Psalm 133. Behold how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment
upon the head that ran down upon the beard even Heron's beard
that went down to the skirts of his garments, as the dew of
Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. For
there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. Let's pray. Lord, teach us tonight, Lord,
to overcome our natural tendency to for our minds to wander and cause
us, Lord, to think on the things above. For our Savior is seated
at the right hand of the throne of the majesty on high. May our
minds and hearts be upon him. Thank you, Lord, for the unity
of the brethren, the fellowship of your family. Bless us tonight, Lord, as your
family, with your presence and with an understanding. And
by your grace, through the message, may we see our Savior high and
lifted up and his great love and power toward us. Thank you for all your blessings
in his name. Amen. How good and how pleasant it
is for brethren to dwell together. Only brethren can dwell together. What communion has light with
darkness? We have no unity with those who
hate our Lord. We can't and we shouldn't. And really, they don't with each
other. They agree in their hatred for the Lord, but that's about
all they agree on. I've been in enough of them to
know. That churches in name only are
full of turmoil and unrest and ill will and everybody's jealous
of everybody else. And even brethren can't always
dwell in unity. That's why he says how good it
is when they do. What a blessing it is when they
do. It's contrary to our nature. We're a lot of things by nature
that we don't much want to admit that we are. But we're selfish. We're proud. And it's just hard
to agree on things with anybody much. But when we do, it's good. It's good. And I'll just say on a personal
note that I believe that we've enjoyed unity here like I've
never seen anywhere else. And I've heard that from others,
too. And I thank God for that. That's not our nature. That's
not us. That's the Lord. And he says,
look how good it is. Look how good it is. Don't just
pass over and say, well, that's good as opposed to bad. Look
how good. It's real good, isn't it? This is God's estimation
of that. And only God is qualified to
make an assessment like that. We don't really know good from
bad unless we learn it from Him. We can't declare something to
be good. God made a world and said it's good. He said it's not good for man
to be alone. I agree with Him on those things,
but I wouldn't know anything without Him. If you want to know what's good,
you have to look in the word of God. See what God says is
good. It was said of the Lord Jesus
Christ, He doeth everything well. He does all things well. He's the one that made the world.
And I'll tell you this, He's our bond. He's our unity. He's
the one who causes it. It's His gift. If we love one another like He
loved us, as He said, in any degree whatsoever, that's Him. He is love. The Apostle Peter preached in
Acts chapter 10 that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy
Ghost and with power. He went about doing good. And I'm so thankful that he came
here and did some good. Everything he does is good, and
when brethren dwell together in unity, that's his doing, so
we ought to be thankful. Good because Christ is glorified
in that. As his bride, as his family,
he's the head and we're the body. He said that by this shall all
men know that you're mine. Good because the saints of God
are strengthened and encouraged when there's unity. When there's
turmoil and strife and disagreement, it's discouraging. It's disheartening. Troubling. When there's unity, You'd think
that the opposite would be true, but it is, but it's not the same,
is it? When there's turmoil, then it's
like, wow, everybody knows about it, and everybody's upset about
it. When there's unity, nobody hardly notices it. Just kind
of take it for granted. It's not equal, is it? It should
be. That's why we want to stop and
think about this tonight, and thank God for the unity that
we enjoy. Good because the work of the
gospel ministry is effective by this means Think about this now the gospel
doesn't need our creativity It doesn't need innovation You know
those things are important in earthly business when I was in
sales. We were always You know wanting to be on the cutting
edge. You know we're innovators. We got to be a You know, we gotta
come up with new ideas and I've come up with a lot of great ideas,
I thought at the time, of some things that we could do as a
church and then by God's grace, I forgot about them. You know
what's a good idea? Preaching the gospel. Being faithful
to the gospel. And loving one another. Just
the simple things that he's told us to do. A new commandment I
give you, that you love one another. Go and preach. forsaken not the assembling of
yourselves together. Worldly business is promoted
that way through innovation and change and creativity and things
like that, but not heavenly business. Not the business our Lord was
talking about when he said I must be about my Father's business.
