Unity

You know I actually got to hear these guys speak a few years back

And that video made them reconciling seem a little more simplified,

but you know you can picture just the amount of hurt that Jamel would have had.

4 years locked up, 4 years away from his family, 4 years without privacy, for something he didn’t do.

And you can just picture the anger of being wronged in a way like that.

And if I had to guess most of us have never had something like that happen to us, but I can guarentee each of us have been wronged,

For some of us it could be just a coworker that views us as a lessor person, and there is just that reminder every weekday

For others it might be a friend that hurt us

For others it might even be in our marriage or family, where we have been hurt.

but really what happens is these things begin to separate us from the people around us

and really you end up with this picture of disunity in a place where God has desired unity.

And this is actually tragic, because God has designed us to be together and really unified in Him,

And so today what we are going to do is we will be continuing our series in Ephesians

and last week we talked about how our identity in Christ impacts who we are

And really Paul is writing to a diverse church, and so he is writing this letter to a church where there were probably big hurts like we’ve talked about, but there were even just different beliefs that the people in the church would have had.

And it wouldhaave been so easy to look at this church and go that church is going to be a mess

And today Paul who writes this letter shares with us how despite our lives getting messy, how we can be unified in Christ.

So turn to Ephesians 4:1-16 and we are just going to start in that first verse. It says:

Ephesians 4:1 NIV

1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

I mentioned this last week, but at the beginning of almost every section of Pauls letter He lays out the foundation,

And this verse here is the foundation.

Because He says I urge you to live a life worthy of your calling.

In a sense he is saying I want you to live a life equal to who you are in Christ where your life with Christ is equal to how you live.

And we should be able to see the fruit in our lives because things are drastically different when Christ enters.

Its almost like this vacuum. This is a pretty new vacuum right?

And its not plugged in right now is it?

But I can do vacummy things with it right?

I can push it across the floor, I can tell you how great it is, I can show you features on it (I bet you didn’t know how cool a vacuum is…)

But unless it is plugged into the powersource, its not going to work very well.

Because its needs to powersource to function how it was created to be.

And really in a way thats how we begin to live this life where God has called us, because once we are in a relationship we can start to see the fruit in our lives.

And look at this next part because Paul actually gives us the fruit we should be able to see in our lives once we are in a relationship with Christ.

And I want you to notice each of these areas he addresses deals almost directly with how we act towards the people around us and really even how we handle conflict

Look at verses 2-3. It says this:

Ephesians 4:2–3 (ESV)

2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

You know as you read this I don’t know if any of you feel this way but almost every part that is listed is almost opposite to how we naturally handle conflict and to how we even just live with other.

I mean we like to elevate ourselves above others and make it so our interest and what we want are the most important thing,

But we are told here to be humble, not nesacaraly saying I do not matter, but understanding that the people around you are created in the image of God and not just that but they were people that Jesus paid died for.

I mean understand your worth, but we have to understand the worth of the people around us.

Then we are told to be gentle. and we do not like to be gentle, because if you disagree with someone, gentleness does not get the point across, BUT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO GET A POINT ACCROSS YOU CAN GET LOUD AND AGGRESIVE!

You make yourself known right!

But being gentle causes a lot less damage doesn’t it?

Then we are told be patient- We do not like being patient with people

Liam is potty training and he is doing great, but sometimes it is hard being patient with him,

And you know sometimes when we are interacting with some people it feels like we are dealing with all their baggage (or diapers I guess)

But we have to remember where would we be if people were not patient with us.

This next ones really big because he says bearing with one another in love.

And that word in the Bibles original language is actually that word we looked at last week called “agape”

And this is Christlike love.

And here is what I want you to catch because this is covenant language,

Because we can have a contractual relationship with people.

We have a contractual relationship with the guy doing our remodels.

If he steps out of the contract we can end the relationship

And its easy to do this with people, they hurt me we are done, if they cause this issue we are done, (and there are times where someone is toxic and it might be oppropreate to seperate yourself.

But so often we are called to be in a covenantal relationship which is modeled for us through Christ.

Where there are times I might mess up or the other person might mess up, but we have this love for them.

And because of this we opperate off of a covenant not a contract.

And look at this last one because this last one is important. Eager to maintain peace.

You know I am someone where when someone wrongs me the first thing that comes to my mind is not how can I keep peace with this person, but Christ calls us to be a people of peace.

Can I just ask you for a second what would happen if instead of handling conflict our way if instead we handled it the way God is calling us to.

And look at verses 4-6 because it says this:

Ephesians 4:4–6 ESV

4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

You know Paul is telling us how our faith really has a unifying aspect of it, and the reason is because the people we are around can be different than us but the one who unifies us is so much greater than those differences.

I mean we talked about this last week, but lets say this latter represents our relationships with the people around us.

The bottom corners might represent differences we have, but then as we move closer to Christ we end up moving closer to each other.

And this is true in our marriages, friendships, with our coworkers.

I mean I have known people very different then me but it is amazing the meaningful relationships that have come out of relationships with people different than me rooted in Christ.

And can I just say I really believe we need people who are different than us, because if there is one body, I don’t think it means that I am that one body, but that the body of Christ is built from different people.

And I just have to say this but I really believe this is why being a part of a church is important.

Because if we are the only repersentation we see of the body of Christ, we are missing some really important parts of the body of Christ.

I mean it is so important for us to be a part of and plugged into the body of Christ.

A lot of times the individuals might not perfect but we are stumbling closer to who God has called us to be together.

And I want to jump down to verses 14-16 because Paul closes this section by showing what this type of unity does,

Because when we are unified in Christ look what Paul says happens: Verses 14-16

Ephesians 4:14–16 ESV

14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

You know when we are unified what happens is we grow.

And Paul actually tells us that we grow from being children to being mature in our walk with Christ,

I mean think about a newly planted tree, if I had this tiny tree and a storm came, the tree would not do superwell.

I mean the tree would probably get uprooted very fast

But if it was planted for years the roots would have grown so deep that conflict will not make the tree budge.

And let me finish this way, because so often the storms of life are very present

There is pressure

We get a medical diagnosis,

We get hurt by a friend,

We are having a financial crisis

And to be honest things go sideways.

Its easy if we are not rooted to allow the pressure of life to break down ourselves but even more than that satan will so often use those times of pressure to cause issues with our spouse, to cause issues with our kids, to make us lash out on people at work.

But what Paul is saying here is that when we are rooted and matured in Christ; life comes, storms happen, but they do not move us because we are so rooted in Christ.

And this morning maybe you are under pressure. Maybe the storm is raging.

And you know that everyone around you feels it.

what would it look like instead of allowing the storm to push others away, you decided to allow it to draw you closer to the people around you.