Unity

When it comes to the unity of the Church, our reputation and our witness are at stake, What is also at stake is our maturity. And that is why Paul exhorts us with this: walking worthy means walking in unity with all believers.

Note: This transcript was auto generated and may have errors.

So I had this, uh, profound experience my last day of high school. So in my district, uh, the seniors got out a couple of days before everybody else, and it was always a half day. So at the end of that half day, we were all done with high school. It was very exciting. And so my class decided to just put on like a picnic barbecue, kind of a situation. And so that’s that’s what we did. And my class was about 300 people. Right. So, you know, not enormous but not small. It was a big gathering of people who got together. And we just went to a local park and brought our own meat. And somebody brought a grill. I don’t even know how it happened, but that’s that’s where it was. And I remember I got there later than most people. Most of the people had already gathered. And and I can honestly picture it right now. I can remember walking up in the parking lot and just seeing, you know, all of my classmates and, and the togetherness was just remarkable. You know, it was the jocks and the nerds and the theater kids, and they were all just like together. And it was great. And somehow I’m kind of all three of those things, but that’s beside the point. Um, and, and I remember thinking about how, like, these two groups used to have all this conflict, and now they were like, they were fine, you know, or these two people, and they seem to be getting along.

And I had this undeniable feeling that we had evolved and matured somehow as a group. And, um, it was this beautiful little moment in time where the ideal became a reality. And granted, maybe it was influenced by the fact that we kind of realized we would never all be together again. You know, uh, that might help a little bit. And that’s especially true because I no longer get invited to the class reunions. But that’s that’s another story I’ll have to tell you at another time. Um, that’s actually true. Uh, anyway, um, and so I use that story as sort of a juxtaposition today. And so I want to use it to lead into sort of an odd question. Um, are you ever embarrassed to be a Christian? I don’t mean ashamed of the gospel. That would be a different sort of a thing. Um, I just mean to be associated with the behavior and reputation of other Christians. If we’re confessing, I guess, you know, I am. Sometimes I find myself embarrassed. And the reason, you know, isn’t because of belief. Um, you know, my views on, you know, marriage or sexuality or creation or eternity, you know, these beliefs may be, you know, unpopular or socially inconvenient at times, but that’s not what I mean. I believe those doctrines can actually be rightly held and lovingly held at the same time. Now, what embarrasses me, actually, about the church the most often is our incredible propensity for disunity.

We just don’t get along very well. Of all the major religions, Christianity is the most divided and there isn’t a close second, you know? Um, we just love to spin off into all of our little groups, right? Reliable numbers are hard to come by, but there are some estimates that suggest there are as many as 45,000 Christian denominations in the world. Um, that’s a lot. And, um, I know and you know that often the separating the spinning off, its based on disagreements, it’s based on disgust, and it’s based on a feeling of disunity. Every once in a while we do it okay. But mostly that’s what it is. And so the case I want to make to you today, the case I think Paul is making to all of us today, is that when it comes to the unity of the church, our reputation and our witness are at stake. But what is also at stake is our maturity. And so Paul gives us this exhortation. He says, well, he doesn’t say, I’m paraphrasing, but the message is basically this walking worthy means walking in unity with all believers. So as we jump into chapter four of this letter, you know, it starts with, you know, I therefore, and you’ve probably heard the old adage, if you see a therefore you have to ask what it’s there for, right? So what is the what’s happening here? So the beginning of chapter four, this word therefore is the hinge on which the entire letter swings.

Okay. Um, before this chapters one through three, um, are a summary and proclamation and defense of the gospel. We see a discussion of, you know, the wealth of God’s blessing at the beginning of the letter. And then there’s, you know, the calling of Christians and, um, a description of the amazing works of regeneration and reconciliation in chapter two. And, and it goes on. But but basically, Paul is reminding the church in Ephesus the truth of who Jesus was and the veracity of what he did. And so then he’s making this turn and he’s saying, therefore and and in this turn, this is basically what he’s saying. He’s saying the gospel is true. Therefore the gospel should affect your whole life. The gospel is true. Therefore the gospel should affect your whole life. And that’s the charge, and that’s what he’s getting at. And so he’s going to say specifically why as we move on here. So he says, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord. Now knowing Paul like I do, because I’ve read some of his letters, um, I think that Paul would be a prisoner for the Lord, even if he was, like, arrested for jaywalking. You know what I mean? Because the angle of his heart was just to honor the Lord in all things. So Paul would always have been a prisoner for the Lord.