All that is necessary for the gospel to prosper. Now think
about this. for the gospel, for God's business
to get done, is all that we really need to do is just stay out of
the way of it. If we can just not mess it up, it'll be fine,
won't it? Just don't mess it up. The one greatest hindrance to
the gospel ministry, where there is gospel ministry, is discord
in the church, disagreement, division. Paul said in Romans
16-17, Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions
and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned,
and avoid them. For they that are such serve
not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly. They're serving
their own desires, their own desire for recognition, for congratulations
and things, and for You know, men to admire how much they know
and all that. May God deliver us from that.
And then he said how pleasant it is. It's good whether it's
pleasant to us or not. Right? Good is God's estimation
of it. Pleasant is our experience of
it. I kind of like it too, don't you? When things are just going
smooth. When we're in agreement, when
we're in unity, when we have one purpose and one goal, one
mind, one heart in the things of the Lord, to honor Him, to
promote His gospel, to be about His business in this world, and
to do so as one. It's not just good, and that's
not my opinion, but this is my opinion. It's pleasant. That's our experience. Don't
you find it that way? It's good in the very nature
of it, and it's pleasant in the experience of it. Usually, for
us to know just how good and pleasant something is, we've
got to do without it for a while, don't we? Now I know that's part of the
Lord's purpose in allowing division at times. I've seen anything but unity
at times. And now, when I see unity, I
know it when I see it, don't you? And I say, even more, with even more understanding and more more heartily than I could have
any other way. Having experienced the opposite
of unity, I can say how good and how pleasant it is. What is the basis of our unity?
What is it that makes us one? Well, there's all kinds of reasons
why people are at odds with one another. Pride, selfishness. And, you know, pride takes many
forms and one of the ways that we're proud is like when we hate
groups of people. We're proud because, you know,
we're not like the Jews, for example. Maybe one of the greatest
examples of prejudice and hatred was between Jew and Gentile.
The Jews said, you're a bunch of dogs. You're not even human. That's pretty tough, isn't it?
I might take offense at that, if one of them said that to my
face. You're not even human. But listen to what the Lord said
about what Paul said in Ephesians 2, 13. But now in Christ Jesus,
you who were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished
in his flesh the enmity even the law of commandments contained
in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man,
and so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto
God. And notice what he's saying.
He's broken down the wall between Jew and Gentile. We're one. We're one body. One church. But
also, both are one with God. We have unity with God the Father. Having slain the enmity in one
body by the cross, that he might reconcile both unto God in one
body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." What we're
seeing all through this is Christ is our, He's our unity, He caused
our unity, He accomplished it, He bought it, and He sees to
it. For through Him we both have
access by one Spirit unto the Father, through Him, through
Christ. Now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners,
but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of
God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself, being the chief cornerstone in whom all
the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in
the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for the habitation
of God through the Spirit. Christ, by his cross, slain the
enmity between people who know him, his people. Lots of division,
lots of differences, lots of natural problems of our flesh,
pride and envy and selfishness and foolishness, but made one
by his precious blood. One family, one body, one building,
one foundation. We're one because of Christ and
what he did for us on the cross. One family in him, listen to
Ephesians 4 verse 1. I therefore the prisoner of the
Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith
you are called. How are we going to do that?
Now think about that. Paul says, I beg of you, don't make an idiot
out of yourself. Walk in a way that's consistent
with the calling wherewith you're called. Now how are we going
to do that? Walk worthy. When we think of worthiness,
we think, well, we better start doing some great things. No,
he said, come down. The way you walk worthy is to
be nothing and to know you're nothing. Listen to it. Walk worthy
of the calling with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering,
forbearing one another in love. To walk worthy has a lot to do
with how you walk with regard to your brothers and sisters
in Christ. endeavoring to keep the unity
of the spirit in the bond of peace. That's how you walk worthy.
Don't mess it up. That's how. Don't mess it up. There's one body, one spirit,
even as you're calling, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all
and through all and in you all. And he He made peace and unity among
us and with God by His precious blood, where we read just a moment
ago, and we are encouraged, besought, instructed to keep
that. Endeavoring to keep it. But also,
He's our motivation in it. Isn't that right? Why do you
want to be one? Well, we forgive. Why did he
say forgive one another? As God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven you. We love, why? Because he first
loved. That's the cause, but that's
also the motivation. He loved me first. If he loves
you, I ought to love you. We give our time, we're committed
to this out of love for Him and out of love for one another.
