Reflecting God’s Unity in a Fractured World

 

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3)

 

 

          Would you believe that in the town from which I hail, we have two running clubs?

          That’s right – two. There really aren’t that many runners in our area – this isn’t Oregon, after all – but we still have two running clubs. That’s because a few years ago, as I’m told, some runners simply became disgruntled with the others and with the way things were being done. So what do people do in the world when they disagree with others?

          Cut and run.

          We expect that sort of behavior outside the church. You and I, mindful of humans’ sinful nature, have grown accustomed to divisions and to wrangling and to irreconcilable differences.

          But when division happens in the church, and sadly it does, it’s another matter entirely. In fact, the Name of the triune God is dragged through the mud when we believers “cut and run.”

 

          St. Paul in Ephesians 4:1-6 teaches you and me that, first, regeneration in Christ results in a changed life. He secondly says that one result of our new life in Christ is that we pursue unity with other true believers.          Divisiveness and bitterness tear our fallen world apart. If you and I, who are known by Christ’s Name, are to bear His Name with honor, then we must pursue unity with those who are bonded with us in the blood of Jesus.

 

          The apostle begins today’s passage by instructing us that regeneration, or being born again in Christ, always results in a changed life.

          Ephesians 4:1 actually serves as an introduction to the rest of the epistle. Paul uses the word “therefore,” which indicates that in the remaining portion of the letter he is going to spell out the consequences of the more-purely doctrinal section that precedes it. Chapters 4-6 deal mainly with practical issues in living out the Christian life, and the structure of Ephesians (and of all of Paul’s letters) teaches us that a holy life depends on God first bringing you to life in Christ, but that if God has brought you to life in Christ, your life will show evidence of His dwelling in you.

          A holy life depends on God first working in you to bring you to life in Christ, which was the focus of chapters 1-3. In verse 1 Paul writes that God has “called” you and me; this means not only the outward call of preaching, by which you heard of your sin and of God’s impending judgment of you and of Christ’s saving work on your behalf – but also the inward call of the Holy Spirit on your heart to draw you to Christ. God uses the outward call of preaching to save sinners, but unless He draws a sinner inwardly, Jesus tells us in John 6, that sinner cannot come to faith in Christ. Well-crafted sermons are nice, but preachers and sermons don’t create saving faith in a sinner’s heart. Only the Lord does this, and He does so by calling sinners effectually to repentance.

          A holy life isn’t possible without Jesus first giving you new life by his power. So many folks think Christianity begins and ends with “being good;” yet true Christian faith begins with the Lord’s work in your heart, and any good you do – any obedience to His moral law – is possible only because the Lord is “working in you to will and to do of His good pleasure.”

          But your manner of life (Paul here calls it your “walk”), if you truly are a believer on Christ as your Savior, must show evidence of Jesus in you. If you and I are known by the Name of Christ, we must walk worthily of that Name. Paul himself was a living witness of the power of Christ to save, and he followed his own Spirit-inspired exhortation to the Ephesian believers: he, the former persecutor of Christians, now was a prisoner for Christ’s sake. In the church today, then, we need teachers who exemplify in their own lives what they exhort us to be in their teaching.

          In Greene County you and I often make one of two mistakes: we either think we can straighten up and fly right in order to earn Heaven for ourselves, or (on the opposite pole) we think we can waddle down the aisle, waddle out the church and live like the devil, all the while naming Christ as our Savior.

          True Christianity begins with God’s work in Christ for you. True Christianity – Christ in you – produces works of thankful obedience by you.

 

          Second, the apostle instructs us that one result of our new life in Jesus is that you and I pursue unity with one another in the Lord.

          Churchianity in Greene County is often a “Long Ranger” proposition, in which faith in Christ assumes only a vertical plane (“Just Jesus an’ me”). How frequently you and I forget that Christianity also has an equally important horizontal plane! Yes, your walk with Christ matters infinitely; but your relationship to others in the church also matters infinitely, as Paul describes in verses 2-6.

          The unity that you and I are to pursue diligently is based on God’s very nature. Remember, the one true God is one God in three Persons. God’s unity and His diversity are of equal importance as to who He is. Father, Son and Spirit are not three separate Gods: they are three Persons in one united Godhead.

          You’ll remember that when Jesus prayed for the unity of all true believers (as recorded in St. John 17), he prayed that we might be one even as he and the Father are one (in divine essence, power and glory). Father, Son and Spirit share an essential unity in the Godhead; you and I, indwelled by the Lord, are to exhibit that same type of unity despite retaining our own personhood.

