THE NEED FOR UNITY
We are told that the church is to be salt and light, a beacon to a lost world. But we will lose our light, our mission if there is not unity in our church. Let us look this morning at how Jesus wants his earthly body, the church, to function. But first let us pray.
Prayer
1 Corinthians 1:10 says “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.”
And John 17:20-23 reads “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
We can see the heart of Jesus here. He wants his people, his church to be functioning as one, in perfect unity. We are to be his witness. When the outside world looks at his church, they should see love, unity and harmony. The world should see a happy, content, smoothly operating organism when it looks at his church. I this way, we proclaim that God has sent Jesus to save us. A harmonious church is beautiful, and calls to the unsaved world to accept Jesus as Lord. Paul repeatedly calls for unity in his churches.
Ephesians 4:1-6 reads “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."
Unfortunately however, the church does not always function as a well oiled machine. At times, sand gets in the mechanism and things do not run smoothly. That “sand” comes in the form of disharmony, usually in the form of pride in one form or another. Petty jealousy, selfishness, gossip, ambition, factions, power struggles and greed are a few of the things that can gum up the works in a church. They are all sin. When the world sees this kind of church, they do not get a clear picture of Jesus.
Deacons, elders, pastors and leaders of any type, challenge yourselves to address early - to nip in the bud - any hostilities, divisions or factions that you see forming. Get that sand out of the gearbox! Paul had to call out and correct divisions in his church several times. In 1 Corinthians, he condemned the church dividing into factions in chapter 1, then in chapter 11 he also had to correct some errors taking place in the Lord’s Supper. Unity must be guarded.
Unity does not mean that we are all the same. One reason we get so much benefit from society is that we are all so different. No two of us are the same. There is a great diversity of skills, talents, and interests between individuals in society. Each person in vitally important. And we cannot function well without each other.
We must recognize the value of diversity within the church. Paul used the illustration of the human body, and how the hand is different from the eye, and the eye is different from the foot, etc. All parts are different, yet they can and should function together as a healthy, productive body. No two of us are made alike. We all have different strengths and different weaknesses. We all have different talents, skills and resources. And we complement and complete each other. We can accomplish far more working for the Lord as a group, a unified body, than all of us could accomplish working separately. And no Christian is useless. We all have great value to God. He gave to each of us abilities with which we should be blessing our local church, Christ’s body. And Christ has planted us where he feels he needs us the most at this particular time. If any of you feel that you are not now being of much use to the kingdom, then please pray. Ask God to reveal to you the work he planned for you here, before time began. Trust me, he has something for each and every one of us to do. He created all of us for a purpose, and we are all a part of his grand plan.
And since we are all different, we will naturally have different opinions on matters. But the key is to work through our differences together to come up with the best solutions. For example, let us say that a church committee is responsible for repainting the bathrooms. Several people favor different colors. But if the committee is working in unity, they will consider the options and agree on one color. They leave in agreement, not because their favorite color was chosen, but because the value unity and harmony in their church. These committee members have learned to get along with the others, and to love and respect them.
Christians should think of themselves as interdependent. Many of us were raised to be independent, rather than interdependent. We were given good educations or skills in order to make our way in the world, to be able to stand on our own two feet, to be our own man or woman, to be independent. Dr. Lawrence Reed tells the story of the making of a pencil. It takes tens of thousands of people to make a wooden pencil. To start, we must have mine experts and workers in Africa to mine the graphite. And to support them, you have to have truckers to bring in their mining supplies, someone must build their houses, others must furnish food, others drinking water, and someone brings in coffee beans for their morning coffee. These beans come from hundreds of miles away and have a story of their own. Others must process the graphite to turn it into pencil lead. And there are similar stories for the workers who provide the wood for the pencil, the yellow paint, the rubber for the eraser from South America, and the metal ferule which holds it together. While one person could not make a pencil, tens of thousands of people working in cooperation with each other can produce tens of thousands of pencils per day.
We all need each other. We depend on each other. Just as the hand needs the foot, and every other part of the body, we need each other, and should value, care for and love each other, as you would any part of your body.
So then, if we want unity in our church, then we will have to honor and respect each other. We must be humble, and never put ourselves above others. We should look for the gifts and strengths in others that God has given to each and every one of his children. We must care for each member of our congregation as care for every part of our own bodies.
Then finally, for us to have true unity, we must all love one another.
John 13:34 says “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” If we brothers and sisters in the Lord truly love each other, then unity will be assured. The world will know that we are Christians by our love. The goal is to let the world see God’s image as it looks at us, his church. And likewise,
Colossians 3:14 tells us “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
And David says in Psalm 133:1 “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
Let us then strive for unity. If we are to be the kind of church that honors God and properly represents God to the world, then we must put aside our pride and any petty differences, make every effort value, honor, respect and love one another.
Amen
Ref: Dr. Lawrence Reed, the Foundation for Economic Education