You know it means a lot to me that you're committed to the
work. And it means a lot to the person across the aisle from
you too. Because we all benefit, don't
we? And everybody that's committed
to the work is part of that. Being committed takes a lot of
forms, doesn't it? It's not just about giving. If
nobody gives, we can't have any lights. I guess we could, you
know, meet out under that tree over there. Hopefully there's
a breeze, you know. But giving is good, but what
about not? Not giving, I'm preaching to
myself tonight. Just flatten not allowing yourself,
just not giving in to the natural tendency to mess things up, to
be an ass, to be a fool, to be an idiot, to be contrary. That's part of commitment too,
isn't it? The unity of the church. Let's
look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12. This is, I think, a good First Corinthians chapter 12.
I think nothing sheds light on scripture like scripture. First Corinthians 12. Let's look
at verse 4. There's a lot here. We'll kind
of, I guess, kind of skip through this instead of reading all of
it, but all through to the end of this chapter. Really, all
of it. Let's look at verse 1. Now, concerning
spiritual gifts, I would not have you ignorant, brethren.
You know that you were Gentiles, carried away into these dumb
idols, even as you were led. Wherefore, I give you to understand
that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus a curse, and
that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost. Now these are the diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And there are differences of administrations, but the same
Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the
same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of
the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to
one is given by the Spirit of the word of wisdom, to another
the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit. To another faith,
by the same Spirit. To another the gifts of healing,
by the same Spirit. To another, the working of miracles.
To another, prophecy. To another, discerning of spirits.
To another, diverse kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation.
But all these worketh that one in the self-same spirit, dividing
to every man severally as he will." So everybody has different
gifts. Some of you have more faith than
I do. Others have, you know, just like he said, more wisdom,
more knowledge, more understanding. There's different gifts that
each of us have, but it's for everybody. Everybody benefits,
the whole body. And it's all by the same spirit. Verse 12, for as the body is
one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body
being many are one body, so also is Christ. You notice that he
calls the church Christ. Like a human body has fingers
and toes and everything different, so also is Christ. What's he
talking about? What does he mean by Christ?
The church. For by one spirit are we all
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether
we be bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one
spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot
shall say, because I'm not the hand, I'm not of the body, is
it therefore not of the body? Maybe if you're a foot, you'd
get discouraged and say, well, I'm not a hand, so it's just
no use. I'm worthless. No, my feet are kind of important. There's no part of the body that's
not. If the ear shall say, because I'm not the eye, I'm not of the
body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were
an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where
were the smelling? You see what he's teaching? Everybody's
important in the sense that in the body of Christ, We're one
for a reason and we take the place that we do. We are the
part of it that we are by his choosing, by his gift, by his
design, by his purpose. He designed my body. I think
he did a fine job of it. David said we are fearfully and
wonderfully made. I agree. So is his church. That's us now. God has set the
members, every one of them, in the body as it has pleased Him. If it pleased Him, it ought to
please us. Lord, let me just take my place. Isn't it a privilege
to be any member of the body? Whatever it is, however lonely,
however overlooked maybe, that's fine. Some people want to be
overlooked. That's kind of hard for me, but
I kind of wish it was that way. You know, maybe you can overlook
me, even though you've got to listen to me. That's what I prefer,
but we're all members of one body. And it can't just be one member,
it's got to be the whole body, verse 19. Many members, one body. And so we won't read the rest
of that chapter, but that's so good if you want to read that
maybe later together. and think on that and pray you
know that the Lord would give us grace just to be whatever
he wants us to be to do whatever he wants us to do and to be happy
be satisfied with that and then David said this it's
like the precious ointment this is interesting he gives some
comparisons you don't see that a whole lot in scripture our
Lord taught in parables and he told stories and things that
we you know, learn from, and I'm glad that he did because
it breaks spiritual things that are high. It gives us some earthly
reference, simple stories that he would tell of things that
we understand would give us some reference and teaching in that.
