Heart for Unity | Pastor Adam Peterson

Man, I love being here. It's good to be a part of a church that's alive. Amen. And if the person beside you is not alive, just elbow them right in the side and tell them to wake up this morning. Let me look into the camera and tell our online family, there are so many of you that are watching. And so what I'm believing is some of you are getting in that last-minute vacation before school starts back up or work or whatever you are. And so we are so grateful that you are here. If you're in Jacksonville and you are not getting to the house of God, we miss you. We love that you're online, but we want you here. Can you give it up for our online family today? And then we say it every week, but we mean it from the bottom of our heart to all the men and women in the correctional facilities. Come on, you are our church family. We're so grateful for you. Thanks for being with us today. We are kicking off a brand new teaching series today. We have been in a Fruit of the Spirit series. If you're new to our church, you can go to our website, our YouTube page, you can download our app, and you can watch that. We teach through series at our church. And this is gonna be a long one, probably about 10 weeks. And so I just need you to get that seat belt, buckle up, and let's go for a ride together. We're calling this series, A Heart for His House. How many of you know this is His house? This is not our church, this is God's church. And then also I want you to know, maybe you didn't know this, but we have this recorded all throughout Scripture that the Bible actually tells us that you and I are a house of God. And that's really good news, that God would want to live in us, and as He lives in us, He's a very good cleaner. And He wants to come in and clean some stuff up. He wants to make you more like Jesus, which simply means this. He's gonna bring more holiness, and more righteousness, and more joy, and more peace in your life, if you let Him. And so what we're gonna do in this series is a couple things. We're gonna talk about how we have a heart for the church, the church of Jesus Christ, and we're gonna talk about how we have a heart for our own lives, and we call ourselves the house of God. If you're with me, say amen. Our theme verses for this series will be this, I rejoiced with those who said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. And I use the word rejoice in that

verse, and none of you rejoiced, and so that's okay. Now that's called a pity rejoice, and I don't need it. But this is the psalmist coming along this idea, that there were some people that got together, and they were like, let's go to the house of the Lord. And David, the psalmist goes, somebody wanted to go to the house of the Lord, so I just started rejoicing, because I wanted to go to the house of the Lord. And they said, let's do it together. Notice the plural language. I rejoiced with those. Like going to church isn't something we do by ourselves, it's something we do collectively. And if you're like, well I showed up here by myself, you don't have to be by yourself. You can build a church family here. We got brothers and sisters in Christ. We got crazy aunts and uncles that are here to love you. We got spiritual moms and dads that would love to pour into your life. We're doing this together. Let us go to the house of the Lord. And then this verse right here in Matthew 16, these are the words of Jesus, where he simply said, I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And here's what I need you to understand. The church of Jesus Christ has been going on for 2,000 plus years. And the devil and all the powers of hell have tried to stop the church of Jesus Christ. But here we are, not in our own power, in his. Jesus said, I will build my church. And here's the good news. When Jesus builds something, it will last. There was a time before the pandemic hit in 2020 where Rise Church was doing extremely well. I mean, we were busting at the seams. We were about to build on a new building to facilitate all the growth that we were experiencing. And if I can be honest with you, there was a part of my heart that wanted to take credit for it. And there was a part of my heart that looked and said, look at my church. And I don't know if you know this, but God has a really good way of coming and humbling you from time to time to correct you, to bring you back to Jesus, to let you know this ain't got nothing to do with you. I love you, and I want to work through you, but it is all about me. And I am here to tell you, this is his church. Everything that is good, that is happening in this place, I'm gonna need you to get a little bit louder than that. Every good thing, every life change that is happening at this

