This sermon is available for free download from www.graceunlimited.co.za That's www.graceunlimited.co.za There you will also find many other sermons, the speaker's blogs, events, pictures, links, web store, e-documents, and contact details. Simply follow the links to Grace Unlimited on Sermon Audio. I want to talk with you a little today again about unity, unity, being united, and specifically the basis unity in the church. From Ephesians chapter 4 and specifically verses 4 through 6. This is a, I think for me, a very challenging subject to talk about, unity. Because I know, personally, how difficult it is to be united, even with other believers. People are so different I don't know if you've ever had a time in your life where you have just been amazed by another human being, how different that person is from you. We're different the way that we look. I mean, God's creativity is at display even in this church. That's incredible to me how God can take a nose, two eyes and a mouth and put them together in so many different ways. How many variations of noses are there in this world? But we're not only different in the way that we look. We're also very different in our personalities. Some of you are loud. When you enter the room, you want everyone to be looking. Others of you, that would be the worst thing. You are quiet. Not only different in personalities, we're different in our sense of humor. Some of us find certain things just hilarious. While others of us don't get what's so funny about it. I'm sure you've had times where you've sat down with someone and you've told them something that you think is so funny. And they look at you with a blank expression on their face. What is funny about that? I'll always remember when Paul came over to our house and he was telling us some of the things that he thought was funny up in the Congo. And boy, he and Mustafa were having the best time ever, just laughing and laughing. And I was laughing because they were laughing, but I wasn't quite kidding what was so funny. Our senses of humor can be so different. Not only that, our cultures can be so different. Just the way we grew up, what our parents taught us was polite. I'm guessing there have been times even when I've come over to some of your homes and you thought, who is this crazy American? Can this guy be less polite or more rude? I can't believe that he just did that. Our cultures can be so radically different. And not just our cultures, our sets of convictions. Sometimes you'll sit down with another individual and they are sure it is wrong for a woman to wear pants. And you can never make them change on that particular conviction. Or there's another individual that you talk to, and they're just certain, they're just certain about particular convictions that you don't feel at all. Not only different when it comes to our sense of humor, our personalities, our looks, our convictions, sometimes we're just different on our perspectives. Two people can be in the same situation, hear the same thing, go through the same conflict and come out saying two opposite things. I've been there, I know. I've been in situations where I've listened to someone and I think, I cannot believe how arrogant that person is. It is impossible for a person to be more proud right now. And then you walk out of the room and you look at the person next to you and he says, wow, that man was godly. We believe that his passion and his conviction, two radically different perspectives were different. And while those differences are one of the things God uses to make life interesting, I can't imagine how boring life would be if everyone was just like me. It's one of the things God uses to make life interesting. At the same time, those differences can make unity, long-term unity, with other people very difficult. In fact, sometimes we're so different from one another that we can look around even at our church and say, how is it possible that people who are so different can really be one? Can really be one? Because make no mistake, that's what we're talking about when we talk about unity. When the Bible talks about unity, it's not talking about simply being polite to other people. We're not talking about getting together every Sunday and smiling at each other and nodding and learning to have good manners. When the Bible talks about unity in the church, it's talking about something much bigger than that. We should be nice and we should be kind and we should be polite to everyone, even unbelievers. But there is a kind of unity, a kind of oneness that is supposed to take place in the church that is bigger than simply having good manners. It is a kind of unity that the Apostle Paul defines by saying things like this, being of the same mind. We're to be so united, it's like people look at our church and they say, that church just has one mind. Paul talks about the unity we are to have as a church by saying things like having the same love. Those people, they're passionate about the same thing. Standing firm together in one spirit. When we talk about unity in the local church, we're talking about partnering together for something greater than ourselves. We're talking about a place where we are constantly considering each other's interests above our own. Where we're preferring one another in love, imagine that. Where I actually prefer your interests before mine. We're talking about being so united that you could describe it as being one. One person. And with people being so radically different, what I'm saying is, it's kind of tempting to wonder, is that kind of unity possible? It's one thing to read