00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Well it's good to be back with
you here this week. I had it planned that we would
end the series on unity and division in the church in February and
Lord willing start a new series in March but the winter weather
had other plans. So we'll go ahead and dive into
unity and division one more week here before we start a new series. We've been obviously going through
first Corinthians chapters 1 through 3 on this particular subject. As we have gone through those
verses, we have seen the pitfalls of the wisdom of the world. We
have seen the Apostle Paul show the necessity of the work of
the Spirit of God for us to be given spiritual understanding.
We have seen the glory of God and the greatness of His wisdom
as the unifying factors for the church in Christ. And now I want
us to turn our attention to 1 Peter as we continue and close out
this series. I want us to specifically look
at 1 Peter chapter 3 verses 8 through 12. And before diving into that
text, I want to open up a couple of things here as far as context
that this passage is placed in. As we saw back a few months ago
whenever we discussed the doctrine of suffering. Peter is writing
to a congregation that is undergoing persecution, that they are experiencing
the animosity of the world. In chapter 1 verse 6 he says
that the church is going through various trials. In chapter 3
he actually spends a lot of time opening up specific issues and
specific situations that these Christians need to know that
they must suffer faithfully. for the sake of the glory of
Christ, and he actually urges the believers to look to the
Lord as their example and to follow Him. But leading up to
this particular section that we'll cover here tonight, Peter
has addressed specific situations in the text. If you look at chapter
2, verses 13 through 18, you can see that he addresses submission
to authority, and he primarily dives into how Christians should
relate to the Verses 18-25 discusses masters and servants. Verses
1-7 of chapter 3, that references husbands and wives. And so he's
given a lot of time really focusing in on these specific individual
situations here leading to our passage. And our text is actually
a fundamental transition point in the letter of 1 Peter. because
he begins to address the believers at large, not just these specific
situations. And what he is going to do is
to give us the marks of Christian fellowship. He is going to show
us the character qualities that should characterize us individually
as believers, but also collectively as local churches. And so following
what Peter outlines here, it promotes unity in the Church,
it honors the Lord Jesus Christ, and it expresses true Christian
fellowship amongst the saints and the Lord, and especially
being addressed in the midst of persecution. This text is
particularly amazing to show the character qualities that
Christ wants His Church to exhibit. And so let's dive in here and
read 1 Peter 3, verses 8 through 12. Finally, all of you have unity
of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble
mind. Do not repay evil for evil or
reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. For to this
you were called that you may obtain a blessing. So as we said,
and evidenced by this phrase, all of you, Peter is addressing
the saints at large within the congregation. And the very first aspect that
he mentions in this passage is unity of mind. And this provides
a foundational point for us to consider, which is my first point
as we walk through this passage here this evening, and it is
the centrality of biblical doctrine. To be unified means biblically
that you are grounded in the truth of Scripture together for
the glory of Christ. We obviously saw the importance
of that as we walk through 1 Corinthians and we saw the elevation that
Paul gives to the wisdom of God and to the scripture. But I want
you to notice how that truth plays out in this passage. That
really whenever Peter mentions good and evil and righteousness
and unrighteousness, what is undergirding that is the fact
that scripture is our sufficient standard. You'll see how verse
9 says, not to repay evil for evil. Verse 10, we are to keep
our tongue from evil and our lips from speaking deceit. Verse
11, turn away from evil and do good. Verse 12, the eyes of the
Lord are on the righteous, but his face is against those who
do evil. The entire premise of pursuing
that which is good and shunning that which is evil is based upon
the sufficiency of Scripture because it is our standard. How
else are you going to know what is good as opposed to what is
evil? instead of coming to the Word
of God itself. There is no other true standard.
And so, the reality of holding fast to biblical doctrine is
undergirding everything within this particular text. And so,
whenever Peter says, have unity of mind, we're absolutely right
to understand that as being anchored in Scripture and in biblical
doctrine. And so, how do you as a Christian
undergo difficult periods of suffering? You know, that's the
context Peter is writing here as a church going through suffering.
Well, fundamentally, you must be anchored in the Word. You
must have a deep understanding of Scripture that guides everything
in your life, that keeps your feet upon the path of righteousness.
