up on that locally and globally. When we unite with other churches, one family, this is what God wants. So we serve our community, Compassion Clinic. Overseas, we love people. God loves people in every nation, loves us all equally. We want to build relationships with our brothers and sisters in Honduras, serve there. When our team goes out, they're united. We're united with them, praying together. And then as they go, they build new relationships, unity grows. And you see, this is what our series is all about this summer. It's a relational series, uniting with God and uniting with each other. It starts in our hearts, and then our homes, our church family, and cities and countries, because there's no limits to what God wants to do. Life's about relationships. They asked Jesus, what's the most important commandment in the Bible? He said, love God with all your heart, strength, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. And this is a series about what God wants to do in relationships when we start with God and then we grow together. Our vision this year, just choose hope. Let's say that together. Just choose hope. There are three series, and the first one that we just completed is Ignite. 28 days of hope. There were four important themes, hope gifts, hope shifts, hope habits, and also hope impact. This is a foundational series. If you missed any of the videos, the written content, you want to go back, Just go to the website, justchoosehope.org. It's all available. If you want to encourage others to go through that. That series was a foundation and a fire as God ignites. Now we want to enter this next series, which is Unite. Because we don't just want to soar alone. We want to be together. This is what Jesus prayed for. Uniting together, and in these different relationships that we have, friends, family, strangers, acquaintances, neighbors, coworkers, what does the unity of God look like as we walk in love and truth? And then take flight is in the fall, we're gonna take a deep dive into the book of Acts, and we really want to flourish and be all God's designed us to be, and we get a picture of that in the book of Acts. So for those of you who like an overview, that's where we're walking together through these different scriptures and these different themes. It comes from two verses. First is in the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31. Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will not grow weary when they run. They will not grow faint when they walk. And we wanna be soaring spiritually together. Amen, is that on your radar this summer? Like if you said, hey, what are you up to this summer? I know you got barbecues, trips, maybe you got some free time, vacation, but what about spiritually this summer? When you hope in the Lord, you will soar in every season, every situation. So how does that happen? Romans 15, 13, the God of all hope. And this is our prayer. May the God of hope fill you with all peace and joy as you trust in him, that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. not on our own strengths, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. God doesn't run out of hope. Jesus's hope is infinite. Jesus's hope is indestructible. God wants us to receive and live with his hope. And that's what brings our relationships together. That's the basis of our unity. In this 12-week series, we're going to highlight 12 different elements of unity. You might think, I know unity. I've heard about unity before. Biblical unity, 12 different elements. And then we have a weekly devotion and a video. We're calling it Hope Wednesdays. In the middle of the week, you can access that. You can get all of those devotions, videos, life group questions, just text the word UNITE to the church phone number or go to the website justchoosehope.org. During the 28 days, so many people, roommates, families, friends gathered around and were in God's Word together. and said, can we keep that going? We made weekly videos and devotions, and you can say, hope Wednesday's all summer, let's gather friends and family, and it'll be linked with the sermon from Sunday as we continue to grow in our faith together. That's what's happening, and right now, as I prepare to pray, I wanna remind you that once a month, we have our elders come forward at the end of the service, it'll happen today, and you can come forward for prayer. It could be a physical situation. It might be some mental health that you're challenged with right now. It could be a relationship, restoring with God. That's why we're here. It's not, there's no shame in coming forward for prayer. See, God moves in our hearts and then he moves us into relationship. He moves us into prayer and then he moves in our situations. So when someone comes up for prayer, we celebrate this. This is wonderful. God said his house will be a house of prayer for all nations. And Jesus was passionate. Jesus flipped tables when there were not only manipulation happening, but also people were blocking the entrance to come forward for prayer. So this is God's passion. This is why we do it from James chapter five. If you're new here, you might be wondering, why are we doing this? It's biblical and we want to keep following God, trust in his word. So that's what'll happen at the end of the message. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you that you're with us always, that you're good, that you're faithful. And God, we lift up our relationships to you. We know it starts in our heart and it starts in our relationship with you. And we pray, thanking you for what you're gonna do this summer, what you're gonna do today, as we say yes to you. Lord, it's so easy for us to mess up relationships. So help us to come back to you and your word, and then trust you, have wisdom, and love, and we pray that you'd fill us today. In Jesus' name, amen. It's exciting to be biblical. It's exciting to do God's word and to see God show up and move in power. We want biblical Christianity, not cultural Christianity. We want biblical hope, biblical unity. There's a lot that's taught, a lot of false teaching in the culture. There's a lot of lies in the world today. What is God saying? Biblical hope, biblical unity. And during these next 12 weeks, we're gonna not only talk about unity, but we wanna experience it in the power of the Holy Spirit. We unite with holiness. 12 different elements, the first one's holiness. Holiness unites us. Without holiness, we're not very united. As you study God's word, there becomes an alignment where what's biblical and theological aligns with what's practical. And we say yes to all three, biblical, theological, and practical. It starts with theological. If your theology's off, the practical will be off every time. You get theology right, now you're gonna start to live right. If someone's not living right, it's usually because they need to stop and come back to the biblical and the theological. When that foundation is solid, then there's an overflow and we live out of that. We abide with Jesus, we are filled with the Spirit, and then the fruit comes. It starts in our relationship with God. God is relational. This is not religion, rules, and rituals. This is a relationship. We want to agree and abide with Jesus. And when you think about a verse, and you think about the power of unity and holiness together. Theologically, you start with the Trinity, and we worship one God, three persons. We don't tell God who he is. We are made in God's image. God has revealed to us countless times, clearly in scripture, throughout the pages of scripture, God exists in perfect community. God exists in perfect unity. God exists in perfect holiness. We worship the Father, we worship the Son, we worship the Holy Spirit, one God, three persons. When you think, where is all this holiness and unity coming from? It begins with God. Everything starts with God, and we're made in God's image. So as we draw near to God, we realize we're made to unite with God and unite with other people. Holiness and unity, it's perfect in the Trinity. And don't miss who God is. Don't just run into the finer points of unity without having the full picture, theologically, biblically, and then practically. Now, what does holiness mean? Holiness means set apart, perfect. Pure. We just worship. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And as God is perfectly holy, God is perfectly united. God gives us this command in 1 Peter 1, verse 16. It's in the Old Testament and the New Testament. For it is written, be holy because I am holy. There's two aspects to holiness, and this is really important to understand. There's a lot of confusion here. Two aspects, your identity, you are already holy, already and not yet. Your identity is that you are holy. God says in his word, you are a holy nation and you are holy. God declares it, it's God's report. It's not what someone else says, you are holy. You might think, well, how did that work? We don't achieve holiness, we receive holiness. And our holiness comes through the sacrifice and blood of Jesus. We sin, we all sin against God, but our sin is upon Christ on the cross, he becomes sin, and he gives us his righteousness. You are already holy, means you are already forgiven, you're already accepted, you're already in God's family, and you already have an eternal destiny where you're gonna be with God forever. You are holy. Turn to the person next to you and say, you're holy. And look the other direction and say, you're holy. This is our identity. It's who we already are in Christ. Not on our own, in Christ. And you might say, wait, there's tension here because I haven't been making a bunch of holy decisions this week, but you said I was holy. Holiness is also a choice. And when God says, be holy, he's saying, choose holiness. All of us are in a process of becoming more like Jesus. This is God's will for us. It's called sanctification, becoming more like Christ. And on this earth, it'll be a journey where we take two steps forward and one step back. Ultimately, we will have new bodies. We will be in a new heaven, new earth. We will be with the Lord forever. There'll be a consummation and perfect holiness. From the time you put your trust in Jesus and you are holy, now it's a journey to choose holiness and God is with us. And the more we choose holiness, the more we also choose unity. And God's hope helps us to make that choice. Be holy. Already, not yet, holiness is your identity, and because you know who you are and whose you are, now choose holiness because then what you say and do aligns with who you are. If you're already holy, it's a little sideways to know you're holy and then choose what's unholy. Because you're securing your identity in Christ, now choose holiness. Holiness glorifies God. Unity glorifies God. Hope glorifies God. And ultimately, we're all made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. There's a theological basis and a biblical basis that's significant before we get into some relational dynamics. Imitate the holiness and unity found in the Trinity. That's what we're doing together. Imitate the holiness and unity found in the Trinity. As you walk in the room today, if we had a question or if you texted your answer, is holiness, is unity, are they good? Most people would say, yes, unity is good. I mean, if there's someone here who thinks unity is not good, you probably wouldn't have shown up today, right? We show up to unite with God and unite with one another. If there