The Unified Church (Part 4): The Glory of Unity
Part of Sunday Sermon Notes—Message Notes
March 9, 2025

John 17:1–5; Philippians 2:1-11 (ESV)

1) God is Glorified When We Unite in Sacrificial Partnering!

  • What does it mean to glorify God?
    • It means to make known, magnify, or reveal the greatness of God!
  • We are to unite with God and seek His Glory.
    • We cannot ask God to glorify us…God can only glorify Himself and rightfully so. This is a prayer that only Jesus can pray!
    • But what we can pray is: “God glorify yourself in me, that I may glorify You to others.”
      • “God, I surrender my life to You and I get out of your way that I may understand and experience Your greatness so that I may magnify and reveal Your greatness to others.”
    • This is not sacrificial partnering…this is just be sacrificial in our lives and surrendering to God!
      • Don’t misunderstand…we do not partner with God…we surrender and yield to God.
      • Our relationship to God is not a 50/50 partnership…it is not a 75/25 partnership…it is not a 90/10 partnership…it is being sold out completely to God at a 100/0 ownership…
      • When we come to Jesus for salvation, we become under new ownership where He can restructure, rearrange, rebrand, and remake whatever He wants to in our lives.
  • Sacrificial Partnering takes place when one person who is sold out to God, seeks out and unites with other people who are sold out to God.
    • Because we are in Christ, we are to unite with with our faith family and seek God’s glory together.
      • This is what Philippians 2:1-4 is all about.
  • The greatness of God is magnified, declared, and revealed when we unite ourselves with fellow Jesus-followers.
    • When we unite with other Jesus-followers, we are challenged to be of the same mind, have the same love, and be of one accord.
    • We are to not seek out our own good from our own ambitions or vain conceit, but we are to let the Spirit of God grow our humility to where we count others more significant than ourselves.
    • We do not look out solely to our own interests, but also to the interests of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
      • Notice the text does not say, “Do not look out for your own interests…”
      • When we are sold out and we desire for our interests to be His interests there is nothing wrong with seeking that…
      • But when we sacrificially partner with brothers and sisters, we are all at different stages in our spiritual growth and maturity so sometimes if we are weaker in some areas, we need to grow up a little bit and get on the same page as those who are more mature than us.
      • And if we are more spiritually mature in some areas, we need to slow down and consider those who are not there yet and be patient, exercise spiritual disciplines, and seek to help them grow.
      • All of us are in some ways spiritually stronger and in some ways spiritually weaker. We all have room to grow!
  • This is why God puts us together and calls us to unite in sacrificial partnering! As we come together and grow together, God is glorified! His greatness is revealed and magnified!

2) God is Glorified When We Unite in Sacred Purposes!

  • Jesus magnified and revealed the greatness of God by living for God and walking in His purposes.
    • As a result, He declares that His desire is to reveal the full greatness He “had with [God] before the world existed.”
    • Christ’s greatness was displayed in full splendor on the cross!
    • The greatness of God was displayed when Jesus willfully gave His life as a ransom for many.
    • The greatness of God was on full display when Jesus fulfilled the fullness of grace and love by defeating sin and death.
    • The greatness of God shone forth into the brokenness and darkness of this world when He who knew no sin, became sin on our behalf and then three days later walked out of that grave in victory!
  • When we join with our brothers and sisters, who have experienced that same victory in Jesus, for the sacred purposes of Christ, we magnify Him and make His greatness known!
  • We follow the example of Jesus:
    • Do not count equality with God something to be grasped (He’s in charge not me!)
    • Empty ourselves and take the form of a servant (Phil. 3:3, 7)
    • We humble ourselves by becoming obedient to God.
    • We seek for God to exalt Himself through us as together we pursue His purposes of magnifying and revealing the greatness of Christ, to whom belongs the name above all names!
  • God is glorified when we unite in sacrificial partnership with one another to pursue His sacred purposes as a set apart people unto Him!

3) God is Glorified When We Unite as Sanctified People!

  • When we come to know Jesus and we recognize that His rightful place is the Lord over all things including our lives, we began to grow as person who is now set part unto Jesus!
  • In Jesus we have eternal life.
    • Eternal life is not really about chronology. In fact, eternity is not just a long time, it is the absence of time!
    • The eternal life is a life that lived with outside of the concerns of this world that is bound by time and who’s time is running out.
    • The eternal life is not so much about time, but about temperament.
    • It is about living set apart unto the holy and eternal God of all things!
    • It’s about trying to live before you die, but its about dying so that you may truly live!
  • When we bow to Jesus as Lord and we repent towards Jesus, we become set apart for His glory!
    • Repentance is not so much a change of action as it is a change of mind.
      • Repentance is agreeing with God that sin is a big deal, it is dangerous, and is not something to treat in a trivial manner.
      • Likewise, Repentance is also agreeing with God that holiness and righteousness is a big deal, it is a blessing, and it is not something to treat in a trivial manner.
    • When our way of thinking changes and our minds are set towards God instead of being set against God, then our actions will follow suit
      • But if we focus on just trying to change our actions without allowing God to reshape our minds, then we will continue to walk in frustration and hypocrisy.
  • Joining together as a sanctified people, helps us to grow together in Jesus’ Lordship and walk together with an eternal mindset!
  • When we bow together and confess Jesus is Lord together as a sanctified people we exponentially magnify and reveal the greatness of God the Father!
    • We show the lost world that Jesus is a big deal and that there is life in Him only.
    • We put on display a difference-making, life-giving, heart-transforming, hope-bestowing, purpose-revealing, sin-forgiving God who loves people far more than they could ever imagine!

CLOSING

  • GOD IS GLORIFIED WHEN WE UNITE IN SACRIFICIAL PARTNERSHIP WITH ONE ANOTHER TO PURSUE HIS SACRED PURPOSES AS A SANCTIFIED PEOPLE SET APART UNTO HIM!
  • You may ask, “Well can’t I do all of these things apart from being unified with others…NO! You cannot live out God’s call and design to unite with brothers and sisters by yourself! Jesus says that it is through the unity and love for one another that His disciples show that the world will know that Jesus is truly the Son of God, sent on purpose and for purpose!
  • John 17:22–23
    • ”The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
  • Picture yourself as a piece of God’s amazing handy work, placed in just the right spot at just the right time to glorify Himself thorough this beautiful mosaic that is His Church!

What do you need to do in order to let Jesus shine through you in His Church?