But in this case, it’s a little more literal. He was proclaiming the gospel. He was preaching, and there were people who didn’t like that, so they put him in prison. And so that’s this is not a metaphor here. This is literal. Um, he’s a prisoner for the Lord in that sense. But as he goes into verse one further, it says, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. So. So what’s he getting at here? He’s saying again, if this whole gospel thing is true, you know, if Jesus died and rose again, he did it for all believers everywhere. That’s who it is for. And it can’t matter who they were before. It only matters that they’re in the kingdom now. And so his message is, look, get over the financial differences, the racial differences, the past religious differences and the different food practices. Get over it and get along. Unruly children. Right. That’s basically the exhortation. Although which we’ll get to in a moment. It’s actually more than get along. It’s respond to your unity. But we’ll come back to that. And then he says, you know, if you’re a believer, you have to walk worthy in your calling. So to be clear here, this is not like a vocational calling. You know, like people might say, like, oh, I felt called to be a pastor. It’s not that. It’s the calling you have as a follower of Jesus.

If you are in the kingdom of God, you are implored here by Paul to act like it. Reminds me a little bit about, um, you know, playing varsity basketball. Okay, so my, my varsity basketball coach would say, look, guys, if we have an away game, you need to wear a shirt and tie. And the reason you need to wear a shirt and tie is because when we go to that other place, you’re representing yourself. You’re representing our team. Yes, those are both true. But it’s more than that. You’re representing our school. You’re even representing our city. And so you need to behave in a certain way that is appropriate for the situation. And that includes, you know, a shirt and tie, I guess, I don’t know. And so Paul wanted the same kind of thing here. You know, this was not a shirt and tie situation. That’s it was more important than that. But what he was getting at is he’s saying, Christians, I want you to act appropriately based on your call and status as Kingdom ambassadors. You need to behave like it. You need to act like it. Okay, so if it’s not shirt and tie, which it’s clearly not, you know, there’s a lot of robes going on back in the day, right? So that’s not what it would have been. Uh, what does acting like it mean to Paul? Well, thankfully he explains this to us here. Um, in verse two he says with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.

So he identifies these four behaviors that Kingdom ambassadors should, you know, participate in in order to act like a kingdom ambassador. Humility, gentleness, patience. And he says, bearing with one another, I’m going to use the word tolerance. Okay. Um, so let’s look at each of these. Uh, the word humility in this passage is in some translations of the scriptures, uh, defined instead as lowliness. So here’s, um, a commentary definition for for lowliness. Lowliness is a genuine humility that comes from association with the Lord Jesus. Lowliness makes us conscious of our own nothingness and enables us to esteem others better than ourselves. It is the opposite of conceit and arrogance. I don’t know about you. I’ve seen a fair bit of conceit and arrogance in my days in the church. I’ve probably contributed to it at times. And so, um, this is a good reminder of what it means to walk like an ambassador of the kingdom. We we have to be humble. And this brings me to one of my favorite sort of sayings along these ideas that I think I’ve shared from up here before, but it bears repeating, um, this idea that I’m just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. That’s it. I don’t have the answers. I may have had them shared with me at one point, and I might be able to share the location of the bread, but I didn’t make the bread and I didn’t pay for the bread.

I just know where it is. That’s it. That’s what humility looks like. The second quality is this idea of gentleness. And I think sometimes we get gentleness confused with weakness. Those aren’t the same thing. You know, gentleness doesn’t mean a lack of strength. It means an abundance of restraint. You know, if I, uh, am playing football out in the in the yard with my boys and, uh, you know, somebody fumbles the ball, I might run and jump on top of that thing, right? Because that’s what you do with a fumble. But if I’m picking up a baby, I’m going to do it very gently. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have the strength. It means that I’m choosing to have the restraint. And I think that’s what gentleness needs to look like in faith. Perspective. An attitude of gentleness means a submission to God’s dealings without rebellion and to man’s unkindness without retaliation. These are the ways of Jesus. The third quality here is patience or sometimes translated, long suffering. Which can I just say? As a parent, this is a word we need to use more in our vernacular, right? Long suffering. Um, maybe the best idea, um, to help us understand this might be with this cute little picture here. Imagine a puppy and a big dog, right? And and the puppy is yipping and nipping and biting and tugging on the ear of the big dog and biting its tail.