church, it is because of Jesus Christ. And so I'm so glad that you're here. We're gonna talk about a heart for his house. Because this is his house. You are his house. And today we're gonna kick things off by talking about this idea. A heart for unity. in my office it's a pretty big one and I've got sermon series ideas and sermon ideas that I'm writing on there all the time this one's been sitting on here for a while and I knew we were gonna do this series and I had a bunch of ideas and I felt like the Lord said I want you to start with unity because if we can start with unity if we can rally around this together then everything else is gonna fall into place and so if you're with me this morning say yeah all right now relationships are not easy raise your hand if you know relationships are not easy raise your hand if you know you're not easy in relationships raise your hand if the person beside you is not easy all the time all right relationships are not easy they are a lot of work but here's what we need to come around our God is a God of unity but we have a very real enemy so if God is a God of unity then that means the enemy that is here to a steal kill and destroy is trying to cause chaos and he wants to destroy the relationships that are in our lives now how many of you would say like me you just have a natural personality that you are a glass-half-full type of person like you tend to see the positive in things all right the rest of y'all are very negative that's why you're in church today I'm so glad you're here so I have a tendency to see all the positives right so I can look on and go oh man relationships should be easy oh I'm gonna get married we're just gonna get along all the time I'm gonna have kids they're gonna love me this is gonna be easy faults relationships are hard why cuz God created them hear me God created relationships so the devil wants to do everything he can to destroy them he wants to do everything he can to drive a wedge in between your relationships and so what are we gonna do we're gonna look to God's Word and we're gonna learn how to fight for unity now here's what I need you to understand in relationships conflict is normal okay if you're like man me and my wife just don't get along

welcome to the club man my siblings we argue from time to time yeah yeah my parents my like parent-child relationship doesn't always see yeah conflict is normal but unresolved conflict is unbiblical now let me say this because I understand there's some different dynamics and relationships there are some people in your life that the conflict they have caused you you need to actually love them from a distance somebody just got set free you're like that's what I needed to hear I can leave right now there are some people in our lives that the conflict and the chaos they bring into our relationships we don't always need to welcome them back in now we need to love them we are called to love them but we can love some people from a distance but there are some relationships if somebody's like I can love my husband from a distance nope you're married to him so you get you got to figure that out but there are some relationships guys where the conflict is there but we've got to figure out how to bring unity to it so we're gonna look at that this morning can I share something with you in my marriage there is conflict my wife and I we're going on 20 years of marriage there's conflict okay a lot of conflict from time to time but we got to figure it out on our staff here at our church there's conflict from time to time we've got to figure that out so if you find yourself right now in conflict in some type of relationship and it's unresolved God wants to speak to you today if you're like man actually my relationships are really good God wants to speak to you today because next week they might not be conflict is normal unresolved conflict is unbiblical so what do we do three thoughts this morning number one is this unity will always require effort it's always gonna require effort let me give you a couple verses just to walk you through this this is the book of Ephesians this is Paul writing to a church he's not able to get to them so he's writing them a letter to let him know hey I'm praying for you let me give you some encouragement and he says these words make every effort well I tried try again well you know I tried to do it make every effort you tried that effort make another one and then make another one and then make another one to keep

yourselves united in the spirit binding yourselves together with peace I highlighted this phrase united in the spirit because we're not gonna be united on everything we have different opinions we have different perspectives we're not united around our politics all the time we're not united around sports and we're not united around a lot of things but there is one thing that can unite us better than anything else it's the Spirit of God can we can we just collectively come around this idea you and I might see things differently but can we go thank you Jesus Christ that you are the Savior of the world that you died on the cross for my sin and their sin the year is one God and we are here to worship you alone all right so we're on the right track now we just got to figure out how to work through everything else but it's gonna require effort you're gonna have to you're gonna have to make a lot of effort I love this verse out of Romans this same guy Paul writing to another church letting them know hey you gotta guess unity's hard if it's possible because sometimes it's not possible why because it takes two to tango both parties have to be willing to put in the work and if you're if you've ever been in a relationship where you're the one that's putting in all the work and nobody else is trying that it's not gonna work so you both got to figure it out so if it's possible but then I love how he says this phrase as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone meaning I can't control what the other person does in the relationship I can't control if they're bringing effort I can't control if they're gonna try to bring peace I can't control if they're gonna fight for unity but I can control if I am I can hit my knees and I can say God correct every part of me where I have offended somebody God correct every part of me where I'm not walking in unity and I'm not walking in peace with people God would you change me so here's the big idea you ready you're not gonna like this but I'm giving it to you anyways unity starts with me see so many people want to look around and go well if they would just blah blah blah if they would just do this yeah maybe but maybe you need to take a look inward and go God how can