It's the discerning light by which you're able to see the
schemes of Satan and all of the temptations that are put in your
path. enables you to discern truth
from error. It is our strength to live for
the glory of God, even in the midst of difficult moments like
this. If there is ultimately one area
where we individually are not thinking biblically or where
a local church is not thinking biblically, that is the chink
in the armor through which Satan will try to come and to take
up his crafty schemes. And so we must see here the commitment
to the Lord, the upholding of biblical sufficiency leads to
unity. You know, Peter is making the
same point that we saw in the Apostle Paul. And it's almost
like they were inspired by the same God or something like that,
you know, that their their writings are incredibly consistent. Whenever
you're living through this type of a period of persecution, There
will be all kinds of difficulties that arise, all kinds of doctrinal
situations that come to the forefront. For one thing, there will be
heretics, there will be false teachers coming into the church
trying to cause disunity. Darkness will creep in trying
to pervert the light. That's why we can't be unequally
yoked. That's why we have to guard ourselves. For another
thing, during these times there is the world trying to ridicule
you for your It's not just that the world dislikes what you're
doing. They actually have to come against
you. And as the persecution ramps up, the overall hostility against
Christianity, it continues to increase and to increase and
to increase. And the more they want you to
compromise, the world will laugh at you for simply holding a belief
because the Bible says so. Even though we see that as the
foundation for unity, the world laughs at that. I remember a
friend of mine getting into a discussion around the issue of homosexuality
back a little while ago, and he just simply cited the scripture
in that discussion where the Bible very clearly says that
it's a sin. And an individual told him that
it was dangerous to believe something simply because the scripture
says so. Now hold on a second. It's not
dangerous to believe something because God has revealed it in
his word. It's dangerous to believe something
simply because a man says it. However, if we as believers,
if we compromise, if we back down when the attacks of the
world come, whether it's animosity like that or it's all out persecution,
then we will not be unified. And as a different situation
during these periods, you have all kinds of ethical situations
that arise, what do you do and how do you be faithful to Christ
in the midst of all these situations? And if you and I and everyone
else and every other church is simply trying to do what we think
is right in our own eyes, then we're going to be going in a
thousand different directions because we have different ideas.
But whenever we lay aside those opinions of our flesh and submit
to scripture, that's when we have unity. When an individual
mistreats us, we go to chapter and verse to see how we should
handle it. Whenever there's an unjust law
coming from the government, we look at the scripture and we
see examples of civil disobedience and examples of how we should
undertake those situations. That brings unity. That brings
a unity of mind together. That's the foundational point
here that's going to undergird everything else in this passage.
If we're going to stand strong, then we must be rooted in the
word. Now, before we move on to point number two here, are
there any questions or thoughts or comments on this particular
point? Point number two, we see the
character and the necessity of Christian fellowship. You'll
notice that after verse eight, where Peter gives the command
for unity, He goes on to actually list various traits that he wants
the church to be marked by. And first of all here he says
sympathy. The King James Version translates
this as having compassion for one another, which I think summarizes
Peter's point here better in this particular text. The church
is to be marked by sympathy, by compassion for each other,
which fundamentally comes from Christ himself. How could you
not be compassionate towards those whom our Lord has redeemed?
How can we not be compassionate towards our brothers and sisters
knowing that Christ himself has given his life for them? We might
be tempted to think that compassion is only something that you show
whenever somebody is in a dire situation or whenever they're
in a difficult period of life, but that really is not the case.