about being united. It's one thing to agree with the fact that we should be united. I mean, who's going to argue with the fact that we should really care about each other this way? But it's another thing to try to live that out in a local church. Because when we start trying to have those relationships where those deep one-person kind of relationships in a local church, we find out that it is incredibly difficult because people are so different, and actually it ends up bringing out a lot of questions in our minds. Like, for example, why should we even try to be this united? I don't know if you've ever had a relationship with someone you thought was difficult in your local church, and you hear the pastor saying, we should pursue unity, and you think to yourself, why? Why? You don't know how much pain that's going to bring me? To try to be united to that person? Why should I work at that? If you haven't asked that question, I know I've asked that question of myself. Or how? How do I pursue unity? Is this the impossible dream? What is it that we need to do if we're going to be one as a local church? Or, what is the basis for our unity? Because obviously we don't have unity with everyone. In fact, this kind of oneness, this same-mindedness, is something we can't have with everyone. And these are the questions Paul answers in the text before us, Ephesians 4, 1 through 6. This, we said last week, is a text about unity. We see that in verse 3. Paul commands us to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And in this passage, Paul answers three of the most important questions about unity, oneness in the local church. First of all, he answers that question, why should we work at being united with people who are so different? And what was his answer? We saw it in verse 1. Look at it, Ephesians 4.1. He writes, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. He gives us two reasons to work hard at unity. Therefore, and the calling with which you have been called." Two reasons to work at unity according to the Apostle Paul. One, God's grace in your life. The fact that God has shown you such mercy should be a motivation to you to pursue unity with other believers, to show them mercy. But two, also God's great plan, God's calling. Paul says, God has saved you. And that saving, we can describe it as like a calling. God did not, or maybe another way to say it, God saved you for a purpose. God saved us for a purpose. And that purpose is to glorify Him, to make Him look great. And the way that we make God look great, one of the primary ways we make God look great, is through the way that we relate to one another as a local church. For us to pursue unity. The reason unity is ultimately important, is something much bigger than the person sitting next to you, or having a comfortable life. The reason unity is important is because of who God is and what God's done. And so what Paul really tells us in verse 1, and this again is what we saw last week, is that we can't disconnect our relationship with God from our relationship with one another. And there's a lot of us that want to do it. I've heard people say this all the time. I have a great relationship with God. I just don't care for God's people. Well, you show me a person who isn't seriously committed to God's people, and I'll show you a person who isn't seriously committed to God, no matter how much he says he is. Because it's impossible for you to disconnect Separate your beliefs about God from the way you relate to others in the local church. That's how important pursuing unity is. That's why we're talking about this. But how? How do we pursue unity? That's the second question. With people so different than us, how do we pursue unity? And we saw in verses 2 and 3 that Paul begins helping us understand how to experience unity in the local church. Not by giving us a gimmick or a program, Say this, do that, count to 10. No, but talking about personal character. He writes, look at verses 2 and 3. He says, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. Well, how do I do that, Paul? Verse 2, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. The way that we pursue unity with people who are different than us is not by focusing first on them and how they need to change, but instead by first focusing on ourselves and how we need to develop a certain set of character qualities in our lives by each of us as individuals working on becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. That's the path. We start with ourselves. Of course we need to deal with the issues that are in each other's lives, But we start with ourselves by pursuing humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearing love. Now, there's a third question, and this is what we really want to talk about today. We need to ask this question or we might get off track. We might not think about it at first, but it's actually essential. We asked why pursue unity, how pursue unity. This third question, though, is what is the basis of the unity? What is the foundation for the unity we have at the church? with people who are so different than us. Because, let me say it again, we do not have this kind of unity with everyone in the world. We cannot expect to have the kind of unity the Bible calls us to with everyone. We're not even supposed to. If you make peace with certain people, you're actually making war with God. So the kind of unity, the kind of oneness that I'm talking about is not something we are to have with the whole world. We can be nice and polite with unbelievers, we can be nice and polite with Muslims and