And these examples are so beautiful. It's like the precious ointment.
If we're going to know what that means, You have to turn to Exodus
30 because we got to see about that ointment that he's talking
about and what was it like? If we can see what it was like,
what it was, what its purpose was, what it was made up of,
that might help us know what he's talking about. And I pray the Lord will teach
us Exodus 30 verse 22. Moreover, the Lord spake unto
Moses, saying, Take thou also unto thee principal spices of
pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so
much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus
two hundred and fifty shekels, and of cassia five hundred shekels,
after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil, olive, and hen, And
thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound,
after the art of the apothecary. It shall be an holy anointing.
Alright, so we already know some things about this. It's a mixture. We just read about that. A mixture.
Different parts. But one ointment. One ointment. It's holy. The Lord hath declared
it holy. Are we not His holy bride? Verse 26, And thou shalt anoint
the tabernacle of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the
testimony, and the table, and all his vessels, and the candlestick,
and his vessels, and the altar of incense, and the altar of
burnt offering, with all his vessels, and the laver, and his
foot. And thou shalt sanctify them. that they may be most holy. It was the oil that sanctified,
that set apart these things. It was because of that anointing
that those were identified as God's vessels, God's furniture
in the tabernacle. And thou shalt anoint, let's
see, back in verse 29, thou shalt sanctify them that they may be
most holy. Whosoever touches them shall
be holy. And we know only the priesthood could do that, whom
God had anointed. And thou shalt anoint Aaron,
verse 30, and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister
unto me in the priest's office. And thou shalt speak unto the
children of Israel, saying, This shall be an holy anointing oil
unto me throughout your generations. Upon man's flesh shall it not
be poured, neither shall you make any other like it. After
the composition of it, it is holy, and it shall be holy unto
you. Whosoever compoundeth any like
it, or whosoever putteth any of it upon a stranger, shall
even be cut off from his people." So it was rare. This was the only thing it was
used for, the only time and purpose for which it was made. It wasn't
to be common. It wasn't just something you
could put on like some perfume. It was only on the priesthood. Only upon the vessels. It's only
upon his church. The Lord Jesus Christ, we're
all priests now, aren't we? He hath made us kings and priests
unto our God. So we're anointed with this oil.
And this is, what is the anointing? What is it that separates us? Didn't he say? How are everybody
gonna know that those are my people? You don't mess with them,
those are mine. Love, unity, oneness. So we see a lot of truth in this,
a lot of teaching, lots of different spices and different measures, different smells combined to
make one ointment that had one smell. It was beautiful. It was
special. It was exclusive. That's what,
this is what sets us apart. Our oneness in Christ. The fact
that we are the body of Christ, the family, the building of Christ,
as living stones. So let's talk a little bit about
some of the main things. It was precious, it was precious. Our love for one another, our
unity, our fellowship together, that's a precious thing. It must
be precious to us. We have to not take it for granted.
We see in David's said, it's the precious ointment. He called
it precious ointment. The unity that brethren enjoy
is like the precious ointment. And we saw how special it was
there in Exodus 30. And we must view that fellowship
that we have with one another in Christ. That way, we must
place a high value on it. How easily our sinful nature,
by nature we don't place much value on that, do we? I've seen friendships of decades
dissolve in a moment. We just throw that away. Our
nature would do that. Throw away that which is precious.
That which takes a lifetime to achieve and to be experienced
by God's gift. But not if the Lord will make
this precious to us. The unity of the brethren can't
be just a common thing that we think very little of. dissolving
or throwing away. It's got to be counted among
our greatest possessions. Something that's precious to
you. You wouldn't take anything for it, would you? That's how
this has got to be. And it may cost us something.
We may have to... It may cost me some hurt feelings. I may have to, you know... It
may cost me a little bit of my pride. I got plenty. That's alright.
I got plenty of it. I got, I got proud to spare.
