What Makes Us stick Together?

Colossians 3:14 Above all, put on love —the perfect bond of unity.

What is it that should make the church stick together?  What is it that binds us with one another?   Are we held together only by tradition, or familiarity or is there something greater we can depend on?

What does bond mean? Webster’s defines the word bond as a thing used to tie something or to fasten things together. Have you ever watched kids try to stick things together. First they just hold them next to each other and push hard. They expect that when they let go it will just stick together, but what happens when they let go? It just falls apart, right? Then begins the great kid adventure of trying to find the stuff to make them stick, to bond them. If you look around a child’s room, you will find things held together by play-doh, silly string, spit! All of these will hold for a little while but none of them will hold forever.

In the same way we see many attempts of bringing people together and bonding throughout culture. 

Around the world we find many approaches to peace, harmony and unity.  The new age movement says we can chant our way there, politicians say we can force our way there, and Madison Avenue says we can just buy everyone a Coke and teach the world to sing. We try many ways to accomplish this peace and unity and they all fail because we leave out the only thing, the only One who can actually do it. God.

God is the One who has made each of us a unique individual. He created us with our own personalities and backgrounds and He is the one who has brought us together into one body, the church. We should not throw away this diversity that God has created but embrace it. It is through Him that all these different people, with their weird edges and designs fit together like a jigsaw puzzle to make the beautiful picture that He is painting.

It would be a mistake to think that we can just put a bunch of different people together in a room, throw a worship song up on the screen and BAM! We would have an instant bond. As a church we must be held together by something stronger. A tighter bond - the bond of love. This is the bond of God the Father to God the Son, From God the Son to His bride the church. This is the bond that must hold each of us together in unity.

A bond that is willing to look past petty differences.  A bond that is willing to forgive even when we don’t feel like it.   A bond of love that reflects our unity with and in Jesus Christ.

To discover more, visit Oak Grove Baptist Church