Mormons, and hopefully we are, but we cannot experience this kind of unity, this kind of one-mindedness that Paul's talking about, and he wouldn't want us to, because this unity This one-mindedness is founded on something. When I talk about unity with you today, I'm talking about something that's much bigger than just getting together with a group of strangers every week and trying to be nice. Instead, we're talking about something that is based on something. Based on certain truths, certain beliefs, certain convictions, certain realities. The unity that we have as a church follows these realities. It doesn't go before it. And these truths and realities we find in verses four through six, where Paul identifies seven truths that bind us together. Look at it, verses four through six. Paul says, 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. It's obvious Paul's talking about unity because he repeats, and I hope you notice this, he repeats the word one seven times. One, one, one, one, one, one. That's a little clue. And I think the reason he repeats the word one so many times is because we don't often feel very one. We're different. We feel so different. And because of that, it's vitally important if we're going to glorify God by being united as a church, that we have a very clear understanding of what unites us as a church. Why are we one? Now, the nice thing that Paul does, if you look down at the text, is that he brings these seven truths together by grouping them around the different members of the Trinity. We have unity in the spirit. That's verse four. We have unity in Jesus Christ, that's verse 5, and we have unity in God the Father, that's verse 6. Which means that in the middle of all the crazy situations we find ourselves in, and sometimes we do, we get in these conflicts with people that are believers that we can barely see straight. And we get so upset and confused that we can hardly remember, why am I trying to have unity with this person? Well, we can easily remember some of what it is that unites us, If we just slow down and think about God, slow down and think about the members of the Trinity. Why should you work hard? And when I say work hard, I'm talking about being eager, work hard at being united as a church. Why should you, when you hear gossip about other members in this church, why should that break your heart? Why should you go out of your way to try to spend time with someone else at the church and pray with them? Why should you, when another believer joins the church, why should you, even if they're not like you and their personality is different than you, why should you try to understand who they are and try to link arms with them? Why should we do this? What is it that can possibly bring people who are so different together? Well, first of all, God the Spirit. First of all, God the Spirit. Remember God the Spirit. That's verse 4. It's a little different, actually, for Paul to start with the Spirit. You might have thought Paul would start with the Father. But probably he starts with the Spirit because he just mentioned in verse 3 the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. He writes, There is one body, one spirit, and one hope. When we become believers, the Spirit of God joins us to one body, and He gives us one hope. Now this is really sweet. If you think about that first word, body. Think with me about that first word, body. When you think about what it means to be a Christian, probably most of you think simply as an individual. You think, God saved me. He forgave me of my sins. But look at this. When God saved you, He did something more than just save you as an individual and forgive you of your sins. When God saves you, it's your save. God the Spirit actually took you and He joined you to other believers, connected you to other believers. And He connected you to other Christians in a way that is so tight. It's so tight. that it can best be described, the church can best be described as being one body. That's a metaphor to help us understand what it means to be a church. And it's an important metaphor or picture to Paul, he uses it all the time. He's used it in Ephesians 2.16, Ephesians 4.15, he uses it in Romans, and he also uses it in a place called 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 12, that's actually one of my favorite places. where Paul describes the church as a body. In fact, if you just take a minute and turn back to First Corinthians, chapter 12, I want you to look at this. Just a couple of books before Ephesians, First Corinthians, chapter 12. Paul's describing the church, which is very different. And in verse 12, he gives us a summary statement, which is pretty much summarizes everything we've said so far. First Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 12. Look at it. He says, For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. This is a statement of fact. Paul is saying this is something that has happened to everyone who really has been converted. It doesn't matter who they are, Jews, Greeks, rich, poor. This happened to everyone. The Spirit baptizes them into one body. They are connected to other believers in a very real way by the Spirit of God. Whether we like it or not, whether you like it or not, to be a Christian is to be connected to other believers in such a real way that you can describe it best as one body. The way Paul puts it in verses 14 through 16 is actually sort of funny. He says, for the body does not consist of one member but many. We know that when it comes to our own bodies. And if the foot should say, you know