You're listening to Mountain View Church Audio, Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City, Whitehorse UConn. Here's this week's message. Things that I thought I would never become and never do, and then I became all of those things. My mom and my dad split up when I was like two, so I grew up with my dad. I didn't grow up really happy. My mom passed away. She took her life. But I grew up like that, kind of messed up. You know, I had no sense of direction. I didn't really have any respect for authority. Everything that people told me not to do, that's what I would do, right? I just started using it regularly.
I wasn't working anymore, so I had to start making money. So I started doing robberies. That's where kind of drugs got me, right? Kind of just doing whatever I could just to get my neck fixed, right? Then I was in and out of jail, started using math. I was super lonely. After doing a bit of time, I heard about this treatment center. I thought I'd give it a shot. No, I don't want to be like that anymore. So I went to treatment. One guy, he wanted to start this program. It's called Alpha. You know, I didn't really have an interest in it. Kind of a big blanket after that. I spent a lot of time in treatment.
So I went back to jail. Then I heard about this thing that's called Alpha again. And it reminded me of my friend. And it kind of just honors memory. I wanted to go to Alpha and check it out and see what it's all about, right? The guys that come and ask you questions, you know, about your faith and kind of make you feel welcome. And they bring cookies and, you know, make us feel like human beings again. Then there's this testimony. It's talked about, like, how he became a starting criminal, you know, changed his life around. And I thought, like, wow, that's so amazing, right? Like, why couldn't I do that? Going to Alpha, you know, kind of gave me a taste of what Jesus could be for me, right?
I started reading the Bible. At this moment, when I was reading, I felt this void inside of me, and the Holy Spirit, it comes down to me, and I feel it through my whole body. I never felt anything like it. I started taking God pretty seriously. These people that came from Alpha, they invited me to church, right? They're like, oh, you should come to the village when you get out. Every Sunday, I watched Emerson, and he would pray for us and tell us a little bit of a story. He was an inmate too, right? When I finally got released, I go to church on a Sunday, and I went and met with him, super heartfelt and emotional. I went to his service, and I remember crying. I just couldn't believe it. I felt like I finally made it, and Pastor Emerson baptized me, so that was pretty cool.
Then since I turned my life to Jesus, you know, everything became a lot clearer. I'm responsible. I hang out with my family. I want to be useful now. I plan to go to school. My dream would be to be a counselor, you know, in a recovery house. My anger used to feel me, right? So now it's Jesus. Having men come to know Jesus behind those walls have been one of the most incredible privileges of my entire life. When we first started, we didn't want to reinvent the wheel, nor did we want to wing it. And Alpha was such an easy, effective program that already existed, and so we could focus on just the prison part and not have to worry about a program. And we brought it in, and it was incredibly effective.
The Lord really keeps surprising me every day. The day that I went into the prison as someone who was running prison ministry, one thing I didn't think about was the feelings I would come back knowing that I've seen the inside of that facility on a completely different context. The dichotomy of who I was then and who I am now and seeing the things that I'm doing through the skill sets that I have that he's given me through my testimony is incredibly humbling. And although I live it out every day, it doesn't cease to surprise me. What inspires me about Jonah is that God has gifted me this tangible fruit of what we are doing. And so it is incredible to see that out of my testimony, there is another testimony. And to think that there'll be other testimonies coming from Jonah's testimony is just such a beautiful thought. Alpha offers hope through the gospel. The ones who have taken the program, they seem to be calmer. They are easy to get along with. They have won the respect of their peers. They're generally more likable people.
At the end of the day, to see these individuals reintegrate into society, be able to lead hopefully normal lives, and I think without the church and other groups, then those lives would not have had the opportunity for that change. To any churches contemplating doing prison ministry, I would say pray about it, but also do it. If every church did it, and we were to adopt every prison across Canada, we would be able to completely transform the justice system through transformed lives. If I didn't have Jesus in my life, I'd never know where I'd be right now. That's what's really cool about, you know, having this. And I get a second chance at life, right? And I'm forgiven, right? He's just there with me all the time. He loves me. I just love my life today.
Hello, my name is Brent Chapman, and I am the Regional Director of Fellowship Pacific, which means that I have the privilege of helping lead our region with a group of amazing people, our staff. And so I just want to thank you for allowing me to be part of your service today and welcoming me into your church. And I think it's pretty humbling to realize that your church is one of almost 100 congregations across BC and the Yukon that call Fellowship Pacific home. So I'm really thankful for the opportunity to speak with you and to you this morning on Fellowship Sunday. I want to start with recalling one of Aesop's fables. It's the fable about the lion and the four oxen.
