Acts 1: The Only Way to Be United Is Jesus

Introduction

"The only way to be united is to be attached to Jesus." This is the heart of the message of the first morning devotional of the Église Évangélique Paris Métropole, on the first day of a week of fasting and prayer under the theme "Gathered Together." That morning, the focus is on one particular aspect: being gathered before God.

The text for the day is Acts 1:12-14. After Jesus' ascension, the disciples return from the Mount of Olives, go up to the upper room and, all with one accord, continue in prayer with the women, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Jesus' brothers. The text gives a list of names: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James.

The preacher pauses on this list. Who were these men? How did they manage to stay together? His answer fits in one sentence: what united them was following Jesus. And he is still the one who unites us today.

Outline of the Message

1. Gathered in the Upper Room

Jesus has ascended to heaven and left his disciples with the promise of the Holy Spirit. They are no longer with him physically, but they are all together in the upper room, the place where they usually gathered to pray.
The text insists that they continue "with one accord" in prayer. It is not just about being in the same room, but about uniting hearts around Jesus' word, his promises and the mission he entrusts to them.
Hence the prayer that opens this time: may the Lord help us to set aside our personal interests and deepen our unity.

2. Twelve Men Chosen After a Night of Prayer

To understand this list, the preacher goes back to Luke 6:12-16. Jesus goes out to the mountain to pray and spends the whole night in prayer to God. When day comes, he calls his disciples and chooses twelve of them, whom he names apostles.
The preacher points out that this is the only place in the Bible where it says that Jesus prayed all night. God's word chooses to tell us this, so it must be something important.
These disciples were not chosen at random. "It was truly God's choice." Jesus wanted the Father to reveal to him who would accompany him for three years.

3. A Team of Opposites

We know these twelve names well. But when we look at the details, we realize that Jesus chose people who were very different from one another.
Simon the Zealot was a Jewish nationalist who fiercely fought the Romans, a man in revolt against the ruling power, "a protester." On the same team, Jesus chooses Matthew, a tax collector who worked for the Romans, and therefore a traitor in the eyes of the Jews. Two men who were "almost enemies in life" find themselves side by side.
There are also differences of region, culture and tradition. Some come from Judea, others from Galilee. Galileans did not have a good reputation, as the question in John 1:46 illustrates: "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" The Judeans, for their part, felt superior.
The preacher invites us to put ourselves in their place: "Imagine that Jesus chooses you for a mission, perhaps the most important mission in the world," but with one condition: you must carry it out with, "in quotation marks, your enemy, someone you can't stand," someone from another culture, "maybe even someone who despises you."

4. Three Years Together, Despite the Tensions

For three years, they ate together, slept together, served Jesus and the crowds together, suffered and walked together. "That is the contract the disciples signed." By choosing to follow Jesus, they chose, without knowing it at first, to work with people totally different from themselves.
There were tensions. In Mark 9, the disciples argue about who is the greatest. Jesus puts a child among them and says: "If any man wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all." He concludes this moment with: "Be at peace with one another."
At the last meal, Jesus gives a new commandment: "love one another"; by this everyone will know that you are his disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35). "It is a real command."
Right after comes the prayer of John 17, where Jesus asks for his disciples to be one, just as the Father and he are one. This was his concern for these twelve men who were to be the beginning of the Church and preach the gospel everywhere: that they be one, together, of one heart.

5. The Only Way to Be United: Look to Jesus

The preacher admits it: it would be much simpler to serve God with people who are like us, with whom we have things in common, whose character is close to ours. "But that is not how God saw the Church."
What united the twelve was that they were there to follow Jesus, that they looked to him and walked with him. "The only way to truly walk together, to truly serve together, is to look to Jesus." If Jesus remains our first goal, he will lead us to be united.
In the human heart lies the desire to belong to a group. In Corinth, some said, "I follow Paul," others, "I follow Apollos." Paul refocuses the debate: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase (1 Corinthians 3:4-7). God is the center.
"It is Jesus who builds the Church. He is the one who gathers us this morning." It is for him that we connect, him that we pray to and preach about. Human efforts to get along are good and necessary, but it is by being focused on him that he unites us.

6. A Mandate Entrusted to a Group

This is the only way to respond to the mandate Jesus left to his Church: "Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).
When Jesus says "Go," he is not speaking to an individual. He is speaking to the group, to these different disciples who spent three years learning to walk together.
For three years, Jesus' physical presence united them. After he left, it is his word that unites them: he had told them to stay in Jerusalem, that they would receive power and that they would be his witnesses (Acts 1:4-8). It is this word that gathers them every day in the upper room.
Then comes Pentecost, "the launch of the Church." The Holy Spirit visits them, Peter speaks up and thousands of people are converted. "But Pentecost was the fruit of a group of people who chose to unite despite their differences," around Jesus' promise.
The preacher's encouragement: "Let us be united by the word of Jesus." Even today, it is his presence and his word that unite us.

7. Praying for Love, Service and Mission

The preacher extends the message with three prayer topics. The first is the new commandment: loving one another. Love is the fruit of the Spirit; "humanly, we don't know how to love one another." He asks for a supernatural love that goes beyond our preconceptions, our judgments and our wounds, including those received in the Church.
The second is service. Jesus washed his disciples' feet, which shocked them since he was their master (John 13). It is not about "stepping on each other to find out who is the best, who has the best gifts, who has the best position," but about looking to the needs of the other, and even praying more for others than for ourselves.
The third is mission. In the intense flow of life, "especially this life in Paris," caught up in our activities and careers, we can forget that Jesus calls us together to make disciples. Many conflicts arise in the Church "because we look too much at ourselves." It is Jesus who makes disciples, and he wants to do it through us: "We are willing, Lord, use our lives."

Key Takeaways

Jesus chose his twelve disciples after a whole night of prayer, and he brought together men who had everything against each other.
The only way to be united is to be attached to Jesus and to look to him together.
It is Jesus who builds the Church: Paul plants, Apollos waters, but God gives the increase.
The mandate to make disciples is entrusted to a group, not to isolated individuals.
Pentecost was the fruit of disciples who chose to unite, despite their differences, around Jesus' promise.

Personal Application

Who in your church do you find it hard to walk with because they are too different from you?
Do you first seek to stay with those who are like you, or to look to Jesus with those he has placed beside you?
In what situation are you fighting to be "first," when Jesus calls you to be the servant of all?
What wound received in the Church can you give to God, asking him for a love that goes beyond your judgments?
What in your activities and career makes you lose sight of the call to make disciples?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Jesus choose such different disciples?

According to Luke 6, Jesus spent the whole night in prayer before choosing the twelve: this choice was not left to chance. Yet he brought together Simon the Zealot, a nationalist opposed to the Romans, and Matthew, a tax collector who worked for them, along with looked-down-on Galileans and Judeans who felt superior. What united them was following Jesus.

What is the only way to be united in the Church?

For the preacher, the only way to be united is to be attached to Jesus. Human efforts to get along are good, but it is by all looking to him together that we walk together. As Paul reminds the Corinthians, one plants, another waters, but it is God who gives the increase.

What united the disciples in the upper room?

For three years, Jesus' physical presence united the disciples. After his ascension, it was his word that united them: he had told them to stay in Jerusalem to receive power. They continued together in prayer, and Pentecost was the fruit of a group that chose to unite despite its differences.