Right. And the big dog, you know, look, the big dog could swallow that thing in one bite, right? But he just takes it because it’s just a little puppy, and the puppy doesn’t know better. And so he has this patience, this prolonged patience, this long suffering, and his approach to the puppy. Right. And this is what patience means. And so, um, I’ve lost some of you because I put a dog on the screen, so I’m just I’m just going to go to the next one to make my point, so I don’t lose you for the rest. Um, so I just want to make this point. Um, sometimes we’re the big dog, and sometimes we’re the puppy. And it’s because we’re the puppy. Sometimes that we’re reminded to act with patience and long suffering. Yeah. The fourth one here is bearing with one another or tolerance. And this is tolerance in its true sense, not in the way people like to use that word today. Uh, tolerance, by its definition, requires some sort of disagreement in it. Right? Um, this, frankly, is the way many of you got through the holidays. Um, you you had that, you know, one uncle that says crazy things or that one aunt you’ve had a falling out with or that cousin that’s socially awkward or whatever it is. And you just said, look, I’m here because we don’t agree on everything, but I love you anyway, right? And this is what tolerance looks like.

And it requires us to look past, you know, past hurts or fundamental differences in opinions and values and decide to just love the person because they’re one of us, and that’s what it looks like. And so we’ve got those four ideas of humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance. And I got to say like, that sounds really nice, that like, that sounds like the kind of church I want to be a part of, the universal church I want to be a part of because, you know, this is the way of Jesus. Like, this is the way it’s supposed to be. And so I guess my question is, um, you know, do these four words describe the way Christians have treated you over the years? Do these four words describe, you know, the kinds of local churches you’ve been a part of and the way that that all went? Is this the way you think that, you know, other Christians in Rochester would describe Calvary? Is this the way that we would describe other churches in town? Is this how we behave? I mean, look, sometimes, but no. Right. Like not all the time. Certainly it’s not been my experience. So this is what’s asked of us. Well, it goes on and Paul takes it another step deeper. In verse three, he says, you’re supposed to behave this way. And by the way, you should be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

Do what you’re told and be happy about it. Right. Uh, it’s one thing to say, this is the way we should do it. It’s another thing to say, and we should find joy in that. We should be eager to maintain this. But that’s actually the exhortation here. It brings us back to the beginning of the passage. If the gospel is true, we should pursue unity, and that should bring us joy. It should bring us great joy to pursue unity with our brothers and sisters who have different doctrine and different beliefs and different denominations than us. It should bring us joy to seek unity with our brothers and sisters. You know, in our own church whose words sometimes rub us the wrong way, or whose obnoxious behaviour we find frustrating. We need to work toward unity with these people that well, sort of, because the unity isn’t actually based on us. We’ll come back around to that. So here’s one of the reasons I say that is because there’s an implication in this. If we’re to maintain the unity of the spirit, then the unity must already exist. You don’t maintain something that doesn’t already exist. It the command is not to create unity. The command is to maintain unity. What Paul argues is that there exists among believers an implicit unity that the unity already exists. It must not, therefore, be dependent on how people feel or speak about one another, but rather it must be based on something else.

It can’t be about feelings. The unity of the body of Christ is based not on us. And thank the Lord for that, but on who Jesus is. But there’s another further thought here that maintain the unity doesn’t mean it’s on me and you to do it, to perform in a certain way. What it means is we simply need to maintain congruency with the unity that already exists. It’s already established in Christ. So if we are in Christ, we should act like we are in Christ by having peace with our brothers and sisters. So what precisely is that unity based on and with? Who do we have? Unity. Well, the next part of the passage speaks to this. Picking up at verse four, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. All right, so here’s the deal. There’s somewhere between 2.3 and 2.6 billion Christians in the world that’s, you know, a lot of people. Or if we wanted to break it down a little further, you know, there are six major categories of Christianity, right? If we, you know, put all Catholics in one category and all Protestants in another, and all Eastern Orthodox, etc., etc., the six categories, that’s still, you know, pretty big, right? And the thing is, there are all these numbers and ways to divide people up and, and some of that is necessary.

