Alignment: Working as a Team – Your Personal Discipleshift
Alignment: Working as a Team
Together Church | Pastor Brandon Werner
September 21, 2025 | Series: Your Personal DiscipleShift
INTRODUCTION
This morning, we’ve arrive at our fifth and final pillar for making Your Personal DiscipleShift.
We’re going to jump right into the scriptures, then we’ll identify the fifth pillar and our main idea.
If you have your Bible… open with me to John 17.
In John 17, Jesus prays a unique prayer unlike any other prayer in the Bible. Jesus began praying specifically for YOU AND ME!
He makes that clear in…
John 17:20
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word”
This prayer is for me and you! I promise, search your Bible… this is the only time where Jesus specifically prays for His future disciples.
That should peak our interest.
Of all the things Jesus could have prayed for you and me, what does He pray? Let’s read it…
John 17:20-23
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
When Jesus prayed for you and me, He prayed for our ONENESS.
Jesus prayed…
- That we would ALL be one
- That our oneness would be JUST AS the oneness Jesus shared with His Father
- That we would be PERFECTLY one
Jesus prayed for our oneness… but why?
His reason is revealed in His prayer… TWICE…
- So that the world may believe that you have sent me
- So that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you love me
Jesus understood that our oneness was essential to His mission… our oneness would be a catalyst for the world to believe in Him and to know God’s love.
So, Jesus prayed WE WOULD BE ONE!
And God the Father answered His prayer!
Through the miracle of rebirth,
the Father has answered the prayer of the Son!
1 Corinthians 6:17
17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
If your spirit has already been made one with God, and my spirit has already been made one with God, then WE are ALREADY ONE in spirit with Christ!
Because we have already been made one in Christ, it is possible for us to walk together in UNITY!
That brings us to our fifth pillar…
ALIGNMENT: Working together in unity.
Our oneness, our unity, is ESSENTIAL to the mission of Jesus and Your Personal DiscipleShift.
If you’re taking notes, here’s the main idea…
To continue Your Personal DiscipleShift, you must align as one and walk in unity.
BODY
To dig into this, we’ll look at three realities about UNITY…
- By design, God made UNITY one of the most powerful forces in this world.
It’s astonishing how much we can accomplish when we work together in unity as a team.
- We see it in business.
In America, even our government recognizes the power of unity.
Unity is so powerful that it is possible for corporations to gain too much power as they align and work together towards a common goal. So, our government has established antitrust laws to help keep businesses from becoming too powerful.
Now that shows the power of unity! Laws established to protect our country and citizens from organizations becoming so powerful that it would be dangerous for our nation. So, we see it in business, and…
- We see it in sports.
Unity and team chemistry plays a significant role in every sport.
Rowing is an incredible example. The power of the unit does not come from the strength of one individual. In rowing, the strongest must pace to match with the weak, and the weak must pace to match the strong. Sports remind us that the strength is not in one person’s power: it’s in the ability of the team to work together in unity.
- We see it in the Bible.
In Ecclesiastes 4:12, scripture uses the imagery of a “cord of three strands”. Any one of these cords might be easy to break; but when the three cords are united, they are not easily broken.
It seems like it would be easy to calculate the output of a team of three people. If you want to know what they can accomplish together, you just simply add up what they can all produce independently…
- This person has this capacity and capability
- This person can contribute this much
- And this person has these things to offer
So, how much can they do together? 1+1+1=3. Simple, right?
Wrong. God’s formula for teamwork isn’t an addition equation; there’s a multiplication factor in unity! Three people working together in unity can achieve exponentially more than the same three could ever accomplish independently of each other.
And if you keep adding people aligned in unity, that exponential factor continues to climb.
God Himself acknowledges this part of the order of His creation in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.
Remember how, shortly after the flood of Noah, all the people of the world spoke one language? And they came together in unity to build a mighty city and construct a tower that stretched into the heavens.
What they were doing was so impressive! But it was outside God’s plan for mankind. Their intentional was for the tower to bring all the people in the world together into one geographical place; but God had already said to multiple and fill the whole earth.
So, to correct their course, God came down to confuse their language. He impacted their unity by causing them to all speak different languages!
