically create a little tension. Let’s go to the next point here we have one family, one family, a common faith in jesus and we have a common family, one family, the church, your church family is the one family. You get a pick, your church, family is your family and you need to act like it christian, you need to act like you have a family and your family is growing. I remember growing up with seven siblings, there’s a time when we all felt around set around mom and dad’s table and then as time went on, my older brother married someone else and that was the pinnacle of how big the Whitney dynasty was. And then one by one, all those sisters married non witness and left us and our family has been shrinking since, but it’s changed, it’s grown, but we have a family that’s now like 14 adults and I don’t know 30 some 40 grandpa. It’s insane that our family has grown. My parents family has grown dramatically. Our spiritual faith family has a shared heritage of Jesus and we have one family, this church, one unified church and there’s room at the table for more and our church is growing here. Let’s look at Acts 2 42 it says this. They devoted themselves is like the first early church. They devoted themselves to the apostles teachings, to the breaking of bread, to fellowship and prayer. Everyone was filled with auto and many wonders and signs are being performed them through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed them the needs to proceed the proceeds to all as any had need every day. They devote themselves to meeting together in the temple and they broke bread from house to house, they ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people every day the Lord added to the numbers, those who were being saved. So hold that in your mind. Let’s look at the second passage, Philippians two says this. If then there is any encouragement in christ any consolation of love, if there’s any fellowship with the spirit, if any affliction and mercy. Make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, United Spirit intent in one purpose, do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, consider others as more important than you yourselves even you consider other is more important than you. Everyone should look out to none of their own interests, but also for the interest of others. This core truth about the faith family is that God grows it, God expands it. But not all family members are at the same level. Spiritually speaking, there’s there’s non christians that attend to church, there’s baby infant christians, there’s young toddler christians, there’s young young adult christians, there’s teenager christians are kind of awkward and gangly, spiritually speaking, but they got so much potential and they’re growing so fast. And then there’s young adult christians that are caring for baby christians, then they’re spiritually mature christians. There’s this progression of christians growing from baby infant in the faith to fully grown mature in the faith and we’re progressing and advancing and growing in our walk of God. This there’s this core unity, lived out in a practical christ like love as you love your faith family. We have one church, one heart, we have one church, we share the same love for jesus, the same affections on the essentials and the non essentials. We are one, the United theologically United practically United Church, we have one heart in relationships of brothers and sisters in the faith, you have brothers and sisters in this room. Spiritual brothers and sisters Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers in this room that can encourage and comfort in your soul as you progress in your walk with God. And we have one voice and we just worship together. Worshiping on the livestream at your house is interesting and maybe fun worshipping at home is different. I’ve done it twice this last year, but here worshipping with full hearts. The worship with your brothers and sisters as a unified experience where we have so much in common as christians. Christianity is the main religion that sing songs to God and songs to each other and praising God and focusing our attention on what God has done in our lives. But there’s a warning here. We see this, there’s this ideal church and then there’s a real church and peter and paul the writing letters throughout your bible to the real practical nous of the church. And they both they they wrote this in and titus three, It says this, but avoid foolish debates about genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law because they are unprofitable and worthless, rejected divisive person after 1st and 2nd warning for, you know, that such a person has gone astray and his sinning his self condemned and there’s this reality that as the church is growing in health and vibrancy and life and people are going from Los to save and young adult to adult, from infant and toddler to making steps and growing in their faith. Some people are stuck spiritually and they aren’t growing through either sin or lies or bad theology or bad practices in their life. They refuse to grow up in their faith. And so it seems like churches can be driven by the squeaky wheel like a squeaky wheel. You’ve heard that phrase. Maybe it’s just a phrase my parents used and I hope not squeaky wheel gets the grease. Have you all heard that phrase? Okay, good. I feel disconnected. Some weeks of what I say, squeaky wheel gets the grease and a lot of churches squeaky wheels are young and immature christians get the attention of the whole entire church and that is appropriate to some degree. But there’s attention, their spiritual infants, toddlers and young adults don’t necessarily run this church. The spiritually mature fathers and mothers in the faith are leading this church as the leaders of the church as the pastors of the church and we love our pre christians, baby christians, young christians, but we need to keep making steps of growing to become like christ a fully mature Godly man or woman. There’s, there’s uh, there’s some commands in these passages in the bible about how we should embrace each other for practical christ like love as your spiritual family. We should learn your family’s names, you need to know your brother and sisters names. So we’re gonna bust out name tags during the barbecue