Unity

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday morning, the 1st of August, 2021, at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  Our YouTube streaming channel is:  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg.  Look for the video of our recorded services on our Vimeo channel:  http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

While the Apostle Paul was imprisoned in Rome, he wrote letters to some of the churches he had established or helped start in Asia Minor.  And while these letters were addressed to separate churches, they were intended to be passed around to all the churches in the region so that all the believers could benefit from them.

This is certainly the case for the letter Paul addressed to the church in the city of Ephesus.  He wanted all the believers in the region, all the churches, to read it because the general theme of this letter was to show God’s grand design of establishing and completing the body of Christ, the church.

In particular, and what I was led to for today, Paul lays out what should be the practice of believers.  He tells us how we should live our daily lives in relation to each other, to our spiritual gifts, and to our former life before we came to Christ.  Please listen and follow along to this message Paul wrote in the 4th chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, verses 1 through 24, and I’ll be reading this from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible…

1 Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.

5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6 one God and Father of all,

who is over all, in all, and living through all.

7 However, He has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. 8 That is why the Scriptures say,

“When He ascended to the heights,

He led a crowd of captives

and gave gifts to His people.”

9 Notice that it says “He ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. 10 And the same One who descended is the One who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that He might fill the entire universe with Himself.

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of His body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

17 With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. 18 Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against Him. 19 They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.

20 But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. 21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from Him, 22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy.

--Ephesians 4:1-24 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for giving us the faith to believe in Your Son Jesus so that we can be part of His body, His church.  He left us with the task of carrying on His work, so that others may see Him through our actions and our love.  Thank You, God, for calling us to this purpose.  Please help us be worthy of our calling.  Help us be humble and gentle, and patient with one another.  Please keep us strong in our faith and help us remain united in our service to Christ Jesus.  Please keep us healthy and safe through these trying times.  And Father, please guard us from Satan and those who willingly do his bidding.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit and better understand the message You have for us this morning.  Write into our minds and onto our hearts that our one purpose is to worship and serve You and Jesus.  This we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus, your Son and our Redeemer.   Amen.

Motivational author Vesta Kelly once noted that, "Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together."  And then we have a bit of wisdom from an anonymous source who added, "There can be union without unity.  Tie two cats together by their tails and throw them over a clothesline to see what I mean."

Sometimes unity can bring mixed results.  Those same snowflakes that bring a calm quiet to our personal world can also create chaos and crashes on our roadways.  And if too many of them stick together, they can cause power outages, cripple cities, and bring everything to a complete halt.  But when we unite together in service to our Lord, when we truly show His love to all around us, then His power comes into play and good things will happen.

Let’s just make sure we don’t hiss at each other and squabble like cats tied together, but be more like snowflakes gently blanketing the world in peace.

Paul reminds us that there is one Lord, one God, who is over all, in all, and living through all.  There is one faith, and that in Christ Jesus.  There is one baptism, not of water but of God’s Holy Spirit, of which there is but one.  And there is one body, that of Jesus left here on earth.  The wonderful thing is, we believers are all united in this one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one body.  We are all one.

Along with all this oneness comes a certain calling, the task Jesus left us with, to continue His work spreading the Gospel and making disciples by telling others all about Him.  Oh, and we’ve not been left without some help in this.  We’ve been given gifts to equip us for our job.

Now here Paul is not talking about the spiritual gifts we as individuals have received, but those the church has been given.  These gifts include apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.  These good people can help us do our work and build up the church, the body of Christ.  They can help us mature in our faith and in our service.  But we must remain united as one body.

I want to pause for just a moment and look at why we should accept what Paul tells us here.  In chapter 9 of the Apostle Luke’s Book of the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus tells Ananias to go and restore Saul's sight, but Ananias is fearful.  Hear what Jesus told Ananias, in verses 15 & 16 of Acts 9…

15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. 16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

--Acts 9:15-16 (NKJV)

While he was blinded, Jesus gave Paul a special insight into our Lord and the authority to serve Him.  Jesus tells us right there that He chose Paul to be His tool, His instrument for carrying His word to the Gentiles and Israelis alike.  We’re the Gentiles, and Paul speaks to us because Jesus chose him to do just that.

So, much like Paul, we have been chosen and called by God to be the body of Christ Jesus, to carry out His work here on earth.  As a church, we’ve been given leaders to help us in that calling, to help us mature as followers of Christ.  But Paul begs us to be worthy of that calling.

If we are to carry the name of Christ in our own calling, we should be more like Christ.  We should be humble and gentle.  We should be patient with one another, making allowances for each other’s faults.  And family, we all have faults!

We must make every effort to keep ourselves united in the Spirit, bound together with love and peace.  Too often, we act more like two cats tied together and thrown over the clothesline, even when our intention is to carry on the church’s work!  We let the little things, the petty disagreements, chip away at our unity.  We need to always remember that we are of one God, one Lord, one Spirit, who is over us and living through us.

Even though Paul could be quite aggressive and bombastic in his evangelistic fervor, he was still a very humble man after he came to know Jesus.  He practiced what he preached in this regard.  And he wants us to be humble, too, humble and gentile and kind to one another.

Let me close with the words with which he opened the 2nd chapter of his letter to the Philippians, verses 1 through 3…

1 Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.

--Philippians 2:1-3 (NKJV)

If we take any consolation in Christ Jesus, any comfort from love, any fellowship of God’s Holy Spirit, any mercy and affection, then Paul asks that we be like-minded with him.  This is unity: being of the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.  We should do nothing through selfishness or conceit, for this will destroy any unity.  Instead, we should hold the opinions and actions of others in the greatest esteem and respect.

We are one body, one church, the body of Christ Jesus left here to carry on His work, called to this one purpose.  Let us remain united in Christ’s love and our mission.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for calling us and making us Your own.  You chose us to be the body of Your Son, left here to carry on His work after He returned home to You in heaven.  Thank You for trusting us with so important a task.  Please, Father, help us remain united as one body.  Sometimes, Father, we are too timid or afraid to do what is required of us.  Sometimes we think we don’t know the right words to say or what we should do to make a difference in someone’s life.  And sometimes we let our own foolish pride get in our way.  Please, Father, help us carry out our mission.  Give us the words, show us what to do, encourage us and strengthen us.  Please keep us strong in our spirit, in our faith, and in our service to You and Jesus.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You from our hearts through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more faithful and true, putting all our trust in You and Jesus, and seeking Your help as we do so…

Lord Jesus, before You returned to heaven, You assigned us one job to do: to go into the world telling everyone about You and making new disciples.  You united us and created Your church from us.  Thank You, Jesus, for joining us together into Your earthly body.  Lord Jesus, we ask You to help us as we try to reach out to a disbelieving world with Your word and the Good News of salvation You bring.  Help us remain united in our purpose of service to You.  Strengthen our will to do what our Father God wills us to do.  Help us to be more loving, more understanding, kinder to all we encounter each day.  And please help us as we try to show Your love in a world where we only seem to be united in our hatred and distrust of one another.  All this we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.