Unity Eph. 4:3

The unity of the church

What is unity?

The dictionary would say that unity is “ the state of being united or joined as a whole”

A Bible dictionary is similar “the quality of being united into one”

So unity is the gathering together of many individual parts into one .

In light of that what is not unity?

Compromise, tolerance, removing doctrine to get along

Neither is brotherhood or camaraderie

It is not uniformity where everyone walks, talks, acts, thinks, and even dresses the same.

The basic understanding, biblically, of unity is unanimity and agreement

A key to unity is found in this same verse.

It’s given to us in the previous verses

It is the word “bond”

Lowliness

The root word means a band, bond or ligiment

With the form used here it means “that which binds together”

It is used in a negative sense in

In it refers to the physical body being held together and nourished…the tendons and ligiments

This is another aspect to the picture of unity

Not superficial sentimentality

It is a bond…a bond brought to us by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus

In Paul challenges that church to be of the same mind…especially Euodias and Syntyche.

Why? The potential disunity that could come from their conflict threatened to do serious damage to the church.

Not two groups…but two people

So then unity goes beyond self...

When I focus on what I think or what I feel that fosters division.

It is sad the stories of church splits over trivial things.

A lot of the things that cause division are preference, opinion, or personal taste.

There is one thing that ought to divide…false teaching

The rest, if we keep our focus off ourselves and look to the good of others will foster unity.

Jesus challenges believers to be unified () and the early church practiced unity ()

The question boils down to this..

Around what are we going to unify

Our opinions, our feelings, our reason, our personal tastes?

There is one thing to unify us

That is the gospel of Jesus

The Gospel is the heartbeat of the church and brings unity

Selfishness brings disunity and death

Do we want to continue as a church. To thrive as a church

It’s time to put aside self and and make others the priority.

It’s time to make Jesus the priority because He is the one who unifies.