One God, One Body Draft

Big Idea: God has invited us to be one with Him and with His people because He Himself is a God of oneness.

Introduction - Felt Need - Belonging

Story: It is so great to be with you all this morning. I remember one of my first experiences when I left for college and stepped into a large church for the first time, away from home, away from friends, away from family. I remember walking through the church doors, sitting listening to the message, and then walking out those same doors. It took courage to go alone, to navigate new waters. I remember week after week the story was the same, I left feeling no more connected to the body of Christ than when I entered. Part of this could have been due to the fact that I was introverted, sure. But the problem that I faced as a freshman faces students all across this campus today. In a few weeks they will arrive looking for a place to belong.

In fact, I would argue, that most of the greatest social issues we face today can be traced back to a desire for belonging. I’ve seen it manifest in my own life as I longed to belong to a group of people that I identified with, whether that was through playing D1 football, becoming a med student, having black friends, I was constantly searching for a place to belong. But this pursuit wasn’t unique to me. We all search for places and spaces to belong. Students and young adults across the country are searching for a place to belong.

The desire itself to belong, isn’t wrong, in fact it is innately part of our wiring as humans. Why? Because we were made in the image of a Triune God who belongs to Himself.

Genesis 1:26 NLT

26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

God is a Trinity in Unity.1

A. W. Tozer

In order to be unified you must unite more than one part to make a whole. We are relational beings. The problem then, is not the desire to belong but how and where we seek to fill this desire. Further, the problem with being unified is we live in a Fallen World. Sin has caused us to experience relationally, and socially, what we see scientifically in the second law of thermodynamics. Order driven to chaos and disorder. The reason unity is hard to achieve is because division exists. It exists(/ed) between us and God as well as one another.

The good news today is that Jesus has given us a place to belong with Him and with one another. Paul tells us this in the book of Ephesians...

In fact we will be looking at Ephesians 4:1-17 the entire month of August, but today specifically looking at Eph 4:1-6.

So as a backdrop to Ephesians 4, a little bit about the context and where we are picking up in Pauls letter. Paul is writing this letter from prison to the church in Ephesus, and we see throughout the first three chapters he talks about this theme of unity.

Ephesians 1 Paul talks about the access we have been granted to by God

1:4 "He chose us ... before the foundation of the world"

1:5 "he predestined us to be adopted as sons"

1:6 "to the praise of His glorious grace that He lavished on us"

1:7 "in Him we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His Grace"

1:8 "He made know to us the mystery of His will"

1:11 "In Him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined"

1:12 "we who had already put our hope in Christ might brig praise to His glory"

1:19 "what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe"

Ephesians 2 Paul reminds of us the gospel and how it has not only impacted us, but how it has united us with other groups we used to have distinction and division between.

Ephesians 2:4–6 NLT

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.

2:3 "We too all previously lived among them (the world) in our fleshly desires"

2:4,5 "because of His great love that He had for us and made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses..."

2:6 He also raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus

Ephesians 2:11–13 NLT

11 Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. 12 In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. 13 But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.

2:11-13 gentiles were far off, excluded, foreigners, b/c uncircumcised but now brought near by the blood of Christ.

What are the superficial things that we let divide us. Truth of the gospel is that people of every background, every appearance, every tribe race and tongue are brought near by the blood of the Lamb. Which sounds great, but can lead to conflict and division if we are not united.

Ephesians 2:14 NLT

For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.

2:14 "For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh,"

Ephesians 2:15–16 (NLT)

15 He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. 16 Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.

Peace can be summed up as freedom from animosity, hostility, discord

Peace in the NT often comes in 1 of 4 ways, peace as a greeting/farewell, freedom from strife/absence of hostility, messianic (provided by the gospel), relational (between one another)

He is not saying you are free from adversity or hostility. In fact he tells us the exact opposite. In Matthew 5:11 “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers.”

What are the people groups today that are divided and God wants to bring together?

Athlete and the academic, black and white. He wants to unite us all regardless of race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, or political party. He wants us to be one as He is one.

In doing so he gives us a place to belong and a place to matter. He fills our desire for belonging and significance.

Which is powerful because we need not then search for it in ourselves.

