Unity

Last week, we talked about the future of the church. We talked about how we need to adopt a war-time mindset. How we need to be thinking about the future in the way that we plan, so that our everyday will be meaningful and intentional. We were focused on who we want to become.

The Goal of the next few weeks will be to remind us who we are now, so that we be able to carry on the plans of the future. The principles written in our Church family membership covenant found in scripture sets the tone for how we will accomplish the future plans for Cooper River Baptist.

Psalm 133:1 CSB

How delightfully good when brothers live together in harmony!

Principle #1 - Unity

I will strive to live in unity as much as the Gospel commands by pursuing patience, kindness, thankfulness, humility, gentleness, joy, forgiveness, and truth. I will bear one another burdens. I will strive to forgive and to be forgiven.

I will think of the well-being of others first. I will only use my words to build up and strengthen those in our gathering.

John 17:20–23 CSB

“I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

In this passage of scripture we see that Jesus prays for something very specific. As He is saying these words you get the sense that He is seeing the church in all generations. He knows the challenges to unity that are coming. He knows that one of greatest work of the enemy is to divide and scatter his sheep.

I. The Source of Unity

The source of unity is found in the trinity itself availed to us through the gospel.

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

A. W. Tozer

John 17:21–22 CSB

May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.

In other words, Unity exists because The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit are in perfect unity. So therefore all of us who are indwelled by the holy spirit through salvation in Jesus Christ are given this same type of unity.

So unity is not something to be achieved as much as it is something to recognize. In Christ we are one.

Galatians 3:28 CSB

There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This passage is not saying that these distinctions do not exist but rather

II. The Place for Unity.

#1 The Christian Home.

Ephesians 5:31 CSB

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

In this passage of scripture you see some of the same language as used in John. There is a oneness, a unity, that is supposed to take place in marriage.

This unity will translate to the rest of the family. In this way Husband and wife show a picture of the Trinity’s relationship to each other. They are to operate as one mind and one flesh.

In Christ the gospel unifies husbands and wives. Their unity unifies the rest of the family. Instead of only associating the first principle of our membership covenant with church. I want us to take this one step further. This covenant should also lead us to healthier families and homes.

So I now I want us to listen this statement again but this time I want you to associate it with your home. Why?

because the church is not the organization but people or all those who are in Christ. Listen again....

I will strive to live in unity as much as the Gospel commands by pursuing patience, kindness, thankfulness, humility, gentleness, joy, forgiveness, and truth. I will bear one another burdens. I will strive to forgive and to be forgiven.

Do you see how this applies just as much or more to your own family as it does the church.

Healthy gospel -centered families leads to a healthy gospel-centered church.

So we have seen how this principal doesn’t just apply to the church but to the family as a whole. But let’s go ahead and look at the practical implications of this principle in the church.

#2 The Church.

John 17:21 CSB

May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me.

In this we see once again the word “all” . It is Christ’s desire that we all be unified around Him.

Ephesians 4:1–3 CSB

Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Notice with me that walking worthy of our calling is directly connected to walking in unity with the brethren.

Not just casually walking in unity but rather “making every effort to preserve unity.

Just last week we saw this similar phrase in Ephesians in preparing to take a stand against the enemy. We are to make every effort.

To make every effort means to hold nothing back. You are giving it your all. Again I would tell you this applies to the home as well as the church but in the church context this what this means.

It means we realize that the gospel mission is bigger than my wants and even my perceived needs.

Do you know how many churches have been eventually split by one person uttering the following sentences:

Did you hear....

or

I don’t like.....

Probably more than we could number.

Somewhere down the road someone had be the first person to vocalize one of these ideas beginning with these two phrases. Then found others who were also dissatisfied before long you have factions and divisions.

Scripture talks very sternly to those people who would stir up a group of people for their own selfish motives.

Titus 3:10–11 CSB

Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning. For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning; he is self-condemned.

It is not saying that a person cannot have an opinion or a desire. However, it is suggesting that a person be willing to sacrifice their opinion and desire for the sake of unity around the gospel and Christ.

So then is there ever a time for for disunity?

The answer is yes.

III. The Place for Godly Disunity.

Jesus made this perplexing statement.

Luke 12:51–53 CSB

Do you think that I came here to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on, five in one household will be divided: three against two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

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

J. C. Ryle

Jesus was saying that the Gospel will divide us from the rest of the world. It may even divide you from your own earthly family. However, The gospel is worth dividing over. The Word of God is worth dividing over.

2 Thessalonians 3:6 CSB

Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister who is idle and does not live according to the tradition received from us.

2 John 9–11 CSB

Anyone who does not remain in Christ’s teaching but goes beyond it does not have God. The one who remains in that teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your home, and do not greet him; for the one who greets him shares in his evil works.

We unfortunately live in a period where people believe it is Godly to allow error to go unchallenged under the umbrella of unity.

This is not a scriptural teaching.

Why because it is truth that sanctifies us.

John 17:17 CSB

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

When we sacrifice truth and are unwilling to address false teaching and false teachers, under the guise of unity, we actually get in the way of the process of sanctification.

It is only the Word of God and the Gospel of God that produces true unity for as we become more like Christ we are able to partake of the unity in which he has already granted us.

Unity must not he sought at the expense of the gospel.

Walter J. Chantry

IV. The implications of both unity and disunity

Sin is both directly and indirectly responsible for disunity.

#1 When God’s people are unified it is always the direct result of the Gospel’s work within us. The Gospel’s work is to sanctify the people of God for the mission of God.

#2 When God’s People are not unified is is always due to sin. The sin of straying outside of the mission and purpose for which God has created us for. It is the sin of prioritizing something else above God’s Word, His Truth, and His Love.

Gossip is by its nature an affront to God’s love.

Unforgiveness is an affront to God’s Grace

Self seeking behavior is an affront to God’s Sacrifice.

Unrepentant sin is an affront to God’s work of sanctification.

Unity is the result of the Truth of the Gospel taking root in the heart of man. It is the natural path for those who love God and seek him.

The unity amongst Christians is a unity which is quite inevitable because of that which is true of each and every one. I sometimes think that that is the most important principle of all. With all this talk about unity, it seems to me, we are forgetting the most important thing, which is that unity is not something that man has to produce or to arrange: true unity between Christians is inevitable and unavoidable. It is not man’s creation; it is, as we have been shown so clearly, the creation of the Holy Spirit Himself. And my contention is that there is such a unity at this moment among true Christians. I do not care what labels they have on them, the unity is inevitable; they cannot avoid it, because of that which has become true of every single individual Christian.

God’s Way of Reconciliation, 354

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Unity is the direct result of living for Christ, believing His truth and loving Him.