what? Because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body. That would not make it any less a part of the body. What do we do sometimes with the differences among believers? We usually want to stay away. We use those differences as an excuse Not to be united. But imagine that if it worked that way in the body, Paul says. Imagine if my hand one day said, you know what? I am just so tired of my foot. That thing smells. I got to take the sock off of it. And whenever I'm down there taking the sock off of it, my hand says, I just can't handle the way the foot looks. I can't handle the way the foot smells. So guess what? I'm just done with the foot. I'm not even going to recognize the foot any longer. So my hand just lives the rest of its life looking this way. It won't even look down at the foot. Now that's craziness. Because we all know that just because my hand says, I'm not with the foot, don't, no please, don't think that we're together, just because my hand says that, doesn't make it any less connected to my foot. And Paul's saying that is the same, that illustrates the way it is with the church. The reason we talk about acting like we're one is because we are one. The reason I'm pleading with you to care about the other people in this church is because you are connected to the other people in this church. And that's grace. God did that for your good. God took all these different kinds of people and he united them Together, not to make things more difficult for us, but to help us. Think again with the body. You know with your body, it's good that there are different parts. Paul says in verse 17, 1 Corinthians 12, if the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? Can you picture that? If your whole body were an ear? That would be pretty freaky. I bet most of you don't look at the fact that your eye is different than your ear as a problem. You don't think, oh man, this thing in the middle of my face, I wish it looked like this. I wish I had not only two of these, but I wish I had like four of these. Two here and two right there. It would be awesome if I were just one part. No. No thanks. And that's how we should think about the differences there are in the church. God's doing something beautiful here. He's bringing people that are radically different than each other together. He's gifting them in different ways for our good. Yeah, we sometimes wish that everybody was like us in the church. If we're going to be honest, I wish that this person would just think exactly the way I do. But that would be thinking That would be like thinking of the body as having just one part. That's not a body if we're all the same. If all the parts of your body were the same, that's not a body. That's a freak. You put that in a museum. God's goal in bringing these different kinds of people together into the church was that we would be able to serve one another through our differences. Look at 1 Corinthians 12 the way Paul puts it. He says, verse 24, God has so composed the body. He brought the body together, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there be no division in the body. Instead, and this is beautiful, that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. We are so tightly connected that if something good happens to you, guess what? I get excited. If my feet win a race, my hand doesn't say, oh, I wish it was me. Can't believe it. Foot's getting all the glory. Stinks. Look at me. I did something here. I hung by the guy's side. No. The hand doesn't think, this is terrible. The feet get to walk around in those shoes all day, and I've got to be out here with nothing. No, the hand is happy for the foot, because they're connected. And if the foot is in pain, the hand doesn't say, well, sheesh, at least it's not me. I'm glad I'm not hurting. Aha, I'm doing great up here. No, the hand hurts with the foot, because they're connected. And that's the church. We act like we're one, because we are one. We're a body. Something amazing that God did in your salvation. That's a gift He gave you. He didn't leave you on your own. He connected you to other people. When we talk about unity in the church, get this, we're not talking about it like you can imagine bringing a whole bunch of rocks together and you're piling them up and they keep falling off. And so you're putting the rock up there and you're saying to the rock, hey, rock, don't fall off. Please stay together. That's not unity in the church. Unity in the church is like a body. If I see a body walking down the street in Sunnyside and I see this man just hitting himself, he's popping himself, kicking himself when he can, he's just wrestling with himself, putting him on the ground, just doing this. I look at that guy and what do I say? You're crazy man. I don't have to say to him, as I sit down and talk to him, I don't have to say to his hand, I say, hey, hand, come here for counseling. You are united to the other parts of the body, so you shouldn't hit it. No. I say, man, stop being a freak. Your body, don't hurt your own body. And that's what I say to you as a church. If you're a believer, you are connected whether you like it or not. And so stop being a freak. Stop going around wrestling yourself. Stop going around hitting yourself and hating yourself. We're a body. And we need to act like it. There's one body, Paul said. That's why we should be united. Go back to Ephesians chapter 4. Not only is there one body because there's one Spirit, He is also, the Spirit of God, has also given us one hope. Paul says, if you look at verse four, he says, just like there's one body, there's one spirit, just