you change me because if I can't change them change me unity starts right here with me so I'm gonna give you a list and again you're not gonna like these either so let's go here's what it's gonna require of me forgiveness and none of you shouted amen because you're like I don't want to forgive them I like being mad at him it's gonna require forgiveness well they don't deserve my forgiveness you're right but we don't give it to him because they deserve it we give it to him because God forgave us and his power that forgave us we give that away to them we don't deserve God's forgiveness can I get an amen so that same forgiveness we receive we give away to them it's gonna require understanding again nobody's a meaning this list you're like I don't want to understand I don't need to understand I don't want to it's gonna require communication hey there we go all right but you're not gonna like this part sometimes communication is not you talking it's you listening we're gonna we're gonna hold like a five-night conference on how to listen and all the women said amen listening that's the understanding part communicating talking to one another and it's gonna require some humility and humility on your part is simply this you taking ownership and responsibility for the conflict that has been caused in the relationship so if it's a sibling if it's a friend if it's a parent if it's a spouse whatever the relationship is you're both at fault probably but you don't need to constantly point out the blame in them you've got to learn to take responsibility for what you brought to the table and so that's gonna be a humbling thing that you have to do and if that's the Lord you can answer it but let's talk through this listen let's talk through this I'll use my wife and I as an example in our relationship I'm usually the problem you know what I'm saying raise your hand if you're normally the problem in the relationship all right that's good that you know that all right so in our relationship if there's conflict let's say I'm 80% wrong and she's 20% wrong I've got to own my 80 but she still has to own her 20 just because I'm more at fault doesn't mean she can't just get off the hook and go why didn't do anything as bad as you did so let's flip the scenario here and

let's say she's 80% wrong and I'm 20% which is very rare but we're gonna just in this scenario I'm the preacher so she's 80 I'm 20 praise the Lord if I sit around waiting for her to come and apologize to me for her 80% because I go well I was only 20 you know so she's more at fault I'm just gonna sit around wait for her guess what I'm keeping the relationship from moving forward so what am I gonna do gonna humble myself. I'm gonna own the responsibility of my 20% and I'm gonna go to her and go, hey, I am so sorry for how I responded, for how I said this, for what I did, for my actions. Even though I know, well, she was more at fault. She even started it, blah, blah, blah. No, no, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna humble myself. Because here's the second thought. Unity is built on humility. You want, you want unity in your relationships? You're gonna need to humble yourself so that you own the conflict that you're bringing to the relationship. Let me say it like this. Pride always divides. What is pride? Pride is refusing to admit when you're wrong. Let me say it one more time. Refusing to admit. Always defending yourself. Always excusing your behavior. That's pride. Pride is also refusing to forgive the person when they ask for forgiveness. Pride always divides. It's a divider. It's what Satan did. In heaven, there's one God. God's getting all the glory, all the attention, all the worship. Satan was an angel created by God and he goes, I want all the attention. I want all the worship. I want it on me, not on him. And God's like, well that's not gonna roll. You're out of here. And what did he do? He divided heaven. He took a third of the angels with him. Division. Pride will always divide. So we have to learn to humble ourselves and admit when we've made mistakes. When we've been the ones that have brought conflict into the relationship. That's how unity comes. My wife loves me. She loves a couple phrases that I say to her. She loves it when I say, I love you. She loves it when I say, oh girl, you look good. You know what one of her favorite phrases that she loves when I say is? I was wrong. I'm sorry. I'm telling you. Saying I'm sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me. That will bring healing into your relationship like nothing else. Some of you have so much pride that you can't even do that or you

want to defend your actions. No, no, no, no. Stop it. You're the one that's killing your relationship. There's this verse in Philippians 4.2. This is, again, this guy named Paul. And if you don't know who Paul is, man, amazing. But he's writing this letter to this church. And again, he can't get to them. So he's writing a letter. And he'd heard about some things that are going on. And he hears about this kind of disagreement happening. And he says, I appeal to you. You oughta and sin tiki. I had to look that up how to pronounce that. He says, please, please, because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement. And of course, this is two women. Always women, right? I'm just teasing. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. But could you imagine this? These women were probably alive during the days of Jesus. They were definitely alive during like biblical times that we have here. They knew Paul probably, because Paul knows them by name. I want you to imagine this in heaven. Somebody walks up to them, and they're like, you oughta. Sin tiki. You guys were alive during the times of Jesus. And you knew Peter and Paul and the disciples. Man, that was pretty incredible, right? And they're like, yeah, it was awesome. And then somebody goes, did your names ever get mentioned in the Bible? And they are like, yeah, one time. And they're like, oh, what was it? Was it like a miracle or something really awesome? They're like, no. We were arguing with each other, and Paul called us out. Paul looks on, and he's like, hey, you belong to the Lord. You're in the family of God. You're sisters in Christ. Figure it out. Stop arguing. Let me tell you why they were arguing. Why they were still in a disagreement. Pride. Somebody did something that hurt the other person, and they refused to say sorry. It was probably uotia. This is my belief personally. I don't know. It's not in the Bible, but I think she pronounced her name wrong. She was like, hey, Sentaish, what's up? She got her feelings hurt, but she wouldn't say sorry. She's like, well, you have a dumb name. I don't know. Nobody knows how to say it. Like, I don't know. But one of them refused to ask for forgiveness. Maybe one of them refused to give forgiveness. And so Paul looks on, and he's like, ladies, let me remind you. You belong to the Lord. Settle it. Can I just speak to your heart?