right out a name tag right at your name, your name. big bold letters who you are and meet people’s names warm, be warm with each other, greet each other. Well don’t be cold. This is a family gathering. There’s an amazing feast of food greet each other. Well, shake each other’s hands, be hospitable and warm to each other, learn what you can pray for your family about your brother and sisters. Ask if there’s something you pray for each other about and be praying for each other. And as you get to know, people invite new people to join you and your family um, and at your home for a meal, invite new people in your community group as it makes sense. This is an exciting day and we as a church are excited to embrace everyone that just walked in here and all the people from first service are gonna pack this place down and have a massive fund fees together. So let’s pray and dan is gonna come up God, I thank you for today, thank you for the work you’ve been doing and both of these churches respectively and the work you’re gonna be doing with this unified church going forward. We just thank you for the capacity that is given from this merge the strength and the gifting that isn’t given from this word. I just thank you for dan, my brother, precious bless him as he brings the rest of our word here this morning. G. S name we pray, Amen. Hey man, thank you, Mike, thank you so much for that. Um, when Mike shared the story about when we first met and him asking or talking to me about listening to my sermons at night, when he couldn’t sleep. You know, the first thing that came to mind was like, oh great, I’m such a horrible creature that other pastors are listening to my sermon to put themselves to sleep. So that’s why I was, there was such an awkward look on my face. Mhm But you actually blessed me with what you said? So thanks for that. Um, so Mike and I have been grabbing lunch together almost weekly I think since about january maybe even before then I’m not so sure and we’ve been grabbing lunch and eating lunch at different places throughout the city. But a couple of weeks ago he texts me and he says, hey, let’s let’s get lunch again at our usual spot. And I’m like, mike, we’ve been eating all over the city, what’s our usual spot? And so I kinda, I was gonna text back something really snarky. But this is a practical discipleship lessons, spiritual maturity, right, sit, wait, be patient, be slow to speak or slow to become angry, right? And so it, it dawned on me like, oh yeah, the last time we met, we met at olive garden and we discovered for seven bucks, the two of us, two big dudes could eat as much soup and salad and breadsticks as we could possibly want. And in fact the first time we did it, the waiter just like loaded us with even more soup and salad and breadsticks and mints to take home. Now this isn’t an endorsement for Olive garden, but more of just kind of like the relationship we’ve had, I’m so thankful to be apart of this church and this pastoral pastoral team with Shane and Ben and Derek and and and to be pastored by those men and to be in this congregation with you and to see this merger really come together to glorify the Lord jesus christ because that’s really what it’s about. And so mike talking about this morning, how everything starts, how we come into the faith through the preaching of the gospel, responding by faith that jesus has paid the price for our sins that we now belong to him, that God is restoring us back to himself. And we begin this journey of following jesus, being his disciple needing to grow and to mature in him. And then he talked about how God just doesn’t ask us to do that alone, but that he brings us together as a family called the church and he puts his name on it and his spirit is here with us and when we worship him, all of Heaven, rejoices in the praise that we lift up to him as one family. So I’m so excited about that and I get to talk about the mission and the kingdom aspect of this. So, I’m going to begin by reading and john 17, beginning in verse six, it says I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world, Yours they were and you gave them to me. And they have kept your word now. They know that everything that you’ve given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me and they have received them and have come to know and truth that I came from you. And they have believed that you sent me. I’m praying for them. I’m not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me for they are yours, all mine are yours and yours are mine. And I am glorified in them and I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world. And I’m coming to you, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you’ve given me. They may be one Even as we are one. So, this passage comes from John Chapter 17, it’s often referred to as the high priestly prayer that Jesus praise right before he goes to the cross. And when you read this passage, one of the things that ought to stand out to you is the heart of God for his people. He says, they belong to me when something precious belong to you and you realize that something precious has been given to you, that it is now yours, it is under your possession, you care for it, you are mindful of it and jesus cares so much for his church that he is praying for her and schools get ready. Start up your parents praying for their Children praying for this upcoming academic year. The college students are coming into town and as we’ve been saying all morning praying for that mission field and and and even grandparents praying that their grandkids will stay on path in the faith, praying that their young ones will mature the right way and for a God honoring cause and purpose. And so that’s so exciting when we think about that and how we are called to pray and yet we see here Jesus praying for his church, praying for us, praying that we will be one, we would be one many parts but one and so he prays for his church. And when people tell me that they pray for me, that blesses my soul. But when I think about this passage and Hebrew 7 25 where it says jesus is still praying for you and I it blows my mind. It simply blows my mind God of the universe, praying for us, praying for this gathering, praying that you’ll give your heart to the teaching and preaching