Expressive Individualism

It is difficult to overstate how radical these words are. In Paul’s day, the church in Ephesus included Gentiles who came out of paganism and Jews. For both of them, this “you are one” talk was counter-cultural. It was radical for the Jewish believers because they had spent their lives before they knew Christ avoiding gentiles. It was how they showed their devotion to God. This was also radical to the gentiles. Paganism in the Roman Empire involved many pagan sects, each with a different temple, a different god, different practices, and different beliefs. The idea was you honored many different gods but no god and no religious cult spoke for everything or everyone; it was pluralism in its fullness.

This message was radical to the first people who heard it and it is still radical today. The message of the church is a radical challenge to our current secular mindset.

There is a term which many philosophers and social commentators have used to describe the secular thinking today: Expressive Individualism. People like James K.A. Smith, Robert Bellah, and Carl Trueman, have written about this term and the philosopher Charles Taylor alludes to this term in what he calls the “Age of Authenticity” in which we now live. Once we understand what this fancy terms means, we will begin to see this everywhere in our culture.

The philosopher Charles Taylor, describes two different ways of thinking about the world. On is a mimetic view or mimesis, and the other is poiesis. In Carl Trueman’s work, the Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, he describes Taylor’s two models as such:

“A mimentic view regards the world as having a given order and a given meaning and thus sees human beings as required to discover that meaning and conform themselves to it. Poiesis, by way of contrast, sees the world as so much raw material out of which meaning and purpose can be created by the individual.” p39

Could add Riff’s types of man, political, religious, economic and psychological. Interesting about these is that the first two find their identity in outside source, the last finds it within. Ties to Eph, because His word tells us our identity is found in Christ.

The political man - “finds his identity in the activities in which he engages in the public life of the polis.”

The religious man - finds his identity primarily in “his involvement in religious activities”

The economic man - finds his identity in “his economic activity: trade, production and the making of money”

The psychological man - finds his identity “not so much by finding identity in outward directed activities as was true for previous types but rather the inward quest for personal psychological happiness.” p44-45

(could have also chosen to walk through Rieff’s 1st, 2nd and 3rd worlds, which tie in)

It’s this man that has come about in our current culture that then gives rise to what Charles Taylor describes as Expressive Individualism “that each of us finds our meaning by giving expression to our own feelings and desires”. p47

Expressive Individualism: the idea “that each of us finds our meaning by giving expression to our own feelings and desires”. p47

When we look at our culture what we see is the commitment of a person is “first and foremost to the self and is inwardly directed” p49.

Why is this idea so big? Because it means that if a person is to have their identity validated it has to be recognized and approved of by others. If not they feel rejected and no longer to they belong.

So with this logic “ethics, therefore becomes a function of feeling” p79.

Another philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, defines the doctrine that is now guiding most of modern society with the term “emotivism” and defines it as such:

“Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgements and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character… Essentially, emotivism presents preferences as if they were truth claims” p85

Note: difference between expressive individualism and emotivism.

Emotivism is a moral calculus anchored in feeling.

Expressive individualism is a truth anchored in my feelings.

Both flow from within and the shift is emotivism is relativism in morals as a way to navigate the social environment. Where expressive individualism is close to a totalitarian demand that you affirm my truth.

All of this is really embodied and initiated by Rousseau, in his opening line of his autobiography the Confessions, he states, “I am resolved on undertaking that has no model and will have no imitator. i want to show my fellow-men a man in all the truth of nature; and this man is to be myself.” p108

In other words, the greatest thing man can do is follow their inner emotions.

So how does all of this connect with the book of Ephesians? Because this is the mentality in our current world, not the world of Ephesus but of 2023 that is an catalyst for division.

Draw division and catalyst

Left side: sin & ppl combined with emotivism/expressive individualism (catalyst) —> division

Now that we know what the book of Ephesians is saying, and we’ve addressed the current state of our culture, lets keep going

Ephesians 2:18–19 (NLT)

18 Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.

19 So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.

Ephesians 2:20–21 (NLT)

20 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. 21 We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.

You are not the temple of the Holy Spirit, WE are the temple of the Holy Spirit! Yes, He individually dwells with each of us (3:17), but He also dwells with us corporately, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit! Meaning, if His glory is to be made manifest through us we all need to be united and aligned with Christ.