was another poll question, a survey question, and said, do you want to be united? In this room, probably 99 plus percent would say, yes, I want unity. We would all say unity is good and we all want unity. Well, everyone says yes to unity until it's time to unite. And then things shift. You say, well, what happens? We realize that there are many elements to unity and unity always involves a cost. Starting with the Trinity, the Father sent the Son, Jesus died for us. We would not be united with Christ unless the cost was paid. We would not be united with the Father. We'd be not be united with the Holy Spirit unless the Son lays down his life. That's how committed Jesus is to unity, that we'd be united with God forever. Unity involves sacrifice. Unity involves serving. Unity involves submission. Unity involves listening. Unity involves humility. Unity involves a whole bunch of things that some of us start to listen to and think, yeah, I don't know if I really want the full unity package. Is there like a partial unity package? Can we have a semi-unity? Like, you know, some of those things, but not the others. Can we pick and choose and make unity a la carte? And the answer is no, we can't because unity involves commitment and cost and forgiving and grace and all these different things that sometimes we don't really want. How much do we want unity with God and with each other? How much you want unity is probably linked to how much unity you really have today. And it's good to pause sometimes in a fast-paced culture and think, God, how united do I wanna be with you and with other people in my home, in my church family, in the city? And God, what are you calling us to do? The Bible says a house divided will not stand. And that's true in a family, that's true in a church family, halfway holy, halfway united. fully committed, fully united. How much do we really want God's presence and how much do we wanna be united? A lot of people in our culture and in the church just settle for partial unity and say, that's good enough. Jesus prayed for a full unity. In John chapter 17, that's his longest prayer. I encourage you to read the entire chapter in his prayer, the heartbeat of Jesus. And he prays for many things. He prays for believers that will come. He prays for us. And what's his prayer? It's a prayer for our unity. Our Savior continues to intercede at the right hand of the Father for us. Let's read his prayer in John chapter 17, verse 23. He prays to the Father, I in them and you in me. Are you picking up on the unity in his prayer? It's vertical and horizontal so that they may be brought to complete unity. He didn't pray they may be brought to halfway united. It's not what our Savior prays, complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Here are two blessings of unity. It's unity with purpose. It's unity that has a purpose beyond just the unity. The unity blessings here in this prayer. One, the more we united that we are, the more that we know we're loved by God and we experience God's love through one another. We are more loved and experience more love through unity in the body of Christ. God has not called you to be isolated and independent and proud and look down upon other people. God has called us to come together, drop our logos and egos, denominations, come together in unity. That's when we're gonna know how loved we are by God. And then the second blessing of unity is that's when the world looks in and says, what's going on over there? How can these people of different generations and nations love each other and open up their homes and be so close to one another? This just looks different. This looks like Jesus. This unity looks like Jesus and the world sees the unity and says, I want what you have. And we say the unity is not what we built, it's what God's built in us and we're just having a great time living it out. When the world looks in and sees strife and jealousy and envy and you know, compare leads to despair. Jealousy, you remove the first couple letters, you get the word lousy. When the world sees us fighting over petty things and gossiping about it and slandering, the world doesn't look in and say, ooh, I would sure love some of that. That'd be wonderful. No, unity is what shines the light of Jesus to the world. It starts in our homes and then it's in our church family. If it's not in our homes, it can't be in the church family. It'll just be fake when we gather together. So it goes from our hearts to our homes, and then our church family, and then the world can't miss it. And says, what is going on with this unity? It looks like Jesus. It sounds like Jesus. Jesus followers glorifying Jesus through unity. That was his prayer. That's our mission. We want to honor Jesus, live this out. How much we abide with Jesus is directly linked to how united we are. And if we're not so united, we need to come back and say, are we really abiding? Are we really abiding? And that's God's calling to us. We abide with Jesus, we're gonna bear much fruit. There's a lot of choices when it comes to hope and unity and holiness. And here's a key one. Find friends who raise your commitment level to God. Find some friends who raise your commitment level to God. One person said after the last service, living in the Pacific Northwest, it's really hard to find friends that really love God. but it's worth it to find those people. It doesn't mean they're your only friends, but those ones that you let in close to you, think about who they are. Some friends that you have are gonna lower your commitment to God. They're gonna be pulling you astray. It might be unintentional, but they're gonna be pulling you astray. You spend a lot of time with them. They cause you to stumble. They're bringing lots of