God’s Team
Psalm 133
Rev. Linus S. Lau
I want to talk to you about something that God really wants for his church. But it is the one thing that Satan does not want to see in any church. It is something for which Jesus prayed just before He went to the cross. It is the one thing the Bible says that will identify us as disciples of Christ. What is it that I am talking about? UNITY.
Just like love, unity is something that is very hard to find in this world. Look at the United Nations. It was founded in the same year that I was born. Its original goal is to be united against dictators of the world, to keep peace in the world, and to ensure human rights in all the world. After 58 years of trying, it has completely failed. These member nations are far from being united. It is a place of much disunity. It should be renamed the Disunited Nations.
In the beginning, our founding fathers knew that in order for America to be strong, we must forever be “The United States of America.” They understood the importance of unity. But how united are we today? Our national motto is e pluribus unum, which means “out of the many, one.” Look carefully at the seal on the old $1 bill and you will see it there. But they have taken it out of the new $20 bills. They have also taken out the other seal with the unfinished pyramid, on top of which is the eye of God watching over human affairs, with the motto: Annuit Coeptis, meaning “Providence has favored our undertaking.” Now they are talking about taking out “In God We Trust.” Well, you take God out of the equation, and you will not have unity for long.
The same goes for the church. Satan’s strategy to defeat the church, is to “divide and conquer.” But the devil is no match for a united church no matter how small that church may be. Unfortunately, many churches allow the evil one to deceive them, divide them, and destroy them. It really grieves our hearts to see a church fall apart because of a lack of unity. But when a church can come together and work in harmony and with one accord, it is one of the most beautiful pictures you will ever see.
The Beauty of Unity
That is why David begins this Psalm with a simple word “Behold!” The word behold in the Hebrew language would be our way of saying today, “Listen, Drop everything, and Look!” David is telling us that a fellowship that is united and a people that are one, is a sight to behold. In fact, I don’t believe there is a more beautiful sight anywhere on the earth when God’s people are truly united under the banner of the Lord Jesus Christ, and under the umbrella of His authority.
Jesus prayed for the church in the seventeenth chapter of John: “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (Jn. 17:20-21) The Lord Jesus prayed that we would be one. Jesus said we’re to be one just as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one. The Trinity is a Triune God. It is three Persons in one God. It is a perfect unity. Unity is in the very nature of God.
That is why disharmony and disunity grieves God. It is against His very nature. One thing the Holy Spirit will not do, is work in a church that is divided. Dwight L. Moody said, “I have never known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were not united.” So often we ask the Lord Jesus to answer our prayer, but there’s one way where we could be an answer to His prayer, and that is by being united, by being one. (See Eph. 4:3).
Jesus goes on to say in Jn. 17:22, “I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” In a world of political, national, philosophical, and theological divisions, God is most glorified, magnified, and satisfied when His children are unified.
The huge redwood trees in California are considered the largest things on earth and the tallest trees in the world. Some of them are three hundred feet high and over 2,500 years old. One would think that trees so large would have a tremendous root system reaching down hundreds of feet into the earth. The redwoods actually have a very shallow system of roots, but they all inter-twine. They are locked to each other. When the storms come and the winds blow, the redwoods stand together. They are locked to each other, and they don’t fall, for all the trees support and protect one another. That is the real secret of the strength of a church. When we stand together, supporting and protecting one another, none of us should fall.
The reason why we are to be so united is, as Jesus said in v.21, “that the world may believe that You sent Me.” The greatest advertisement for the gospel of Jesus Christ is not a building, a sign, or even a program.Tthe greatest advertisement for the gospel of Jesus Christ is a church that is unified in the Holy Spirit. Praise God that our brothers and sisters came together on July 5 and demonstrated a large measure of that unity. That was indeed a beautiful sight to behold!
The Basis of Unity
Someone once said, “Coming together is a beginning; staying together is progress; but working together is success.” Why should we work together? How can we stay together? What is the basis of unity in the church? May I suggest two things that should form the basis of our unity. It is not our race, or our denomination.
