UNITY IN THE CHURCH
July 7, 2024
Ephesians 4:4-6
A Lutheran theologian from the 16th century, named Rupertus Meldenius wrote --- “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” - Rupertus Meldenius
That’s a great reminder. Yet how do we define what’s essential? Where’s our starting point as a church to uphold unity and to grow unity? Meldenius reminds us it’s in the essentials.
Last week I stated, I believe unity is expected in the church. It’s supposed to be the norm, not the exception. And . . . as followers in Christ, we aren’t responsible for creating unity, which is great news, because we would mess it up.
Not that we’re bad people, but we would all come about seeking unity from different vantage points and that would lead us down a really, really bad rabbit -trail. And more often than not, we’d get swallowed up in it.
So, the great news is that we don’t have to create unity. It’s already been done for us by Jesus. Jesus already established unity through what He did for us. Our job is to maintain and grow that unity. Before I discuss our main scripture, let me remind you what was happening in the early church to see why Paul was writing this.
When you look back at the NT, you see the Jewish and gentile (non-Jewish) believers were clashing. Paul discussed this in other letters as well. In Ephesians 2:14, Paul spoke about the dividing walls of hostility between the people, which we’ll see in a moment.
The Jewish Christians thought the gentile Christians were less than, mainly because they didn’t follow the Jewish laws. So, there was this wall of hostility.
And that’s still true today, and we can follow the same line of thinking. We don’t all agree on style and taste. Some prefer more charasmatic or hymns vs. rocky. Others want more liturgical or expository preaching.
The list could go on and so we can easily get stuck in our differences.
And there easily can be that dividing wall of hostility in today’s church.
So, Paul masterfully encourages us to be unified. He does it by reminding us of what we have in Christ - - - -
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, - Ephesians 1:7
This becomes the basis for our unity. What Jesus did for the gentile, He did for the Jew. There’s no difference. We all have redemption through His blood.
That’s part of what we just did in communion. We have the forgiveness of our sins, all because of His glorious grace. Now Paul shares the hope of bringing the believers together in the next chapter, in Ephesians 2 ---
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For He Himself is our peace, WHO HAS MADE US BOTH ONE and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.
15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself ONE new man in place of the two, so making peace,
16 and might RECONCILE US BOTH to God in ONE body THROUGH THE CROSS, thereby killing the hostility.
17 And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
18 For through him we both have access in ONE Spirit to the Father.
- - - - HERE IS THE END RESULT - - - -
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, - Ephesians 2:13
The gentiles were separate from the Jewish Christians, but now they’ve been brought into the kingdom because of the blood of Jesus. His death has united the Jew and gentile, who at one time would not talk or eat together.
They are now fellow citizens, sharing in the same glorious inheritance. It’s all equal in terms of salvation. The law abiding Jew and the idol worshiping gentile who have both become Christ followers receive the same victory.
That’s what establishes unity for the church. It’s not anything we do, but it’s the work of Jesus. That’s why we don’t have to create unity.
We need to cultivate it and grow it and make it real and visible to a world - - - desperately in need of Jesus.
So, we look at the essentials of what unity in the church is and we’re starting to see it in the words of Paul.
If we left creating unity up to the church, we’d mess it up, because depending upon whichever branch of Christianity, you’re going to have different essentials, rules, polity, different theology and styles of worship.
All believers share the same privilege of access to the Father – through the Holy Spirit in the Church. The same Holy Spirit indwells all believers and provides us with a direct line to God.
With that in mind, let’s look at what Paul told us in Ephesians 4. As Paul gives us amazingly straight on wisdom about what the essentials should be.
Remember from last week, we’re called to walk in a manner worthy of our calling and to demonstrate humility, gentleness, bear with one another and show patience - - - - as we seek to maintain the unity of peace.
Paul now takes us a step further. 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’s 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 trillions of cells, there’s only one life. And when you put us all together, we have a gazillion cells in this room. Yet, remarkably, we are all the body of Christ.
The body of Christ has an infinite number of shapes and sizes and varieties. Church is shaped by culture, personality, history, theology and giftedness and many other factors.
But the one constant is that the true church all around the globe shares the life of Christ. We proclaim without a doubt that Jesus is the one and only Son of God. We affirm what’s written in the Apostles Creed. 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’re 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, Lutheran, 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.
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.
If you go back to Ephesians 1, 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 belief in Jesus as the Christ.
And it’s the Holy Spirit which produces Christ centered unity. Unity is a gift from God. We grow it.
Paul continues by telling us we have ONE HOPE.
There’s 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?"
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.
Hope also 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) we have the hope of the church, that we’ll be there for one another.
That’s what Paul meant in Romans 12, writing - - - -
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. - Romans 12:15
We share in the life of Christ together. We share that community, rejoicing together and at times, weeping with one another. That’s part of the beauty and the power of the church.
Paul moves onto verse 5 telling us we have -- 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, Lord 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. If we think we can serve other gods, we are sorely mistaken and are worshiping idols.
If we serve the same Lord, that 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 is no kinda / sorta faith. 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.
“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.
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’s 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.
Water baptism would be an outward sign of the inward faith we have in Christ. But, Paul is not really referring to actual baptism, he’s referring to the fact that we are ALL immersed into the life and body of Christ. The mode of being baptized is not what Paul’s talking about.
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 to the same God and Father.
The universal and local church spends too much time focusing on the non-essentials. And when we do that, we destroy the unity that God has established.
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.
We can argue over theology, whether we follow Calvinism or Arminianism.
We can argue over the modes and ways of baptism.
Believer baptism or infant baptism. Immersion or not!
We can argue over the end times. How and when and who?
We can argue over whether we should tithe or is it an obsolete OT law?
We can argue over whether we should have deacons or elders or both.
We can argue over whether communion should be unleavened bread or not, wine or juice.
Christians can get into trouble with one another when we forget what we have in common. We need to focus on the essentials.
It’s all about Jesus! It’s about a common, shared and unifying faith in the King of kings and Lord of lords.
No matter what happens, when we have Jesus, we have unity.
