Unity in the Church
Notes
Transcript
Call to worship
Welcome everyone!
Announcements
LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS
Lord,
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS
Lord,
SERMON
Introduction
The book of Ephesians could be cut right down the middle at chapter 4. The first 3 chapters explain the Ephesian’s new status as Christian’s: They have been chosen by God, forgiven, made alive, given an inheritance, adopted into the church and made “one” with the Jews. In chapter 4, he is going to explain how all of this should change the way that they live their lives.
This morning we are going to focus on the first 6 verses that explain unity in the church. Unity is not only God’s will for the church, but a great testimony of God’s power in the church.
Listen to what Jesus said,
“I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.
I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.
We are better off in this church with unity than we are a large congregation, or the most powerful preaching, or the best singing, or the most beautiful building in the county. Unity trumps all of these things! Unity brings glory to God.
What is church unity? Unity just means oneness. It means the whole church is on the same page. They are together, they do life in the same way, they are one.
I am so thankful for the unity in this church. I have been at a church where there was great division and it was absolutely miserable. Most if the division was about 15 church members against me and my family, but it had roots other places as well. It was a church divided, and that church was absolutely ineffective because of its divisiveness.
Satan would love nothing more to divide a church, because if he can divide us, then he will steal the joy that God designed the church to have.
In this passage today we are going to look at how we can preserve the unity in this church, and what is the foundation of our unity.
Turn with me to Eph 4:1
The Christian walk is “one step at a time”
The Christian walk is “one step at a time”
Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
Explanation
This is not a command, but a plea
A plea from a pastors heart that the Ephesians would consider the greatness of God’s call upon their lives and live a life worthy of that calling
What is the calling they have been called to?
It is all that Paul explained to them in chapters 1-3
The therefore connects this thought to all that he has just explained to them:
They have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world to be in Christ.
All of their sins have been forgiven by God which means they are now at peace with God
They have been filled and sealed by the Holy Spirit
They have been raised to new life
They have been given a heavenly inheritance, on their way to heaven
They have been freed from the power of Satan
And the are now one body along with the Jews
And they are to walk in a manner worthy of THAT calling
That means they are to live a life suitable to being a child of God
Notice this metaphor Paul uses, “walk”
This gives the idea of a “one step at a time” faith
This is why Christianity is often called the Christian walk, because it is literally one step at a time.
God gives us a word, an exhortation, a rebuke, a command that we did not know and we take that, digest it, it becomes a conviction and we live it out
One command at a time
One promise at a time
One word at time
One step at a time
If we will make the commitment right now to do anything God tells us one step at a time, we will learn to walk worthy of our calling
Here are four things we can cultivate to keep the unity in this church
with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
1) Humility
Humility means “lowliness”
It having a lowly view of oneself—but not in the sense of a “poor self-image.” Not looking down upon ourselves, or feeling sorry for ourselves. That is false humility
True humility is to regard ourselves as lowly before God and know that we deserve nothing from Him.
Pride is the opposite of humility. A prideful person believes he is above others, entitled to special things. Pride also makes one believe that he does not need anything from God, and God can do nothing for him that he cannot do for himself.
Pride means “to be lifted up”
To have an attitude that we are above others
The attitude that we got it all figured out!
The attitude that no one can tell us anything, even God though we would never admit that..
What does any of this have to do with unity?
If we are truly humble, then we will see ourselves as no better than anyone else which will cultivate the willingness to serve others no matter who they are!
Pride divides, humility brings us together
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
Can we just imagine the difference it would make in every church if we considered everyone more important than ourselves?
Application
DO THIS: Just look at the people around you this morning; sitting all around you. Do you regard each of them as more important than yourself?
Don’t be too quick to answer. Because to know the true answer, we must look for evidence of how we do this.
Here are some questions to help us
When we walk into this room, do we serve or wait to be served?
When we are asked for some of our time, do we put ourselves or them first?
When we sit down do we look for our people or do we consider us all equal?
What motivates us to do what we do in this church: our own desires or the desires of others?
IMO, humility is one of the rarest characteristics in churches today
From the pulpit all the way down, it seems that humility is almost forgotten part of the Christian walk
Church we need desperately need humility. We need to know that without God we are doomed. We cannot win a soul without God, we cannot make a good decision apart from God, we must never make a move in this church without consulting God and allowing ample time for Him to respond.
And we are doomed without one another. We desperately need the Lord, and we desperately need one another.
We can get humility in two ways: humble ourselves or be humbled by God
I’d much rather choose the first
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
How do we do that? Repent of our prideful attitudes and get an accurate view of ourselves.
The other option is much more painful
2) Gentleness or meekness
Whereas humility is more of an attitude, Gentleness is more about how we act toward others
Gentleness manifests itself in our lives when we respond to conflicts, insults, unfairness, harsh words spoken to us, rejection with Christlikeness.
Gentleness means that we are aware that other people are sinners just like us and they have feelings, they have things going in their lives on that we cannot see, and all of this guides our response to them.
Gentleness does not mean we say nothing.
It has to do with how we respond and the words we choose to use in our response.
It is the ability to speak truth in a way that others will receive it.
It is the ability to be straight forward yet do so in a soft manner.
Jonathan Edwards (great revivalist) said this, “all who are truly godly and are real disciples of Christ have a gentle spirit in them”.
Application
The reason we struggle with Gentleness is because we see meekness as weakness. Our culture has taught us that. If someone does something to you, you retaliate and do not take it. If you do not you are weak and a pushover and let the world run over you.
That could not be more biblically incorrect. Gentleness is sign of strength not weakness!
Gentleness is having the right or power to do something, but refraining for the benefit of another.
