Sermon Tone Analysis

Proposition: Unity is secured by the establishment of the saints in the truth and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

As we continue our study of unity, we begin to examine the strength of our unity.

We want to explore what grounds and establishes our unity.

Furthermore, how do we maintain unity around the truth of the Gospel while not becoming sectarian about secondary issues?

Over the next two Sunday’s we will explore those truths that ought to bring us together, while also exploring those things which ought not to cause us to divide.

This week we will examine doctrinal integrity while next week we will explore Christian freedom and personal preference.

Illustration: Surfside Condominium Collapse - On Thursday, June 24, 2021, at approximately 1:25 a.m., a 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida partially collapsed.

Ninety-eight people died.

Four people were rescued from the rubble, but one died of injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Eleven others were injured.

An investigation, that remains ongoing, is revealing key structural issues that led to the building’s collapse.

There were issues with water seepage, structural deterioration of the roof, problems observed in the building’s balconies, amongst other problems.

However, investigators are honing in on a portion of a collapsed deck that was poorly designed, and in particular one concrete column, labelled M11.1, that investigators believe was overstressed and likely failed leading to the buildings collapse.

All of the other, relatively minor problems, likely would not have led to the building’s collapse, but when those other issues were combined with a poorly designed and maintained structural support, the integrity of the building was compromised and nearly 100 people died as a result.

Similarly our unity rests on a foundation of a shared faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

When our faith is poorly grounded in that reality the whole edifice of Christian unity is in serious danger.

Paul has already, in part made this point in verses 4-5 (Ephesians 4:4-5), yet he is going to flesh out for us a picture of how doctrinal integrity secures our unity.

He wants us to understand that the believer lives amongst destabilizing influences that threaten to erode our unity, only by being grounded in the person and truth of Jesus Christ will the believing community have the strength to stand in unity.

Doctrinal Integrity Secures Unity

Unity is secured by the establishment of the saints in the truth and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We begin to unpack this idea by first seeing how verse 14 relates to the preceeding text.

Paul, in verse 14, is going to describe and illustrate for us the danger posed to the unity of the Christian community, but we need to see how God has equipped the church to remain united in the face of such bitter opposition.

That lesson was in part already taught by the section that Pastor Chris taught last week as he explored Ephesians 4:7-13.

We will not go over the entire passage, but will key in on the last verse of that section.

However, remember from his message how this text reveals the unique gifts that Christ has bestowed upon his church.

These gifts, from the foundation gifts of apostles and prophets, to the continuing gifts of pastor-teacher, are being used by God to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry through each individual’s own spiritual gifting.

All of that is driving for an end that is specifically spelled out for us in verse 13.

Individual and Corporate Terminology - Observe for a moment some of the individual and corporate terminology that is used in this text.

Last week Pastor Chris observed that there was a movement between words stressing our corporate nature in verses 1-6, that suddenly changed in verse 7 where the focus shifted to how God has individually gifted each member of the church.

Now, in verse 13 and 14, Paul is going to make similar, yet significantly different shifts again.

In verse 13, notice how Paul returns to corporate terminology.

All of those individual gifts that are given serve one focus, and that is to cause us together to become one a the body of Christ.

However, you will also notice in verse 14 that he shifts back again to individual terminology, but this time he uses that individual terminology in a negative sense.

As we begin exploring this passage, let us begin by looking at how Paul teaches us that doctrinal integrity secures our unity.

Content of the Truth

Corporate Unity - You will notice, first, that Paul says that these gifts have been given in order that the church might reach a goal.

That goal being that the body of Christ might measure up to the stature of Christ.

That word, “attain,” points to a goal.

It speaks of reaching a destination.

“The goal is set, the end determined.”

This Paul describes as not an individual goal, but a corporate goal.

Paul does not seem to believe that it is enough for individuals to be rightly grounded in the truth, but that the whole body would achieve the unity of the faith.

It is not enough that you individually have a refined doctrinal statement, Paul’s desire is that the church, together, would understand and know the truth and that by knowing that truth they would be united together.

Illustration - Cage-Stage Calvinism - “Cage-stage Calvinists are identifiable by their insistence on turning every discussion into an argument for Calvinism, or for making it their personal mission to ensure everyone they know hears—often quite loudly—the truths of divine election."

Beyond Cage-Stage Calvinism there is the phenomena I experience in seminary that you can begin to think of yourself as an expert in theology.