If I have to lose some of it, that should be fine with me. We got to, we got to be jealous
over it, don't we? If somebody wants to come between
us, if somebody wants to come in here and sow discord, you
got to go. It's too precious to us. And it had a wonderful smell,
all these things. Some of those things, we don't
even know what they are, but I recognized a couple of them,
didn't you? Cinnamon is one of my favorite smells. That was
the one that was, I think, second most in quantity. And you know,
that's... When brethren dwell together
in unity, and when Christ is honored in
any way, You remember when that woman
that was a sinner, she broke that alabaster box of ointment.
And that was her expression of love for the Master. He said,
she's anointing me pertaining to my death. She's honored me
with this. But everybody got to smell that. Everybody in the room got to
smell that. When one person is committed
to Christ. It's something that's pleasant
to everybody, to see that, to experience that. And this thing
of unity, man, like you said, it's pleasant.
We like things that smell good, don't we? We could go down to
Kroger and buy a bottle of soap for a dollar, but we'll go and
pay, you know, Seven or eight dollars. Of course,
it's a buy one always buy one get one free, you know, you're
getting a deal So, you know, you don't mind paying three or
four dollars three or four times as much because it smells so
good Makes me smell good, you know But And then he said it
was a sanctifying oil and there's a couple of meanings to the word
sanctify holy as in the Lord he says sanctify the Lord God
in your hearts though and And what that means is we don't make
Him holy, but what we do is we set God apart in our hearts.
Nobody else takes the place of God in our hearts. He is a part
in our honoring of Him, in our estimation of Him, in our glorying
in Him, in our worship of Him. And that's what this is. It's
sanctified. It sets those things apart as God's. And I never really
thought of it before, how that they anointed all of the The
golden candlestick and the altar of incense and all those things
were rubbed down with this oil. You can imagine what it would
smell like in there when the priest came in and did their
business in there, did the business of the tabernacle. So, it was
a sanctifying oil and Christ said, as I've already pointed
out, this is what identifies us as His. The unity, the love,
the oneness, the sameness, that we have for one another. And
then it was a carefully prescribed recipe. There were specific ingredients
that made this all what it was. And there are things that make
this unity what it is. And that's right from the word
of God. Listen to Romans 14, 19. Let us therefore follow after
the things which make for peace. There are some ingredients that
have to be present if there's going to be peace. And things
wherewith one may edify another. This all took careful preparation. The measurements had to be precise,
exactly as God said. And this unity doesn't just happen
without effort, without some attention to it. We're to endeavor
to keep it. It's a blessing of God, but he
said it'll come, and it's God's gift. Now, he gives it, but it
comes by striving and endeavoring. Things that make for peace and
unity. And then he said, it's also like
the dew. The dew that God sent, the dew
of Hermon. Listen to Proverbs 19, 12. The
king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion. And that's God, isn't
it? God, not to be trifled with.
He's the king. But his favor is as dew upon
the grass. Our king is terrible. He's holy. He's not to be trifled with,
but though his wrath is violent and frightening, and he said,
fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul. But his favor
is like dew upon grass. Grass can't live without it,
without the moisture, without the water from heaven. And we
can't survive without the favor of God. We can't survive. Now,
I may survive and you may survive, but we can't survive without
this, without this unity. You see what I mean? And I'll tell you this, us surviving
individually wouldn't be very, well, that's not pleasant. You know, we might know God and
be safe in Christ in this world without any unity and fellowship
with brethren. That would not be pleasant. It's
not good for man to be alone. It's not good for God's people
to be alone. It's not good for his bride to be alone. You remember
Elijah, when he thought he was the last one left, he said, God,
kill me. Let's end this now. I'm the only one left. Let's
just wrap it up. I think, I kind of feel that
way too. What's the point of being down
here? Let's just be with Him if we
got nobody to fellowship with here. You know what I mean? Is this world gonna do anything
for you? Hold any attraction for you?
Any pleasantness in this world? Any goodness in this world? No.
