The Spirit Of Unity

0:16Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audio Podcast for Crossroads Bible Church in Rockdale, Texas. Crossroads Bible Church is a Reformed Confessional Baptist Church that meets every Lord's Day at 10 a.m. for Bible study and 11 a.m. for corporate worship. For more information about our church and for directions, you can find us online at www.crbcrockdale.org. Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let's turn to the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. We're going to, Lord willing, cover verses 4-6 this morning concerning the spirit of unity. We will be speaking much of our unity this morning. But let us begin by picking up where we left off last week, and that is the continued walk down this road that Paul is giving us as to how we are Christians in light of the gospel, how we are to walk worthy of the call of God on our lives. And that first reading, I think, as you will see, it appears that Paul is taking a step back to a little bit more of a theological diversion after going on to those practical things in which we said he was going to do. But Lord willing, I think we'll see that what Paul is doing here is what we said last week was most important for us when we engage in the application of the text. And that is to always ground that application in those doctrinal elements. We ground then our application in the truth, and this is exactly what Paul is doing for us. And to that end, we're going to consider those fundamental elements of the doctrine of the church. More specifically, we're going to consider the practice of unity in the church. And that our peace is grounded in the doctrine of the church. And the command that we are to be in unity and we are to be at peace in the church. Because we will see this reflects the reality of our position to God. And it reflects the nature of God Himself. We're also then going to consider the doctrine of the Trinity and how the truth about the Trinitarian fullness of God informs and guides our unity and our peace and our fellowship. And we'll see then right from the start the playing out of that which we did emphasize, the interconnection between doctrine and practice. And the need to never divorce or divide those two things. That's more or less where we're going. Let's stand once more then as we read. Ephesians chapter 4, starting in verse 4. There is one body and one spirit, just as you are called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, as always, we thank you for your word, Lord. We thank you for the unity, Lord, that you have brought to us through the work of Christ. We pray and ask, Lord, would you open our hearts to receive this word this morning, Lord? Speak to us. Ask all these things in the name of Jesus. In 1844, Alexander Dumas published what would arguably be his most popular work, though some, possibly on the second row, might argue that The Count of Monte Cristo was his best work. Nearly 200 years later, this story has been retold in countless other stories, varied stories. Certainly it's been made into movies, many movies, some good, some not so good. And this is the story that every young boy with a stick loves to make believe is a sword and act out. The story is the three musketeers. You know it well. The important point about that story is not the plot of the story, but the musketeer motto. You remember it. All for one, one for all. Let's just say he wasn't a God-fearing man. But thinking about what that phrase actually communicates, it communicates this that all are working for and sacrificing for the benefit of even one. And the one works in sacrifices not for himself but for all. The word of God, his gospel, and all his commands are given not to a collection of individuals, but they are given to a people, a church, one body. We then, church, as members of one body, and this word is given to us as a whole, as a people. I'll further illustrate that with another example. How many of us have experienced pain of some kind in our body? I think it's everybody. And some even now, presently, going through it. But how do we, and how does our body respond when there is something wrong with one of its members? I've had some pretty severe neck cramps before, and it, though it's only the neck, it affects the whole body. Messes with everything, right? It affects our mood. Spend our time and our attention, whatever is necessary to fix that issue. Amanda and I heard recently there's a relatively new treatment. I believe this is a new treatment for treating various injuries and pains where they inject a sugar solution into the affected area that aggravates it enough that your body recognizes it as a problem and then goes and tries to fix the problem. This is perhaps a demonstration that ingrained in our biology and what we realize and observe in our practice is the very concept that when some part of the body is in need, the rest of the body shifts to accommodate it, to help it out.

9:22How often is the church compared to a body?

9:28Both here in the text and many other places, informing what we call the doctrine of the church, and specifically the concept of a the unity of the body. If the church is indeed one body, and it is, then we must begin to shift our thinking beyond ourselves as a singular member of the body and to the body as a whole. And so much of the church's troubles today, but likely always been the case, arise from an individualistic mindset. The focus as individuals over members or parts of a larger body. Those things aren't necessarily bad, but how does the body the church more specifically this body and this church fit into those plans?

10:48How does this church, this body fit into your plans of life? Is it a focus?

11:01Is the whole body a focus? Or is it simply an afterthought? If your response in thinking is, well, you know, I haven't really thought about that before.

11:16Then you see the problem that needs to be addressed.

11:22We understand there that there is a Catholic universal church. There is a sum of all the members of the body of Christ, all collective, universal, worldwide, generational wide, spanning time and region. But we should also understand that this letter to Ephesus was written to a particular church. These are universal principles, yes, but they are also focused in on a particular local body of people. So then our focus must be to consider, to plan with, to join with, to serve with, to unify with, to be at peace with a local body, a local people who are connected to a larger regional body, who are connected to the universal church. This is clearly the model of the early church. And the intent of all of Paul's teaching about peace and unity in the body of Christ, center around this idea of unity in the body.

12:46There's one more point that I'll make before we continue with the rest of the text.