Jesus said this about the gentle: Matt 5:5
“Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
In God’s kingdom, the gentle people rule, not the harsh and critical
3) Patience
Also translated: long-suffering
“the prolonged restraint of anger or agitation”
And clearly in the context of unity, Paul is speaking about having patience with one another! Able to restrain our anger or agitation with one another.
Surely no one in here would ever get angry or agitated with another person in here??? If it never happened, then we wouldn’t be human.
We may not have seen it much (yet) but I assure you that someone or several people have been agitated by someone else in here and practiced patience. I can almost guarantee that I have agitated or angered someone and they have restrained it.
We must never get the idea that we all get along too good to need any kind of patience with one another.
Paul assumes it will certainly happen.
What we must be sure of , is that we can restrain our tempers.
Application
By way of application, I want to give us some wisdom about anger
Proverbs 15:18 “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, But the slow to anger calms a dispute.”
Proverbs 14:29 “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.”
Proverbs 16:32 “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.”
What do we do if we have a patience problem?
Practice forgiveness: Patient people are forgiving people
Be slow to anger: If you are hot tempered, then train yourself to control your temper.
Focus on the positives: There are positives in every situation. God promises this: Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Your patience will be tested, but God will bring good out of it if you trust Him
4) Showing Tolerance for one another in love
This has the idea of putting up with other people. Tolerating what may really get under our skin.
A person with this grace is “able to make allowances for the faults of his fellow believers, to bear with them in their weaknesses and failings”.
But this is not a grudging kind of tolerance, steaming underneath
This kind of tolerance is rooted in love
Love is a choice to put the welfare of others over our selfish considerations
Karl Barth said, “Love … does not exist in a vacuum, in detachment from involvement in other men’s lives”
Tolerance does not mean that we turn a blind eye towards truth.
Sometimes I think churches try to keep unity so much that they allow sin to enter into the body of Christ, false teachers, bad leaders, on and one’s
This is not the tolerance Paul is speaking of.
Jesus has much to say about a church that tolerates sin or a sinful influence to remain
Revelation 2:20 “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.”
The church is not called to tolerate wickedness!
Whether it’s in the pew or the pulpit.
But we must be people who overlook faults and characteristics of others that may get on our nerves.
Remember “one step at a time”
Which of those areas do you need to work on?
Make it a priority in your life to cultivate it. Then move on to the next. One step at a time
The foundation of our Unity
The foundation of our Unity
There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Explanation
Seven things here that Paul mentions provides the foundation of our unity:
One body
This is the church. Made up of all different ethnic groups, all different backgrounds, both male and female who come together to make one body.
Ephesians 2:15 “by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man”
Every gospel centered church, is part of the one universal church.
First Baptist is not our opponent, but just another part of the body
So is every church that believes the gospel
One Spirit
We are living in the Spirit age, the new covenant according to God’s promise to place His Spirit within us and cause us to walk in His statutes.
There is only one true Spirit of God, and He is according to the Word of God
One Hope
There is only one hope. The hope based upon the call, redemption, forgiveness given to us by God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
In chapter 2:12, Paul said that prior to conversion, they had no “hope” and were “without God in the world.” They were powerless before Satan’s dominion, their own fallen flesh and mind, and the wrath of God, whom they had disobeyed (2:1–3). “But now,” because of the blood of Christ, shed on the cross, God has rescued them from this desperate situation by making them part of his people and reconciling them to himself (2:13–18).
This hope is an absolute fact that one day we will stand before the judge of this world blameless and accepted because of Christ.
Our hope is not rooted in feelings, nor in man’s imagination, but grounded in the facts of Scripture written by men who were eye witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.
One Lord
This one Lord is Jesus Christ, the central figure of the entire Bible, and who is the hope of the world. And He is Lord of all.
He is lord over all the rulers of this world
He has the power over sin and death
He is the Savior, and there is no other way to God but through Jesus Christ.
And he is head over the church!
He is the authority over this church which makes Him the authority over each one of us
One Faith
This refers to the Christian doctrines that we believe
There are essential things we must believe to be in unity
The full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ
The doctrine of the Trinity
Salvation by grace alone
The Bible is inspired, infallible, and inerrant
The division of all the denominations that the world has is mostly due to this
It is what we believe
Our faith is grounded in the Word of God
It is not based on feelings, culture, or experience
What God says is how it is.
One Baptism
This is not referring the kind of baptism, but rather what baptism symbolizes
When one is baptized, it is a picture, a testimony of what has happened in one’s heart and he is just professing his faith through his to the church by this powerful ritual
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
The ritual is an important step because it publicly announces that persons joining the body of Christ.
And there is only one way that can be done, by faith in Jesus Christ
One God and Father who is over all and through all
There is but one God and Father
Who is over all and through all
This is the OT confession (Deuteronomy 6:4 ““Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!”)
Here we see this is also the NT confession
We do not worship three Gods, but one God who consists of three persons.
He is the Trinitarian God who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
There is no other God
Allah is not God
The Mormon idea of God is not God
The Hindu gods are not gods
There is no other God but the God is Scripture
Bridge
What does all this mean?
There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and it is OUR COMMON COMMITMENT to these things that lay the foundation for unity
We can lay aside all the differences because of our common commitment to Jesus
If our faith is our priority, then unity will always be possible in the body of Christ.
This is where unity begins
It begins with a total commitment to Christ, and when we have fully commited to Him, our attitude and action toward one another will be transformed towards one another
Conclusion
Unity begins with Christ.
It begins with a total commitment to Jesus in our personal lives and then it will transform the way we relate to each other.
Have you fully committed yourself to Jesus?
~PRAYER~
RESPONSE
PUBLIC INVITATION
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
OFFERING
We will now worship the Lord through our tithes and offering.
BENEDICTION
Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you, and keep you; The Lord cause His face to shine on you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His face to you, And give you peace.’”