This is good and pleasant. And if this goes away, Lord,
let's just wrap it up. It's a manifestation of the favor
of God in it. If God's gonna make the grass
grow and stay green, he's gonna drop his dew down upon it. Refreshing,
reviving, satisfying, necessary. Thank God for one another. Thank God that we don't have
to endure this world alone. Even when the Lord sent out his
preachers, to preach you know I imagine they encountered some
rough characters in the beginning don't you imagine before the
gospel had ever been preached before he said you go out and
preach but he said go two by two don't go by yourself I like
that. Remember that list of things
that God hates in Proverbs 6? Among those is this, he that
soweth discord among brethren. You're destroying something good.
You're destroying something that God says is good. God hates that. He hates that. And you know,
it doesn't say he hates it when discord is destroyed. He hates
he that destroys it. He that soweth discord. I don't want that to be me, do
you? I don't want to be that. I sure don't. But if somebody tries to come
between us, you know, and he talks about where we read, which
passage was it we read where he connects it with the doctrine,
contrary to the doctrine. If they want to, you know, stir
up strife contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught. And
that's where it happens a lot of time, isn't it? Somebody wants
to argue about something. Can't let it happen. Avoid them. Avoid them. Don't give them a
microphone and debate them. Avoid them. It's not complicated. I know people, I know a lot of
people that like to argue and debate. God forbids it. Don't
you do it. It's dishonoring to his name.
His gospel is to be declared. There are no other opinions that
we need to hear. We just need to hear what God
said. And so if that's, maybe it would happen that way. Somebody
would sow discord like that to come in and argue doctrine or
take issue with something. And a lot of times when that
happens, it goes deeper than that into some personal thing
that causes them to look for something to have a problem with. But whatever it is, whatever
causes the discord, the one that causes it, it's a person doing
it. And God hates them. But you know what? If somebody
tries to do that, let's stand up for one another in that. And may they have a fight on
their hands. If they say something bad about you, they're not going
to get away with it. And I pray it'll be the same with you. And
look, there's going to be times, this doesn't mean that, as we
said at the very outset, how good and pleasant it is for brethren
to dwell together in unity. One of the reasons we know how
good and pleasant it is is because we've experienced the alternative.
We're going to get mad at one another at times. We're going
to be disappointed in one another at times. No doubt about it. But we're brothers and sisters
in Christ. We need to remember who we are. And what's at stake?
It's precious. It's priceless. There's no earthly
bond that can compare to this. It's like that precious ointment
that was poured on Aaron's head that flowed down his beard and
trickled all the way down to the skirt of his garment. Precious
and beautiful and pleasant. Sanctifying, identifying of who
we are. In this unity, it's like that
refreshing dew In what ways? Well, it comes down from heaven.
Oh, our natures. Discord doesn't come from heaven.
I know where that comes from. But unity, this dude comes down
from the heavens. Every good and perfect gift is
from above and cometh down from the Father of lights. And did
he not say in our text, this is a good gift? It's good. Well, we know where it came from
then. Do is life and refreshment. If
God doesn't send down this on us, we will die. We will not
be a church if God doesn't do it. We depend upon it, don't
we? The unity of the brethren. This
church dies without it. We'll tear one another apart.
We'll blow this thing up if he doesn't rain down the dew upon
us. Notice what he said there in
our text. That's where God commanded the
blessing. That's what it's like to do. Because in Zion, his church,
where his brethren dwell together as one, God has commanded the
blessing. even life forevermore. That's the comforting part right
there. This doesn't depend on us. You know, we're to strive
and we're to endeavor. But all the while, we need to
acknowledge that we will have it if God gives it. And if he
don't, we won't. We ought to strive for it. We
ought to value it. We ought to, it ought to be, it must be precious
to it. And when he may use us to in the endeavoring. There may be some things that
need to be done, some business that has to be taken care of
to keep the unity. And it may take some pain. It
may take a little, you know, swallowing of pride. It may take
a lot on our parts. But whatever it takes, and whatever
we do in the involvement of it, we're going to have to bow and
acknowledge that God gives it or he withholds it. He either
commanded the blessing on us or he didn't. If he did, we're
not gonna mess it up. We're not gonna mess it up. So
don't mess it up. Does that make sense? You know what I mean, don't you?
If he commands the blessing, we won't be able to. That's my
prayer. That's my prayer. And Lord, use
me. Use me. Don't let it be me. That messes it up. That's pretty.