Unity
Notes
Transcript
Good morning Church
Good morning Church
Today is an important day for Liberty Baptist Church. I pray that everyone has sought God for direction and His will.
I am going to try and keep it a little shorter than normal, because I know there is going to be a business meeting right after church and I really like pizza.
Let’s pray
This section of verses is titled Unity in my Bible. What a great topic to learn about on a day like today. Today you are going to be voting on calling me to be you pastor. There is potential for this to be a divisive day and can cause disunity in the body. As we are going to see today, unity in the body is rooted in our focus on our King. Disunity takes hold when we take our eyes and focus off of Jesus and put them on ourselves.
Beth and I were serving in a church and we were beginning to see God move and new people were starting to visit and there was new energy that was growing. So we thought. What we didn’t know was one person was going around and talking to people and starting to sow disunity. When this was found out people got hurt and we had to step away from the church. All that God was doing in that church was stopped because one person didn’t like what was happening. Disunity in the church is on of the enemies tools. If he can keep the church from being unified, then the church will not be effective in the community. Unity is vital to the church. We must be unified in what we do.
Paul is going to call us to a unity that the world has been longing for since the fall in the garden. The world has failed at every attempt at unity. We live in a cold and fragmented world. Life for so many in the world is like an elevator ride. Everyone is facing forward, no eye contact, no conversation or interaction. Finally everyone rushes off the their faceless endeavors. The world is looking for a new humanity, that is not only walking in unity, but also has open, inviting arms and hearts. The Church is supposed to fill this void. We are supposed to fill this void. The world is waiting for us to be who we are called to be.
Ephesians was written by Paul and like the majority of Paul’s letters, it can be divided into two sections. The first is chapters 1-3, they talk about the wealth of the believer. All that we have in Christ. Paul tells us about the blessings, honors, and privileges of being a child of God. In chapters 4-6, Paul tells us about the walk of a believer, how we are to live in light of what he tells us in the first 3 chapters. Paul’s letter give us theology and then practicality. He tells us about our doctrine and then our duty. Paul tells us how we should be conducting our lives in light of the glorious riches we have received from our King Jesus. We have gone from darkness and an enemy of God, to the light and we have become children of God.
Ephesians 4:1–6 (NASB 2020)
1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
In verse 1 Paul begins with the transition word Therefore. He is transitioning from doctrine to duty. We are moving into how we should behave due to what we have just learned about what we have been given. Paul calls himself a prisoner for the Lord. Paul wrote this letter from prison in Rome. Paul did not consider himself a prisoner of Rome. He was of prisoner of God. God had him there for a purpose.
Next Paul urges us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. The Bible uses the word walk to reference how we should be living and acting. We are to live in a manner worthy of our calling. The Greek word for worthy has the root idea of balancing a scale. On one side of the scale are all the blessings, honors, and privileges that we have received from God. On the other side of the scale is how we are living our lives. They must balance out. Or lives must match who we say we are. If we don’t understand all that Christ and God have given us, then we can never truly walk worthily of being His child.
What have we been called to? As believers, what is are calling? We are called to be like Christ. Our names, Christians, literally means little Christ. We are to live a life that is worthy of that title. In order to live a life worthy of our calling, we must keep our focus on the Lord. The moment we take our eyes off of Him, are walk loses its worthiness. We must always keep our eyes on our King Jesus.
So Paul tells us that we are to walk in a manner worthy. How do we do that? I am so glad you asked!!
Paul tells us in the next verse how to do that.
First, we are to live in humility. We can not be united, if we are not first humble. In ancient Greco-Roman time, humility was despised, and was thought of as a slave-like quality. Just like today, humility is looked at as weakness. We are taught that we have to look out for number one. The only way we can get ahead in the world is if we use people. We have to take what we want. Times haven’t changed very much from back then. That is not how Jesus lived His life. He put everyone else first. He came to serve. We must be humble servants also.
Humility breeds gentleness, or meekness as it is often translated. The world looks at gentleness as weakness. It is actually strength under control. There is nothing timid or weak about meekness. It is like a horse that has been broken and trained. Such an animal still has all its power and strength, but its will is under control of its master. The horse can run just as fast, but he runs only when and where his master tells him to run. The meekness that Paul is talking about is power under the control of God. David displayed this meekness when he refused to kill King Saul in the cave near Engedi. 1 Samuel 24:1-7. David again showed this gentleness when he refused to retaliate against the malicious taunts, curses, and stone throwing of Shimei. 2 Samuel 16:5-14. The meek person responds willingly to the Word of God, no matter what the requirements or consequences. The person who is truly meek and gentle according to God’s standards had the right attitude toward the lost. They do not look down on them with a feeling of superiority. We were once just like them. We should have compassion for them. We should pray for them to turn to Jesus. We would still be lost if it were not for the grace of God.
