Glorify God Together

Intro

I often meet with people outside of our church who are also in ministry, and I often get a quite confused look when I start to explain what our church is like. We’re essentially an experiment. It’s rare to find a church where the Elders at a bare minimum are not of the same theological conviction. We have great diversity of theological thought on the Elder team, and I believe we see that same great diversity of theological thought here, represented in this room for the same reason.

People always ask how we handle those disagreements. What does it look like when the elders are not fully aligned in thought? We find our unity in the identity we share as brothers in Christ, and we deliberate with much effort over what we believe the church should look like according to Scripture.

On all of the most important things, those things that would describe Evangelical Christianity for the last several hundred years, we are fully aligned, and I’m happy to call each of them my brother in Christ. They’re just wrong on some things, and there’s grace for that.

We have so many different denominational backgrounds represented on the elder team, and here within our church. Dispensationalists, Charismatics, a few of us Reformed folk, and everything in between. We all have theological differences if we’ve talked long enough, but our disagreements over secondary and tertiary issues is not grounds for us to break fellowship with one another.

As we’ve been working through in Romans 14, I have my convictions, and you have yours, and we make allowances for one another, being careful not to make another brother or sister in the Lord stumble. But I’m talked at great length over unifying on the essentials. Those things spelled out in the creeds. Those things that define what a Christian actually is, and what a Christian believes. We must be bold in the Gospel, which some will find offensive, but let it be the Gospel that offends, not us.

I don’t preach unity because it sounds good. I don’t preach unity because I hold an optimistic view of the world, though I do. I don’t preach unity because I think it’s what you want to hear. I preach unity because that’s what Paul is writing about. I preach unity because that’s what Jesus preached. I preach unity, because that’s what glory will look like. I want our church to be a church that brings just a little bit more of God’s eternal kingdom glory here to Earth. I pray that the Holy Spirit would be at work, unifying His church as one people, whom the nations will know by the way we love one another.

Unity isn’t a means, it’s an end. Unity is what we will experience before God in His kingdom forever.

The passage that we’ll read today will conclude this portion of Paul’s letter, as well as our study of Romans for this year. We will close out Romans in January, when we will begin our study through the Gospel of Matthew. I figured I would let you all know now so you’ll have enough time to add a good Matthew commentary or two to your Christmas list.

John 17:20–23 ““I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

This is what God wants His Church to look like. This is what God wants our church, Mazevo to look like. When people look on from outside, let them be struck by an inexplicable unity. Let us labor to see this kingdom unity define the modern church.

As we walk through our passage today, I want to look at what God Gathers us for, which is His Glory, What He grounds us in, which is His promise, and what we are sent with, which is hope.

Part 1: Gathered for His Glory (vv. 1-7)

v. 5

2 Timothy 3:16–17 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””

1 Peter 2:21–24 “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

v. 6

Psalm 34:3 “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!”

v. 7

Part 2: Grounded in His Promise (vv. 8-12)

v. 8

2 Corinthians 1:20 “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.”

v. 9

John 10:16 “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

v. 12

Acts 13:47 “For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “ ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ””

Part 3: Go with Hope (v. 13)

Lamentations 3:21–24 “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.””

1 Peter 1:3–5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Conclusion

Colossians 3:12–14 “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”