It's a trait that we should be continually demonstrating in
our lives towards others, that we're always looking for an opportunity
to help other individuals. Our focus is on serving others
and our focus is on blessing them and encouraging them in
Christ and especially those amongst the saints. The local church
should be a place where people are looking to continually bless
one another. It's good for us to go to those
great lengths to help one another as Christians. Next we see brotherly
love mentioned here as well which helps us to know that Peter is
talking about all of these traits. fundamentally within the context
of the local church. And so certainly we should exhibit
these things at all times. Yes, be compassionate, be loving
at all times, but his emphasis here in this context is primarily
within the Christian fellowship, within the church. The Greek
word here is philadelphos, which literally means a love amongst
the brethren. It comes from two words, one
of which is philos, which means a dear friend. And the other
is Adelphos, which means brother. And taken together, they mean
to express a brotherly love for the saints. It's a pure love
that comes from Christ, who is himself pure. It's a deep love
that Christ himself has exhibited towards us, for he has loved
us profoundly. He has loved us deeply. In fact,
the Christian love, it's to be so deep that our calling is to
seek to love as Christ has loved. The Lord made this clear in John
13, 34 through 35. I knew a commandment I give to
you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You
also are to love one another. By this, all people will know
that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
And so the calling of Christians is to pattern our love after
the love of our Lord. It's a clear testimony to the
loss that we have a sound, deep, biblical love for the glory of
Christ. This is something that local
churches truly have to focus on maintaining. It's something
that you can become distracted from just simply by the busyness
of life, that you can quickly have your your glance taken away
from being locked in on this objective to other things. Other
activities that if we're honest many times don't really matter
in the end. That our love, our commitment
can grow cold and that is why we must focus on this command
given here in the scripture. That this is something that we
must intentionally pursue after. You know, meet with other believers
throughout the week. Like go buy their lunch, come
early to church just to visit and to fellowship and to encourage
others and stay afterwards. All of these type of things and
all these type of activities are just basic ways that we can
love one another as believers. It's not something that just
happens on Sundays. Essentially what we're called
to do is to do life together, to point each other to Christ.
That is showing brotherly love. I remember back in 2020, whenever
my grandmother passed away, we had a lot of Christians who were
trying to encourage my family and I were coming to love and
to bring food and to pray and all of those things. And you
know what really stood out to me was three widows from the
local church who came to just visit with our family. They brought
food and they stayed for an hour and they put up with all of the
harassment from our little dog licking them and wanting attention
and everything. And they just sit there, and
they visited with us. And it really was just an example
of a few individuals just trying to show Christian love, just
being there for someone when they had lost a loved one. And
a lot of times, that's what the love of the church looks like,
just simply going to be with someone whenever they've just
had a loved one passed away, reminding them of the goodness
of God, of the sovereignty of God. and praying for them and
helping them as you're able. However, this is not something
that's for those difficult moments alone. We are always continually
called to brotherly love. A biblical church seeks to find
joy in helping one another, not only when persecution breaks
out, not only when a loved one passes away or something like
that, but at all times. And I want you to notice the
next aspect Peter mentions here in verse 8. He says that we must
have a tender heart. The King James Version translates
this as be pitiful, which I find a bit humorous because in our
modern day English that sounds like we're supposed to be pathetic
or something along those lines. But the idea of being communicated
is nothing like that, but rather that we're to be sympathetic,
we're to show great kindness towards others, that our heart
should not be hard towards those in need, kind and generous, that
the local church should be a place of giving. Obviously we're wise,
we don't want to, it would be unwise for example for us to
give a thousand dollars in cold cash to someone we know is just
going to go around and turn it and spend it on illegal drugs
or something like that. We might help them in another
way by taking them to the grocery store and buying food or something
like that. So we certainly want to exercise
wisdom. But the local church should be
a place marked for generosity, marked for this kind of sympathy.
Paul in Galatians 6.10, he says, So then as we have opportunity,
let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of
the household of faith. And so Paul very clearly says
it's good for us to do good to all men. But a particular emphasis
is placed upon the saints, is placed upon the local church.
And this type of a heart, it takes cultivation, it takes sanctification
to develop this type of an attitude. That you and I must intentionally
seek to be aware of someone's greatest need and to try to help
them. You know, the person next to
you in the pew hopefully is a solid Bible-believing Christian In
which case they do not need salvation because they've already been
justified by the blood of Christ. They've already been redeemed.
