Morgan Teruel: Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: Hi, guys, and welcome to Sandals Church. I I wanna just start off again with a question. What's one of the biggest issues facing America today? Now don't say it out loud because you'll probably be wrong, but I just want you to think about it. K?
What's the what's one of the top issues that would come to your mind? I bet if I said a lack of unity, you'd at least agree with me it's in your top five, your top ten. America is not a united country. We are the United States of America, but we are united even amongst our states, not amongst our cities, not amongst our towns. And this is translating to our churches, to our families.
Anybody a parent? Amen? Right? How should we lead our kids? We have very different opinions of how to handle that.
There's differences even amongst, Republicans, Democrats, Christians, even at Sandals. There's this huge challenge to be unified. And so the world's idea of unity is making us all believe the same thing. God has a different version of unity, and I wanna talk about that today. We're shifting in the book of Ephesians.
The first three chapters have largely been theology, what God's doing, what God wants to do. And then in chapter 4 verse 1, we see this word, there for. Therefore, this is a transition away from mere theology to practice. And this is where so many Christians fail to make the leap. They're all in their heads and they never translate it into their lives.
They wanna do bible study, but they never do bible application. The bible will not help you if you don't apply it. It's not just something to know. It's something to live. Therefore, Paul says, based upon what I've said, this should change your life.
And so Paul says, therefore, I, a prisoner serving the lord. Right? There's a little challenge there. You're on your couch. He's like, I'm in a cell.
You're super important. I'm locked up. He says, I beg you. I want I want you to listen to that. I beg you.
Do you know how hard it is to get Christians to do what they say they believe? Like, imagine how different your life would be if you just lived what you say you believed. Would transform it. He says, I beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling. Now some of you, you don't know what the the Greek word for the word church is.
It's ekklesia. And literally, in Greek, it's the called out ones. So he's got a little a little play on words here. I'm begging you called out ones to live a life worthy of what you've been called, a different life. He says always be humble and gentle.
And some of you are like, I'm out. I'm out. Be patient with each other, making an allowance for each other's fault because of your love. Make every effort, Paul says, every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit. Binding yourselves man, there's a there's a list of adjectives here.
Binding yourselves together with peace. For there is 1 body, that's the church, and 1 spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. Listen to this. There's one lord. There's one faith.
There's one baptism. One God and one father of all who is over all and in all. So wake up, Paul says, and living through all. He says, however, he has given each of us one special gift through the generosity of Christ. Isn't that amazing?
God is calling you to a a type of unity that you have never experienced. Now if you've come from another church, I just want you to know this unity is not what you've heard, and it's probably not what you've experienced. Christian unity does not mean we never have conflict. Amen? Amen.
Now everybody just take a chill pill. Right? Just relax. If you've never had church conflict, you've never really been a part of a church. Amen?
Like, you've never been a part of a church. Like, you may have attended, but nobody knows you're there. Because you know you're in a church when there's a fight. Amen? That's why the Catholic school, Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish.
Amen? That's right. That's right. I don't like what you said. I mean, at least Christians used to be honest, man.
Wake Forest demon deacons. Amen? Yeah. I'm a hit you with that. Right?
Listen. Whenever we come together, we're going to have conflict. You have your views. I have my views. And God has His views.
And the only way we can get through that it's not that you don't matter. It's that what God thinks matter more that matters more. That's what it's about. But let me say this. Some of you, man, this has been abused.
This has been a a clobber weapon over you. We gotta have unity, which means you can express no concern, which means you don't have a voice. That's not what the bible teaches. K? Christian unity does not mean the individual doesn't matter.
Okay? This isn't communism. K? That's not what this is. We don't get to completely ignore you, not care about you, not love you, not see you.
You matter. You're just not as important as what matters to God. That's all. That's all. Next, this is huge.
Christian unity does not mean we overlook we overlook sin to keep the church together. We don't do that. Some churches do that. We look the other way. We pretend we don't see it.
We have to deal with it. Some churches care more about growth than they do about the sin that's in their church. When we find out about it, we deal with it. Okay? Next, this is huge.
And this is one of the saddest things about the church. Church unity does not mean that evil is covered up to protect the image of the church. We don't do that at Sandals. We do not do that at Sandals Church. If there is evil amongst us, we will do it.
We'll deal with it. We will handle it. So much of the reason that people are not interested in Jesus is because the church has committed evil by covering up evil. And we have to deal with it as a church. It's ugly.
