UNITY IN THE CHURCH
November 24, 2019
Ephesians 4:4-6
I love this week! I get to cook and eat turkey! I get to allow tryptophan to work and make me sleepy. Turkey contains the amino acid L-tryptophan, which produces sleep-promoting serotonin and melatonin. But here’s the thing, turkey has about the same amount of tryptophan as other meats. So, why do you get sleepy? It’s from eating all those extra carbs - stuffing / rolls / sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and pecan pies. OK! Let’s break for lunch!
But this week isn’t just about gorging ourselves, it’s about shopping. Lots of you have Black Friday plans, and some of you may skip the turkey and gorge yourself on shopping. That’s a whole different sermon.
This week is about Thanksgiving! It’s about celebrating what we’re thankful for. Even in the midst of sadness, sickness, and struggles, there’s reason to give thanks
We’ve been looking at the book of Ephesians since September, and today, we’ll end this portion of it, by looking at Ephesians 4:4-6. But before we do that, I want to share something Paul wrote in Romans 12. It’s really tied into what the church is supposed to be about. It’s one of my favorite passage about who we are supposed to be in Christ. It applies to everything we do, and most especially applies to the church, but is applicable everywhere we go. Paul tells us - -
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.
17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
OH MY GOODNESS!!! Isn’t that great? We should say these words every week! This should be the creed of every church, every Christ follower should live by. This is SO vital! God’s plan for sustaining and growing His church, His kingdom, involves teamwork. It involves everyone working, caring for one another. It involves acting in very specific ways to make sure the body is healthy.
Think about what Paul’s telling us about the way we are to live our lives with one another. And that’s the key, living our lives with one another - -
• Love should be genuine, never phony.
• Love one another as brothers and sisters.
• Lead the way in showing love and honor.
• Don’t wait for others . . . you go first.
• Be passionate / excited about Christ! Don’t be lazy about your faith!
• Even in bad times, have hope, be joyful, be patient, be prayerful.
• Contribute to those who have needs.
• Contribute to the church. Be hospitable and welcome others.
• Bless those who persecute, pray for them, don’t curse them.
• Live in unity with one another. Don’t think too much of yourself.
• Do what is honorable.
• And as much as you can, live peaceably with everyone.
That’s a great prescription for community in the church! Even for community at home and work. That’s how we’re to live with one another and the world!!
A Lutheran theologian from the 16th century wrote ~ “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” - Rupertus Meldenius
That’s a great reminder for us. Yet what is essential? Where is our starting point for a church to seek unity and to hold onto unity? Meldenius reminds us it’s in the essentials. And Paul gives us some help. Today, we’re going to look at Ephesians 4:4-6. I don’t want you to lose sight of what we spoke about a few weeks ago, the first 3 verses, those are the foundation. Paul wrote --
1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,
2 with ALL humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Paul gave us 5 virtues — 5 ways we are to live our lives to show we are worthy. He urges us to live with complete / total —
Humility
Gentleness
Patience
Bear with one another in Love, and
Maintain the unity in Peace.
We start with the belief that Christ is the head of the church and we are not! We are privileged to be part of the church and seek to further His kingdom. Paul now takes us a step further. He told us the character or virtues we need, now, he gives us the essentials, the foundation of our faith and unity. He wrote - -
4 There is ONE body and ONE Spirit—just as you were called to the ONE hope that belongs to your call —
5 ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism,
6 ONE God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Paul is talking about 7 essentials we need to agree upon. He starts out stating there is ONE BODY.
It’s important to understand the church is one body. Just as our human bodies are comprised of thousands of cells, there’s only one life. And when you put us all together, we have a gazillion cells in this room. We are all the body of Christ. Yet, the body of Christ has an infinite number of shapes and sizes and varieties. Church is shaped by culture, personality, history and many other factors. But the one constant is that the true church all around the globe shares the life of Christ. We are one universal church, one body.
We all have our druthers about what we want in the church. That’s fine. That’s one reason there are so many different expressions of the church. People are different and we experience God in different ways. But just because there are different churches and denominations doesn’t diminish the fact that we are all part of ONE BODY. We need to be very careful not to get hung up on secondary issues that divide. That happens too often. Remember, unity in the essentials.
Other churches that proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ are not the competition. They’re not our enemy. I don’t care if they are Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, or whatever. I don’t care if they have 20 or 20,000 members. Our competition is the world around us that says there is no need for God and rejects Jesus Christ and what He did for us through the birth, sufferings, cross and the resurrection.
Remember, the church is made up of the body of believers, you and me. Every believer is placed into the Body of Christ when we profess faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
Next, Paul reminds us there is ONE SPIRIT.
