Unity of The Body
Notes
Transcript
Introduction: Max Anders wrote these three examples as an introduction to his commentary on the book of Ephesians.
1. Three-year-old Johnny falls down on the sidewalk as he is running to greet his father who has just pulled into the driveway. Johnny is tired and hungry. Two-year-old Susie just took a toy away from him. Because of all that, he cries harder than is really warranted. Daddy picks him up and says, “There, there, you’re a big boy. Act like it.”
Who he is (a big boy) should affect how he acts (he shouldn’t cry needlessly).
2. Princess Margaret, as a young girl, sits beside her mother, Queen Elizabeth, at the princess’s first presentation to the British public. She is called upon to walk to the microphone and say a few words to the gathered dignitaries. As she prepares to stand, her mother leans over to her and says, “You are a princess. Walk like one!”
Who she is (a princess) should affect how she walks (with dignity).
3. Eighteen-year-old Chuck has gone through twelve of the toughest weeks of anyone’s life in Marine boot camp in coastal South Carolina. During the last week they are forced to crawl under rolls of barbed wire with live machine gun ammunition blazing just inches over their heads. Chuck freezes. He begins to sweat. His hands dig into the red clay beneath him as panic sweeps his soul. Just then, a friend crawls up beside him and says, “Get a hold of yourself, Chuck. You’re a Marine. Act like one!”
Who he is (a Marine) should affect how he acts under pressure (with courage).
Throughout your life, from beginning to end, your identity is linked to your actions. Who you are affects how you should act. This is the basic principle of life to which Paul appeals in the opening sentence of chapter 4. In the first three chapters he said, “You are a child of God.” Now in the fourth chapter, he is saying, “Act like one.” The rest of the book spells out specific details how you are to act.
Our passage for today -
1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love,
3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you 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.
Transitional Sentence: If you are a child of God, this is the way to act like it.
Your Walk
The Calling - To the Kingdom of God and eternal life
12 Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
Paul told Timothy to fight for his faith. Take a hold of it and don’t let go. The world wants to destroy your faith, it wants you to walk away from the calling you have that makes you a child of God. Satan took everything away from Job just to prove that Job would curse God for letting it happen. That’s how the world wins. You walk away from your faith. Don’t let the world win. Hold on to your faith with all of your might. You are in a fight for your eternal life. Have you ever watched a greased pig contest, or pig wrestling at a county fair? I tried it a couple times a long time ago. It’s hard to get a hold of a greased pig and keep it in your grasp. That’s the kind of fight you are in. It’s going to be messy and if you don’t hold on tight the world will take away your faith especially in the beginning when you are just getting started.
b. So, as you fight to keep your faith you need to walk in a manner worthy of your calling.
But what is this biblical term “walk”? The word, used throughout the Old and the New Testaments, means “life-style.” It is closely related to your “conduct.” How you live your life. Do you look like everyone else in the world or do you stand apart as different?
There is one thing special about this walk. This walk is not a solitary walk or your walk with the Lord. It is more than that; it is a walk with other Christians. Paul is concerned about unity in the Church at all levels. He talks about how you should walk as a husband and wife, child and parent and owner and employee. In Chapter four Paul gives you some of the basics for walking as a child of God. This includes how you talk, and your talk has a lot to do with how you walk.
1 Peter:1:15 says:
15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;
So, be Holy. According to the Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms: Holy is a biblical term generally meaning “to be set apart.” The term is used widely in Scripture to refer to a variety of people and objects alike but ultimately points to God as the one who is qualitatively different or set apart from creation. Holy may also be used to describe someone or something that God has “set apart” for special purposes. In the NT holiness takes on the sense of ethical purity or freedom from sin. The fullness of the biblical witness, then, testifies to God’s holiness, understood as God’s “otherness” and “purity,” as well as to God’s prerogative to set people and things apart for God’s own purposes, together with the resulting godliness in the lives of those whom God declares to be holy.
That is holiness - to be set apart by God but also that you would walk in purity, as a testimony to God’s holiness. “be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.”
c. - As you walk in holiness there are a few personality traits that Paul points out as necessary to maintain the unity of the Body. These are the you are a child of God - So act like it traits that help maintain unity in the body.
Humility - The dictionary definition is: A modest or low view of ones own importance.
A biblical view is that you have no special importance that makes you better than others. You are willing to accept Christ Jesus as the authority in your life and you are willing to act like it. It also means that you see yourself as God sees you: with infinite and inherent value but with no more value than anyone else.
Gentleness - The quality of being kind, tender or mild mannered - in a word, your disposition. If you look in the book of Galatians you will see that this is a fruit of the Spirit.
Gentleness or meekness literally means “power under control.” A well trained war horse is powerful but will remain under the control of the rider.
Patience - The capacity to accept or tolerate, delay, trouble or suffering without complaining or getting angry or upset. If you look in the book of Galatians you will see that this is also a fruit of the Spirit.
Patience is also being willing to wait for God to act when, where, and how He chooses. His time, not ours - quite often this is hard.
Tolerance - The ability to deal with something unpleasant or annoying, or to continue living well despite bad or difficult conditions.
One of the hard parts of tolerance is when you tolerate something unpleasant from someone else but the other person is unwilling to tolerate something unpleasant from you.