It's not fun. But the reality is sometimes evil people make their way into our ranks. The apostle Paul says wolves will come from amongst yourselves. From amongst yourselves. And we have to learn to deal with it.
Christian unity is is a different kind of unity. Number 1. Christian unity is different because it's voluntary. I always love people's comments on my Instagram. I thank you for your comments.
I appreciate so many of them are gonna be in the sermon today. I appreciate I I appreciate your voluntarily submitting comments in the public so I can share them. I'm not gonna share your comments that are private, but if it's public, amen, I feel like we can just talk about it. You put it on my page, I'm a put it in my sermon. Amen?
That's all I'm saying. But people say, you need to tell your church. It's interesting. The apostle Paul said not he doesn't tell them to be united. He says, I beg you.
I beg you. When I start telling you guys what to do, we're a cult. That's a cult. That's not Christianity. You need to tell them.
Yeah. You need to start your own church. Start telling people. See how fast it grows. They're gonna grow right out the door.
Ephesians 41. Therefore, I, as a prisoner serving the lord, beg you. He doesn't tell you. He's not forcing you. Some of the greatest evils the church has ever committed is when we tried to force people to be Christians.
I want you to love Jesus so much, I'm gonna kill you. Oops. That's happened in our history. He doesn't say, I'm gonna force you. He says, I beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God, not by me.
You're not accountable to me. You won't answer to me. You won't stand on on the day of judgment before me. You are called by God. It is a voluntary association.
That's what the church is. K. And some of the kids are like, it's not voluntary. I didn't wanna come. Sorry.
Your mom is more powerful than me. Amen? She is. Seriously. And the sooner you, you know, you understand that, the happier your life will be.
But listen to this. Listen to what Psalms 1331 says this. How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity. The second we force that, it's ugly. It's not unity.
It's ugly. K. Unity is like love. You can't force it. Single guys, you can't make a woman love you.
Don't ask me to pray for her to love you. I can't be like, love him. Love him. It doesn't work. That's how unity is.
We can pray for unity, but we can't force unity. It's a difficult thing. It's hard to be together. Any married people, amen? It's hard to be unified.
Yeah. How's that becoming 1 working out? Right? I feel like we're still 2, maybe 3. Yeah.
Some of you some of you guys got married, and you become 1. You multiplied your problems. Amen? I feel like there's 6 of us here. But Christian unity is voluntary.
We have to choose to be a part. We have to choose. People get to check-in to Sandals Church, and they get to check out. And they do it. They do it all the time.
Number 2, Christian unity is different because it requires a high level of individual humility. I can't humble you. Paul says, I beg you. I beg you to live a life worthy of your calling. Ephesians 42.
That was 4142. Always be humble. How are you doing? This week, I posted a picture with me with long hair on Instagram. I thought it was cute.
You know? And I have kinda like this surprised look. You know, like, I don't know who took the picture, but it wasn't awesome. You know, I'm just kinda like, I look totally lost while I'm preaching. So thank you, production team, for that photo.
Appreciate that. You helped me humble myself. Right? But I posted this picture, and I said, maybe this is the moment where the holy spirit said you're gonna have 14 campuses. And somebody posted, or maybe this is the moment you realize, you know, your ego.
And at first, I was like, oh. Right? I don't have an ego. You have an ego. This isn't about my pride.
That's your pride. And I was all fired up and ready to respond. And then I was laughing because I was writing this sermon. Don't you love it when the Lord gives you, an illustration straight out of your life? You're like, lord, give me patience.
He's like, I gave you kids. How we doing? How we doing? Lord, I need more faith. That's why he gave you, you know, the size of it, the income you have.
You need more faith. Stop praying for faith. Amen? Listen to this. This guy challenged me, and he said, or was it ego?
The answer is, of course it was. Of course it is. For me to think that everything I do in the name of God is completely divorced from ego is a lie to myself. And the second somebody challenges you on your pride and you're like, I don't have pride. You have pride.
Listen to yourself. Listen to yourself. Always be humble. Married couples, how many fights have you got into because you were too humble? 0.
0, right? Listen, if I don't learn to humble myself, life will humiliate me. You need to learn to humble yourself. Maybe that's why God gave us Instagram. You're not pretty.
You're ugly. Humble. You're not smart. You're dumb. Humble.