In chapter 1 of Ephesians, Paul said~
13 In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory. – Ephesians 1:13-14
There’s only one Spirit. The same Holy Spirit dwells within every believer so there’s an interconnectedness among us. This is the unifying factor in our being brothers and sisters in Christ. When you’re blood relatives, it’s because you have some of the same DNA running through you . . . well, as Christ followers that same DNA which runs through us is a result of the Holy Spirit filling us with the presence of God, through His grace because of our shared belief in Jesus as the Christ. And it’s the Holy Spirit which produces Christ centered unity. We don’t create unity. Unity is a gift from God. Our job is to maintain the unity.
Paul continues by telling us we have ONE HOPE.
There’s also only one hope and that hope rests solely in Jesus Christ. Because we believe Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins, we have the hope of eternal life. Jesus said “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is our hope. We have no other hope. In fact, Jesus is the only hope for the world.
Jesus gives us hope that we are not alone, because He sent the Spirit to be with us. He gives us hope because we trust that He has destroyed death.
As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 15:55, "Where O death, is your victory? Where O death, is your sting?" – 2 Corinthians 15:55
We have victory!! We know the end of the story. We know! We trust! We believe! We have faith that Jesus defeated death. That victory wasn’t for Him, it was for us. And that gives us great hope. We are confident death no longer has a hold on us because we have everlasting life with Jesus Christ in heaven.
One other aspect of hope comes in 2 other ways, 1) we have the promise that Jesus is always with us. Wherever we go, whatever we do, He’s there with us. That comes through the gift of the Holy Spirit. And 2) I believe we have the hope of the church, that we will be there for one another.
Paul moves onto verse 5 telling us we have - -
5 ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism
We serve only one Lord, Jesus Christ. I could quote a number of scriptures . . . but let me just share this from Luke - -
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. – Acts 4:12
We may not think Paul saying, “There is only one Lord” is that big of a deal, but it had great meaning in the 1st Century. The Romans were very tolerant of religion and had 100's of gods. More than could be counted.
Yet, nobody could proclaim to be Lord and King other than Caesar, so when people referred to Jesus as Lord and King, that was punishable by death. Christians didn’t see Jesus as one of many gods, which Rome was fine with, the church saw Jesus as THE only God and King. If Jesus wasn’t Lord of all, then He was not Lord at all.
We are called to serve only our Lord, Jesus Christ. There are no other options on this. If we think we can serve other gods, we are sorely mistaken and are worshiping idols. If we serve the same Lord, that then also, becomes our starting point in spiritual discussions. Which helps us walk in unity.
Paul goes on to say we have ONE FAITH . . .
Because there is only one Lord, there is only one faith as well. And we have one common faith. This one faith rests squarely on Jesus Christ. This is the truth that was given to His church. There’s no middle ground. Either your faith is in Jesus Christ or it’s not. There are no kindas or sortas. Jesus said, “if you’re not for me, then you’re against me.”
Faith in Jesus Christ should unite people like nothing else. It doesn’t matter who you are and what you can bring to the church. We’re all equal. Nobody gets special status and exemptions because of anything they bring. We must understand “At the foot of the cross, the ground is level.” We’re all equal before the cross, nobody is better than their neighbor, Christ died equally for you and me.
There is only one faith that can save us and that is faith in Jesus Christ alone.
And ONE BAPTISM — —
This is where the believer is baptized into the body of Christ after accepting Jesus. This is a signal to the world that we belong to the family of God.
In Galatians 3:26-28, Paul tells us ~
26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. - Galatians 3:26-28
This is a great reminder we are all one in Christ.
There is unity in the body because each and every one of us has been baptized by Jesus with the Holy Spirit who comes to permanently reside within us. When we say YES to Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit and we are filled with the Holy Spirit and that Spirit never leaves us.
When Paul uses the word baptism, he is referring to the baptism of all believers into one body, which is the result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit when one becomes a follower of Christ. So, water baptism would be an outward sign of the inward faith we have in Christ.
Now we move to our final verse, Paul’s reminder that we have ~
6 ONE God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
There’s one God and Father. Once we accept Christ into our lives we become part of His forever family. And it’s a family like no other. Our oneness is ultimately focused on our heavenly Father who is over all, in all, and working through all.
Think of it this way. We’re children in the same family. Loving and serving the same Father. We’re on the same team commissioned by our Father to work together for a common cause – the cause of Christ!
Why, then, are we called to be unified? What’s the basis for unity in the church? Why should we make every effort to keep this unity? Because we’re all part of one body; because one and the same Spirit dwells in every Christ-follower; we all have one common hope; one common Lord; one common faith; one common baptism; and we all bow in worship of the same God and Father.
The universal and local church often spends too much time focusing on the non-essentials. And when we do that, we destroy the unity that God has established among His children. But perhaps even more tragically, we also deny the unity of God Himself. If we are to be part of God’s family, then we need to follow His example and focus on the things that unite us rather than the things that divide.
Christians can get into trouble with one another when we forget what we have in common.