It’s it’s just logistics and numbers and geography and that’s fine. That’s okay. It’s dividing is not necessarily disunity. There isn’t I don’t think, for example, a building even in Rochester that could like house every Christian that goes to a church on a Sunday in Rochester, like, I don’t think there’s a single building big enough in this town to do that. It’s just not practical. The reality is that the church can be meeting in different locations and still have unity. The church can also be meeting in different locations and feel a deep sense of disunity. But no matter whether it’s the 2.6 billion Christians in the world or the few hundred or whatever who existed at the time Paul writes this letter, the value remains the same. There’s really only one number that matters at all, and that’s the number one. And what he says is that it’s all really one thing. It’s not a whole bunch of things. It is a body one thing. It’s one God, one faith, one baptism, one spirit, one Lord, one body. The number that matters is one. And the thing is, it doesn’t matter how you or me or any other Christian feels about where the body might be fractured or separate. It’s based on having the same God, the same faith, even with some differences in doctrine or theology, the same Holy Spirit, the same Lord of our lives, which all leads us to be part of that one body together.

And we can, like it or not, we can deny it or not, but the unity exists. Now this saying, this one God, one faith, one baptism, this saying was probably like an early creed for the early church that as the gospel spread, it was the way that they kind of said, like, look, are you in or out? Are you with us? You for us or you’re not? And there were all these questions. We see all of Paul’s letters littered with different kinds of things like, well, what do we do about, you know, eating food sacrificed to idols? Or what do we do about the fact that Jews and Gentiles are in the same place? Like, do we need some of these guys to get some surgeries? You know what I’m saying? Like, there’s all these questions about who is allowed to be there, and the bickering and division of the body among the body creates confusion. It’s sort of like, and I use this example with all due respect, it’s sort of like being a hypochondriac. It’s acting as though something is deeply wrong with what should be a perfectly healthy body, because the health of that body is not based on our feelings or how we feel about the other people who are allegedly a part of it.

But on the work of Jesus and and the work that creates a unity that exists whether or not we deny it. The unity is a unity in the gospel, not a unity in feeling. Now, to be clear, there’s limits to this. There are limits because there are people who might claim to be Christians, but who would reject Jesus as Lord. There are people who claim to be Christians but reject that there is a Holy Spirit. We do not have unity with those people because they don’t meet this minimum criteria. But beyond this minimum criteria, there is unity. When you have this, there is unity. These are the key fundamental things that Paul identifies. And in it there must be unity. And so practically what that means is that there’s kind of two parts. Just because somebody sits in this room or in the room of any other church doesn’t necessarily make them somebody who believes these things. And so we don’t necessarily have unity with anybody who doesn’t claim these truths. But further, we do have unity with people who sit in other pews and churches and chairs and places around the world and other denominations and other belief systems who do claim these things. We have unity with those people if we are in Christ. And so what that means is that we need to celebrate our unity with our Catholic brothers and sisters, and with our Methodist brothers and sisters, and with our reformed brothers and sisters and our Baptist brothers and sisters and our brothers and sisters who live in China and Uganda and the Bahamas and wherever else.

And we need to celebrate our unity with our Christian brothers and sisters who are considered liberal Christians and our Christian brothers and sisters who are fundamentalist Christians. It’s all believers everywhere, and we don’t get to do surgery and remove appendages of the body if we’re not supposed to be doing that. So all this led me to ask myself this question. And as I was preparing, I mean, what would this look like? I mean, if we were really obeying and doing this, well, what would this look like? And my answer is, I haven’t the foggiest idea because I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. I mean, have you have you really seen a unified body of Christ? I feel like my church history is a lot more riddled with people arguing about who’s right about this doctrine or that, than a sense of unity among believers. But what would it look like if we were willing to live like the unity existed? To swim with the current of the gospel reality of unity? What would that look like? Well. Well, I don’t think I’ve ever fully seen it. I will say that while the megachurch movement in America has had its issues, this is one thing I think it does very well. And I think we could learn a lot from it, because at least in the megachurch I grew up in and I did grow up in a proper megachurch, there was a sense of, you don’t have to be a certain way or believe exactly the right thing if you are in Christ.