like you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. Which again, gets at how tightly we are connected. Because sometimes we talk about the church, we say the church is like a family. And that's good. The church is like a family. But we're actually tighter than that. Because in a family, brothers and sisters can have different hopes. You can have a family, both people from the same mother and father, and one person is doing poorly, the other person's doing well, and neither of them care. You can have a family where one man wants to be an important person, and where one man's going over here and doing this. You can have a family, and they all have different expectations. But you can't really have a body like that. My knee is pretty much committed to what my elbow's committed to. My knee doesn't have different hopes for its life than my elbow. My nose isn't thinking, boy, it would really be a great life if I did this, and somehow it's different than what my ear wants out of my life. No, if you're one body, you have the same hope. You have the same longings. And Paul's saying, when you look at the church, we all have the same expectations of future good. That's hope. We all have one hope. That means there's one single thing every believer here wants more than anything else. Every single one of you. Do you know how unusual that is to be in a place like that? We should just stop and say, no way. You go to a soccer game. Every single person in that stadium is not going to have the same primary longing. They're all going to want different things out of life. But as we come together as a church, there is one thing I can look at every one of you as a believer and say, there's one thing you want more than anything else. And it's the same as the guy sitting next to you. And it's the same as the guy sitting next to you. And it's the same as the guy sitting next to you. It's that God would be glorified and that we would be able to enjoy eternal life with Christ. And having that same hope when it comes to unity is so practical. Because why do people get divided? Why are there divisions between unbelievers? One of the big reasons why people have conflict, even in a marriage, is because they have different expectations. The wife wants one thing out of life. The husband wants another thing out of life. And that other person gets in the way of me getting what I want. And so I get upset with them. But the amazing thing with us as believers is we all want the same thing the most. We're all longing for the same thing. We're united in that. And the cool thing is, we can even take this a step further if you look at the text, Ephesians 4. Paul says, not only do we all want the same thing, this hope, he says, look at it, belongs to our call. It's not just something we want. Paul says, this hope, we have it. It belongs to our call. If you're a believer, you have this hope. And what he's talking about there is the hope of eternal life. The internal inheritance. What God has in store for us. We have it. It's ours. And one reason people fight other people is not just because they want something different. It goes a little deeper. It's because their hope is insecure. They don't have it or they think that hope can be taken away from them. For example, why do people get so upset about money? Well, one reason they get upset about money is because they think, ah, this person He's getting in the way of me experiencing. I don't have it or he's gonna he's able to take this away from me. It's insecure But the church should be a place where there's all kinds of humble gentle people because our future is absolutely secure Every one of us we know we have what we want most in life Have you ever met a person like that? Up there. He actually all of his hopes have been fulfilled and And there's a sense in which we haven't tasted it yet, but it's done. Our salvation is accomplished. We're just waiting to experience it fully. But it's done for us as believers. What we want most is done. It's going to happen. It's sure because of what Christ has done. And because of that, I can be secure. Because you, no matter how hard you try, you can't take away what I want most. Because it's mine. Because of Christ. Or maybe better, we can think about this from one more direction. The fact that we have the same hope. It tells us that at the end of the day, loving and caring for each other's good here in the church is important because guess what? That's what you're going to be doing forever in heaven. We all have the same hope. We're all headed the same place. We're all going to enjoy the same God forever. So that person you're gossiping about, that person you're against, if they're a believer, God is for them. And God is so for them that he's going to give them eternal life with you and with himself. Sometimes I think, man, I can't wait until I'm in heaven and I can finally enjoy this unity with other believers the way I want to. But to have the spirit, But we both have the Spirit and it's foolish. If I believe God is going to, one of his great plans is for me to spend eternity with this other person, then it's foolish for me not to try for unity now. When we look at the difference between us, we need to stop and we need to come back to what unites us. And we can start with the fact that the Spirit has worked in our lives and he's made us part of one body and he's given us all the same hope. Second of all, Jesus, the Spirit unites us. We can think about his work in our lives. But second of all, Jesus unites us and specifically what we believe about Jesus unites us. If you look at the next