Ephesians: The Church United Pt.2B
Notes
Transcript
“The Basis for Unity Cont.”
Eph. 4:4-6
As we saw last week, Paul as already told us that we as believers are One church, which is one body; We are One church, by one Spirit and we are One church with one hope.
The unities of verse 4—“one body … one Spirit … one hope”—go together all revolving around the work of the Holy Spirit .
Verse 5 will now introduce us to another set of three:
“one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
These unities are clustered around the one and only Lord Jesus Christ,
it is He that is Lord only,
it is in Him alone we have placed our faith
and it is because of Him and his resurrection that we are Baptized
So lets take some time this morning to finish looking at the Basis for unity.
The fourth thing in the list put first thing this morning is.....
IV. One Church, One Lord
IV. One Church, One Lord
To hear some Christians talk you would think we are saved by different gods when it comes to salvation.
Some will say something like,
When I got saved my heart was broken and I came crawling to an old fashion alter and it was there that I got saved.
They will go as far as to say,
If you never had that happen to you, you might want to rethink your salvation.
Use this illustration
John T. MacNeil, Scottish preacher and evangelist, was a pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in the 1920s. They say he used to imagine a conversation that might have taken place between the man who had been born blind, whose story is told in John 9, and the other blind man who was healed by Jesus, whose story is told in Mark 8. The difference between the two stories is that in John 9 Jesus healed the blind man by spitting on the ground and making clay, which he used to anoint the man’s eyes. This did not happen in the case of the man whose story is told in Mark.
MacNeil imagined these two getting together to discuss how Jesus healed them. The man who had been healed without the spittle would tell his story, and the man who had been healed with the spittle would tell his. He would say to the other, “But you left out the part about Jesus spitting in the dust and making clay and placing the clay upon your eyes.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” the first would reply.
The man from John would answer, “It has to be that way, because that’s the way Jesus gives sight to people. You must have forgotten it. He spit on the ground; he made clay; he put it on your eyes, and he sent you to wash in the pool of Siloam.”
“Oh, no,” the man from Mark says, “he didn’t do that with me. He just spoke and I received my sight.”
The first man digs in his heels. “That isn’t right,” he says. “Jesus heals with clay! If you haven’t had that experience, I am beginning to doubt whether you can really see!” Thus originated in the early church the denomination of the “Mudites” and the “Anti-Mudites,” two divisions.
That is what happens when we get our eyes on the modes of how God works rather than upon the Lord who works.
You might not have come crawling and crying to an old fashioned alter but if you came to the place in your life that you realized you have sinned against the one and only Lord God almighty and have humbled yourself and called out to him by faith, believing he is the only way, you are saved by the same Lord that saved me.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Its not in an experience, its in the one and Only Lord Jesus Christ.
He is One Lord!
He is not the author of confusion.
He is One Lord!
He is not one of the ways to God
He is the Only way to God
He is one Lord
He shares His glory with none
For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
He is One Lord
At His name every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
He is one Lord!
Next we see,
V.One Church, One Faith
V.One Church, One Faith
Paul goes on: not only one Lord but “one faith.”
He is saying that because we have one Lord we also have one faith.
We believe that God Almighty sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to become flesh and die for our sins so that we could be saved
it is through faith in his work, not in anything that we have done or can do, but in his work of dying for us that we are saved.
For by grace are ye saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
this faith comes from God by way of His Word
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God
And Paul tells the church at corinth that the Word of God that was delived unto him He delivered to them and my friend this is the gospel, the Good News
1 Corinthians 15:3–4 (KJV 1900)
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
There is only one gospel and this one gospel joins Christian people across all barriers of time, nationality, race, sex, and anything else we can imagine.
If we have one faith, then we ought to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder before the world and give united testimony to God’s saving work in Jesus Christ.
I will not stand with a Muslim or a Buddhist
I will not stand with a JW or a LDS
Why because they dont have the same faith as I do.
When it comes to the doctrine of salvation, what you believe matters.
Do you have this faith?