We are one. And it was a beautiful thing. And so I think I’ve seen glimmers of it in that way. And I think we could learn a lot from that movement, because they get this right biblically, more than a lot of other traditions do. The closest example, though, I think I could come up with overall is, you know, an unfortunate example. But I would point to, um, you know, September 12th, 2001. Right. Those of us who are old enough to remember, remember seeing the footage of the towers falling and this terrible, memorable thing that happened, but but not the thing itself. What happened after that? There was this period of time, maybe two weeks or so, where there was just this sense of like, we’re all in this together. Like we are all collectively, you know, Americans. And we collectively were attacked and every other grouping and identity just felt secondary. It didn’t go away. It just felt less important. And so the political divides and the racial divides and the socioeconomic divides just felt less. And I think that this call to unity by Paul should be similar to that feeling. You know, our personal identification as a follower of Jesus needs to be, you know, under the banner of Jesus like that.

That identity is the identity that we see ourselves with, but also that we’re willing to see other people with that it’s the primary identity as a follower of Jesus, that we see them as part of the same body, the same spirit, the same baptism, the same faith. And just to be clear, this is not you know, the beginning of Ephesians four is not an isolated case where Paul makes his his argument. Here he continues a little further down in Ephesians four, starting at 11. And he says, he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until key point here, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Friends don’t gloss over what Paul is arguing here. What Paul is saying is that if we deny the unity of the body of Christ, it deeply, negatively affects our maturity in Christ. If we are denying the unity of the body, it means we can’t grow into the adulthood of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Don’t get caught up on manhood here. That’s not contrary to womanhood. It’s contrary to childhood. What Paul’s saying is, if we deny the unity of the body, we cannot grow up fully into the faith that we are supposed to have.

Because walking worthy means walking in unity with all believers, all believers. Okay, so so what? Why does this matter? Look, we can understand, if not fully excuse the behavior of the Ephesian church a little bit here in context, we have to understand that society around the time of Jesus was highly stratified, that men were more important than women and adults were more important than children, and free men were more important than slaves, and citizens were more important than non-citizens. That the world of, you know, around the time of Paul and of Jesus, it was deeply hierarchical. It was deeply divided, it was deeply separate. And so their unification under Christ was deeply countercultural, and it was the thing that was going to set them apart because it was valuable, and it was essential for them to figure out the differences and work together. And that wasn’t just a, you know, a sense of like, oh, isn’t that nice? It was deeper than that. It affected their witness and their effectiveness as a force for the kingdom in the world. Author and pastor Francis Chan talks about it this way. He says, Scripture teaches that our influence on the world is directly tied to the unity we display. It’s great that you share the gospel with those you love, but it’s our unity that will cause them to actually believe your words.

I think he’s right about that. I think that a world that looks at the church and all they see is bickering and fighting and disagreements and tension, if that’s what they see. First, it makes our effectiveness that much less. Unity matters because it affects our influence, our reputation, our maturity. Unity matters because walking worthy means walking in unity with all believers. So here’s my sort of personal application and challenge for you today. There’s there’s four key areas I’d invite you to think about. The first one is to think about your co worshipers, the people you worship alongside with, and most of you that be here at Calvary. And for those who are visiting or whatever, it’s whatever church you are a part of. So, you know, are there brothers and sisters in Christ who you know frustrate you? Probably, right? You know, you go to church with me, so there’s that. Um, I want you to consider what God is asking of you as you consider your conflict with whoever you have conflict with. You know, whatever that falling out is, whoever you’re avoiding. Like, what does that do to the acknowledgment of the unity of the body of Christ? And do you need to do something about it? Is it affecting that acknowledgement? That’s the first thing I’d have you think about. Do you have peace with your brothers and sisters? Who are your co worshipers? The second one is, I’d ask you to think about how you speak and behave toward other churches and other ministries, especially those in this city, but even in other cities.

