Unity in the Spirit

Introduction

This morning, we are going to begin a series of messages on the unity of the church from the fourth chapter of Ephesians. I beleive this topic is critical to understand if we are to have any chance of regaining the influence Christianity was meant to have in our society. At the end of the day, the pandemic not only exposed the deep divisions that were hidden in the church, it drove those divisions even deeper becasue of the isolation it created. And so as we come back together, it’s so important that we rebuild this foundation of unity.

Ephesians 4:1–3 ESV

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

There are three points that I would like for us to look at:

The priority of unity

The character that leads to unity

The nature of unity

Last week, P. Sergio did a great job of connecting the two halves of Ephesians, the core doctrines of the Christian faith and the practical application of those doctrines to our lives. It’s not enough just to say that we believe in the tenants of Christianity, that belief must be evidenced by the fruit in our lives. This is something James clearly states against those who have an erroneous view of faith:

James 2:18–19 ESV

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

The point of these verses is that even demons can have the right beliefs about God and shudder but clearly mental assent to the truths of Christianity is not enough to produce the right actions. True faith includes not only mental assent but also a growing love for God and a willingness to trust Him completely with your life. That type of faith will invariably lead to the good works that are the evidence of your faith. We never want to fall into the error that Faith + Works = Salvation, this is the root cause of legalism but at the same time we don’t want to fall into the opposite error that denies the importance of works as evidence of genuine faith. Therefore, we have to realize that genuine Faith = Salvation + Works.

This is why Paul urges us to live a life that is worthy of the calling which you have been called to you. If you truly understand the gospel, well you should then understand the implications that it has for your life and the first application that Paul gives to those who have put their faith in Christ and who desire now to live a life worthy of the calling is to endeavor to grow in unity with other believers in the church. The Greek word that is translated as either endeavor or be eager simply means be diligent in your effort to maintain unity.

It’s unmistakeable the priority that Paul gives to the unity of the church because not only does he place this first in the order of practical applications, he also spends the bulk of this section of the letter writing about what it takes to maintain that unity. There is no accident that before Paul talks about the relationship between husbands and wives, before he outlines how parents should treat their children, how employers and their workers should get along, the priority is given to the relationships between believers in the church. In the end, this order of priority is absolutely consistent with what Jesus says:

Matthew 12:48–49 ESV

But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!

Jesus is essentially saying, “those who believe in me are my first priority” which doesn’t mean he neglected his biological family but there was a clear order and unfortunately, it’s an order that many people have reversed and American Christianity has been complicit in reprioritzing that order.

When I was doing youth ministry, there were parents that took their children out for whatever sports conflicted with church. For some reason, their sports always took priority over church and it made no sense to me. These parents jeopordized their children’s spiritual future for a 1 in a million chance that their kid might be the next Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. In the end, none of them were even good enough to make their college teams and later on when these kids showed no interest in faith, their parents were left wondering where they had gone wrong. If your children’s soccer games and extracurricular activities are more important that being with your brothers and sisters at church, you are sending a clear message regarding life’s priorities and you should not be surprised by its consequences. And I don’t mean to pick on just the parents with kids because the major obstacle of growing a healthy congregation in the Bay Area is the simple fact that everything seems to take precedence over commitment to the church, whether that be work, travel, family, relationships, brunch with your friends. Everything else seems to more important than the family of God which is contrary to the example of Christ who gave His life for the church.

I need you to hear me out on this clearly. Making church a priority is not the only factor in maintaining unity, it may not even be the most important one, but it is a necessary first step. I remeber going to Israel and witnessing first hand, the importance of the Sabbath. The convenience stores in Jerusalem don’t say they are open 24/7, they have signs that say 24/6. And it’s not just that everything is closed on the Sabbath but rather what they do with that time off. A part of the day is spent going to synagogue but the rest of the time is spent connecting with one another. What else are going to do when everything is closed? It may seem a bit extreme from our western perspective but growing relationships and building unity takes

How can we grow in unity, if we have no idea who will be around? How can we share the same vision, if we don’t spend anytime praying together? How can we have the same mind, if we don’t study and discuss the Scriptures as one? How can we share the same heart, if we rarely desire to serve one another in love? We can complain about the church all we want but it should be remembered that as we point a finger, three are directed back towards us. In the New Testament, churches were not known by the reputations of their leaders but more by the reputation of the congregation. The measure of a church is not one man standing and talking about the Bible on Sunday, the measure of a church is what the congregation does with that message from Monday through Saturday.

There are tangible things that we all can do to increase the chance of unity in any local church beginning with the growth of our own personal godliness and conducting ourselves in a way that leads to unity. Many times when we think of our own personal development, it’s mainly for the end goal of making myself better as opposed to how my growth will better the community that I am a part of.

In the short term, character traits like humility, gentleness, and patience don’t get you very far in this world. Those who are most opinionated, outspoken, who proudly display their capabiliites seem to make it the furthest in a world that looks to reward such behavior. After all, where did humility, gentleness, and patience lead Jesus to? It led Him down the road to the cross. These characteristics are not good for your immediate career ambitions but they are indispensable for unity in the church. And agains going back to the question of priorities, it your priority is success as measured by the world, there will be little motivation to desire these attributes in your life. But if your priority is Christ and his Church, then you will want to grow in these areas of your life.

Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with the statement:

Matthew 5:3 ESV

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And here, Jesus is talking broadly about humility

And the question that I inevitably hear is “What blessing is there in being humble?” It seems like an unrealistic and impractical way of living and working in the modern world. After all when someone asks you in a job interview, “Why should we hire you?”, you can’t very well say “I am nothing but a worthless sinner before God but I hope by his grace you would give me a chance.” We all know that in order to get that job, you have to speak confidently about what you can bring to the company and you have to showcase the talents and abilities that you have and maybe lie about the ones you don’t. The temptation is that you have to go the route of self-promotion to get to the good life and that self-effacement and humility are untenable positions in the corporate world. Or is it?

Jim Collins, who is the author of Good to Great, wrote a book about companies that jumped from good solid profitable businesses to ones that exceeded all expectations. Of the 1400 companies in his research pool that he studied with his team for four years, only 11 met the stringent criteria, combined these companies outperformed the marked by nearly 7x for a period of 15 years after a major transition. One of the most surprising discoveries by his research team was that every single one of these companies was led by a certain type of leadership, which they labeled as level 5 leadership and described in this way:

“Demonstrates a compelling modesty, shunning public adulation; never boastful. Acts with quiet, calm determination; relies principally on inspired standards, not inspiring charisma, to motivate. Channels ambition into the company, not the self; sets up successors for even more greatness in the next generation.”

Could you imagine a church filled with saints that could be described in this manner? Demonstates compelling modesty, lives by inspired standards, channels ambition into the community not for the self, sets up others for even more greatness. That would go a long ways in bringing unity to the body of Christ. In life, everyone is moving in one direction or another, towards Christ and the path of humility or towards the world and the allure of pride. But as we have seen time and timea again, pride is always the root source of division and the destroyer of unity.

The greatest barrier to humility is pride that comes from success and meekness is the antidote. Meekness has nothing to do with how agreeable or nice or mild a person is. Those are just matters of temperament and personality and it has very little to do with godliness. Some of the nicest and most agreeable people I know are non-Christian but meekness is uniquely a Christian virtue.

Martyn Lloyd Jones defines meekness in this way:

“Meekness is essentially a true view of oneself, expressing itself in attitude and conduct with respect to others. Meekness is compatible with great strength....The meek man is one who may so believe in standing for the truth that he will die for it if necessary.”

Romans 12:3 ESV

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Jesus remained the same person whether there were 5000 people listening to Him or just the 50 that remained with Him in the end. The Gospel is not anti-success but the meek realize that all of their worldly success does not define who they are and cannot save them from even one sin. I remember a message from Steve Furtick, where he was yelling, “Your failure doesn’t define you” which is true but he didn’t mention, neither does your success define you. Therefore, meekness means having the strength to obey God even to the point of suffering defeat and doing what is right and accepting whatever comes as a result.

Meekness means that you are not always trying to get yours, calculating how relationships benefit you, how to prove that you are better than someone else. You are not trying to one up other people because you are secure in who you ware. There is no struggle for power becasue you know that all authority has been given to you already by the Father.

This humility and meekness then frees you to patiently bear with others in love. We’ve gone through a season of great impatience. People unwilling to hear the opinions of others, ready to cancel each other for any precieved wrong, quick to judge, quick to anger, quick to accuse. Impatience with others is not a benign trait, it simply is a symptom that there is a lack of love. In the famous verse on love in 1 Corinthians, the very first characterist of love is patientce. Love is patient! Our impatience with people most often stems from a lack of love for them. It’s also the hardest thing to do.

We have to be patient for people to change. We have to be patient for them to grow and mature. We have to be patient as they come to know the truth.

Conclusion

Up to this point, we have talked about some of the tangible elements of unity but in reality it is the intangible aspect of unity that is the most vital. The nature of Christian unity is the fact that it first comes through the Spirit. Paul refers to the unity that believers share with the phrase, unity of the Spirit. It’s hard to define what that is but as a Christian, you know when you are experiencing it with another believer. Martyn Lloyd Jones has a good description of the phenomena that Paul speaks of:

“The unity of the Spirit cannot primarily be seen; indeed it is something which can scarcely be defined. When it is present we recognize it, we feel it when we come into contact with another in whom the Spirit dwells. Our souls are invisible; and yet the soul is the most important thing in man. Furthermore, we do not approach the soul and spirit through the body, it is the soul and spirit that manifest themselves through the body. So it is with the principle of unity.”

One of the first lessons I learned in church was the importance of unity among believers. I remember our church was hosting a group of Christians from Russia and we were asked to get in a circle, hold hands, and sing “Father, Make us One.” Many of you don’t know the song but it’s like a Christian version of “It’s a Small World.” It is so cheesy but so good. We must have sung the chorus about 20 times as we went around and hugged and introduced ourselves.

To put everything in context, this was just a few years after the fall of communism in the early 90’s, which was followed by a revival of Christianity in the former Soviet Union, and during the Cold War, most American youth were indoctrinated to hate anything Russian and my only knowledge of Russia was based out of Rocky IV where Ivan Drago kills Rocky’s friend and says, “I must break you.” This was the stereotype that we had of Russians that they were cold, heartless, steroid filled, human machines that won all the gold medals at the Olympics. But as we sang together and shared about our common faith in Christ and sensed the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, I remember having a deep sense of kinship with these Russian believers that I hardly knew.

That was the first time that I realized the power of the Gospel to transcend human division and hostility and it was an amazing time. When we realized that we were one in Spirit, all the walls of human division came down. Ultimately, the unity that the Scriptures talk about cannot be manufactured by human effort but it is a product of the Spirit’s power.