Do You believe that Jesus is the only way?
Next, Paul writes..
VI. One Church, One Baptism
VI. One Church, One Baptism
Now I could spend a lot of time here talking about how immersion is the biblical way of baptism and how all those that sprinkle are wrong. If you were sprinked as a baby, that will not get you into heaven. If you were baptized by immersion but have never placed your faith in Christ, the only One that can save you. Then friend you are on your way to hell. But hey at least you had a bath first.
Though this is improtant, I dont think that is what Paul is trying to get across here.
I think Paul is attempting to tell them, it is your identification with Christ that unites them.
Have you made a public display of your new life by identifying with the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ?
Have you publicly said, ‘I am identifying with Christ and I am dying to the old life and I have been resurrected in new life?’
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Do you identify with Christ?
Hey friend, Baptism does not save you.
Jesus Christ is the only way.
The Eunich asked Phillip in Acts 8:36
And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?
Phillip answered him, Acts 8:37
And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
The only thing that baptism does is publicly identifies you with Him.
If you have been born again, you are a child of God, if you have been baptized after salvation, you have made a public testimony to your fellowship with Christ.
Baptism after salvation, unties us as a family, by publicly expressing our allegiance to Christ.
The last thing Paul connects the unity of the church to is...
VII. One Church, One God
VII. One Church, One God
Paul wanted to be sure that he got this point across.
There is but only one true and living God.
Some may say, yall believe in three god’s
To that I say, NO!
We serve One God in three persons
You say how is that possible?
This will blow your mind.
I DONT KNOW, but I can tell you, its truth, because scripture proves it.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
I and my Father are one.
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
Thats what scripture says,
What I know is that, trying to explain the trinity is trying to explain an infinite and Holy God, with our corruptible finite minds. You are not going to to it.
We just hold to what the Bible says and preach on!
Until you have made God your only god, you can not truly be part of the unified body.
If my arm had a mind of its own and did not want to do the same thing as my body, that would get kinda scary.
Same thing goes for the church.
If a member of the church, does not have the same goal as the rest of the body, the body wont work right and it would look kinda scary.
Paul is telling them and us that, in order for the body to function right, it must have the same goal.
It can not have anything other than God Himself as the driving force behind their activities.
Paul expands on this
A. Abundant Affection
A. Abundant Affection
“Father of all”
God the Father is a father to all His children.
There are some who take this verse and use it as proof for the universal fatherhood of all people.
I must reject that.
You see the word all?
Though they are the same word a whosoever and all men everywhere to repent.
It is the context that we must look at
Paul was writing about the church to the churches
that is who he is speaking about
All those that have or will call upon the Lord.
Here Paul is not referring to all of humanity,
Until you are born again, you are a child of the devil, a child of wrath.
By using the word Father, Paul is letting us know that we all that are in the family of God can enjoy the affection of a loving father.
B. Absolute Authority
B. Absolute Authority
“who is above all”
There is no other being or thing above God.
What he calls right is right what He calls wrong is wrong.
There is no higher authority then God.
When the whole body of believers understands this and believes it, they will stop focusing on their own agenda and start focusing on God’s.
C. Amazing Activity
C. Amazing Activity
God works through us and in us.
God does what he does because He is God
God does what He does through us because He is gracious
God does what He does in us, because he is glorious.
God comes into a sinners life and saves him and takes up residence in him for one reason and one reason only.
So that He may get the glory.
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Does God get the glory when His people fight and fuss?
No, God gets the most glory when we work and worship together as one body fitly joined together.
Conclusion
Conclusion
God has dictated to us that we are to be one body. To be part of that body, you must be attached to the body.
I ask you, are you part of the body of Christ?
Not the local church body, but the body of Christ. The Church?
If not, there is only one way you can become part of the body, and that is by accepting what Christ did for you on Calvary, believing that He is able and confessing that He is Lord.
Wont you come today and be saved?
Believer, wont you come today and ask God to help you forgive or ask forgiveness to those in the body that is keeping you from being in unity?