But if we're trying to help those outside of the church, the greatest
need that they have is to be saved by the gospel. And so the
gospel should be at the center of it all. As an illustration,
you know, there are many faithful Christians, many faithful pastors,
faithfully fighting the issue of abortion. In our current day,
those who have abortion clinics near them, they'll go out and
they'll plead with these women, urging them not to take the life
of the child. In many cases, they're ready
to take on the child if the woman actually decides to go and to
have the baby, or they're willing to help her out in any way that
they can. But the gospel is central in
those conversations. So they're willing to help, but
fundamentally they're proclaiming the gospel message, they're bringing
the gospel to bear in that scenario. That's a good example of the
church helping those in need, helping a situation while also
meeting the greatest need of their soul. But if the church
is not willing to help those within its walls, it's certainly
not going to have a passion to reach those outside in terms
of assisting people, wanting to have a passion for proclaiming
the gospel and all those things. And so Peter urges us here to
have a tender heart, a heart that wants to help others, that
wants to invest in them, to give of them of our time and our money
and our efforts. Just as Christ was tenderhearted
towards us, so also we must seek to have a heart that is attentive
towards others, wanting to bless them. Now look at the last quality
in verse eight here. Peter says that we are to have
a humble mind. Other translations of this verse
will simply say be courteous. Humble individuals are some of
the most courteous towards others, meaning kind and considerate. That's because they understand
that the world is not sitting here revolving around them as
the central point of the universe. The most arrogant and prideful
of people, they can't see anyone beyond their own eyeballs. In
contrast, a humble person considers their needs last of all. It's
important for them to be flexible, to bless others, and to help
them. They're not interested in a prideful agenda somehow
ensuring that they are the center of attention or the focus of
it all. They simply serve others out of a humble heart. This is
another quality which should be present in unified congregations. It characterizes local congregations
because a prideful congregation will be resistant to the teaching
of Scripture and they'll be continually biding against one another. Why
is that? Because it all comes down to
a focus on me, myself, and I. Why didn't you ask me to sing
instead of them? Why didn't you shake my hand
first instead of his? How come I didn't get to be first
in line at the fellowship? It all comes down to I, I, I,
I, I. But the opposite of this is someone
who pursues the glory of God. Someone who is focused on glorifying
God by serving others out of a heart of humility. Who is so
consumed with honoring Christ and loving others that there
is no place for pride. The local church should be a
place of humility because we realize we're nothing in comparison
to God himself. That we're mere creatures who
rebelled against the one who breathed life into us. Yet God
redeemed us so we should have a joyful humility in our lives. All of these character qualities
here in verse eight, all of them should be dominant in the life
of the local church. They should be dominant in the
life of every believer. We grow in them by realizing
the glory of God, the truth of his word and striving after them.
You don't become unified any other way than a deep and consistent
study of scripture and seeking to apply those truths. You don't
grow in sympathy or love or tenderheartedness other than by looking at the
way that Christ Himself demonstrated these qualities and earnestly
asking Him to sanctify you and to grow you in them. It takes
power by the Holy Spirit's work to bring these things into our
lives. And as you pursue humility by
knowing God so that you live your life centered upon Him,
you'll see that your love for others will grow and your heart
to serve others will continue to grow. In this text, we also
see not only the character that we're called to have, we see
the necessity of gathering together of the local church. Peter says
unity of mind. If you're going to be united,
the general idea is that you're going to have to know who each
other is. You're going to have to actually see one another.
He says to exercise brotherly love. Again, if you're going
to love someone like a brother, then it's a logical deduction
that you're going to have to spend time with them. And so
this shows the necessity of the local church, that you actually
must spend time with other Christians, getting to know them, fellowshipping
with them, loving them, that we not only need this for the
good of each other, we each individually need it for the good of our own
souls as well. There is no type of Christianity
where the church and the fellowship of the saints is not pivotal.
Are there any questions or thoughts or comments here before we go
into our third point? Alright, well thirdly here, we
see the blessing of obedience to God. Verse nine, do not repay
evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary,
bless for this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. This is truly the heart of a
humble person. It's as though Peter sees the
sinful tendencies of our flesh and he just speaks right against
them. That whenever we're undergoing
evil, our natural response is to give evil back. But he says
here to bless. The clear context is persecution.
That's the dominant theme of 1 Peter. And so I think it's
clear to say that the apostle is not outlying self-defense
here. Jesus sent his followers out
with swords in Luke 22, 36. Christ himself overturned the
temples. My point is that Christianity
is not a religion of pacifists who don't seek to defend others
whenever evil arises. Self-defense is justified biblically
speaking. You can read passages like Exodus
22 to explore that fact. However, in saying all that,
whenever someone comes against you for your faith and persecutes
you, you don't return evil by sinning. There is a time to go
to prison and to suffer for the sake of Christ. It takes biblical
wisdom to discern whether it is a time to go to prison or
to engage in self-defense in other scenarios. When someone
insults you personally, whenever they are taking anger against
you, you don't follow the same course. You bless the other person. You pray that they would be saved. Essentially, you want to see
that in their lives, that Christ would come in and redeem them.