You can be so obscured by an academic pursuit of theology that you buy the lie that you are more intelligent or unique in your understanding of the word.

You can even reach the point where the study of theology becomes an end unto itself that has little relationship with the brother or sister who sits beside you in the pew.

THIS IS NOT PAUL’S CONCEPTION OF POSSESSING DOCTRINAL INTEGRITY.

Paul conceives of a corporate doctrinal integrity.

One in which the individual’s within the community see the necessity of together being grounded in the truth.

Gospel Unity - Paul calls us to possess a “unity of the faith” and of the “knowledge of the Son of God.”

Harkens back to Ephesians 4:4-5 “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”

In Ephesians 4:3 Paul speaks of us being “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit.”

He tells us that the Holy Spirit has already blessed the church with unity and that believers are to lean, whole-heartedly into striving to maintain that unity.

However, now Paul is speaking of unity in terms of the effort that needs to be put into maintaining that unity.

Paul is instructing us that we need to be constantly hearing and meditating upon that basic truth of the Gospel and person of Jesus.

Consider the Ordinances… do they not proclaim constantly the foundational truth that we have only one way to God and that is through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

That for generation after generation of Christian’s are united in one simple, yet profound truth of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection for our sins!

Furthermore, it is not enough for Paul for the church to simply have their doctrinal “i”s dotted and “t”s crossed, but that they come to a knowledge of the Son of God.

To know not just doctrinal truth, but to know the person of Christ.

Ephesians 3:17–19 (ESV)

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Notice Paul’s emphasis on knowing Christ “with all the saints.”

Notice Paul’s emphasis on presenting “everyone mature in Christ.”

If mere, individual, doctrinal knowledge was enough to mature saints and to unite them together, Christ would have said “I will build my library” but instead Jesus said “I will build my assembly.”

Maturing by the Truth

Mutual Maturity: Paul calls us to two more related goals in the second half of Ephesians 4:13.

He calls us to a “mature manhood” and to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

Notice that he is here not only contrasting not only terms of individualism between verses 13-14, but also contrasting maturity versus immaturity.

He is calling the church to a mature manhood (singular) verses an immaturity that is characterized by children (plural).

Paul uses terminology that denotes an individual who is fully grown.

The goal to which we are striving is Christian maturity, and not merely individual maturity, but corporate maturity.

Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary ((3) The Final Goal: Attain Maturity (4:13))

As the body matures unity results.

In fact, a sign of immaturity is the disunity of the body.

Often we tend to think of spiritual maturity as only individual growth in the Lord, but in this passage the emphasis is on the importance of body growth, resulting in unity.

Inversely, immaturity is individual growth not shared with the body with the result that the body lacks maturity.

This may render some of its members powerless against the enticements of cunning people (v.

14).

Again, as the individual in his or her spiritual growth contributes to the body, the body as a whole can grow.

Beyond that corporate maturity, Paul wants us to be sure we understand the high calling of this maturity by laying out the measuring rod of that maturity.

The measuring rod is Christ.

One author put it this way, “The glorified Christ provides the standard at which his people are to aim: the corporate Christ cannot be content to fall short of the perfection of the personal Christ.”

Doctrinal Instability Erodes Unity

Unity is secured by the establishment of the saints in the truth and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We now move to see how Paul foresees a danger that the church faces to their unity, and that is in the susceptibility that church has to their unity if they fall prey to doctrinal instability.

This is a concern that we see across the pages of Scripture.

Here is a but a sampling of Scripture’s repeated warnings:

Paul is going to use three (perhaps you could say 4) word pictures to help us understand why doctrinal security is so incredibly important.

Those three words pictures are that of a child, the storm tossed sea, and two word pictures for cheating.

He wants us to understand how immaturity, and in particular doctrinal instability erodes and confuses Christian unity.

Destabilized by Error

Paul’s first two word pictures help us to grasp how error destabilizes the assembly.

In particular, how doctrinal immaturity destabilizes the church.

The first word picture he uses is that of a child.

This word picture is helpful to us because of how familiar we are with the immaturity of children.

A child’s thinking and rationalization develops over time in a consistent pattern that leads them towards maturity.

One psychologist described early childhood development in terms of how children use “magical thinking” as they observe the world around them.

Illustration - Peek-A-Boo - When you play peek-a-boo with a baby their little brain literally thinks you are disappearing.