I mean, maybe these trolls out there are just God's little angels helping us. They're just helping us become more like Jesus. Right? Of course, you have an ego. Of course, I have an ego.
Of course. And the more successful we get, the harder this becomes, the harder it becomes. Success breeds pride. Pride destroys the work of the spirit in your life. So instead of me responding to this wonderful angel of God that posted on my Instagram, I just received it.
I've watched success ruin some of my friends. Well, why wouldn't it ruin me? And the reason what he said bothers me is because it's true. If it wasn't true, it wouldn't bother me. And so that's the thing is I if I can look at myself, why can't you look at you?
The number one reason people don't like coming to church is because God pokes our pride. Proverbs says this. This is the book of wisdom in the Bible. Pride ends in humiliation. Why?
While humility brings honor. I was so proud of my wife, man. We were we were having a conversation. And, you know, the bigger the church grows, the harder it is for us. K.
We're trying not to change, but the way people see us changes. It just does. We live in a celebrity culture. We just do. I can't change that.
That's the world we live in. And someone came up to my wife, and they said, it's like meeting a celebrity, which is kind of an insult, you know, but kind of a compliment. You know, you're not a celebrity, but almost. Thank you. But I love what my wife said.
She said no. No. No. No. Matt and I are just regular people serving an extraordinary God.
That's it. I love my wife. I love that she said that. We've watched our friends get incredible platforms because of Jesus and be ruined by it. Good people.
Amazing people. It happened to them. It can happen to us. So what is humility? Humility is an attitude of the mind.
It's where you remind yourself, I'm not that big of a deal. Look, I'm grateful that you guys love love coming to Sandals Church. I'm grateful that you like hearing me preach. One day, I'm not gonna be able to preach anymore. I'm not gonna be able to be your pastor anymore.
And somebody else will be here, and 10 minutes later, you'll forget I exist. And that's okay, because it was never about me. And one of the reasons the churches get so dysfunctional is pastors can't let go of the platform Jesus gave them. And we need you to remember that. I gotta remind myself, sandals isn't about me.
It's about Jesus. And so many people in our church, I see, when they get it twisted, they make it all about themselves. And then it's not at all about Jesus. 1 Peter 5:5. In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of elders.
Now we live in a culture that does not accept the authority of older people. We minimize it. I mean, in the state of California, they wanna let 16 year olds vote. I love you if you're 16. I don't want you directing my life.
Thank you. You know? I want you to learn to drive. Amen? And do it well.
I want you to focus on the road ahead. K? Put your phone down. Stop texting. Right?
And drive. I don't want you driving our country. So here's the thing is if you're young, part of being a young Christian is learning to accept that older people have some more experience and more of a perspective than I do. And one day, you'll realize this. You'll realize, oh, 50 year olds do have value.
Oh, oh my gosh. I was I thought that they should just die. You know? K. And if you're old, you remember when you used to think I remember when I thought 30 was, like, done.
Just hang it up. You know? And now I think 30 year olds are cute. I'm like, oh, look at you. Look at you.
The authority of the elders and all of you, listen to this, dress yourselves in humility. K. You have to dress yourself every day. Every day, you gotta dress yourself. Dress yourselves in humility as you relate to whom?
To one another. This week, I was I was at a, a civic meeting, a civil meeting, not a religious meeting. And I was sitting next to somebody. And right when I sat down next to them, I saw them. I saw them.
I saw them. I watched them As I sat next to them go like this. They went like, and then they turned and said, hi, Baz or Matt. I was like, I just saw you. I just saw you.
And I just had to sit there the whole time during the meeting while this person mad dogged me. It was like I smelled. They were just like, which, I mean, can happen. Sometimes my wife says, honey, you smell. But I just had to humble myself.
Listen to me because the meeting was more important than my ego. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. We all need to work on our humility. And when somebody calls out our ego, it's probably almost always emphatically true because we all have this. We all struggle with this.
The me monster gets us all. It eats us all, and we have to deal with it. So humility is an attitude of the mind. Gentleness, which is so closely related, is an attitude of the body. It's a physical manifestation of what you believe inside.
We need to be gentle. Couple years ago, we met with a church that was talking about merging with Sandals Church. And one of the elders, man, he wanted to fight me. I know. Right?
I mean, clearly, I would smoke anybody. Amen? Right? To be honest with you, there was a good chance I probably would've lost that fight. I'm just saying.