Now, I want to be clear. This is a hard line to walk, okay? Because I do think that robust dialogue about doctrine and even church strategy is important and can be healthy. It can be. However, I would posit this if you’re spending much more of your time speaking negatively about another church than you are being encouraging about that church, you may be denying the unity of the body, and you really need to think about that. And if you must speak critically about another church or ministry, or about another brother or sister in Christ, you need to bring your critique with love in your heart. And if you can’t do that, you shouldn’t bring it at all. And I think you need to really think deeply about this. And I would add that, you know, um, that goes for recent future or recent past churches as well, and maybe there’s some hurt there. And so what I would just refer you to is the entire month of December, we were talking about forgiveness in our series. Right. And maybe you need to work on forgiving. You know, it could be a person or a group or a church, I don’t know. I would just caution you that failing to do so will only bring bitterness. Um. And I. Heard somewhere recently we’ve been forgiven to forgive.

I can’t remember where that was, but anyway, that’s part of the thing. Uh, similarly, but a little bit differently. Um, I’d have you consider how you feel about those who, like, used to be a cavalry and then left. You know, there’s a reason why this little ditty started flying around social media. You know, you can still be friends with people who leave your church. We aren’t in gangs, right? It’s okay. It’s fine. You know, um, I don’t know. I truthfully, I probably put that little bit in for me as much as anyone. Um, sometimes it’s hard and we can get our feelings hurt when people feel the need to move on. Um, and so, uh, we need to work on that in our hearts. Maybe the third thing I’d ask you to be aware of is, um, tribalism mentality, which evangelicals are real good at. I’m just going to level with you. Um, what I mean by this is that, you know, we all probably feel some association in certain groups, subgroups, right? Like with maybe a certain nationally known pastor or author or maybe with a particular denomination, the E3 or another, or maybe your tribalism and your association is with like a political party. And I would just say it this way, it’s fine to know where you belong. That’s totally okay. But you have to be very careful about mentally deciding that those who do not think exactly the way you do are somehow immature, or worse, are somehow outside the body of Christ.

Other than the criteria we talked about earlier. Like I might get emails on this, so I’m going to say it anyway. Um, you know, right, that mature Christians can vote differently for president or governor or mayor, right? You know that not everybody has to think the exact same way. You know that mature Christians, those in the body of Christ, can read and respect different authors, right? That’s a thing that you can do. Tribalism can deny the unity of the body of Christ. Brothers and sisters, let it not be so of us. And lastly, on this piece, um, I guess I’d raise it to you this way. Let’s say, um, husband’s in the room. Let’s say you had a friend who wanted to go to lunch with you, and he sat you down and he said, buddy, I like you. I just don’t really like your wife very much. Now, let me ask you, would that improve your friendship with that friend or create a bit of a barrier? Right. Or wives, you know, if, uh, if you got together for coffee with a girlfriend and she just kept insulting your husband and criticizing your husband, even just that one little annoying thing he does. And that was all she ever wanted to talk about. Would that help your relationship or create a barrier? We know. Right? I don’t understand. I don’t see how we can continue to grow closer to Jesus if we don’t have a positive attitude toward the Bride of Christ.

All of her. I don’t see how that is effective. So there’s a lot of things we could do to end today. But I’m going to close today in a little bit of a unique way, and I hope you’re okay with it because we’re doing it. Um, I know it’s a little different, but I think this subject requires something a little bit different, because my guess is that I haven’t said anything today that probably surprised or shocked you. That’s that’s my guess. And generally you probably agreed with what I was saying, but I think that this subject requires a great deal of conviction that evangelicals like us need to really wrestle with. We are generally not great at following Jesus in this particular area. So what I’m going to do is, um, I’m simply going to sit as the worship band comes out and they’re going to play some music, and I’m just going to show several verses on the screen. And I would invite you to read each one and take it to heart and, and use the passage we examined today, but also these other various passages together to speak to your heart about where you are living, in embrace of the unity of the Body of Christ, and where you’re living in denial of the unity of the Body of Christ. And let these passages be your call to action and the end of our time together.