worldly patterns. And the closer you get to that, you realize I'm getting pulled away from God. And then there's other friends where it's very comfortable and you plateau with those friends spiritually. You plateau and sometimes in a culture or in a group where there's a plateau, you actually get kind of puffed up and you say, well, we know so much, we've experienced so much. We kind of have a lot of it figured out. We're just cruising comfortably. We all know how spiritual we all are. and that culture seeps in, it's just a plateau. No one's really growing. And then you have other friends that they wanna grow. They really want to be closer to Jesus and live for Jesus and serve other people and take relationship risks and live the Bible and you're around them and it's not always the easiest relationships. Cause you look over and you're like, they're going to what country? They're praying how long? They're fasting? Like, how are they using their gifts? They're sharing their faith. And you look over and it's a little convicting, a little inspiring, mainly inspiring, but you're like, I've seen how they're living out the scripture. I want to start doing more of that. And it's also a little uncomfortable because they talk to you and they might say, asking you a question, why are you still doing that? How come that's your habit instead of this? Is anyone holding you accountable for that? And they're bringing out the best in you because they care and wounds from a friend can be trusted. And they're all about iron sharpens iron. And now you're growing in your faith together and it's exciting. And you start to think, I don't have relationships like this. I have relationships where work is center or I have relationships where going to parties is center. or I have relationships where a common sport or hobby is center. But what about the relationships where Jesus is center and two people are becoming more like Jesus and being all they're designed to be? These are prayerful decisions, who our closest friends are, and I believe Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are living this out together. The context is that there's rebellion amongst the Israelites, a lot of lukewarm faith, some double lives, they're struggling, they're drifting from God, they're choosing the world. As a result, they go into exile in Babylon. In Babylon, the spiritual condition's even worse, because across the land, there's idol worship, and you have even people who are worshiped in Babylon. Never worship a person. Never worship something that God made. Never worship the mountains or the sun. Don't worship what's created. Worship the creator. And Babylon, if you're gonna live for Jesus in Babylon, you're gonna have to be courageous. And that's what they decide to do. And in the micro details, it's the food they decide to eat. Now, let's read from Daniel chapter one and see what was happening with their choice. Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself in this way. The context is that these four Hebrew boys are underneath Nebuchadnezzar the king who's training them to be leaders and offers them all the royal food. But some of that royal food didn't fit with Mosaic law and some of that royal food was sacrificed to idols and some of that royal food was handled in certain ways where they knew that it was defiled and they wouldn't go down that road. Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food. And this is what he did. He went courageously to that supervisor and said, please test your servants for 10 days. Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. And with God's favor, that was allowed. And at the end of the 10 days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. You need to come before the king looking well-nourished. And for those leaders, they thought, how is this gonna happen? But God blessed them. God will honor those who honor God. And they made a decision that we will not be defiled. And God always has a remnant that's rising up in every situation. It would have been so easy for them to say, ooh, that food looks good. They could have rationalized it and said, everyone else is eating the royal food. They could have thought to themselves, there's no social media, nobody's gonna know what we're eating. They could have just thought to themselves, what happens in Babylon stays in Babylon. I think we got this one taken care of. But they didn't, you know why? They had a commitment to God. They were courageous and they were counter-cultural. committed, courageous, and counter-cultural. If you wanna be biblical today, you're gonna be counter-cultural today. It might not be that obvious as it was in Babylon, but it's getting more and more like Babylon all the time. And the gap is getting bigger between the word and the world. And their choice in this instance right now was to see God beyond Nebuchadnezzar. You might need to see beyond the people who are around you and to look to God. And holiness and unity coming together, maybe the image you have in your mind is like a monastery. That's not it, biblically. Maybe the image you have is that we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. That's holiness and unity. That's not there biblically. What is there biblically is that we take risks, steps of faith, and we go counter-cultural with commitment and clarity that comes from Scripture, that comes from Christ. And that's what we see them live out together. Well, you say, that sounds easy, making smaller choices with food. There's gonna be bigger choices coming. How many of you know that all your small choices are linked to your big choices? And when you see someone fall in a major way morally, it's because you trace it back and do the autopsy to all these small decisions that were made. When they honor God with the small things, they're gonna honor God with the big things. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are told to bow down and worship the emperor, worship the king, and they refuse to do that. In Daniel chapter three, verse 17, they're united, they're like a life group, they're strong. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, and they would be, The God we serve. When they say the God we serve, they're saying, we do not serve you and the false gods. The God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from your majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know your majesty that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you have set up." I'm talking about a remnant today that says, we will not serve your gods. We're going to trust God and trust ourselves to God. And we're going to trust God with the results. Someone today with some courage and clarity needs to stand up to what's happening in the culture and say, this is the God we serve and he is good and we trust him. Well, what happens, they're thrown in and King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement, asked his advisors, weren't there three men that were tied up and threw into the fire? Even the people who were the attendance next to the fire were scorched, were killed. The fire raged and blazed. They replied, certainly your majesty. Nebuchadnezzar said, look, I see four men walking around in the fire. They are not bound. They're unbound. They are unharmed. And the fourth looks like a son of the gods. He can't even put the words on it. Do we know who the fourth one was? Many would say it was the pre-incarnate Christ. They're in the fire. Others would say an archangel, probably Christ. In the Old Testament, we have a pre-incarnate Christ and there's passages where it looks like Jesus is showing up. Here's what we need to know. If you are in the fire because you've chosen Christ, Christ is always in the fire with you. Hope is not dainty, hope is rugged. You hear their hope when they say, we reject worshiping you, King. We will choose our God. Throw us in the fire, we'll still have hope. Pull us out, we'll still have hope. If we go in to be glory, we'll still have hope. Because to live is Christ, to die is gain. We know the indestructible hope of Christ. That's what we're gonna live with. And you might think, well, those four, all right, that's how they lived, one group at one time at one point. This is for all of God's people in all places, in all situations. In Ephesians chapter four, verses two to six, a letter to the church in Ephesus. Unity and holiness, be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love, make every effort, notice this word, to keep the unity of the spirit. That word means to guard it, to protect it. We already have unity through the Holy Spirit. Every follower of Jesus, part of God's family, the Holy Spirit in you. So guard the unity church, protect the unity church. The enemy wants to get in and steal, kill, and destroy. Keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Now, let's say this all together as we celebrate this truth. 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. all coming together as one in Christ. Do you hear what we have together, majoring on the majors of our faith? Don't get sidetracked on petty things, on secondary things. We are all united, one Father, one Son, one Lord, one Spirit, one Scripture. There's going to be temptations, and it could be in the political space. It could be in the eschatological space. You say, well, what's that? That's end times. Some say there's a seven-year tribulation. I believe that. Others say it's not actual seven literal years. I respect you. Some say Jesus is gonna come before the tribulation. Some say during the middle, some say later. I was in seminary and I watched these perfectly united groups start to like divide over these little arguments that are petty and not the majors of our faith. I'm so glad to worship at a church where we major on the majors, we're united in Christ and we love each other and we keep our eyes on Jesus. That's what this calls us to do. We want to reject silos, pride, division. Pride always divides. I'll say it again. Pride always divides. Holiness and humility lead to unity. Holiness is the overlooked unity factor. This morning, if you woke up and someone asked you, what's a real key with unity? You might've had a lot of first thoughts, but how many of us would think holiness as the first thought, and how essential it is in linking it with unity? We live in a culture right now where the false gospel, what's proclaimed from the rooftops, and it's a false gospel, is two words, be happy. Be happy is the gospel of this world and our culture. And what's meant when someone says be happy is you call the shots, you decide your truth, you're in charge, don't follow God or follow Jesus or follow the Bible, do what you want, whatever makes you feel good, just go chase that. And if you like it, get more of it and don't tell anyone else that what they're doing is wrong and they won't tell you, just everybody be happy, everyone do what you wanna do. And yes, we are made to have joy and happiness, but the way to receive it in abundance is not getting more and more focused on me or thinking I'm above God or even focusing on happiness as if that's the ultimate goal. Because the only way we'll truly be joyful is not be happy, but be holy. Be holy is the gospel. Say, well, how are we ever gonna be holy? All of us have sinned. Well, it's received, not achieved, and it's through Jesus. Well, what about holiness during the day? Yes, abide with Jesus. Be so consumed with Jesus that you almost forget sin. Be so in love