The Untapped Power of We – Part 3

Review

1 Corinthians 1:10–13 (NKJV): ¹⁰ Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

“Speak the same thing,” “No divisions”

• Division is created not only from what we shout out loud, but what we calmly communicate in the parking lot, what we whisper in the hallway, what we gossip about in the bathroom sink and what we text in group chats.
• When we verbally attack our church, both its leaders and its members, we are attacking Jesus.
  • Acts 9:1–5 (ESV): ¹ But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ² and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. ³ Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. ⁴ And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” ⁵ And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
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    • Instead of attacking Chris’s body, we need to mend Christ’s body.

“Perfectly joined together”

• Instead of using our words to separate our bonds, we must use our words to restore our bonds.
• The process of unification requires that we identify places where there is no peace and create peace with our words.
  • We won’t submit our mouths to the Lord until we submit our minds to the Lord

“Same mind, same judgment”

• When Paul says that we should be of the same mind and the same judgment, he is talking about us all adopting Christ’s mind.
• Our natural thinking does not have the capacity to cultivate spiritual unity or anything else God is leading us to do.

Natural People Can’t Discern Spiritual Things

• 1 Corinthians 2:14–16 (ESV): ¹⁴ The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
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  • You need to filter your judgment through the lens of Christ’s thinking.
  • When you think like Christ, you have the capacity to judge based on how things really are, not simply on how they appear to you, especially initially.

Spiritual Mindedness Qualifies You to Judge

• 1 Corinthians 2:14–16 (ESV): ¹⁵ The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
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• 1 Corinthians 2:14–16 (ESV): ¹⁶ “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
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  • The mind of Christ is Holy Spirit access to Christ’s thoughts.
• 1 Corinthians 2:12 (ESV): ¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
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Unity Requires Maturity

• 1 Corinthians 3:1–3 (ESV): ¹ But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, ³ for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
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• 1 Corinthians 3:1(ESV): ¹ But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
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  • There are spiritual resources that God can’t share with us when we choose to judge, speak and act as people of the flesh.
  • People of the flesh are people who judge, speak and act based entirely on what they see and feel naturally.
  • The flesh does not pick up God’s signals.
    • 1 Corinthians 3:2 (ESV): ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
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• Matthew 13:14–15 (ESV): ¹⁴ Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: “ ‘ “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” ¹⁵ For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’
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• 1 Corinthians 3:3 (ESV): ³ . . .For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
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Why Strife Must Be Rooted Out Quickly and Definitively

• When you behave “only in a human way,” Satan has access to you.
• Satan operates and camouflages himself within your natural thought process.

Strife is a demonic pathway

• James 3:14–18 (ESV): ¹⁴ But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. ¹⁵ This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. ¹⁶ For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.
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  • When you behave “only in a human way,” demonic resources are being trafficked through you into the church.
  • Satan uses the resources he’s been stockpiling in your heart since you were little:
    • Rejection
    • Abuse
    • Bullying
    • Abandonment
    • Ridicule
    • Shaming
    • Poverty
    • Imprisonment
  • And like physical wildfires, they start small, as with a match.
    • Spiritual wildfires start with thoughts Satan plants in our minds
      • Thoughts that make us
        • Cynical
        • Suspicious
        • Anxious
        • Jealous
        • Vengeful
        • Malicious
        • Angry
        • Fearful
      • Those thoughts become words in the form of
        • Gossip
        • Slander
        • Backbiting
        • Murmuring
        • Passive aggressive communication
      • Those words turn into “disorder and every vile practice”
        • Proverbs 26:20–21 (ESV): ²⁰ For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases. ²¹ As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife.
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          • Whisperers and quarrelers are people who constantly start or fan the flame of a conflict with their mouths.

Christ-minded people are peace-minded people

James 3:17-18 (ESV): ¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. ¹⁸ And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2025