The Call to Unity
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Recently, I read about a church that split, and that split began over an argument at a potluck supper when a lady brought a congealed salad made with Cool Whip instead of real whipping cream. Frank Martin has written a book entitled War in The Pews that talks about real-life instances which are shocking. Churches have split over whether the piano should be to the right or the left side of the podium, whether the Lord’s Supper should be served from the front of the sanctuary to the back or the back to the front, whether a kitchen should be a part of the church building or not. One church split over who was the real pastor. They had two pastors. The two groups thought they each had their own guy, and both preachers got up to lead the service one Sunday. Both led the singing. Both groups tried to out-sing each other. Then both pastors started preaching, trying to out-preach each other. Finally, they just broke out into fisticuffs, and the police had to come in and break it up. (Bob Joyce, Sermon central)) How shameful it is for church’s to be divided! John Calvin says, “nothing is more inconsistent in Christians than to be at variance among themselves”
After addressing the call to salvation, the call to holiness, and the call to doing life together, Paul now addresses the one thing that can destroy both the individual believer’s testimony and the church’s very existence. In Matthew 22:25, Jesus teaches us that “every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” This is true also of the church. Dwight L. Moody once stated, "I have never yet known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord's people were divided." And this was exactly the condition of the church at Corinth, and why Paul now addresses this call to unity. Paul writes, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
As we have previously pointed out the Church of Corinth was a troubled church with a myriad of problems. The church in Corinth was divided over many issues:
• They were arguing about the right of Christians to eat meat which had been offered to idols.
• They were arguing about whether a Christian should marry or not.
• Some were showing off with spiritual gifts seeking to prove they were being more spiritual than others.
• People were interrupting public worship with disorderly conduct.
• They were aligning themselves behind one Christian leader and criticizing anyone else in the congregation who were aligned with a different Christian leader.
• They had a feminist group vying for power in the church and home.
• During the Lord’s Supper, they were setting up a caste system where rich people sat at one table and poor people at another.
• Christians were going to court each other. (copied)
Just because they were members of the same church did not mean they were on the same page. Someone has said, “There can be union without unity: tie two cats together by their tails and throw them over a clothesline. There you will have union, but certainly not unity!”
For God to bless the church, there must be unity. Psalm 133 starts with these words, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” It ends by saying “For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.”
Christ calls for the church to be bound together in unity. Listen as Christ prays to the Father for those who would follow Christ’s call to salvation, sanctification, and fellowship. “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John 17:20-23) It is to this end Paul calls for unity as he deals with the issues facing the Corinthian church which claimed spirituality but was anything but unified.
Paul begins, “Now I beseech (or plead) with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. In this verse Paul lays out three areas where the Corinthians needed correction: doctrinal division, schisms, and misdirected focus.
When Paul writes “that you all speak the same thing” what he is saying is that we as the Body of Christ we must agree on the essentials of our faith. Every one of us must be in full agreement concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everyone is to share the same confession concerning who Christ is and what he has done. Every one of us must agree that the Bible is our all sufficient source for life and godliness. Second Peter 1:3-4 tells us, “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Christ prayed, in John 17, “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth”.
This does not mean that we must sacrifice our personal identity to become a group of doppelgängers. However, we should agree on the core issues of our Christian faith. Understand that there is only one meaning to any passage of Scripture but there may be several ways we can apply that passage without violating the truth of the Word. There is no private interpretation of Scripture.
How many times will folks who disagree with our Biblical teachings on a subject say, "I don’t believe that. That is your interpretation.”? They seem to believe everyone has a right to their own interpretation of Scripture and one interpretation is just as valid as another. Sometimes when a person responds that way, they simply are trying to justify their actions or do not like what God’s Word says about an issue. Just because you do not like what a passage of Scripture means, does not give you the right to interpret it in a different way. If you would grow as a saint of the one true God, you must accept some of these difficult or challenging truths as revealed in Scripture.
Unity in the church must be based on the truth of Scripture. We must speak the same thing. We do not have the right to twist or misapply any passage of Scripture. We cannot take a verse of Scripture and make it fit our views. If we are going to speak the same thing and be of the same mind and the same judgment, then we must be willing to adjust our opinions and world views to be in line with the gospel. Too many of us still have a secular worldview rather than a biblical worldview. The Word of God should change the way we think about ourselves, about life, and everything else about our world. We need to shape a biblical world and life view that will help us learn to think and act biblically 24/7. Likewise, that means we also do not have the right to criticize others who disagree with our position or have them for Sunday dinner.
Paul continues, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you...” The word translated in our Bibles as divisions or contentions is a Greek word schismata where we derive the word schism. It refers to divisions, rifts, factions, breakups. It is the antithesis of unity. The Corinthian church developed a party spirit, were divided and were quarreling with each other rather than living in harmony.
According to Lifeway Research 25% of former senior pastors who left the ministry before retirement age left because of church conflict. Of those surveyed, 55% clashed over changes they proposed and 54% say they experienced a significant personal attack. Numerous pastors have ultimately resigned because of dissention, power struggles, burnout, and scandals. (copied). This is not limited to those in pastoral or full-time ministry. Many pews have been emptied over conflicts within the church.