Just saying. It was not a guarantee, but I probably woulda gone down. But this Jill this church elder and listen to me, Raiders fans. I love you, but he was wearing a Raiders jersey. Pray about it.
This is what he said in a church meeting. He's like, you wanna go, bro? And part of me was like, yeah. Yes. Thank you for inviting me to this battle royale in the name of Jesus.
Thank God for pastor Dan Zimbardi. He just put his arm around me, walked me out into the parking lot. He's like, we're just we're just gonna go now. Our pastor has run out of grace. You know?
We just left. We just left. We never went back ever. But conflict is real. So let me talk to you about how I should have handled that situation.
2nd Timothy. Who's Timothy? He's the pastor of the church at Ephesus after Paul's gone. Paul writes this letter in his final and last letter to Timothy. Paul's about ready to die.
He's in prison. He's gonna have his head cut off by his own people, the Romans, for his faith in Jesus. Here's what he says, and the Lord's servant. You have to make a decision today. Do you wanna serve yourself, your ego, or Jesus?
Because we can't have both. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome. Remember the fighting Irish? Oops. Must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, even people that mad dog you in a meeting, even someone in a Raiders jersey that says, you wanna go, bro?
You wanna go? You wanna go, bro? I didn't know where we were going, but I wanted to go. I wanted to go. Let's go there together.
Amen? A servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, even people you don't like and even people that don't like you. Look, a lot of people don't like me. Some of them are your friends. I told somebody the other day, the line is long of those who don't like me, but it is distinguished.
Amen? Yes. There's some very important people that don't like me, and that makes me feel terrible. Alright. Must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone.
The biggest fights my wife and I have ever got in involve us not responding in kind to the way that people have treated us. I have held my wife in tears as she has cried out, why do we get to be treated this way and not respond? You know what my wife's saying? She's saying, I wanna go, bro. I wanna go.
I wanna go. We have to be kind to everyone. It's not fair, but it is our faith. They must be able to teach. Listen to this.
Patiently enduring evil. Oh, I wish we could vote this verse out of scripture. Okay. I don't like to patiently endure a line at Starbucks. Amen?
Anybody lose their mind at Starbucks? That's not evil. That's not oppression. That's not persecution. A servant of God must patiently endure evil the way Jesus did, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
Now can I just tell you this? I don't follow anyone on social media that I feel like it's my job to correct. It always cracks me. There's people that follow me, and all they wanna do is set me straight. Thank you very much.
I appreciate it. You are the Lord's instrument in my life. I just wanna challenge you as a Christian. If you're if you're the Holy Spirit for the world on social media, can you just let the Holy Spirit do his job and you start doing your job? And some of you just need to unfollow thousands of people.
Like, some people in our church, they're, like, 70 years old and they're all upset about what the youth are posting. Why are you on the youth page? Why? You've not been a youth for decades. What what are you doing?
I I I it cracks me up. What are you doing? The world is changing. I mean, we're just so critical. Well, kids these days.
Well, who raised them? You. It's your fault. Listen. This is the whole purpose.
Why do we need to check ourselves? Why do we need to guard ourselves? Why why why do we need to do this? That God may perhaps grant repentance leading them to the knowledge of truth. This is a huge word perhaps.
People criticize the way we do things. You know? And and let me just say this. It's usually your Christian friends who go to a church that isn't growing and they don't care. That's just the truth.
They don't wanna reach the world. They don't care that the world is going to hell. They don't care. I care. Jesus cares.
And we wanna do something so that perhaps it would lead them to repentance. You know what doesn't lead people to repentance? Screaming at them, yelling at them, carrying a sign that says, you're going to hell. Oh, really? I don't I don't wanna go there.
Thank you so much for warning me. How can I become saved and joyful just like you? I was driving in Riverside this week, and on the freeway, I saw a sign. It says Jesus or hell. I was like, I don't I don't know that that's helpful.
I mean, that's an extreme summary, right, of what we believe. I don't think it's correct. But here's the thing is, Jesus didn't come to send people to hell. He he came to he came so that they could have life on earth and eternal life with him forever. Here's what the gospel says.
You're already judged, and most people are already in hell. Jesus came to save.