Unfortunately, to often, tolerance is one sided. Someone is willing to tolerate something you do, but you, are not willing to tolerate something the other person does.
d. After sharing these four personality traits Paul goes on to say that you have to Preserve the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
If practiced well these four personality traits yield unity! Preserving the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace implies that spiritual unity already exists among you. That unity exists in Christ Jesus and is maintained by the Spirit. Unity is created and preserved as you make peace with one another your major priority instead of acting selfishly for personal gain and honor. Your call is not to create spiritual unity, that has already been done. Instead your call is to manifest spiritual unity through relational unity. Paul tells you to preserve unity in the third verse and then spends the next thirteen verses spelling it out for you.
So as an example of disunity in the body I want to tell you a story. It’s the story of “you should.” The word should is used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically by someone who is criticizing someone else’s actions. Should is almost always an indication of personal opinion, not necessarily of improper action or sin. So here goes -
Talk about the bible and why I don’t preach from a paper bible.
I say this because there are a lot of ways to hurt people and words often hurt the most. The person doing the speaking seldom realizes how much they might be hurting the other person. I’m not hurt when I am told “You should” but there are many who can be deeply hurt when they are told “you should” because of a choice they have made or something they have done, especially if the individual doing the talking doesn’t take the time to find out why. If someone is sinning then loving correct them if it’s just your opinion, then maybe it’s time for your tolerance level to increase. Grace is the key word in this situation.
Sometimes it seems that we need more than just the four personality traits listed here by Paul - we need all the gifts of the spirit - especially love.
2. So now we come to the oneness of our faith. This oneness creates unity!!
a. One Body
Believers may meet in many places, speak different languages, and live in different cultures. None of this separates us. We are all a part of Christ’s one body.
Sometimes the one body in a town is separated by different buildings. A good example is that there are two Alliance churches in this town. One body in different buildings. It makes me wonder why?
b. One Spirit
Many people claim to bring God’s message or teach God’s truth. Such teachers and teachings may threaten to divide the people of God into theological camps. Just look at the mess with the United Methodist Church. A good recent example is a church not to far from here was torn apart because a Pastor and a few others wanted to remain a part of the United Methodist denomination and they supported the changes that have been made within that denomination. Others in the church would not follow. So that church is just a mere fraction of what it was and many are searching for new churches. But the One Spirit, God’s Spirit, speaks the one truth and guides the church to unity in theology and practice.
c. One Hope
There are many hopes listed in the New Testament: there is the hope of righteousness, of salvation, of the Gospel, in Jesus Christ and in God. But the hope of Eternal Life is the primary hope that you are called to. To dwell with God forever and Christ’s resurrection has ensured the believers’ resurrection to eternal life. That common goal is the encouragement of the church to act in unity now.
d. One Lord
Christ Jesus died and rose again. He alone has the right to the church’s allegiance. He is the head of the church, He is the One Lord.
e. One Faith
The crucified, resurrected Lord is the object of our faith. There is no other name under the sun in which to believe, eternal life comes only through Him.
f. One Baptism
Matthew 3:11 John the Baptist said:
11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
He was speaking about the Lamb of God and the One Baptism. The One Baptism that is the personal, outward expression of an inward change and the unifying mark of the children of God.
g. One God and Father
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
These are the first two commandments of the ten commandments. They point directly to God the Father as the only God to be worshipped. Unfortunately people do what they want to do, even after they hear the truth.
No other religion can boast about the truth the way Christianity can. The Hindu religion can be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist. For the pantheistic there are at least a dozen possible gods or goddesses to choose from. What a mess. Everyone does their own thing and that is alright for them.
The Buddhist religion has no gods. They have spirits that help or hinder them on there path to enlightenment. It’s another mess that is hard to keep up with. There are other religions that man has made up trying to find God or placate Him. But Christian theology is so simple - One God and Father, creator and sustainer of all life, whether you believe in Him or not and the gift of grace through faith leading to eternal life for all those who believe in Christ Jesus.
These major elements of the church’s theology and practice come in ones. This calls the church to practical unity. As you live together and witness together, you must show unity to the world. Unity in ones and when that unity fails the world takes advantage of it. We must stand together.
3. After all of this what is Jesus’ Position?
a. Jesus is over, through and in All
God’s oneness is shown in His position as creator and sustainer of all things. Only He has command over all created things in heaven and on earth. He is the only one who works through and in all people and things to bring about His will. And His will will be done. Jesus is sitting at His right hand because all things were made by Him and for Him and He is the cornerstone of the Temple, the church, that you are a part of.
b. And finally, Jesus is the point of unity
Remember what
Ephesians 2:19-22 says:
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,
20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,
21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,
22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
So biblical unity is not artificial. It’s not like a pile of stones, simply thrown together, but a unity like stones being cemented together into a masterpiece of design - a poema. It is unity that results from acceptance, teaching and submission to the doctrinal truths of verses 4–6 of our passage. We must become unified like a well built Temple. This isn’t a cry for a shallow ecumenicalism. Paul wants us to have a harmony of faith and life which will stand up to anything the world can throw at us.
Exit: So walk in the calling you have received, a calling to eternal life. The calling as a child of God and co-heir to the kingdom of God. If you truly are a child of God act like it. Walk with humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance for those who are children of God and even those who aren’t.
Because of your position as a child of God you are called to live and work and witness in unity. This unity grows from the oneness of whom we believe. That is One Body, One Spirit, One Hope, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism and One God and Father.
Our walk and the unity of the Oneness of God will build us into a dwelling of God in the spirit.
So remember what Colossians 3:16 says:
16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Speak Life - Toby Mac