Or if it is an immature believer who has offended you somehow,
you want to see their spiritual growth. You want to see their
sanctification. The idea that Peter is communicating
is that we don't return sin for sin. We don't return the sin
of the unbeliever, but instead we focus on being faithful to
Christ, blessing them, seeking what is good for them. And I
don't have to tell you that following on the heels of verse 8, this
obviously takes a heart that is full of humility. It takes
an eternal focus and an eternal understanding. an understanding
not only of our eternity with the Lord, but also how much we
have been forgiven by Christ. We obviously should enact church
discipline for real failings in the local church at points.
There is a time for that. We should address real failings,
but fundamentally we don't have a heart that seeks to return
evil for evil. We want the best for others.
We want to be patient whenever we are offended and we want to
have that long-suffering attitude. If you shake your hand and someone
else walks right by you, if you stick your hand out to
shake someone's hand and they walk right by you, you don't
just immediately jet past them next time you're standing beside
them. You know, if it's something they start doing habitually,
you might want to address it and make sure there's no rift
in the relationship there, but otherwise, you know, give a little
bit of grace and assume maybe they were just sick or missed
you that day or something like that. But notice that Peter says
that that type of an attitude, it's our calling here in the
middle of verse 9, that it's given from the Lord. It's a calling
from Christ himself. for us to act with humility,
for us to serve Him in this way. Then at the end of verse 9 it
said that we are given this calling that you may obtain a blessing,
a spiritual blessing knowing that you are doing what is good
before God. If you've sinned whenever someone
mistreats you then all you've done is bring misery upon your
own soul. You've done that which is evil
on the side of God and you're guilty for it. You know a lot
of people have a he started it reaction during conflict. I'm
sure you've seen what that reaction is. If you've ever seen young
kids play, you know this reaction. One child accidentally bumps
into another child and so that child then turns around and he
just shoves the child that accidentally bumped into him and they start
fighting and everybody's just trying to tackle each other and
hit each other and then an adult comes up and he breaks up the
fight and he's holding these two young kids apart from each
other, and he asked them what happened. And the child who got
accidentally bumped, he's going to look at the adult, and what's
he going to say? He's going to look at the other
kid. He's going to have all of these tears streaming down his
cheek. He's going to have his lip quivering,
and he's going to have the pouty lip, and he's going to holler
out, he started it. The adult is going to look at
that kid and he's going to say, he may have started it, but you
sure did finish it, right? That's going to be their reaction.
But you know, you can see the same thing even amongst adults,
that one of them speaks a little bit angrily, and so instead of
trying to be graceful in your speech, the other individual
instead comes right back even more angrily than the first person.
And the next thing you know, they start insulting each other
and hollering at each other and just angrily berating each other.
And then someone comes up and they ask them, what's the matter?
And the response is going to be some variation of that child
on the playground. They're going to look and they're
going to say, he started it. However, as Peter here is saying,
that we should seek to bless those who persecute us. that
if you take that action, then you've reacted in a way that
is pleasing before God. That your soul overflows with
joy knowing that you are living with faithfulness to Christ.
You understand the reality that you have honored Him in that
situation. The forgiven soul is a forgiving soul because it
is a free soul because of the grace of God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so instead of adding sin
to the situation, you've acted faithfully to the Lord. Those
who repay evil for evil, they are enslaved by their own sin. They think that they're getting
their revenge, but all they're doing is simply tightening the
shackles of slavery tighter on their own wrists. And now here,
Peter turns at this point. In the passage, he turns to quote
Psalm 32 to expand on the blessing of the Christian life, look at
verses 10 through 12. For whoever desires to love life
and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his
lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and
do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the
Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. The truly
well-lived life is the one lived for the glory of God according
to the commandments of God. And it's important for Peter
to emphasize that point strongly for these Christians as they
are going through suffering. Think about it for a second.
If you're being targeted for your faith, the temptation is
to shrink back, to shrink back and to think that maybe you need
to choose a different course. Maybe it's time to choose another
path because you're encountering so much difficulty. Maybe you
should hit the reset button. and find something different.
Peter says no. Peter says you are living the
best way for the glory of God. It is not a good use of your
life to indulge the sins of the world, nor is it a good use of
your life to cave into the world and to hope that they will just
quit persecuting you and so to give in to their false doctrine.