This morning as your pastor, you belong to the Lord, husband. You belong to the Lord, wife, sister, daughter, son, parent. Stop fighting each other. Stop living in conflict. God is a God of unity. He wants to bring healing to your relationship. And there is no relationship that is beyond the healing of God. He is a miracle worker. Don't let the little things get in the way. I'm so grateful my wife and I are 20 years in. We got conflict, but here's the good news. You ready? Can I testify this morning? What used to last days, now only last minutes. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Anybody been through some conflicts that lasted a couple days? You live in the same house and you're just walking by each other like this, huffing and puffing, slamming cabinet doors, let them know, I'm still mad at you. You're in bed, you're like, don't touch my covers. It's not peaceful, right? Listen, there is a better way. We had it this week. We ended a conflict in minutes. She still didn't want to look at me, but we ended the conflict in minutes. Figured it out. Hey, you're brothers and sisters in the Lord. We're married to each other. You're in the Lord though. Let God do it. Humble yourself.

Own your conflict that you're bringing to the relationship. Trust that God's working in their heart and let the Lord bring unity, amen? Point number three is simply this, unity brings the blessing, the blessing. And when I talk about blessing, I'm not talking about material blessing. I'm talking about peace. I'm talking about joy. I'm talking about love in your home. That's the blessing of God. I'm going to give you this Psalm 133. It's three verses. Some of it's going to be a little confusing. Listen in. I got you, okay? It says this, how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity. If you're with that, say amen. How good and pleasant your home is when you're in unity. How good and pleasant your marriage is. How good and pleasant your workplace is. How good and pleasant your relationship with your parents are when you live together in unity. Same thing for the church. It is like precious oil poured out on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down on the collar of his robe. What are we talking about? We went from good and pleasant unity to a guy's beard with oil, which tells me beards are biblical, so let's go. Here's the idea, Aaron was the high priest of the day, which means Aaron went before God on behalf of everybody else. And so what this verse is saying is this, when we're together in unity, it's like this oil.

Oil in the Bible always represents the power and the anointing of God. The Bible actually tells us that when we pray for people, we're to anoint them with oil. The oil's not special, but God somehow uses it from time to time as a powerful tool. I don't understand it, but it's in God's word, so we do it. But it says this, when we're in unity, it's like this oil, like this anointing, like this power comes down on the leader, and it flows from the top down. Meaning, if we're in unity as a staff at Rise Church, we're the leaders of the church, it's going to flow down to you. Let me talk to the men in the house. You are called to be the leaders of your home. If you are not walking in unity, you are the one that is stopping the oil. You are stopping the power and the anointing of God to flow down into your family. But when we walk in unity, when we humble ourselves, that's when God looks on and He goes, oh, I can work with that. That's a humble man of God. He's not perfect, he doesn't get it right all the time, but he is working for peace in his family. He is fighting for you. He's not fighting his spouse, he's not fighting his kids, he's fighting for unity in his home. That's when the power of God will fall on you, and it'll affect everybody in your family. So come on, men. Let's lead strong. Let's lead with humble hearts. He goes on to say this, it's as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. It's this dew on Mount Zion. What does a mountain look like? It's falling down first at the top, and then it's getting on everybody else. For there, the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore, where there is joy. Unity, there's blessing. Where there's not unity,