What are some of the most common types of church conflict? ...
• Power Struggles – Where the conflict is between pastors and the deacons, church leaders or members of a clique vying for position or power.
• Music Preferences – Disagreements between musicians and choir members over the style of worship music, who gets to play instruments, and who is selected to lead songs are common.
• Family Feuds – Long-time family disagreements that began outside of the church that have found their way into the congregation.
• Money – Whether it is who is giving or not giving, the pastor’s salary, who should be on payroll, how the money should be spent and even how often the pastor talks about money can be sources of conflict.
• Personality Clashes – Some people do not like the personality of the pastor or his spouse, or other individuals within the church. (adapted from J. Love, No Fighting in church Please, © 2020 · Janice R. Love)
James tells us the root reason for these conflicts. In James 4 (WE), we find James saying “Why do you fight and quarrel? It is because your feelings are fighting inside of you. That is why you fight. You want something but you cannot get it. Then you kill. You want something very much and cannot get it. So, you quarrel and fight. You do not get it because you do not ask God for it. You ask for it, but you do not get it, because you ask in a wrong way. You want to use it for yourselves and not for others.” Someone has said, we are not to be church consumers. It is not about our wants and desires, preferences, and opinions. We are there to experience Christ corporately and be discipled. So maybe we should rethink our offense.
One of the key things that causes the break down in church unity is “no church discipline”. Sadly, most churches with which I have familiarity have no process for church discipline, or they have a process in place in theory only and have never exercised it. Jesus describes the steps for church discipline in Matthew 18:15-17, “If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he will not listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. But if he does not pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you.” Don Randall Cox, in a dissertation to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes “The decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church. No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members, with minimal moral accountability to God, much less to each other.”
The great Reformed theologian, John Owen taught that the church has a duty and an obligation to administer biblical church discipline to those who obstinately persist in sin, despite both private and public admonition, and who disrupt the peace and unity of the church.
Paul then tells the church not only must they maintain unity by agreeing together on the essentials, avoiding divisiveness, and maintaining the right focus. He says that they were “to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” We are to have the same mindset, the mind of Christ. We are encouraged to be focus on the same purpose and goal. Focusing on Christ and seeking to bring Him the glory. Philippians 2:5-8 says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” But look at what the Corinthian believers were about as Paul writes, “...each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.”
The church had been blessed having been exposed to many gifted teachers and preachers. Gifted preachers, teachers, and workers are truly a blessing from God and should be appreciated and encouraged. The problem of the Corinthian Church is that the Corinthians were focusing on and giving their allegiance to either Paul, Apollos, and Cephas (or Peter). Their focus was on people not on the Cross. Their focus was on style and not the message. They were emphasizing the messengers instead of the message. Their attention was on personalities not the person of Christ. The church was divided into four cliques or factions. Each group had their own mantra, based on the person each chose to follow. They were guilty of following men and hero worship. This led to strife in the church. There was the loyalist party who followed Paul. Paul founded the church having led many of them to Christ and discipled them. Paul was wise theologically and versed in the doctrines of grace. He was a straightforward preacher and could make things so simple to understand. There were a number who followed Paul and said, “Paul is my kind of preacher.” Then there was the intellectual party who followed Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew who was known for his culture and eloquence as a preacher. He was a man of philosophy and rhetoric. He likely appealed to the more educated in the church. Then there were those who belonged to the traditional party who followed Peter (Cephas). After all, Peter was not only one of the original Twelve Disciples, but he was also the leader of the church at Jerusalem where the first church was. Furthermore, Peter was still partial to the forms and ceremonies of Judaism, giving a more formulaic or ceremonial outlook to the Christian faith. The fourth group formed the exclusive party which refused to follow any man but claimed to have chosen to follow only Christ. This was a super-pious band who displayed a spirit of self-righteousness and smugness, separating from the rest because they were “holier-than-thou.” These folks often claim to have a hotline with God, giving off a superiority attitude. They can often be very intimidating and heard preferencing their sentences with, “The Lord has told me that...” or “God told me to...” These groups were all wrong because they included people who agreed with them and excluded people who did not. (adapted from Dr. Jack L. Arnold’s sermon “Divisions Because Of Personalities”)
Paul corrects their thinking by focusing their attention to Christ and the cross. He says “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
Paul cannot save you; Peter cannot remit or forgive your sin, Apollos cannot give you a new heart, no denomination or church can make you a child of God. Only Christ and His sacrificial death on the cross can accomplish these things. And not only is there no place in the church for cliques, there is no place for any attitude of superiority or self-righteousness. All those who are part of the family of God are sinners who came to Christ and have been washed in His blood. We have no righteousness of our own. Our focus, our life must be about glorifying Christ. As a church we are called to be unified in Christ.
Paul directs us in Philippians 2:2-4 “Fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” We can only do that when we take our eyes off ourselves and others and focus upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Where is your focus?
Disclaimer: My goal is to glorify God in the proclamation of His Word. Often, my messages are taken from many sources, both known and unknown. At times I may use another minister’s wording. I attempt to acknowledge my source when possible. I make no claims of originality.
