One Spirit Series

ONE: The Unity of the Spirit (2)

Scott Bayles, pastor

Blooming Grove Christian Church: 1/14/2018

Years ago, Leslie Flynn penned a book titled Great Church Fights. In it, he tells the story of a young father who heard a commotion out in his backyard, he looked outside and saw his daughter and several playmates in a heated quarrel. When he intervened, his daughter called back, “Dad, we’re just playing church!”

Sadly, she may not be too far from the truth.

In the New Testament, the Jerusalem church fought over feeding their widows. Jewish and Gentile Christians argued over their relationship to Old Testament Law. The divisions in Corinth ran so deep, they split into competing factions. Unfortunately, this disease of disunity has plagued the church ever since. As long as we are human, we're going to have differences and disagreements in the church. But those differences don’t necessarily have to lead to disharmony and division.

Knowing, that people tend to disagree and divide over trivial matters, the Apostle Paul provides believers with a list of unifying elements to help us experience “oneness” the way God intended.

He writes, “Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all” (Ephesians 4:3-6 NLT).

This list of “ones” creates a solid foundation upon with all believers everywhere can experience true unity of spirit.

Last Sunday, we examined the first item on the list: one body. Every individual believer is a member, or part, of the body of Christ. Like a human body, the body of Christ should continue to mature both in size and spirituality. And we maintain the health and unity of the body with love.

Today, I’d like to look at the next unifying element on Paul’s list: one Spirit. And the Spirit that Paul refers to here is, of course, the Holy Spirit. One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is, in fact to bring unity to the church. It’s only through the Holy Spirit that we can experience the oneness that Jesus prayed we would. That’s why Paul refers to Christian unity as “the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3).

In order for us to really experience the unity of the Spirit, however, we need to understand some basic concepts about the Spirit. I actually preached a four-part series on the Holy Spirit last May, so even though some of this may sound familiar to you, I’m going to condense some of that material into three essential concepts that we as Christian need to grab hold of related to the Holy Spirit.

First is the person of the Holy Spirit.

• THE PERSON OF THE SPIRIT

There are a lot of misconceptions about the Holy Spirit. Many view the Spirit and an impersonal power or energy. If you grew up with the King James Bible, like I did, you probably heard the Spirit called the Holy Ghost. While that may have been an accurate translation at the time, today the word ghost conjures images of an apparition, floating about here and there and manifesting in a mysterious, perhaps even eerie, manner.

But Scripture paints a very different picture. The Holy Spirit isn’t a force and he’s not a Ghost. He’s a Person. The Bible tells us very clearly who the Holy Spirit is—He is 1/3 of the Trinity. He is God.

The very first reference to the Holy Spirit is found in the creation story: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2 NLT). It was the Holy Spirit who was brooding over the waters at the outset of Creation.

A little later in the same chapter, God says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26 NKJV). When God says Our image and likeness, He’s referring to the fullness of God—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And throughout Scripture the Holy Spirit is ascribed God-only attributes. He’s called eternal (Hebrews 9:11), all powerful (Luke 1:35), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7), all-knowing (1 Corinthians 2:10-11), and God (Acts 5:3-4). And Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit in John 14:16-18 as He and Him, not it.

Also, Jesus conveys a divine harmony and equality in the Great Commission, saying, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 28:19). The Holy Spirit is One with the Father and the Son.