It kind of goes like this. There was four oxen and they lived in a field and a lion was there and he wanted to have lunch, basically. But every time the lion came to the four oxen to try and eat one of them, the four oxen would turn their tails towards each other with their horns protruding outward and it would stop the lion from being able to attack them. And this occurred over and over and over again. But one day there was a disagreement and the four oxen got into a fight. And so instead of being together, they separated and went to the four corners of the field.
At that moment, the lion realized this opportunity, and so he attacked them one by one, killing each one. And at the end of the fable, Aesop writes these words, United we stand, divided we fall. And that line has been used throughout history to describe what it takes for a group, a company, an organization to be able to weather the storms of conflict. It was used in the American Revolution. It was used as an anthem in World War II, although the British had a different take on it. They didn't say it exactly. Their take on it was, keep calm and carry on, right? But it means the same thing. In fact, even in pop culture, this slogan is used. If you remember back to Super Bowl 50, Marvel, at the time it was promoting Captain America Civil War, used this as part of their advertising in promoting the movie.
United we stand, divided we fall. Jesus even talks about this. In his teaching in Mark chapter 3, verse 25, he says, and if a house is divided against itself, a house cannot stand. I find something powerful and hopeful in this statement. United we stand, divided we fall. It sounds so good, right? It's like the perfect slogan for the coach during halftime during the championship game, or for that general who's trying to encourage his troops who are feeling the battle. It's one of those statements that kind of grabs you in your guts.
And it seems like whenever you say that statement, it should be accompanied by a movie soundtrack, you know, powerful, stirring, something that moves you inside and out. But in practice, in real life, the call to stand seems more like a fantasy because we see division more often than unity. And whether that's in families, in marriages, in teams, in political parties, at work, in countries, and yes, even churches. There's so many things that fight against us being able to stand united, whether it's pride or suspicion or unresolved hurt or bitterness, maybe even gossip or isolation or tribalism or unforgiveness, and yes, even a loss of shared mission. And I know for some of you, it's kind of hard to fathom that there are actually people out there that dare believe and even act in a different way than you do. I know, the nerve of them. But there are, because we're human.
So how do we do this? How do we live together? How can we stand united when there's so many things that try and tear us apart? I think the Apostle Paul understood this as a problem. And I find comfort in his words, especially his letter to the Ephesians. And in his letter to the Ephesians in chapter four, he talks about the importance of unity. He talks about the importance of becoming mature in that chapter. He talks about the role that evangelists and pastors and teachers and apostles and prophets play in actually bringing unity to the church. And he also talks about how important our core beliefs are.
for the unity, right? He says things like one faith, one hope, one baptism, one Lord, one God. So as you open your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter four, I'm just gonna spend the rest of the time we have together in the first three verses of Ephesians. And so let me read Ephesians verses one to three out of chapter four. As a prisoner for the Lord then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. I think Paul is helping us understand, or he's trying to help us know, that there are three things that he considers important for us to know in order to be united together. so that we can stand and not fall. The first one is this, honor the calling. In verse one, he talks about, he urges them to live a life worthy of the calling that they had received. Paul is exhorting them, even begging them. You can feel and hear the weight of his words in that admonishment to really live a life worthy of the calling that they had received. They were called into something and now they were being called to live in such a way to be worthy of that calling.
When my four kids were younger, we had a measurement statement in our house, especially when it came to the cleanliness standard of our house. You see, the statement was, is it mom worthy? The kids knew that their mom had a certain expectation about how clean things would be. And so if they were tasked with cleaning something, they knew that it would not be accepted. Their effort would not be accepted until it reached that standard. And so the question was always asked when they said they were done, is it mom worthy?
And if they hadn't reached the standard, they knew they had to go back and put more effort in. You see, Paul is helping us understand that we have been called into a life, called into something that is worthy of the effort that we need to put in. And Paul talks about this calling. And I think Paul's point is simple here. God has called you and I into something higher than ourselves. And he's called us unto himself. He's called us by grace into his kingdom. And now he's challenging us to live in such a way that is worthy of that calling that God has given us. And I think that's how he leads us into verse two.