verse, verse five, he describes three sets of truths that all revolve around Jesus Christ. Paul writes, there's one Lord, there's one faith, and there's one baptism. The word Lord is a word that Paul uses to describe Jesus. You can see that all throughout Ephesians. And it's a big thing for Paul to say about Jesus. Paul was a Jewish person, you remember. And this word Lord that he uses to describe Jesus is the same word he would have quoted every day from Deuteronomy 6.4 to describe God the Father. In fact, with any Jewish person confessing Jesus as Lord, it was a big statement. They were saying Jesus was more than a prophet, angel, or another man. When they say Jesus is Lord, they're saying Jesus is God. And if Jesus is Lord, that means he's the ruler of the universe. And if I, this is the basic thing that we confess as Christians, right? What does the Bible say? We confess Jesus as Lord. If we confess Jesus as Lord, that means he's the ruler of the universe, he's God, but it also means he is my ruler. He's in charge of my life. And when Paul says that we have one Lord, it's a way of reminding us that in the church, we both have the same boss. We all, if we're Christians, we have the same master. And it's not me. And it's not you. It's Jesus Christ. And confessing Jesus as Lord, if that's what we really believe, we're saying, He's the one in control of my life. He's the one in charge of my life. And then if we could remember that basic truth, it would help us so much with conflict. Because so much of conflict is two people who are trying to act like Lord. So much marriage conflict when you have problems in marriage with unity. Even you've got two people who go to church and they say, Jesus is the boss of my life, but they don't live like it. They both are trying to be the Lord of that marriage. And the wife is upset at the husband because he's getting in the way of her being the boss. And the husband's upset at the wife because she's getting She's getting in the way of him acting like the boss. And what you have to say to them lovingly is if you're both believers, neither of you is ultimately the boss. Jesus Christ is the Lord of this marriage. And so what matters most is not what you want or what he wants. What matters most is what Jesus Christ wants. You are, first of all, accountable to him. And so am I. And one of the ways this should express itself, and this is sort of for free, but one of the ways this should express itself, a little off topic I mean by that, one of the ways this should express itself, the fact that Jesus is Lord, it should always show up in the way that we talk. If you believe Jesus is Lord, that means he's Lord over your words as well. That means your words do not belong to you. Your words belong to Jesus Christ. What do we do most in life? Talk. Can you believe we would say, Jesus is the boss of my life, but we don't give him the thing that we do most, which is talk. The thing you do most is use your words. And so if you really believe Jesus is Lord, then one of the ways you have to show that Jesus is Lord is by not using your words to get what you want, but using your words to do what he wants. And man, if you could do that in a conflict situation, wouldn't it change things? If when you were talking to your husband and you're so upset, and what do you want to do? You want to use your words to force him to do your will. Isn't that what you want to do? So often in a conflict situation, you want to somehow speak in a way that will show that man he has got to obey you. Or that woman. But instead, if you could slow down, you say, I think Jesus is Lord. That means My words have to be about what He wants, not what I want. So, Jesus, how can I serve You right now with what I say to my husband or to my wife? How can I use my words to do Your will? If we could just remember we have one Lord, that would help us move forward in our conflicts. If I confront You, or You confront me, It can't be about getting the other person to do what I want. The only reason we would ever confront each other is because we want to help each other do what Jesus wants better. Do you understand that? If I come to you to talk about something that's bothering me in your life, it's not simply because you're not doing what I want you to do. The reason I come to you is because I want to help you obey your Lord better. And when we go to confront each other, remember, if that person's a believer, he's a servant of Christ. And if he's a Christian, Jesus is his Lord. And if you're a Christian, Jesus is your Lord. Therefore, we need to be careful how we treat one another because you don't belong to me. I'm not your Lord. You're not my servant. You can imagine you're walking along and you find one servant and he's just pounding on another servant. He's getting out a stick and he's just beating this other servant. And then he finds out later the servant he was beating was a servant of the king. Wouldn't he be fearful? A servant of Mugabe. Whoa, I'm done. I just beat up this servant who was dearly loved by his master. And as you speak to other believers you need to remember this is Someone who is a servant and a son. This is someone who's dearly loved by his Lord. There's only one Lord. Paul says, not only is there only one Lord is Jesus. There's only one faith. And I know what you think of when you hear the word faith. Probably you think of putting your faith in Jesus. But most likely Paul here is actually talking not about putting your faith in Jesus, but about a common set of beliefs or convictions. He's talking about the content of what we believe. Instead of