One Faith: Putting All Our Eggs In One Basket

One Faith . . . Putting All Our Eggs In One Basket

Ephesians 4:5

Language is amazing . . . how we use words to describe ideas or thoughts. Do you know what an idiom is? It’s a phrase or expression, a group of words that has a meaning different from the literal meaning of its parts taken together? Kind of like, you scratch my back and I scratch yours . . . when we say that we’re not actually talking about scratching backs, are we?

We use idioms all the time, and probably don’t even realize it. This week I learned some new idioms, they’re actually old idioms that at least in my generation we don’t really use anymore. And I’ve been thinking, maybe you’re a younger person in our church and you’re wondering how to get to know someone who is a little older, and so you may want to ask some of our more experienced folk if they know what some of these idioms mean . . .

Like if you’re a city boy you may want to ask one of our ranchers in Carhart’s or wrangler’s what a 3 dog night is. If you don’t have any military background you might want to track down Ray Boyer, one of our vets and ask him if he knows what kilroy was here means.

I hazard to guess if it’s safe to mention, but I know this idiom doesn’t come from our generation but probably our parents or grandparents generation. So you might want to ask a grandparent why they may have used the expression . . . don’t try to teach your grandma to suck eggs. It’s a good law to follow in more ways than one.

Its hunting season, you may want to find one of our older hunters and ask him what let the dog see the rabbit means. As I understand it, Le Snider used to have some pigs on his farm, so you may want to ask him if he ever tried to put a pig in poke. I trust Le has a lot more integrity than that. Do we have anyone that has British background among us? You may want to ask them if they’ve ever been guilty of losing their rag, I think most of us have.

If you’re astute in your knowledge of English idioms, your right with me, we’re clicking (pardon the idiom), however some of you are totally lost, hopefully you’re writing some of these down . . . But lest I try gilding the lily with a good sermon opening I should probably move on to tell you about the idiom I’d like for us to focus on this morning, Putting all our eggs in one basket. Or you may have heard it as don’t put all your eggs in one basket. When I say that I don’t doubt that the great majority of you know exactly what I’m talking about. When we put all our eggs in one basket we are entrusting all our resources to one thing. We are putting all our riches in one investment

This morning we continue to focus on the ONE’s of Ephesians 4, and looking at verse 5 we read that there is. . .

One Lord, one faith, one baptism.

In case we have forgotten what faith is . . . it is belief and trust. Believing that something is true and trusting it. The biblical idea of faith does not separate the two, belief and trust.

So what does Paul mean when he states that there is one faith? Remember this series of ones in Ephesians 4 points us to the idea of exclusivity. That God, His church, and his provision of salvation are all exclusive.

Paul’s words are revolutionary for today . . . because exclusiveness is shunned upon, especially the idea of the exclusiveness of a single faith.

In our pluralistic society . . . you might get away with presenting the idea that there is really only one God, after all, most people on the street in our culture who believe in God’s existence would say in explanation of all the world religions that after all there is one God but many different ways to approach that one God. Many different paths leading to the same destination . . . one God but many and varying faiths.

Paul’s assertion that there is but one faith is not to be mistaken for a belief that people do not believe in other gods, or trust other means of salvation. His assertion that there is one faith though should be understood as an exclusive claim to a rock solid belief in something, particularly someone who is true and an exclusive claim to a sure place and in particular, a person in whom we can put our trust.