And in verse two, after he's talked about us and remind us of the honor of the calling, he's telling us, now show the character of that calling. Because when the Bible talks about being worthy, it is not talking about our achievements. It is talking about our character. It is talking about us becoming Christ-like. And in this section of verses, Paul gives us four characters that we need to live up to, character attributes. And the first one is humility. Humility is so important because it is the antidote to pride. And when it comes to unity, humility says things like this, I can let others make the decision and I will follow them.
because at its core, someone who lives with and in humility has no problem living in submission, which Paul will then get to in chapter five and talk about the importance of submission. I remember when I was starting out as a young pastor, and I think it might've been my first or second convention that I went to. We called it convention back in the day, not impact. But I remember getting out of one of the sessions and going to the washroom. And while I was in there washing my hands, an older gentleman came in and he was cleaning the bathroom. And it took me a moment to realize who he was. It was Don Merritt.
And you may not know who Don Merritt was, but when I was a young pastor, Don Merritt's name carried some significance. He'd been a pastor for quite a few years. He'd also worked with our region in the ministry office. It was one of those names where, you know, you hear a name and it automatically endears respect because of their reputation. That was who Don Merritt was. And I was sitting there watching him clean the bathroom at convention. And it stuck with me, the humility of the man to do a job that needed to be done regardless of his past track record. It has always stood with me as a model and example of humility. Second thing Paul talks to is gentleness.
And gentleness, I love this definition, is strength under control. It means that whoever's gentle is a master of themselves. They know when to apply their strength and whether it be physical strength or even the strength of their personality or their intellect, they know when to apply it and when to hold it back. Jesus talking about both humility and gentleness in Matthew 11, 29 says, for I am gentle and humble of heart. And what Paul is reminding us is in these two things, we are to model ourselves after Jesus to become more Christ-like. But then he goes on to add a third one, which is patience.
And in many ways, patience is gentleness over the long haul. I love this quote by Klein Snodgrass that says this, patience is the exercise of a largeness of the soul that can endure annoyances and difficulty over a period of time. Patience allows us to continue to express gentleness and humility over a period of time, not just one-offs. And then Paul ends this section of character traits by including bearing with one another in love. Some of our older English translations use the word long-suffering, an archaic term, but one that I actually think is a great term because long-suffering means putting up with someone else. It means staying in a situation that might be uncomfortable for the long-term benefits. It means restraining yourself towards another person. And it's a reminder that love, when we truly love someone, we also know that it often involves a cost. And I think what Paul is helping us understand here when he says, show your character.
is that he's helping us understand the things that it takes in order to stay in community. You need to be able to forgive one another long-suffering. You need to be able to give the benefit of a doubt to another long-suffering. And so Paul is telling us, honor the call, show the character worthy of that calling. That's why these four traits are so important, because there are so many enemies that fight against unity.
Think about it. Pride. When we let pride into our lives, it makes us more interested in being right than being reconciled. We tend to get hardened in our opinion when we are prideful. Or suspicion. When we go through conflict and something's going on, we get suspicious, and instead of extending the benefit of the doubt to someone, we assume the worst. That suspicion erodes the trust that we have with them, even before any truth is clarified. But also unresolved hurt. Pain that is never addressed becomes resentment. And, and turning to hostility.
or bitterness. When hurt hardens in our heart, it becomes bitterness and it spreads, turning one wound into many and ultimately poisoning the community that you're a part of. There are so many enemies to unity that we have to be on guard. And Paul tells us that if we practice humility, gentleness, patience, and long-suffering, it goes a long way of counteracting these enemies of unity. But he doesn't stop there.
He goes into verse three to say one more thing about unity. He says, protect it, protect the unity, keep the unity. And notice there's two things that he's talking about here. Unity is spiritual. It's not just organizational. When I say that, realize that Paul is pointing to the creator of unity in the church. It's the Holy Spirit. He is the person that brings unity to the body. And it makes sense, right? One of the gifts of salvation is the gift of the Holy Spirit to every believer. And when we have an indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit allows us, helps us become more Christ-like. And when you get a church full of...
spirit-filled people who are trying to live out their worthy calling, who are doing it in such a way with humility, gentleness, patience, and long-suffering. There's a chance for unity. It's a spiritual thing. But it's also costly. Unity can be costly. Because Paul tells us...