your faith, he's talking about the faith. Our unity, he's saying, is based on the fact that we believe certain truths. Unity is not important in those truths. We can't have unity if we don't all hold to certain truths. Of course, we get it. Among Christians, when it comes to the specifics of what we believe, there are some differences, aren't there? There's some differences here and there. Sometimes it feels like there's a lot of differences. But the core of what we believe is the same. The gospel. Otherwise, we're not Christians. There are some core truths that a person has to believe, otherwise he's not a believer. Like who God is. Like what sin is. Like who Jesus is. Like how a person is saved. Not by what he does, but by what Jesus did on the cross. And I think that it's actually a big thing, this idea of one faith brings to the table when it comes to understanding unity. And that is that unity, the unity we have as a church is based on certain truths. And if those truths are compromised, then we don't have unity. That's actually why we're doing membership interviews. Because if we're going to have unity as a church, it's not just like, hey, megaphone, everybody come in here and everybody can be a member of the church, no matter what you believe. That's not going to be real unity. We can say everybody come in here, we'll be polite and we'll be kind to you, but we can't be of one mind unless we all hold to a certain set of truths that are revealed in the scripture and primarily have to do, I think here he's talking about the gospel, how we are saved. There are two dangers people face with unity. Some people are so uptight that they can't work with anyone who believes the smallest thing that's different than them. Oh my word, you spell Cain with two N's and I spell Cain with one N, we can't even go to the same church together. Can't even believe that. No. We want to reject that. But at the same time, we need to be careful that we don't try to have one mind with people we're not united with. Christian unity is not based on personality. Sometimes we get confused about that because we think this person's an unbeliever and he's nicer than most of the believers that I know. Well, certainly you can have a friendship or be polite to that person, but Christian unity is about something bigger than personality. Biblical unity is based on the fact that we both hold to the same faith. Evidence here by the next phrase Paul uses, he says that there's one Lord, there's one faith, And there's one baptism, which is a way of Paul reminding us that every single person who's put his faith in Christ has been baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ. And as those who are baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ, they express their faith in Christ through baptism in water. And that baptism was a sign not only of their faith in Christ, but also the fact that they were united with one another. And I was thinking about this. When we're struggling with unity, it sometimes helps To think back to the day of your baptism and think about the day that you confessed your faith in Jesus Christ and the excitement of the church, how the church was all thrilled to hear you tell your testimony. And think about the other people you were baptized with. Can you imagine coming up out of the baptismal waters with your fists up? The pastor baptizes you and you come over. Who am I going to keep down? Come on, come at me. No, you don't come out to the baptismal waters with your fists up to punch the other people in the church. You come up excited, you want to hug the other people in the church. We're one. We're one. How can we attack now the very same people we linked arms with then? So first of all, think about the Spirit. Second of all, think about Jesus. And finally, think about God the Father. Verse 6. He says, there's one God and Father of all. who is over all and through all and in all. We worship the same God here. There's only one God. You notice people who are all worshiping the same thing, there's the ability to be unity with them, often. If we're all worshiping, if God is really the one we long to see glorified above all else, then we're going to be able to be unified. If we're all flat on our faces, adoring God, amazed by God, it's hard to, you know what, let me say it like this, it's hard if you're flat on your face before God to get a good punch out, isn't it? If we all come to church and we're truly in our hearts, Flat on your face is not a good punching position. You don't see many boxers get into the ring, fall flat on the ground, and start swilling their arms at the other person. Usually you have to be standing up, right? And as we come together as a church, we're coming to worship God, and if there's really one God that we worship, and we really are submitting to Him, then we're going to be able to have unity with one another. Paul says here, the same God we worship, there's one God and Father of all, or over all, which means there's one God who made everything we see and everything exists for Him. He's over all. Paul says He's supreme. He's Lord, but not only over all, Paul says He's through all and in all. Meaning, I think that this God who is Father, and as Father has authority, is not a God who is far away from us as a church. But instead, He's a God who's present with us. He's through all. He fills the world with His greatness. And as believers, He's in each and every one of us. And because we know as Christians that we're not on our own, doing our own thing here, but we've got the Most High God who's present. He's here right now, and