Next we are called to have patience. This is an outgrowth of humility and gentleness. Patience means long-tempered, and is sometimes translated longsuffering. Abraham received the promise of God but had to wait many years to see its fulfillment. God told Noah to build a ship in the wilderness, far from any water and before there had ever been any rain. It took Noah 120 years to build this ship. The patient saint accepts God’s plan for everything, without questioning or grumbling. He does not complain when his calling seems less glamorous that someone else’s or when the Lord sends him to a place that is dangerous or difficult. He remembers that God the Son left His heavenly home of love, holiness, and glory to come to earth and be hated, rejected, spat upon, and crucified- without once returning evil for evil or complaining to His Father.
Fourthly we are to show tolerance for one another in love. 1 Peter 4:8 tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. It throws a blanket over the sins of others, not to justify or excuse them but to keep the sins from becoming any more known that necessary. Proverbs 10:12 says “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions”. Forbearing love takes abuse from others while continuing to love them. Our love for each other is the mark that identifies us with Jesus. John 13:35
35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”
If we can’t love our brothers and sisters, then there is no way we will be able to love the lost. Our love must be different than that of the world. It must be the love that Jesus modeled for us.
The ultimate outcome of humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance for one another in love is being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace should be the diligent and constant concern of every believer. Paul is speaking of the inner and universal unity of the Spirit by which every true believer is bound to every other true believer. This is the unity of the Spirit working in the lives of believers. This does not come from the outside but the inside, and is manifested through the inner qualities of humility, gentleness, patience, and tolerating love.
Spiritual unity is not and cannot be created by the church. It is already created by the Holy Spirit. The church’s responsibility, through the lives of individual believers is to preserve the unity by faithfully walking in a manner worthy of God’s calling, showing Christ to the world by oneness in Him. The world is always seeking unity, but never can find it. All the laws, conferences, treaties, accords and agreements fail to bring unity or peace. It has been reported that throughout recorded history every treaty made has been broken. There is not and can not be and peace for the wicked. As long as self is at the center, as long as our feelings, prestige, and rights are our chief concern, there will never be unity.
The bond that preserves unity is peace. Humility gives birth to gentleness, gentleness gives birth to patience, patience gives birth to tolerating love, and all four of these characteristics preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. These virtues and the supernatural unity to which they testify are probably the most powerful testimony the church can have, because they are in such contrast to the attitudes and the disunity of the world. No program or method, no matter how carefully planned and executed, can open the door to the gospel in the way individual believers can do when they are genuinely humble, meek, patient, tolerant in love, and demonstrate peaceful unity in the Holy Spirit.
We can have this outward oneness, only when we have an inward oneness. Practical oneness is based on spiritual oneness. To emphasize the unity of the Spirit, Paul gives us the features of oneness that are pertinent to our doctrine and life. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling. There is only one body of believers, the church. There is no denominational, geographical, ethnic, or racial body. There is no Gentile, Jewish, male, female, slave, or freeman body. There is only Christ’s body, and unity of that body is the heart of the book of Ephesians.
Obviously there is but one Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. He is the divine engagement ring, who guarantees that every believer will be at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
We are also unified in the one hope of our calling. Our calling to salvation is ultimately a calling to Christlike eternal perfection and glory. In Christ we have different gifts, different ministries, different places of service, but only one calling, the calling to be blameless and holy before Him and to become conformed to the image of His Son. It is the Spirit that places us in the one body and who guarantees our future glory.
Just as obviously, there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ our Saviour. He is the object of our faith. Since there is only one Lord, there can consequently be only one faith. True Christianity has but one faith. Our one faith is the content of the revealed Word of God. With our one faith, we have but one baptism. We are not baptized in the name of a church, evangelist, an elder or even an apostle, but only in the name of Christ. In our one Lord, we have one faith and testify to our unity in one baptism.
Just as we have one Lord. We also only have one God who is the Father of all. He has always been and will always be. He is the alpha the omega. He is over all things, He is through all things, and He is in all things. God is everywhere. Verse 6 points to the glorious, divine, eternal unity that the father gives believers by His Spirit and through the Son. We are God created, God loved, God saved, God Fathered, God controlled, God sustained, God filled, and God blessed. We are one people under one sovereign, omnipotent, and omnipresent God!
Liberty, there are lost, lonely, alienated people all around us who long for a new humanity where there is peace and love and acceptance. If they see the church living out its indestructible unity with humility and gentleness and patience and tolerating love, they will be drawn to it. If the church will reach out to the people of the world, those people will come and find the unity they need.
There is another letter written to the Ephesians. It is in Revelations. Revelation 2:2-5
2 ‘I know your deeds and your labor and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people, and you have put those who call themselves apostles to the test, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured on account of My name, and have not become weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
Liberty, are we walking in unity?
Have we left our first love?
Let’s remember where we once were and return to that place.
We can only have Godly unity if we are focused on our God.
Pray