Morgan Teruel: Thanks for listening to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision here is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. At Sandals Church, we wanna see a movement of authenticity take place all over the world, and donating to the work of Sandals Church helps make that happen. If you wanna support this movement here at Sandals Church, I wanna invite you to visit donate.sc. Thanks again for listening, and god bless.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: Now here's one of the things that makes Christianity so much more challenging than your family, than your work. Christianity is different because it creates a unique, set of relational challenges. Amen? Like, when you look around at your Christian friends, it's like, look. We have nothing in common but Jesus.
Amen? That's it. We come from different races, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different beliefs. We were raised in different areas. Like, the church is a collection of trippy people.
Amen. Yeah. And you're like, I don't think the church is that strange. It's because it's you. Right?
It's you. We love you. We love you. But you know what community group is? Community group is meeting with people that you have nothing else in common with other than Jesus.
That's what community group is. That's what church is. Church is not about the music you like. It church is about the music that the most people like so that we can reach the most people. I mean, it's it creates a a unique challenge.
I preached on Grace a couple weeks ago. I had a woman after church come up to me. She said she said, thank god. You you guys played Amazing Grace. I hate the music all the time.
She didn't hear a word I said about grace. I'm fairly certain I preached for about 40 minutes on a different grace. This grace was so different. It's amazing. She didn't hear about it but wants to sing about it as long as we sing about it the old way.
Amen? Well, the old way, it's a beautiful song, but it didn't change people. We need to we need to create a church that invites as many people as possible. So Paul says this in Ephesians 42, be patient with whom? Each other.
Now on the debrief and thank you so much for your questions. We're we're averaging, like, a100 a week, man. Thank you so much. Yeah. Some are like, I got some questions right now, pastor.
But I talked about grace and forgiveness, and people go straight to Jeffrey Dahmer. It's like, bam. What about him? He he killed and ate people. Well, chill out.
What about you forgiving me? Because when I preach, I hold a microphone and read a teleprompter. Let's let's start there. One of the women that one of the, ladies that posted a comment, she said, well, at least you used to preach from the bible. I still am.
I just can't read 10 font anymore. You know? That was young Matt Brown then. He could stare right in at that, man. So I could set the Bible 6 feet away and still read it.
Right now, I'm reading from 16 font. 6 the letters are like a, b, c. That's what an allowance is. He's still reading the Bible. The letters are just bigger.
Whoo. Thank you for that social media content. I appreciate it from a message. I'm still reading from the Bible. It's just different.
And let me just tell you. Let's go way back. She probably thinks people have always read from the Bible. They didn't used to have the Bible. Somebody had a letter.
Probably somebody memorized it. And by the way, your translations that are so accurate are not written in the way that they were meant to be heard. Because the Bible wasn't wasn't written so that it could be read. It was written so that it could be heard because people didn't have the finances to be able to own their own copy. It's why I love to use the New Living Translation because it is translated for the ear.
Now I know. You're like, I just want the King James. Nobody understands it anymore. K? Even Shakespeare will be like, what?
Make an allowance. Make an allowance. We go straight to Jeffrey Dahmer. We can't handle a teleprompter. You know?
Right? Jeffrey Dahmer might be in heaven, but, pastor, you're going to hell because you don't have a Bible in your hand. Sell out. Thank you. Just make an allowance for me.
Make an allowance for each other's faults. Where does unity start? We make an allowance. People are difficult. People disagree.
People are doing the best they can. I was talking on the phone this week with a pastor, man. He's ready to give up. And here's what he told me. He said he said, Matt, things don't roll anymore.
Things don't roll. He said, every single issue I face in my church relationally feels like it's gonna be the last issue. That's our culture. We are done way too quick. We're done with our relationships with church, with our friends, and in our marriages.
Some people are even done with their kids. You're on your own. He's 4. He's 4. I was going to the gym this week, and this this 3 year old was having a meltdown, man.
You ever seen one of those? I don't know what happened, but her pants were off. It was it was a meltdown. Like, no clothes, no pants, juice box, like, flying through the air, and this big buff dude was just like, I can't, and he just walked away. I'm like, she's 4 in the parking lot.
I need you to can. I need you to can right now. And I can't help, she's fighting her dad. So here's here's the thing is. Some of you guys are like, well, pastor, I just feel like we need to go deeper.
Okay. Let's go deep. You know the English word patience. Let me give it to you in the Greek. It's macrothenia.
Sounds like a disease. Amen? I know. Some of you Christians have never had it. Yeah.
It's called patience. But here's what makes it difficult to translate. We say patience, but really what it means is it describes a reluctance to avenge wrongs. That's what it means. It's the word that fundamentally means we turn the other cheek when we're slapped, when we're insulted, when we feel offended.