          That’s one of the great tragedies of inter-church battles: when you and I go our separate ways, we – who are known by the Name of the triune God – misrepresent our God. Rather that displaying His unity-in-diversity, His one-in-three nature, we present God as divided. If you think it’s important to tell the truth because you are a child of the God of truth, then recognize that it is equally important to pursue unity with your fellow believers because you are a child of the God who is, perfectly, three-in-one.

          The unity that you and I are to pursue is, Paul writes, a reality even now. Note Paul’s frequent repetition of the word “one” in verses 4-6 – seven times, in fact! He says there is one body of believers, which we know from 1 Corinthians 12 to be the Body of Christ. Just as your hand cannot separate itself from your body and be its own living organism, so you and I cannot separate from one another and think we are “being the church.” We all draw our common life from Jesus, and we are one body. Dwelling together as believers is a visible manifestation of our shared life in Christ.

          Paul writes there is one Spirit, and this same Spirit is the One who gives all of us new hearts to believe in Jesus and who issues the effectual, inward call to believe in Christ. The Spirit is not divided against Himself, nor is He present in some of us believers but absent in others. We all have the same Spirit of God living in us if we are truly followers of Jesus.

          The apostle also asserts there is one hope of our calling in Christ, and this hope – of a New Heavens and a New Earth, where we will dwell with the Lord perfectly for all eternity – unites us all with a common destiny. We all have the same goal! Likewise, there is one Lord, Jesus, who is Master over all of us. We all take orders from the same Sovereign, just as we all trust in the same Savior.

          Christians also share one common faith – one set of basic, divinely revealed truths about ourselves, about God and about Christ’s saving work. Oh, we might differ over such less-critical (and clear) issues as the proper mode of baptism; but true believers all are agreed on the basics of the Christian faith (such as our sinfulness, our need for Christ’s saving work and the reality of future judgment). And, Paul writes, we share a common baptism: the cleansing work of the Spirit as He washes us by faith in the blood of the Lamb and unites us to Christ.

          The grand finale of our unity is that there is one God and Father over all the church. He is Sovereign over all of us, as our Father; He is through all of us, working in His world to accomplish His eternal purposes; and He is in all Christians by the indwelling Holy Spirit. You and I, then, can no more deny our organic connection to each other than we can deny our living connection to our blood kin.

          Runners, purely as runners, have little in common other than a hobby that many folks take and leave. It’s silly, but not surprising, that folks united by something so feeble as an interest in running should easily part company.

          You and I as Christians, however, have the living Christ dwelling in us by his Spirit. We are bound together in the most-important bond of all eternity. We cannot deny our unity; instead, we must exhibit it for the glory of our Father in Heaven.

          To exhibit this unity, though, requires strenuous effort. Paul instructs us in verse 3 to continually spare no effort in pursuing unity in the bond of peace (the form of the verb “endeavoring” stresses unceasing action). How do you and I maintain our organic unity in the Lord? For one, by practicing humility as you remember how you were a helpless sinner, deserving Hell were it not for God’s saving grace to you in Christ. By remembering that the chief end of man is to glorify God, not yourself.

You and I also pursue unity by practicing meekness – which means you don’t adopt a vengeful attitude or place a chip on your shoulder, but, rather, that you look past minor offenses and seek the honor of Christ. And you pursue unity by bearing with others in the love of Christ, displaying the same sort of longsuffering patience toward other believers and their quirks as your Father in Heaven does toward you despite your many provocations of Him. (If you think you don’t have any irritating quirks, ask that person sitting beside you. Your spouse [or best friend or closest family member] will let you know!)

          Unity in Christ is a reality for us, but it also demands strenuous and continuous effort. It is made possible by the same victorious Lord living in us, but you and I must take it upon ourselves to pursue the unity that honors our triune God.

 

          It’s tough business bearing witness to God’s Name and character in everyday life.

          It’s especially difficult to practice the unity that He requires of us and that His character demands of us. After all, we here in the Leakesville Presbyterian Church have a lot of differences, just as the Ephesian Christians – Jews and Gentiles – had remarkable differences. Some of us talk much differently than others. We pull for different teams, have different hobbies. And what’s more, our sinful quirks will provoke each other to anger.

          Someone is going to criticize your casserole.

          Someone is going to have a competing view with yours of how to structure Sunday School.

          Someone is going to criticize your child-rearing.

          Someone is going to criticize how you decorated the manse.

          It’s enough to rip this, and every, church to shreds.

          When you’re at wit’s end, and when you want to cut and run, remember that you and the person next to you might have a lot of differences, but you share the most-vital thing in common: the same Lord Jesus in you and over you. God’s Name, His unity as reflected in our life together, is at stake. Remember God’s patience with you, and that He has knit you and me together as one family.

          Who you and I have in common is infinitely more powerful than anything that would threaten to divide us.