The best use of your life is to fix your gaze upon Christ
and to follow him in obedience to his word. You know the American
patriot and soldier Nathan Hill. He once said these words before
being hanged by the British. He said, I only regret that I
have but one life to lose for my country. those words inspired
American soldiers during the war for independence, and I suppose
even to this very day. The question is, could you say
that if you had 1,000 lives to spend, the best way would be
to spend them all in service to the Lord Jesus Christ? That
it would not only be evil for you to use them in sin, it would
also be the path of the least eternal joy for you to use them
in sin as opposed to being Christ's servant. If you desire to love
life, to see good, then follow the Lord. Do not give in to evil. That's what Peter says. He says,
keep your tongue and your lips from sin, from evil and speaking
deceit. In verse 10, do not gossip, do
not slander, do not engage in lying, do not engage in evil
guard your mouth so that it might be used for Christ's sake instead
of for Satan's schemes. It's amazing how quickly we can
cause a lot of trouble with our mouth. Just a word spoken in
a second can cause a tremendous amount of damage, especially
if you're talking about something like gossip in the local church.
You know, you have one individual who calls someone and that person
who's receiving the call, they just accidentally cut their finger.
with a knife in the kitchen and it's just a little cut. They
just put a band-aid on it and it's good. And they just mention
it in passing. Well, the person who called them,
they call the next person. The story changes just a little
bit to where now instead of having a small cut, now they have a
pretty bad cut. It's a pretty tough situation,
you know? And then the next person calls and the story changes a
little bit more. Next thing you know that person,
they've had their finger cut off. They only have four fingers
on one hand. And then the next person calls
and they've had their arm cut off. And then on and on it goes
until the person, eventually the gossip chain grows so much
that they're declared to have died. And so the church funeral
committee, they're getting together, they're planning the meal, they're
trying to figure out who to contact in the family. And guess who
comes walking in the door on Sunday? The person who was supposed
to have died, they just come walking in the door and they're
just wondering who the funeral's for. And if you're wondering,
I did borrow that illustration from the Andy Griffith show with
slight changes. But it's an illustration that
really perfectly shows the dangers of gossip, that slander, All
kinds of evil speech, they're thoroughly dangerous for the
local church. And Peter says that we must be
on guard against this. Verse 11 says we are to simply
turn or to shun evil, seeking to do good, seeking to pursue
peace. The particular word here used for turn away, it's only
used three times in the entire New Testament. One of them is
here, the other two are in the book of Romans. Romans 3.12 where
Paul is saying that all have turned aside out of the way.
In other words, humanity is sinful. They're not walking in the righteous
paths of God. And in Romans 16.17, Paul says,
turn away from evil and do good. When he says turn away, that's
the same word here as Peter uses in our text. In fact, it's a
very similar point to what Peter is actually making. We're to
turn aside from the path of evil and we're to walk down the path
that is good as defined by God. Then verse 12 reminds us why
these actions bring about such joy. Peter points to the reality
of God. He sees all. He knows all. He hears our prayers. God is
for those who are in Christ, acting righteously according
to his will. But he is against the wicked
and the evildoers who will suffer his eternal wrath. It doesn't
mean life's always going to go well for the Christian. But it
does mean that the believer will be rewarded in Christ, that he
will bring his followers to himself for eternity. Those who live
in their sin will not be able to stand in the day of God's
judgment. They will be placed in eternal
hell. The wicked will find that God is against them. But he is
for the righteous, bringing them to himself for eternity. The
best use of our lives is truly to spend them in service to Christ,
because Christ sees all, knows all, and will judge all. That
is what Peter reminds these believers of in the midst of suffering,
that it's meant to inflame their souls to be used mightily for
the service of God. It's a critical aspect for us
to understand here in the local church, because where believers
understand this truth, they're united around the same goal.
They're united around the same purpose for living. Each one
seeking to do good, each one seeking to turn from evil, to
turn from sin, to be unified, pursuing the glory of Christ,
reaching the lost with the gospel, wanting to love one another in
the fellowship of the church. Well, I've enjoyed going through
this series on unity and division. It's been a blessing to be able
to see what the scripture says on this particular issue. And I hope that you have found
it helpful to dive into the word on this subject as well. Are
there any questions or thoughts before we go into the prayer
time here tonight?
Wednesday 3-2-22 Bible Study
| Sermon ID | 32022112312825 |
| Duration | 38:48 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Language | English |
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.