It's the ability to toughen up. Some of you as Christians, you have juice in your heart, but he's not in your chin. It's way too weak. It's like glass. You're like, oh, I'm out.
It means that we don't avenge wrongs. So as a Christian, I must choose. If I'm going to practice patience, I must choose to learn to assume the best in people. Do you know most of my conflicts are when people assume the worst in me? And we all do this.
Right? My wife, I love her. God bless her. She got her hair done. Husbands, you ever had that?
And we were in the grocery store together, and I was just looking at her hair. And she said this. She said, why do you keep looking at my hair? You don't like it. You don't like it, do you?
You don't like it. You haven't liked it since I come home. And I'm like, I actually like it. I was looking at it. I like your face.
I like you. I like looking at you. She was interpreting the exact opposite of what I was thinking. And some of you guys come to church. I don't like the way you look at me.
I mean, you guys don't like the way that I look at you. You should look at how you look at me while I preach. Some of you just sit there and mad dog me. You wanna go, bro? You wanna go?
I've done funerals where I've been mad dogged. Yeah. So here's the thing. As a Christian, if you're a Christian I don't know if you're a Christian. As a Christian, I must wait to pass judgment until I have all the facts.
So there's 3 questions I wanna challenge you to ask when you're upset with someone, when you're offended with someone, when you're done with someone. Number 1, what are my feelings? What are my feelings? My wife was uncertain about her hair. Had nothing to do with my feelings.
Had to do with her feelings. So Tammy and I are in counseling, and I've learned with my feelings Listen to me, guys. I'm a dismissive avoidant. Yeah. I'm your guide.
I will teach you how to feel. Let's go. Right? Let's all ignore it and suppress it. That's what I do.
And part of that is because I haven't I I have not handled well people being so upset with me as a pastor over the years, so I just stuff it and ignore it. It's not helpful. What are my feelings? Maybe they didn't mad dog me. Maybe they aren't upset with me.
Maybe that person at the meeting that went, maybe he had a bad day. Maybe he's heard some things about me. Maybe I've said some things. But I have to own my feelings. So what are my feelings?
Next, what are the facts? And for most of us, the feelings and facts are the same thing. They're not the same thing. But what what are the facts? And then here's the thing if you're a Christian.
This is huge. What does my faith say? Some of you are completely ruled by your feelings, and then we got the other people. Alright. Facts don't care about your feelings.
Yeah. But Jesus does. Let's be nice. Remember gentleness? Gentle.
Gentle. So listen. 1st Corinthians 4:5. So don't get ahead of the master and jump to conclusions. Listen to this.
And jump to conclusions before all the evidence is in. We all do this. We all do this. When I get the madest madest at my wife or at my kids, it's because I'm making some assumptions, And I don't know how they feel. I don't know what they think.
I don't know what's going on, but I become the judge, jury, and executioner because that's what Jesus would do. Right? Wrong. You know, I've met people at our church, and they're so upset about a decision I've made or something that I've done. And what's interesting is they have more information about the meeting that they weren't that they were not at than I do, and I was in it.
How's that possible? How is it possible that you have evidence from a meeting that you were not at, but I was there, and I didn't hear that? Because what happens in the church is we just start talking, we start assuming, and we start running with what we've heard, and we assume it's true. Let me tell you something I've learned. You don't know if something's true even if the person sharing believes it.
People believe lies all the time. Let me tell you another thing I've learned. Just because they're crying doesn't mean they're authentic. Tears do not communicate truth. It communicates emotion, but it doesn't necessarily communicate truth.
And so as a Christian as a Christian, I have to learn if I'm gonna get involved to try to get all the facts. And let me just tell you something. I'm I I I unfortunately have to get all the facts. And and even after I get all the facts, sometimes I'm more confused afterwards than I was. I'm I'm more confused after than I was before.
Because you have people who are passionately saying completely different things. And I'm not God, and I don't know. I don't know, and you don't know. And so what we have to learn to do as Christians is we say, I'm sorry you feel that way. That doesn't sound like the Matt Brown I know.
That doesn't sound like Sandals Church. That hasn't been my experience. And we have to learn to protect each other. We have to learn to protect our church. And we have to learn to say, look, man.