with Jesus and loving the people around you that you don't even have time for sin. Like you're just with the Lord and you're all about what God's doing. And the more you get consumed with Jesus, be holy, be like Christ, be focused on Jesus. And you're gonna have a joy that'll so far exceed daily and eternally everyone else that's all about themselves just trying to be happy. That is what's happening in our culture today, and it links to unity and also holiness. You say, we've been talking a lot of theology today, and we have, because theology is good, and it's also really important in our relationships. Let's bring it down into something that's a little more tangible and a little more specific. I brought some Legos with me today. And Legos, you say, well, that's hard to see. And that's exactly what every parent is thinking walking across the living room is that these are hard to see. And it's sometimes the middle of the night. Do you know how many Legos I've stepped on? We always have a lot of Legos at our house. And it's countless times that Lori and I have been stepping on Legos. And this little Lego right here, this is a red one. And there's a spot on the top where you can have connection or attachment. and then there's a base as well. Now, there are four places to connect here, and I think of introverts with this first Lego. As there are four connection points, you know, we have introverts and extroverts in the body of Christ. We're all equal. One's not better than another. God has wired us differently, and introverts have a different wiring, and they might have a smaller number of friends. Those friendships tend to go a little deeper in the conversations too. Again, there's pros and cons of being an introvert and extrovert. But as you hold up this red Lego with four connecting points, think of an introvert. And then as I hold up this white Lego with 16 connecting points, you're thinking about an extrovert. Everyone's my friend. There are no strangers. How can there only be 16? I have way more than that. I've got a thousand followers on social media and I'm in touch with all of them. They're all like close friends. That's an extrovert thinking, right? And talking. So some people are like extroverts. And then there's ambiverts. Because some people will say, well, I'm an introverted extrovert. I'm an extroverted introvert. I'm kind of both. And ambivert, we've got seven connecting points here. What happens sometimes is we try to live a life where we're spread out and we're isolated and there's a lot of distance. And especially in the West, in the Western part of America, we think independence is everything because it's simpler, it's safer, I call the shots. You know, we think people are the ones who just mess everything up. If we didn't have people, we wouldn't have problems. A lot of people approach ministry like that. You know, ministry would be so easy if there were no people. We would just sit together with all the right answers and have committees, write it down on paper, and everything would be awesome. Well, you're right. It's a little simpler without people, but We love people. God loves people. And so we sometimes try to go into denial and say, no, I'm perfectly self-sufficient. I can do life on my own. I don't really need to connect with God that much and other people that much. And it's like, no, Legos are made to connect. Legos are made to connect, not sit here. I said, we are all designed to connect with God and connect with other people. You can try and be in denial and say you're not, but your maker knows. He made you and we're made to enjoy God and enjoy the relationships that God gives us. Now, there are some people you need to avoid and need to have some space and be discerning. I'm not saying everyone's safe. I'm not saying everyone's your best friend, but I am saying that God's designed us as these Legos draw closer to each other. Okay, now they're together, they're close. And just think about our context here. We want to do more than just be in the same room, right? All generations and nations gathered in the same room. That's a starting point. We have diversity in our life groups. Life groups are the core of our church. That's why we have about 70 plus life groups. We gather together in close relationship. We want to do more than just be together in the same room. And sometimes we're around each other, but we're not really connected. And it's that step of faith, that relationship risk, where you say, I'm designed to be connected, and introverts and extroverts come together, and ambiverts, just as important. And as I put these together, you see the picture here. We're connected, we're connected. Ultimately, I know I chose red, white, and blue, this is the country that we want. connecting with God, connecting with one another. But this is the church family, connected. Your family might be really, really challenging, and you can't force people to connect. But as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone, pray for those who mistreat you, forgive as Christ has forgiven you, and this is that call to connect. That's the message of the scripture. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love and hope the presence of God connects us together. And notice on Legos, there's attachment points and there's the base. We attach and connect. but the base is holiness. And without holiness, the connection starts to deteriorate. Holiness is that basis. And so we wanna trust God together. If we have half-hearted holiness, we'll have halfway unity. The two are connected together. And some people just say, oh, I've got enough, it's fine, but we are called. Jesus is the way. And if you know inside there must be a better way, it's because there is. If you're thinking there must be a better way in marriage than this, it's because yes, Christ at the center of the marriage, he is the way and he will show you the way. Keep Jesus the center, he will bless that marriage. When you think with kids, there must be a better way. I know the teenage years are hard. I know the infancy years are hard where they just scream for more food. I know changing diapers is hard. If you in love stay abide with Jesus, Jesus will show you the way as a family to stay together. Church family, churches are so divided right now. We're denominations and competition and all this weird stuff. If Jesus is the way and he is, he will show us the way to unite together as one. body. Jesus is the way. Holiness brings hope to a confused and corrupt culture. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel did more than just avoid sin. They intentionally connected. This is like Christ. Do you know Jesus is the most committed to unity? Jesus loved kids when everyone else saw kids as second rate. Jesus connected with women when sadly everyone in that culture saw women as second rate. Jesus lifted up and said, Jew and Gentile, all one family and he tore down the walls of hostility. He went to a woman who had been divorced many times and the disciples were shocked, the religious people were shocked. Jesus shocked people all the time because he broke the cultural norms. He went to where people are, he listened, he loved, and he built unity with the love of Christ. We have been too cautious, plain and safe, acting holy, but not really living holy and united. We wanna become like Christ. We reject cultural Christianity and we choose Jesus and biblical Christianity. It's the only way that things are gonna change. And when you do that, the light of Jesus shines. He's already called you the light of the world. That's who you are. Now you get to live that out. We live in a world right now that's confused. I wrote down a list. We're confused in our culture about God, the Bible, Jesus, history, family, gender, love, truth, sin, identity, purpose, faithfulness, and ourselves. I ran out of fingers for all the things we're confused about these days. Our God is not a God of confusion. He's a God of peace. And Jesus said, come to me and you will have peace for your souls. You will have clarity, you will have a new compassion for the people around you, and God will give you courage to be counter-cultural. This is God's call in our lives. We won't turn there, but you can read it this week in Daniel chapter six. As Daniel goes into the lion's den, what happens? God is with us in the lion's den. And the king is amazed that God calms the lions, that the lions become pillows, that Daniel has a good night's sleep. I'm reading a little bit in between the verses on that description, but that's how I picture it. And you know what the king declares? The king declares, everyone reject the false gods and the dead gods and the idols because Daniel's God is the only God. And when you choose unity and holiness and hope, you'll have leaders and kings and politicians who start to realize there is one true God in the land. And you will have the person you work for, your supervisor, and you will have neighbors and you will have family members that start to look in and say, What's going on around here? And you say, I'm choosing hope, I'm choosing Jesus, I'm choosing unity, I'm choosing forgiveness, and I'm choosing love. Forgive is gonna be key. We'll close on this verse, 1 Peter 1, verse 3. Praise to God for a living hope. Why do we unite? Because we worship God. and God is worthy, and Father, Son, Holy Spirit are united. We thank God, we praise God for a living hope. This is not dead religion. This is Jesus, our living hope. Praise be to the God and Father. This is relationship. Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in his great mercy. Don't forget God's mercy. If you're carrying around resentment and bitterness today, it's because you've forgotten God's mercy. If you're trying to get a grudge with someone, you're just keeping a record of sins and pulling that out all the time, it's because you've forgotten God's mercy. We forgive because Christ forgives us. God is merciful to us and we forgive others. There still might be consequences for that person. They still might go to jail, right? They still might've broken the law and be in trouble. I'm not saying there's no consequences, but we forgive because Christ forgave us. And we have a living hope, Jesus. Today we're going to choose Jesus. We're going to choose hope. We're going to choose to receive God's forgiveness. We're going to choose to forgive others fully. We're going to choose to unite. We're gonna choose to say yes to Jesus and all he wants to do in our relationships. And this is a time of prayer. You can pray where you're sitting, where you're seated right now. You can also come forward to the elders. You can have prayer if your body is hurting and in pain. If your relationships, there's some relationships that need prayer. Again, your mental health. Maybe you wanna return to God today. Maybe you wanna put your trust in Jesus for the first time or get baptized. What's your next step today after hearing God's Word. How do you respond to His message today? I'm gonna invite the elders to come forward, and as they do, let's all stand up to worship Jesus together. And this is a time where you can start to come forward for prayer. When you come forward, you just say, this is what I need prayer for. This is why I'm coming forward. This is what I need prayer for right now. And let's go to the Lord. Let's seek Him together. God moves us to unite in prayer and then God moves in our lives. Start to make your way forward and let's worship Jesus together.