you will miss the blessing of God every time. What's the blessing? It's the peace, it's the love, it's the joy, it's the hope, it's the faith, it's the joy, it's everything that's God. I don't know about you, I want the blessing of God in my life, I want it in my family, and you better believe, I want it in my church. So what are we gonna do? We're not gonna fight each other, we're gonna fight for each other. We're gonna fight for unity so that we can fight together against the devil in the darkness that's trying to attack our world. In John chapter 17, Pastor Jonathan, you can join me on the stage. In John 17, it's one of the last recorded prayers of Jesus, which is pretty awesome. It's one of the last recorded prayers, and Jesus is praying a lot of things, but one of the things he prays is for our unity. He prays, God, let them be one. Let them be like-minded. Let them get along, let them love each other. And he says this in John 17, verse 23. I in them, that means Jesus is gonna live in us, we get to be his house. And then he says, and God, and you live in me, which is a beautiful thing, right? Did you catch that?

Jesus goes, I'm gonna live in them, and God, you live in me, so God lives in you, and Jesus lives in you, you're the house of God. Look your life up on Zillow, you are priceless. You house the Lord, so that they may be brought to complete, what, say it with me. Unity. It's only possible through Jesus. You can't do it on your own, you don't have enough strength. It says, then, when they're in unity, then the world will know that you sent me. And have loved them, even as you have loved me. Jesus says, hey, you know how much God loves me? That's how much he loves you. And here's the main thought from this verse. When, when we walk in unity, the world sees Jesus. Can I share something with you? I've been in ministry now for a very long time, longer than some of you have been alive. And here's what I've seen play out. That the lost world wants nothing to do with the church, based on how we treat each other. Raise your hand if you've ever been a part of a church where somebody treated you, they said they loved God, but they didn't love you. The church has done a terrible job of encouraging one another. We've done a good job of gossiping behind each other's backs, talking about each other, judging each other. But we've done a terrible job of loving

and encouraging one another. And I just want us to be a church that rallies around this, that we have a heart for unity. We're gonna fight for unity. Conflict's gonna arise. You stick around here long enough, you're gonna find some conflict. Some of you are like, I'm in conflict already. That's why I sit on this side, because I don't like somebody on this side. It's why I come to the 10, because they come to the 1130. Like I got some conflict, okay? Listen, the world will see Jesus when his people walk in unity with each other. And that's what we want more than anything else, is the world to see Jesus in us. Less of us, more of Jesus. So here's a couple things we're gonna rally around. We're gonna unify around growing in our faith. Anybody wanna grow closer to Jesus? All right, if your hand didn't go up, that's why you're at our church. We wanna grow closer to Jesus. We wanna do this thing together. How do we do it? We encourage one another. We keep running after him together. We get in God's house, around God's people, so that you are around like my, you gotta get the right people in your life.

We're gonna grow together. We're gonna praise God. That's okay, that's all right. You all missed it, except for like two people here up front. We're gonna unify around this idea. God, you're the only one worthy of my praise, and so I'm gonna tune out the distractions to give you more praise in my life, because nobody else has done for me what you've done for me. Come on, we're gonna unify around leading the next generation. We got young people. We got our kids. They're looking to us. Some of you, your kids are gonna want nothing to do with God because they see you as one person in church and a different person at home. Don't do that. Yelling and screaming at them and your spouse and people. Don't do that. Matter of fact, if you're gonna do that. Don't claim you know Jesus. Now, I'm not saying you gotta be perfect, okay? But what I'm saying is this, be the same person in your home that you are here in this place. And you own your stuff to your kids. Let them know when you don't get it right, let them know, hey, I was wrong.

Some of the best ways I show Jesus is when I go to my kids and I humble myself and I go, I'm so sorry, I didn't handle that right. It'll mean more to them than you'll ever know. And then lastly, we're gonna unify around this idea, reaching lost people who don't know Jesus Christ. Amen. Here's what I mean. Here's what I mean. God loves lost people. He loves people that don't know him yet. If you're here this morning and you don't have a relationship with God, he loves you. It's not an accident that you're here today, it's not an accident that you're watching, God loves you. He wants a relationship with you and he wants to come in and change your life for the better. And as a church, we wanna unify around that. And that if God, you're passionate about reaching lost people, we wanna be passionate about reaching lost people. We wanna pray, we wanna ask, we wanna beg you, God, keep changing more lives.