God's Call To Unity--A Missing Priority Series

I was a fourth-year student at Dallas Seminary, a dedicated Bible student for 15 years, before someone suggested to me that the issue of pursuing unity in my ministry could be a very significant issue. But I remember the day like it was yesterday. The venerable Professor John Reed, the Head of the Pastoral Ministries Department at Dallas Seminary and I were having a casual conversation in his office. We were in the midst of a discussion about I Corinthians when Dr. Reed, somehow knowing that I hadn’t considered how important the issue of unity in ministry would be, suggested to me that I Corinthians’ emphasis on unity versus divisions in a church might be a very important concern in my future ministry.

Today, 40 years later, I can testify that no truer words have ever been spoken. What I have learned through hard experience is that unity or disunity in a church can be make or break for ministry success, it can be make or break with regard to a church’s very existence, it can be make or break in terms of glorifying God, and it can be make or break with regard to some people even continuing in relationship to Christ. In other words, the matter of pursuing or guarding the unity that is already ours in Christ, is perhaps as important as any other issue in Christian ministry and the welfare of a local church.

So, I have some questions for each of you this morning: Is the issue of pursuing or guarding unity in your church, or among believers even on your radar? Is it something that you would consider part and parcel of being and living like a follower of Christ? Is it something you ever pray about? And if unity were threatened in your church, would you even be aware of it? If so, would you know what Jesus Christ wants you to do about it?

If your answer to any of those questions is no, then I encourage you to listen to this message very carefully this morning, because the quality of your Christian experience may depend on it.

And as I say this, I should note that we live in a highly individualistic culture in the U.S. and especially in Nevada. Nevada generally, and Reno specifically are characterized by a pioneering and independent spirit—you do your thing and I’ll do mine and leave me alone while I do mine. But this is not the spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ urges us to interdependent and cooperative love. As Jesus prayed his final prayer for his disciples and later believers in John 17, he prayed twice that we would all be one even as He and the Father are one.

And that priority of unity is reflected in Ephesians 4.

Again, remember that Paul is writing to the Church at Ephesus on the western coast of present-day Turkey about 60 A.D. He’s writing while under house arrest in Rome. And we have reached a turning point in his letter. He pivots from doctrine to practice. He has told the Ephesians in chapter 1-3 who they now are because of what Christ has done for them. Basically, before they came to faith in Christ they were lost, dead in their trespasses and sins, condemned people, dead men walking, who were constantly harassed by evil spirits in their experience. After coming to faith in Christ, they had been made alive in Christ, forgiven of their sins; they had become children of God, heirs of the Kingdom of God, blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. They had been made alive, given eternal life, and had now been given authority over the very evil spirits who had harassed them, and they now had hope in this world, having been reconciled with God and man.

And all this had come about because the greatest man who had ever lived, the Son of God, had been crucified in their stead to die for their sins and had demonstrated it by being raised from the dead. God the Father had sacrificed His son on the cross to save them and us from the just penalty for their and our sins. And so what a privileged position we now have because of what Christ has done for us.

And so, the letter, as is typical of some letters of Paul, takes a turn with the very first word in chapter 4. “Therefore.” Paul is saying here that based on everything he had previously written, this is now how they should then live. And so this is now how we should live. He writes, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called”