of his word, praying that you will sing with all of your heart mind and so praying that you will walk out the truth that are being unfolded to you, praying that as we move together as one new church that we would be one in him, jesus is praying for us, he’s praying for this merger, he’s praying for you and that simply blows my mind and I’m thankful that he not only praise for us, but he sent his spirit to help us to guide us, to strengthen us to be with us, to comfort us, to remind us to help us do the things that we then think we could ever do. You might talk about name tags, some of you are like man name tags. Now I have no excuse to go up and ask someone, you know how their day is going, how I could be praying for them. That’s really not my strength, guess what you need the Holy spirit, you need the spirit and he’ll help you. So thankful for this morning. So thankful for this merger. So many people have asked me, you know, pastoring Restoration city church and knowing that were emerging here is one new family, the sword church family people asking me caring about my soul and wondering how I’m doing through this whole process and I tell them I’m at peace. I feel such a piece about this. I know that the Lord is in this, I know that the Lord is leading us in this, I know that this is what the Lord is calling us to do and I’m at peace and I’m eating a lot of new faces. So exciting. I may forget your name, be patient with me, pray for me and I’m gonna ask the Holy Spirit to help me. It’s like Lord, you know that person, you know, I forgot but their precious to you, I’m just kidding there. Mhm. But you are precious to the war. Mhm. Look at me stumbling all over myself this morning, trying to not get too emotional up here. But this is really exciting. I’m at peace about this, This is amazing. This is about the glory of God when we pray through this as a leadership team. The time that we spent doing uh sifting through various conversations and theological points and doctrinal points and ministry philosophy points just such a piece and I’m so thrilled to be with you. Yeah, so one in christ, that is the objective. And so as I said earlier, mike laid out that it’s one shared faith as a result of the Gospel. The Gospel makes us one in christ. The Gospel makes us one family in christ. The gospel leads us on one mission in christ, resulting in one kingdom, the kingdom of the Lord, jesus christ. And so as God’s people, that’s what we’re called to. And so let’s look at this one mission aspect of our calling as we were to be unified. When we say one, we’re talking about unity, we’re not talking about uniformity, which means everybody has to look the same, you know, mike showed his face app up there, mike is gifted enough to have a picture of a younger self, in an older self. Me, I just have an older self. Mm But we’re one we’re still one right? That’s what we mean, unity. When we talk about being one and so one mission, that’s what God has called us to. I want to look at Matthew 28 versus 18 through 20 this passage is called the Great Commission passage and but this is the mission for every christian, every church, anyone who calls on the name of the Lord, jesus christ has to be about this mission, jesus right before he ascends into heaven, gives this commission to his disciples and it is to be a commission for you and I and for future generations, it is not something that we can lay aside, it is not something that we can forget about and say, you know what, I really want to do this right here for God. Well, whatever it is, god has called you to do, it ought to lead to more disciples being made, the knowledge of christ increasing and so let’s look at this passage now to 28 18 through 20 and says and jesus came and said to them all, authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me now that we’re all in the greek means all mhm You guys will get it at some point, but he says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. That means he hasn’t given any authority to the devil here, right? He’s taking that authority away. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to christ. That’s what jesus is saying right here in the great commission and what does he want us to do in light of this revelation that he has been given all authority over the earth? Just go therefore and make disciples of the nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always to the end of the age. So with all of that authority, what does he want us to do? Go and preach the gospel, that is our mission to preach the Gospel and to make disciples that love the Lord that know the Lord that will obey the Lord, that love his word and his people. That’s the great commission. He lays this out for every individual christian and church and may look different based on your assignment in the kingdom. But in result is that disciples are made people love the Lord, jesus christ, Some will see countless disciples made others, we’ll see, you know, a few disciples made here and there. It’s not a measuring contest of who’s more valuable. It’s simply about each christian carrying this mission being committed to the proclaiming of the gospel and representing the Lord jesus, christ, and seeing disciples may in his name, that’s what it’s about. God is thankful for every disciple made in his name. Okay. Mhm. That’s our mission. But we need to be warned, we need to be careful that we don’t suffer what we’ll call mission drift. Now, what does mission drift drift? Right, maybe I it was because we were out at the lake yesterday, the college students, it’s adrift and stuff like that, maybe, I don’t know. Anyway, mission drift. What his mission drift. Mission drift is what happens when we become distracted from pursuing the primary mission of the church in order to pursue something else. And mission drift occurs when we want I have a list of examples of when mission drift occurs, and one of them, it occurs when we conflate debating politics with preaching the Gospel. When we conflate debating politics with preaching the gospel. Now, we’re not saying don’t debate politics. We’re not saying that politics aren’t important, but what we are saying is that winning someone to our political side maybe of a benefit to society, Maybe, maybe not, depends on what side you’re on. But