It worked. The project stopped and the people dispersed across the face of the earth.
But don’t miss this powerful acknowledgement from God about His created order and the power of working together in unity…
Genesis 11:6
6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”
That’s an incredible acknowledgement from God!
God acknowledge the limitless potential of people who are working together as one towards a common objective. He said, “Nothing” will be impossible for them.
There are few forces in this world as powerful as people working together in unity.
And Satan knows it.
That’s why Satan relentlessly attacks the unity of the church with lies and deception. Our unity threatens him, so he seeks to divide.
When we walk in unity, there is no limit to how God can use us for His purposes and glory… NOTHING IS WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR US!
What a gift! We should agree with the Psalmist…
Psalm 133:1
Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!
By design, God made unity one of the most powerful forces in this world. That’s the first reality about unity. Here’s the second…
- We experience unity when we align ourselves with the truth.
If we are going to function as one and walk in unity, there must be a standard of truth we all align with. Jesus gives the standard…
John 17:17
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Unity happens as God’s people mature in the truth.
Sanctification is a Bible word used to describe the process of growing in spiritual maturity. We talked about growing in spiritual maturity last week.
Consider this insight on maturity…
Children take their ball and go home.
For a child with hurt feelings, it doesn’t matter who is actually right or wrong. They make decisions based on how they feel…
- If they don’t get what they want, they go home.
- They get offended if others won’t see it their way.
- All they are looking for is for other people to agree with them.
That’s what spiritual children do. Paul spoke to this in Ephesians 4…
Ephesians 4:13-15
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ
Look at what characterizes children…
- Tossed to and fro by the waves
- Carried about by every wind of doctrine
- By human cunning
- By craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Children are not firmly established in the truth! They are driven by their feelings. They take their ball and go home.
But those who are mature are grounded in what? In the TRUTH!
- Rather, speaking the TRUTH in love
Love is there! That’s the biblical foundation for discipleship. But love alone will not bring us to unity. We align in unity when truth is led by love. Only then can we grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.
Jesus prayed for our oneness, and the Father answered His prayer… we are ARLEADY one in Christ! But to walk in unity, we must be sanctified in the truth… YOUR WORD IS TRUTH.
So, the second reality about unity is that it can only be experienced as we align ourselves with God’s truth. Here’s the third reality about unity…
- Divisions break unity every time we depart from truth.
In America alone, researchers estimate that there are somewhere between 200-500 distinct evangelical denominations in the church.
Globally, the estimates skyrocket to the thousands.
I am not saying that denominations are always only a bad thing. Sometimes, denominations have formed to provide clarity in biblical teachings and to unify groups of believers in the mission of Christ.
That’s great!
But, sadly, and far too often, denominations have formed because of divisions among believers.
What is divisive in the church?
Every time Christians depart from the truth in what we believe, say, or do, we are engaging in divisive behavior in the body of Christ.
Now, must Christians don’t think they are departing from the truth! But the reality is, this is far too common in the church.
Here’s a list of common divisive behavior in the Church of Jesus Christ:
- Rejecting apostolic authority.
Jesus appointed His apostles to teach us and to establish for His Church what is true.
In Acts, there’s a short list of things the early church devoted themselves to do. What was the first on the list?
Acts 2:42
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine…
The apostles are those twelve men Jesus appointed to serve in a special position of authority as His apostles. The apostles’ doctrine is the teachings of those twelve apostles.
Jesus gave His authority to these apostles!
Luke 10:16
16 “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
Believers commonly reject or undermine the apostles’ doctrine in one of two ways:
- By not devoting themselves to their teachings and doing what they said
- Or by calling themselves or others “apostles” today
That second one is less common in our circles, but still very common in the church. There are people alive today claiming to be apostles! At best, they are creating confusion by using that title to mean something it doesn’t mean in scripture. At worse, they are claiming to have the same authority that Jesus gave the twelve!
Either way, they are being divisive.
But the most common way the church rejects the apostles’ doctrine is simply by not devoting themselves to know it and to live by it. Anytime a Christian contradicts the teachings of the apostles, they are being divisive.
So, the first divisive behavior is rejecting the apostles’ doctrine.
