New Year Soul Goal Week 2 - United in Mind

Message by:
Pastor Terry Carwford
Covenant Church
Shepherdstown, WV

Last week we talked about one of our main strategies of growth and maturity where we share our lives “our very souls” with one another through Small Groups. This is how we do life together. Where we encourage, comfort and challenge one another to live a life worthy of God. Today I want us to look at another of our strategies and it deals specifically with unity. Go with me to …

I Corinthians 1:4-10
I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge - God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Passionate followers of Jesus are to be united in mind and purpose.

We have different gifts and talents and are uniquely made up, but in the context of moving together as a gathered people, just like the Corinthians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Ephesians and other New Testament churches, we are to utilize all of the uniqueness for unity of mind and purpose. Several times the phrase “one mind” and “One accord” was used for those in Christ ready for his leading.

Unity does not happen naturally.

Unity is given by Christ and must be taught and exampled.

Believers are never told to become one; we already are one and are expected to act like it. - Joni Erikson-Tada

Covenant’s strategy for essential unity is through our

Christian Life And Service Seminars

(C.L.A.S.S.).

This isn’t all we offer for discipleship and maturity. We have small groups, individual biblical courses, leadership training, mission trips and other specific events to continue maturity efforts. But the foundational knowledge, purposes and expectations are spelled out in our CLASS Seminars. It gets us all on the same page, the same song, to be the most united and affective.

1. In essential beliefs — we have unity. Ephesians 4:4-6 - There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
2. In non-essential beliefs — we have liberty. Romans 14:1 - Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. , Romans 14:4 - Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand., Romans 14:12 - So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God, Romans 14:22 - So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves.
3. In all our beliefs — we show charity. 1 Corinthians 13:2 - If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

I have never yet known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord's people were divided. - D.L. Moody

Christ Jesus and the power of His cross.

1. There are things that God gives us that no man can.
2. There are things that we give to one another.
3. There are things that the called leaders of God’s church give to equip the saints and keep unity.

Goals of Christian Life And Service Seminars

1. In CLASS 101 - To commit to loving Christ and His family at Covenant.
2. In CLASS 201 - To commit to growing in the habits for Spiritual Maturity.
3. In CLASS 301 - To commit to discovering your unique design and serving a Ministry in our church.
4. In CLASS 401 - To discover your Mission of reaching the world for Christ.

The Essentials We Believe:

1. We teach that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are verbally inspired of God and inerrant in the original writing, and that they are the supreme and final authority in faith and life.
2. We teach one God eternally existing in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
3. We teach that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary and is true God and true man.
4. We teach that man was created in the image of God, and that he sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death, but spiritual death, which is separation from God.
5. We teach that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice, and that all who believe in Him are justified on the ground of His shed blood.
6. We teach the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord, in His ascension into heaven, and in His present life there for us as High Priest, Intercessor and Advocate.
7. We teach the personal, bodily visible, imminent return of Jesus Christ.
8. We teach that all who receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ are born again in the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God.
9. We teach the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust, the everlasting blessedness of the saved and in the conscious everlasting punishment of the lost.
10. We teach that a true believer is eternally secure, that he cannot lose his salvation, but that sin may interrupt the joy of his fellowship with God and bring the loving discipline of his Heavenly Father.
11. We teach that the Holy Spirit is a person, is God and possesses all the divine attributes. He dwells in all believers, baptizes and seals all believers at the time of their salvation, and fills them in response to confession of sin and yieldedness.
12. We teach that it is the goal of every Christian to grow in spiritual maturity through obedience to the Word of God and the indwelling Spirit.

I Corinthians 1:10
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Question of the day: How will you be perfectly united in mind and thought?

For more information, please visit: Covenant Church