Masterpiece: The Art of Unity

Church is Messy

Caleb Smith joins Svea Merry on the podcast today.

About the Masterpiece series

• Theme Verse: For we are God’s handiwork [masterpiece], created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
• Series Thesis: We are good works of art created to do the art of good works.

Resources for this episode

Watch the message at: https://youtu.be/opZLI4KlLD4
Listen to the message at: https://arcsermons.transistor.fm/episodes/masterpiece-the-art-of-unity

Topics Discussed in this episode

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:39 Recap of the sermon on Unity and the Masterpiece Series.
• 06:36 The story of Barnabas and Paul and what it teaches us about Unity--as an example of apparent disunity.
• 07:40 How can we learn from Biblical examples that seem contrary to what we expect?
• 08:47 Paul and Barnabas show us how one can maintain unity despite disagreements and differing directions.
• 17:00 Unity is not that everything is the same, that everyone’s truth is true, that we have to abandon our faith, or that we have to ignore hard conversations.
• 20:43 Not every church is the same, but we can still be united in pointing people to Jesus Christ.
• 21:19 Cultures can each resonate differently with topics in Scripture, but there can still be unity.
• 23:45 "God uses the diverse to bring together the picture of the whole."
• 25:14 What does it mean that we are a kingdom of priests?
• 27:10 Applying unity to the current context of Autumn Ridge Church through good listening and understanding.
• 32:03 Example of a congregant disagreeing with a local church but still believing God has called them to be at that church.
• 36:17 When does disagreeing move from unity into sin?
• 37:23 Leaning into trusting God and His word in the face of ambiguous faith application.