Another divisive behavior is…
- Rejecting the authority of God’s Word.
Walking in the truth is what unites us.
In John 17:17, Jesus spoke to the Father and said, “Your Word is Truth.”
We experience unity when we align ourselves with the standard of the Word of God.
When we don’t, it always leads to divisions in the church. We can get out of alignment with the Word in many ways:
- Ignoring scripture
- Resisting scripture
- Misinterpreting scripture
- Twisting scripture
- Adding or subtracting from scripture
- Undervaluing scripture
When a local church fails to passionately pursue and uphold the Word of God together, they are destined for divisions.
So, rejecting God’s Word is divisive behavior. So are…
- False (heretical) doctrines.
This is a specific flavor of a departure from scripture.
A false or heretical doctrine is a teaching or teachings that infiltrate the church and lead many people astray from the truth. Part of the job of the leaders of the church is to guard against false doctrines.
And the church has been fighting against heresies since its inception! We see the efforts of church leaders all throughout scripture, helping guard the church from heretical teachings. Like in…
2 Peter 2:1
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
When a local church isn’t careful, false teachings can take root and heresies can be embraced in the life of the church.
Common heresies include doctrines like:
- Denying the full deity of Christ (Arianism)
- Denying the full humanity of Christ (Docetism)
- Distorting the Trinity (Sabellianism or Tritheism)
- Denying original sin (Pelagianism)
- Claiming all people will ultimately be saved (Universalism)
- Claiming unbelievers don’t go to hell but just stop existing (Annihilationism)
- Rejecting parts of scripture as invalid or not authoritative (Marcionism)
- OT or “We don’t need the Bible, just Jesus & Spirit)
- Claiming new revelations that rise or exceed the authority of scripture (New Revelation Movements)
- Teaching the universe is locked in a battle of two equal powers: good [God] and evil [Satan] (Manichaeism)
These are just a few!
There’s a helpful little handbook called “Know the Heretics” by Justin Holcomb. It is not extensive, but it gives a great overview to why there are heresies and the most common heresies the church has battled.
Heresies have so many origins: weak Bible study, sloppy interpretive practices, complacency among elders, pressure from people, a desire to please and appease people, human reasoning and explanations, selfish ambition, personal gain, and much more.
When a church forms or embraces heresies, it is always disrupts unity.
Another divisive behavior in the church is…
- Legalism
Legalism is the practice of distorting the Word of God and its sufficiency by adding man-made rules and traditions to control others or to make oneself or others acceptable to God.
Legalism is a threat to unity and is divisive.
There are many popular examples of legalism widely accepted in various Christian circles. These include issues like…
- The way people dress
- The kind of beat present in certain styles of music
- The teaching that those who have the Spirit will speak in tongues
- The teaching that modern medicine or certain substances are inherently evil
- The teaching that Christians must worship a certain day of the week
- The teaching that the New Testament commands believers to specifically give 10% as a tithe
- The teaching that it is wrong to incorporate instruments into church services
These are just a few examples of legalism.
I’m not saying these matters are unimportant! There are important biblical teachings about…
- Modesty
- Music
- Gifts of the Spirit
- Sobriety, drunkenness, and healing
- Days of the week
- Giving generously AND
- Corporate worship practices
We should give careful attention to these matters.
But it is always wrong to…
- Make these things a universal rule for all believers
- Try to earn right standing with God through these things
- Consider these manmade teachings to be equal with scripture
Anytime we go to one of these levels, we’ve entered legalism!
Legalism is extremely divisive in the church because it calls others to align to something God has not explicitly commanded in scripture.
So, legalism is another divisive behavior. So is…
- Rejecting God’s appointed leaders
The apostles are no longer on the earth, but God has not left His people without leaders.
In the family, God has appointed men to lead as husbands and fathers, and women to lead as mothers.
And in the church, God has appointed men to lead His people as elders and deacons.
These offices are positions of spiritual authority that God has given to His appointed leaders. When we reject these leaders, we are rejecting the authority of God and behaving in a divisive way.
Hebrews 13:17
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.