the ultimate goal is that people will want to christ because your political view or convictions don’t save jesus does. Yeah, again, we’re not seeing politics are not important. We’re not saying that you can’t debate politics. We’re simply saying, don’t conflate you’re debating of politics with preaching the gospel. That is an example of mission drift. Mission drift occurs when we choose comfort preference tradition over being on mission for the gospel. Whatever style of music you grew up in my grandma’s church saying this way and they did it this way. Um maybe you don’t like the kind of doughnuts that are offered, you know, you prefer cream field, not glazed, whatever the case may be, those kind of preferences man, we can get distracted by them and it can get us off track and can lead to in fighting and ways in which we shouldn’t even be having an argument and we forget that man, we exist, glorify God to make disciples for him. Mission drift can occur when we confuse individual passion and or gifting with our primary purpose of making disciples. God is uniquely wired. Each and every one of you with certain passions. We each have various gift ing’s, but sometimes we can elevate our passions and our gift things as if they are a true representation of the Gospel. And when we do that we are suffering mission drift and God wants us to keep in mind that your passions and your gifting are to serve the cause of christ kingdom And we have one mission mission drift can occur when we get stuck in the comparison cycle, always measuring ourselves with others. Our guests are role, our performance, paul says in his letter to the Corinthians that were unwise were foolish when we live that way because it betrays the prayer of jesus, that we are to be one and that each member in the body is precious to God. You know, I have five kids and they were each once a baby and I did not get their permission to share a story. So I won’t give an exact story. But I will say this having had each of them as tiny little babies in the family. I didn’t measure their value based on what they could do for the family. And yet if we were to have left one of those babies in a place and moved on, not saying that that has happened or anything like that, You guys can assume whatever you want about us as parents. Um, but it would really tear us up. We would do whatever we could get back to that baby. So we do not compare ourselves with one another based on who’s got to you know this gift or who can do this or who, you know, you know, there’s there’s a wisdom in terms of the division of labour, but we are going to get stuck in this cycle of measuring are worth and value. Um, by comparing ourselves, we gotta get we got to avoid that cycle if we’re going to be one unified church that glorifies christ. And lastly we want to if we want to avoid mission drift, we have to we have to avoid the tendency to do good works without ever mentioning the Gospel. I know there’s a famous quote, you know, preach the Gospel always and when necessary use words. Um that’s actually not preaching the gospel if you’re not using words because the actual meaning of Gospel is good news. It’s an announcement of good news. So you need words kind of need words to announce the good news and to tell people what it means and how it applies. But we do want to do good works. We’ve been created to do good works in christ, jesus and your good works matter. In fact, your good works can actually plow the ground for the proclamation of the Gospel. So that’s how we ought to think about it. But if we simply just commit to doing good works without ever mentioning the Gospel, we will suffer mission drift All right. So moving on from mission drift, Philippians 1 27 says this paul gives us a pretty bold challenge to avoid mission drift and to remain as one church, he says only let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of christ. So that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear view that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel right here, the scripture again, calling us to unity to be one family on one mission for christ and it says that we are to be united in heart, that our minds are to be united and that are striving and efforts though we have different roles. Different gifting is different passions are striving and efforts are to be unified one body accomplishing one mission to glorify christ. So let’s embrace this mission together as one new church, restoration city church and sewer church becoming sewer church family. Let’s embrace this together. Amen a man. So if we embrace this mission and that leads us to pursue one kingdom because that’s what it’s about. The kingdom of christ not dance, kingdom mike’s kingdom not the kingdom of your favorite celebrity or whatever but the kingdom of christ Matthew 633 says but seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. So the gospel Makes us one family on one mission About one Kingdom above all else that jesus is glorified and are being in our loving of one another and our existing together in our worship together jesus is glorified. People say they are followers of jesus christ that’s so important. I want to leave you with this um statement about the kingdom of God and then I’m going to close the Kingdom of God is personal in that it calls every individual christian to play a specific role. The kingdom of God is transcendent and that no individual gift or individual christian or individual church or generation is able to perfectly represented on their own. We need one another. We stand on the shoulders of previous generations, we are carrying the baton in our generation so that future generations can go even further and our unity in christ is so important to us accomplishing that mission. Amen. And then let us pray. Yeah, Father, I thank you for this time. I thank you that you have called us to be one. I thank you that you treasure your people, each individual and us as a corporate body, You treasure us and that you put christ name on us and you give us your holy spirit. So God help us to walk this out, well help us to love one another, well help us to pray for each other and pray for this merger going forward and pray that the gospel of bounds more and more through this church, we asked us in jesus name, Amen.