Chapter 3

Ephesians 3

Ephesians 3:8–13 (NLT)

Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning.

God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence. So please don’t lose heart because of my trials here. I am suffering for you, so you should feel honored.

And then he does something that seems left field in the following verses 3:14-21

Ephesians 3:14–21 (NLT)

14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21 Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:14–21 (NLT)

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

So why this statement/prayer and why here?

He prays for us to comprehend the manifold love of God so that we might access that love in how we relate to each other and the world around us

that's why he says, to Him be "glory in the church, and in Christ"

And then ch4 starts with therefore.

2020, the division of our world was accentuated by an event that happened just a few blocks away with the murder of George Floyd. However dark and pervasive racism is today, or any other hot topic, the problem lies much deeper. Yes sin is the root cause, but the way in which sin manifest in our day and age is through Emotivism as a Social Theory.

All of us desire a place to belong and a place to matter. (B/c we all have a desire for relationship/connection and significance).

It's actually what we see causing so much chaos in our culture. People want a place to belong and be seen and valued so they are willing to identify with certain groups because at least in these groups, they are not the outcast, no they are accepted.

Passage One God - One Body

Ephesians 4:1–6 NLT

1 Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.

Big Idea: God has invited us to be one with Him and with His people because He Himself is a God of oneness.

See in chapter 1-3, and then in 3 verses Paul says “one” 7x number of perfection or completion.

“One body” - body comprised of multiple cells, same DNA, different presentation. Diff anatomy and diff physiology. All works together to form one body. Unity not uniformity. True unity actually requires diversity.

Action Step: MAKE THE MOST OF IT

What does it mean to make every effort? Our effort is not to create oneness. Our call is to maintain oneness.

Eph 4:3 “3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.”

Make every effort - keep united. Not to unite, no we have been united by the Cross! By Jesus.

Unity in Christ is not something to be achieved: it is something to be recognized.

A. W. Tozer

The challenge for us is not to become divided.

 3   Unity and diversity must work together or one will destroy the other. Unity without diversity is uniformity, but diversity without unity is anarchy.

Warren Wiersbe

A Gallery of Grace (2002)

So we are supposed to be diverse, there is meant to be variety within us, and we’ll look more at that next week. This week is about oneness, and next week will be about the body.

So if Jesus has already united us, what is the thing He is asking us to do?

Be one with God, His people, and invite others into that oneness?

Practically speaking that can be challenging. But take it step by step.

1st, is there anything hindering your relationship with God?

2nd is there any Christian who you have conflict with, unforgiveness, bitterness or resentment? What would it look like to reconcile or to pursue unity? Eph 4:2

3rd who can you invite to The Avenue in hopes that they might be a part of Christ’s body?

Benediction: When we portray oneness with God and His people, we are evangelizing to the world that they may also join in and become one with the body of Christ

John 13:34,35

John 13:35 CSB

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Ephesians 4:1 NLT

Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.

What (are we asked to do) does a life worthy of our calling? Part of what that means is being unified.

How do we do this? Ephesians 4:2 “2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.”

Where do we get this type of love? Eph 3:16-19 abundant love of Christ

Action: If we are to be one with God and one with His people that should manifest itself as 4:2

Unity requires the ingredients laid out in 4:2, but we are not first and foremost united over social issues, we are first and foremost united in Christ (4:4-4:6), from there we are all united on common grounds.

Unity > uniformity

Warren W. Wiersbe

Unity without the gospel is a worthless unity; it is the very unity of hell.

J. C. Ryle

Christians are not to make unity but to keep or guard what God made in creating the “one new man” (Eph. 2:15–16). They are to keep this unity “through the bond” which consists of “peace.

Harold W. Hoehner

What makes committing to a local church difficult?

We think that fellowship is a substitute (2 or 3 are gathered)

Internet/streaming has made things more convinient and accessible at our lesiure

covid encouraged a culture of isolation and virtual connections - the problem is it is a cheap substitue

What makes commitment worth it?

support

deep relationships

a place to be known, a place to belong, a place to use your gifts for the edifiction not of self but of others

Why do we commit to the local body as broken and as fractured as it may appear?

because Christ did

Other resources

https://ref.ly/logos4/MediaTool?MediaItemId=161084