While the spirit creates the environment for unity and unity in the church, we are called to maintain it. We are called to guard it. We are called to fight for it. We are called to make sure it doesn't break. When he says make every effort, there's an urgency in his appeal. He's telling us to make haste, to have passion, to fight for this thing called unity, even if it's hard. Paul's call when it comes to unity is to not walk away, but fight for it. Here's the thing about unity. Unity is not achieved through passivity. Unity doesn't just happen.
Because as I said, there's so many enemies to unity. I mentioned a few already, but here are some more gossip. Gossip weakens unity when concerns are discussed with everyone but the right people. Isolation. Isolation pulls you away from the community where truth decays because unity requires contact, conversation, and shared life. Or fear. Fear makes us territorial. Fear makes us defensive. Fear makes us reactive. And we retreat into self-protection when we are fearful. Tribalism, when we begin to think of our group and their group.
The mission is set aside for the war of being right. Unforgiveness settles in when there's a refusal to forgive, which prevents healing and keeps the past in charge. And then, of course, there's the loss of shared mission. When we take our eyes off the mission, our preferences and differences become more important in our eyes. When I was pastoring a church, there was an individual who attended my church.
And this individual would come every Sunday. And their goal every Sunday was to try and catch me in some theological error or some application that they couldn't agree with. They would listen intently. And when they could find something they could disagree with me on in theology or in application, they would go away happy from that Sunday because they found something they could pick apart. And that happiness would extend to their small group. And when they would arrive in their small group during the week, they would share, why are they disagreed with me on whatever I had said that previous Sunday? Here's the thing. They never came and talked to me.
never talked to me about it once. But fortunately for our church, they had a wise and caring small group leader who challenged them in their thinking because they saw that this was an unhealthy way of acting and thinking. They could see that it was creating bitterness in this person and also extending outside and starting to create disunity within their group. I never found out about this until about a couple years after this person had left our church. But I'm so grateful that that small group leader was willing to step into that, to speak into that person's life, to help maintain the unity of our church. Paul is reminding us how important unity is and how it's achieved in these verses. Walk worthy, walk humbly, walk together.
You know that Fellowship Pacific has their own version of Aesop's fable? You know the one where he says, united we stand, divided we fall? Fellowship Pacific's version of that is this, boldly forward, never alone. We've been trying to live out this tagline for a number of years now. And it's easy to live that out when there isn't conflict. Actually, protecting unity is easy when there isn't any conflict.
Unfortunately, when there are disagreements, when there are actions or words that someone says that threatens to disrupt the peace and even cause disunity, you realize the effort it takes to stay united. As a region, we have walked through some conflict over the past year. Conflict that has threatened the unity of our Fellowship Pacific region. The conflict, while having its roots in a theological issue, the role of women in the church, has really exposed a relational disharmony in our region. Unfortunately, that conflict resulted in eight churches being removed from our family.
Over this past year, as I've tried to help our region navigate this conflict, I've been drawn to Acts chapter 15. And in that chapter, there is some conflict going on in the early church. It's the chapter where the Jerusalem council is called to deal with an issue, a theological issue, the issue of whether or not circumcision is needed for salvation. And in the early part of the chapter, you read that Paul and Barnas were in sharp dispute with teachers who were teaching this in areas outside of Jerusalem. And so this was brought back to the church in Jerusalem and the council was formed. They had the discussion and they landed on a statement where, yes, no, circumcision was not required for salvation. And I'm sure every new male adult convert has been sighing a sigh of relief ever since that decision. But here's the thing.
Even though the church decided that, it did not stamp out that thought theologically because Paul has to readdress it later on in his letter to the Galatians. So that theological position continues to cause problems for the early church. What I find fascinating in this chapter is after that theological discussion, that question is settled by the church, you then at the end of chapter 15, find out about a relational conflict. And it's between Paul and Barnabas over who to take on the next missionary journey. And they get into such a disagreement that they can't agree on it, that they end up splitting apart. And they each go their own way with someone else coming with them. And that unfortunate disagreement breaks that relationship up a bit. But notice that God can take that disagreement, that parting of the ways, and continue to use it to expand his kingdom. In chapter 16 and verse 4, it tells us that the church continued to be strengthened and even grow in numbers. And so even in the conflict, there is hope.
We have walked through a hard season. We know that unity is not automatic. We know that pain and disagreement and loss can leave their mark on us. But this is not the moment to retreat into suspicion, isolation, or fatigue. We cannot change the past. But by grace of God, we can choose how we will walk into the future. So let us walk worthy. Let us walk humbly. Let us walk together. Boldly forward, never alone. Amen.
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