First of all, it is the lordship of God’s Son. Now this Psalm was primarily addressed to “brothers.” Brothers here refers to the people of God. Now in order to be brothers, you must have the same father. If you have the same father then you are in the same family. What is true in the physical realm is just as true in the spiritual realm.
To be brothers in the spiritual sense, you must have God as your Father. If God is your Father, then you are in God’s family, but you must be born into the family of God; and to be born into the family of God you must be born again. Jn. 1:12 says, “But as many as received Jesus, to them God gave the right to become one of His children.” You too can be a part of the united people of God by putting your trust in our Savior who died for your sins.
You see, unity cannot not be achieved by legislation or coercion. It is not something to be imposed from the outside. But unity is a relationship. It begins with our relationship with God, and then we can have unbroken relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
The basis of true lasting Christian unity is the lordship of Jesus Christ. As long as we will submit ourselves to the authority of Christ and His word, we will be a unified church.
But the second thing that will bring us together is the life of God’s Spirit. Now notice the comparison David makes. He compares unity to “the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, down upon the skirt of his robes” (v.2). Why is unity like oil running down the whole body? Well remember, oil is a symbol of God’s Holy Spirit. And Aaron is the high priest of Israel. But he is only a copy and a shadow of the Great High Priest (Heb. 8:5), our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered Himself to be sacrificed for our sins once for all (Heb. 10:10). When Jesus established His church, the church became the body of Christ. So, today, the unction and the power of the Holy Spirit must flow through the whole body of Christ. It is not meant for just a select few. Christians cannot grow alone. We must grow together. The hand or the foot does not grow by itself, but the body grows as a whole. Life changing life – that’s how we must live together. Each of us must share each other’s life, trying to make one another better. Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in his time, had 43 millionaires working for him. When asked how he managed to get so many rich, successful people to work under him, he replied, “They were not millionaires when they first came to work for me. But they all became rich as a result of working for me.” Do you live in a way to enrich those around you? Or do you simply use others to enrich yourself? Work diligently to edify and develop the people around you. There is gold to be mined in every soul. We must all help one another to reach the full potential of being like Christ. Only then will we have unity in the church. That is the secret to our success.
David not only compares unity to oil; he also compares it to dew. “It is like the dew of Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing—life forever-more.” (v.3) This bond uniting us is also like dew. In high elevations the dewfall is heavy. Every dawn the mountain-tops are drenched, and the feeling is one of freshness and fertility. Israel is a dry country, so the morning dew is very important if plants are to grow. The dew fell on the loftiest peak, Mt Hermon in the land of the northern tribes, as well as Mt. Zion, one of the smaller peaks, in the southern tribes. We need the dew of fellowship if we’re to flourish in our faith. Unity cannot be manufactured by human effort; it is a gift produced by the Spirit.
Dew is a symbol of blessing. When Isaac blessed his son Jacob, he said, “May God give you of heaven’s dew” (Gen 27:28), meaning the resource of prosperity. What dew and oil have in common is that they are both flowing down. David focuses on the source and direction of these blessings. They come down from above upon God’s people. “Unity” is a gift of grace, and “Life forevermore” is the ultimate blessing, salvation. When we live together in harmony as God’s people, we get a foretaste of eternal life. We are part of a “forever family”. As we look around our church we see people we’re going to spend eternity with us in heaven. Why not get to know them better now? Use the new pictorial directory to know and pray for other members. If we want a bit of heaven on earth, we can start now by uniting with fellow believers every way we can.
Conclusion
There was a convention held for all the carpenter’s tools: Brother Hammer was criticized as too noisy; Brother Screw was chided for doing so little while having to be turned around and around; Brother Ruler was scolded for measuring everybody as if he were the authority; and Brother Saw was blamed for always cutting others up. The session turned into a finger-pointing event, with all the tools fighting and bickering. Just when disorder was beginning to ruin the group, in walked the Carpenter of Nazareth. He put on His apron and started to build His church. He used all the tools gathered there, including the hammer, screw, ruler, and the saw. Order was restored and all the tools worked in harmony.
Individually, we are tools that can hurt one another. Submitted to Christ and dedicated in His hand, we become a team for His kingdom. Are you on God’s team?