ILLUSTRATION
My kids quickly learned that, when we send them to a class at church or school, we are transferring our God-given authority to the teacher in that environment. They learned that rejecting their authority was the same as rejecting our authority… and the same consequences would follow!
Romans 13 is clear – all authority comes from God. To reject the authority of a person He has established in a position of authority is to reject the authority of God. Rejecting God’s authority or the authority of those He has appointed is divisive in the body of Christ.
And another divisive behavior is…
- Not resolving conflict biblically.
I cannot tell you how many times this divisive behavior has been used by Satan to divide God’s people and compromise our ability to carry out the mission of Jesus in unity.
You call it sharing your opinions, expressing yourself, or trying to work something out. In reality it is gossip, slander, casting doubt on the character of others, and making judgements outside without all the facts.
Nothing will destroy unity faster than a church that won’t fight for relationships by resolving conflict biblically.
God’s Word is clear about how believers are to resolve conflict…
- If you’ve wronged another person, and you realize it, stop what you are doing. Immediately go to that person and acknowledge you were wrong. (SCRIPTURE)
- If you have been wronged by another person, don’t talk about it with others; go to them directly. (SCRIPTURE)
- Share with them how you believe they wronged you. If they hear you, or if you realize you were wrong, the relationship can be restored and you gain your brother or sister.
- If they won’t hear you, include another witness so every word can be established and the truth can be identified.
- If they still won’t hear you, take it to the church (at Together Church, that means making our elders aware and getting us involved).
- If the person’s behavior is still found to be sinful, and they still won’t hear you and repent, we are to collectively banish them from the church.
There is a right way and a divisive way to handle conflict. God’s way is right, every other way is divisive and wrong.
So neglecting or refusing to resolve conflict biblically is dangerous and divisive in the church.
And there’s one more that must be added to this list of divisive behaviors…
- Tolerating Sin
All these we’ve already mentioned above are examples of sin. But there are more sins that aren’t on this list.
The wages of sin is death!
Nothing brings division and death of relationships and unity like tolerating sin in our lives and in the church.
And God’s Word makes it clear: there will be some people who tolerate sin in their own lives and expect you to tolerate their sin, too. This is what the Apostle Paul had to say about such people…
Titus 3:10-11
10 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
Some believers have wrongly concluded that love would never dismiss someone from fellowship. The truth is, love cannot maintain fellowship with someone who continually tolerates sin and expects others to tolerate their sin!
There comes a point when a church must no longer fellowship with someone who continues in sin and is unwilling to repent.
God has given leaders in the church to help us make this determination. When we follow His process for resolving conflict biblically, those leaders get involved at the right point in the process and can lead the church to walk in love appropriately.
But listen to me…
DO NOT CONFUSE GOD’S FORGIVENESS OF SIN WITH A TOLERATION OF SIN! The cross of Jesus reveals God’s unwillingness to just overlook or tolerate sin!!
Tolerating sin is an enemy of unity. We cannot tolerate our own sin or the sins of others. We must trust God and work under authority to know how to appropriately respond to unrepentant sin in the body of Christ.
Tolerating sin is always divisive.
CONCLUSION
Consider this list of common divisive behaviors.
I know you probably didn’t come here this morning thinking you were a divisive person.
But is the Holy Spirit showing you a way you’ve been divisive?
Remember…
You’ve already been made one in Christ!
We will walk in unity when we believe it is a powerful force in this world, when we are aligned in the truth, and when we end divisive behaviors that break unity in the body of Christ.
Here’s the good news…
We ARE ONE and we can WALK AS ONE together!
And Jesus promises to use our ONENESS and UNITY to carry out His mission… so the world will believe in Him and know His love.
INVITATION
I believe we should conclude with a time of response this morning.
(INVITE TEAM FORWARD)
The fifth and final pillar is ALIGNMENT: Working together in unity.
To be effective in the mission to make disciples, we must be willing to humble ourselves, repent, and walk in alignment with God and with each other.
Consider this list…
Which of these has been an enemy to unity in your life?
(STAND WITH ME)
We are going to enter a time of prayer and response to God.
As we pray and sing, these leaders are ready to pray with you. If you’ve been struggling with one or more of these areas of unity, would you come and receive prayer this morning?
1 John 1:6-7
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.