He cares. The Most High God is here right now, and He cares about the way we relate to one another. And if He cares about the way we relate to one another, and we're coming here to worship Him, and He cares about the way that we treat each other, then we have to care, no matter how hard it might seem. In fact, He cares so much, the Bible tells us, how can you say you love God and hate your brother? How can you say you love God whom you have not seen, and hate your brother whom you have seen? The two are connected. Your relationship with God and your relationship with other believers. Now this is difficult. I'm not going to lie to you. Unity. It's probably the most difficult thing for us to pursue as a church. It's much more difficult than us raising money to have a big building. Just so you know that. It's much more difficult than us having a good band up here. It's much more difficult than us getting together and dancing well. There's a lot of dreams we could have as a church that we can fulfill that are a lot less difficult than this one. But this is what God says is His calling for the church. It's how we can glorify Him. It's the way He wants us to live if we're going to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. And there are going to be times in your life as a church, in this local church, where everything within you wants to run away from these people. And you want to ignore the importance of being like-minded. Because the reality is, this is difficult. This is probably the most difficult thing in all of life. Because we're all so different. And because, let's be honest, we're all so selfish. We're all in process here. And part of what God's doing in the process of the Christian life is helping us become less selfish. But we still struggle with being self-focused, don't we? And not only are we all so selfish, and we really, we can just see it our way so well. There's a supernatural being named Satan, who more than anything, wants to see us divided from one another. And so, it's very tempting to want to give up on unity, to want to run away, to want to hide, to want to just not care about it. But we can't be like that with other genuine believers. We can't run away from other genuine believers, especially those who are part of your same local church, because this is the primary place where this unity, like-mindedness needs to show up in the local church. It's one of the beautiful things of the local church, is that this is a place you don't always choose who's here. It's sort of like with your own body, right? I didn't choose for my foot to look like this or this nose to be like this. I just have to put up with it. That's the way it is in the local church. We're all different from so many different places, but one of the beautiful things that can happen in a local church is that instead of doing what the world does, just dividing and just hanging out with people who just look like us or act like us, we, by God's grace, seek to care for one another the way our body cares for itself. And then people start looking and they start saying, what's going on here? What is happening in this place? And we find the courage to press on, to pursue unity, even when it's very difficult. Not by, first of all, looking at the people around us and saying, hmm, those are some people I'd like to be united with. Or, oh wow, this is really, that person I can see really being united with that person. We don't get courage to press on by looking at the people around us. You know where we find the courage to press on and pursue unity? It's by looking above the people, to God himself. And remembering, we are united in the Spirit. The same Spirit has joined us together and given us the same hope. By remembering Jesus and the truths that we confess about Him, He is our Lord. We've been saved by the Gospel, the same Gospel, and we've expressed that commitment to the Gospel in the same baptism. And we worship God the Father, who's over all, which means He's King and we're not. And He's here, He's present. He's not removed, he's through all and he's in all. Yes, the people here in this church are different. But for true believers in our local church, while there are many things that might divide us, there is one person who is much more important and profound than any of those differences, who unites us and enables us to experience a unity that really unbelievers can only dream about. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you know, it's one thing to preach this sermon. It's another to live it out. And I repent of all the times in my life where I have just been selfish and difficult to get along with. Lord, I thank you, though, for your mercy and even just your mercy in making me part of a church. And Lord, I know that I'm different and I can be a difficult guy to be with, but I thank you that you've joined me to these other people here who are really believers for my good. And I pray God that we wouldn't give up on each other, that we wouldn't be the hand that tries to go off and live its own life, or the finger that decides it just wants to do its own thing. That we would recognize that you and your kindness has made us part of a body, and we may not like everyone who's part of that body, we might not have the same personality as everyone who's part of that body, we might not have the same sense of humor as everyone who's part of that body, but that doesn't change the fact that we are part of one body. And it's not our body, it belongs to you. You are the head. And you want us to be united. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.