These are difficult times, and we we jump to the worst conclusions way too fast. Way too fast. And let me just say this about Sandals Church. Sandals Church is one of the healthiest churches I see right now. I'm not saying we don't need this message.
I'm just saying we're a lot healthier than most of my friends' churches. Because I got friends who are like, I'm done. I'm done. Because it's so hard to be unified. And let me just say this.
As a Christian, I have to learn to love people even if they're wrong, Even if they're wrong. Make an allowance for each other's faults. Why? Because of your love. For whom?
The answer is Jesus. Jesus. You see, when you run out of love for someone, you have to fall back in love with Jesus. And that's not easy, but it's what we have to do. Number 4, and this is huge, Christian unity is different because it calls for more than a casual level of commitment.
Can I just say this? We we are way too casual in our commitments. We jump in and out of relationships. I mean, I've I've been I've been your pastor 25 years. I've seen some of you married, like, more than 5 times.
I can't even keep track. People leave the church, come back. Leave the church, come back. And I'm like, man, I don't even know what church you attend, man, But I'm dizzy. People are not committed anymore.
I was cracking up this week. I heard Jordan Peterson say he got tired of being protested at, colleges. You know what he did? He moved all of his debates from the evening to the morning and completely wiped out protests. Because young people are like, yeah.
I gotta say something, but not before noon. I think global warming's an existential threat, but I gotta sleep in. Ain't that funny? He just said he moved all of his debates and all of his talks in the morning, and all the protesters are like, I'm out. They can't get up.
Kinda like you in church. Right? You walked right into that one. Come on. You know, I love Jesus, but I'm not getting up at, you know, 8 AM.
We didn't have service at 8 AM, bro. Ephesians 4 1 and 3. Therefore, I, a prisoner for serving the lord, beg you, beg you, listen to this, to lead a life worthy of your calling. For you have been called, remember the church, you've been called by God. So what does he say?
Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit. This is more important now than ever because we are so divided. Everything in media, everything on the Internet, everything, you know, your friends, your neighbors are trying to pull us apart. Jesus Christ died to bring us together. Listen to what he says.
Binding yourselves together with peace. I want you to think of that word binding. Your Christian commitment to your church is almost like your commitment to your spouse. Not quite, but close. And I want you to hear me.
I've been married to 1 woman for 26 years, and I've been the pastor to 1 church for 25. And that's because I believe commitments matter. Tammy and I've been through some tough stuff. I've hurt her. She's hurt me, but we've made it work.
At Sandals, I've hurt her, and she's hurt me, but I've made it work. Again, we don't excuse evil. We don't overlook sin. Your feelings matter. Okay?
I'm not talking about some kind of cultish unity where we just completely obliterate people's feelings. But I'm talking about a church where we make a commitment, like Christ has made to us. You see, as a Christian, I want you to hear 2 things. God has called you, He's called me to himself. That's a calling.
It's forever. And as a Christian, God has called me to his church. Our culture is way too casual in our commitments. I can't talk all about what this verse means. We're gonna get to this in a couple of weeks.
But Paul says this in Ephesians 525, husbands, love your wives. How? As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. The example of how you should love your wife is how Jesus loved the church. So let me just ask you, if Jesus gave up his life, why can't you give up your weekends?
And let's be honest, it's a part of your weekend. It's it's a it's a part. If Christ could give up his life for the church, I can give up some of my time to come to church and worship God, to learn more about God, and to serve God. And let me just say this. For those of you who have a hard time with sandals, sandals is not a perfect church, but sandals can never be the church he is meant to be until you become the person you're called to be.
We are only as good as our members. We are only as healthy as our members. As you go, the church goes. So that's why we bind ourselves together in peace. I just wanna close, I just wanna pray over you, and I wanna challenge you.
Are you committed to the unity of the church the way you need to be? And if you're not, just tell God you're sorry, And make a commitment. You know, a lot of couples nowadays, when they're married, they renew their vows. Maybe you need to do that with Jesus today. I need to renew my vow.
I've gotten out of the habit of church. I've disconnected. I need to reconnect. Would you bow your heads and just close your eyes and pray with me? Heavenly Father, help us to love the church, to protect the church, to work towards unity in the church, just like you loved and worked for unity in us and through us.
Father, help us to love and serve you the way help us to love and serve the church the way that you served and loved the church. God, help us not to be casual in our commitments in life and help us not to be casual in our commitments to the church, but inspire us, God, to work for the church, to love the church, to serve the church as you did. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.