12:55And that is that our text says the words, there is, if you look at it in your word, in verse 4, to begin that section, there is one body. The phrase, there is one body and one spirit. Now I have very few original or novel thoughts, and this is certainly not one of them. This is something that I read. I'm not insightful enough for this, but the reason why the there is is there as a statement of fact and informs us that this bodily and spiritual unity, both locally and universally, is not something that we form, but rather something that we must not break. Christ has in his completed work and by giving us the Spirit truly unified his people. The unity is there. There is one body. This is a reality made complete in and through Christ in Christ alone. His church is one. The trouble is not that we don't know how to unify. The trouble is that we don't know how to keep from breaking that unity in our sin. And so this command to be at peace with one another, to unify as one body in Christ, is not a command to do something that Christ has not already done. Rather to strive against our tendency to undo that which Christ has already done. Our trouble is that we come up with all manner of reasons to divide as opposed to just saying in unity. This group wanted music with drums. And this one didn't. So one divided and started drum church. Or this group group wanted blue carpet and the other wanted red, so one divided and started blue carpet church.

15:23Probably is a thing, honestly. We have to see that for what it is. It's utter nonsense.

15:33Our call with respect to peace and unity is to safeguard it, to keep it, to protect it, not to find reasons to break the bonds of unity that Christ suffered to create. We will continue with the rest of our text then. And I want to take the whole rest of the text in kind of one summary, and then I'll come back with one final point. The reason why I'm taking it all in summary is this, and I'm going to read it again for you. There is one body, listen closely, and one spirit. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, there was one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Need us, want us, desire us to see how clearly Paul makes it a point to establish the doctrine of the Trinity and the unity of the Trinity here. Having heard from and even spoken with anti-Trinitarians, it seems that if there was ever an insurmountable wall to get to anti-Trinitarianism, these verses would be that wall. Paul says, one body, one spirit. Clearly, this is the promised helper, the Holy Spirit, sent to seal and keep the unity of his people, is one body. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, which is obviously points directly to the Son, who is the author and perfecter of our faith, and he says, one God, one father of all. And there are a million other supporting passages we could go to. We just don't have time for that. But this is such an obvious, gives such obvious clarity that the Godhead represents three persons, three distinct persons, Trinity in unity. And I understand how quickly these analogies can go off the rails, so I will be careful here. But in light of the whole context of this section, it seems that Paul is making the connection for us that the plurality in unity within the body, that is the church, is a picture of or a type of, however inadequate we make it, of the unity in the fellowship of the triune God. This is the unique and wonderful thing about our God, the true God of the Bible. He is one God. Our Lord God is one. Yet He was and is also in eternal fellowship with Himself. He is Trinity in unity. Our God in His nature is relational.

18:49He's personal.

18:53He is a God in fellowship. He is a God in communion. And this is how he created his church, his body. Many members, but one body. Never merging or confusing the parts of the body into a singular, bland, uniform, or robotic type of union. Rather, in this unity that we see within the church, there is a degree of variation. There are degrees of responsibility and roles. There's varied talents and gifts and diversity, myriads of personalities, yet at the same time, always and forever, one body, one people, one church. I don't make that connection to suggest that the church is like in kind to the Trinity, but rather that we need to see that within the Godhead, within his church, there is this mysterious, kind of unexplainable, mystical even union between the members that demand that we suspend our logic and our logical faculties and receive the truth of Scripture.

20:20The persons of the triune God are clearly distinct.

20:29In things like our salvation, for example, the Father decrees and sins. Son goes and accomplishes the work given to him by the Father. The Holy Spirit effectually calls and turns our hearts, he wills, turns our wills, he seals us for salvation. These are clearly and distinctly varied roles within the Godhead, right? Yet there is one God. And the church, then, with all its members and all its varied functions and all of its offices and all of its roles, clearly show, at least in some ways, the same measure of distinctions that are to be respected and never confused or melded together. Yet, even still, there is one body, one church, distinct, different, but equal. This is why the ever-present and perhaps much more modern arguments over things like gender roles within the church have always been a place of disobedience, honestly, and a misunderstanding of the doctrine of the church. And honestly, a misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. And I bring that up because you may or may not know that the Southern Baptist Convention, of which we are presently associated with. Is attempting to amend its constitution and to codify the biblical position that the office of the pastor, that is the office that teaches and preaches and leads, is to be held by men only. The rebuttal I've often seen is this. Well, women are capable of teaching just like men, so shouldn't they be given the opportunity? As though unity demands that we all function in the same roles and doing the same things. How can there be unity in the church when women are excluded from fulfilling the office of the pastor or the elder? This is the argument. Imagine, though, for a moment, if the same conversation was had between the persons of the Trinity. Imagine the Spirit going to the Father to complain that he didn't get to come in flesh and do the things that Christ did. That there can't be true Trinitarian unity unless each member gets to function in the same roles. That's utter foolishness, right? To whine about then and to attempt to destroy the wonderful distinctions that God Himself has woven into His body, into His church, is not to create unity, but to destroy it. This whole fuss then is a failure to understand the nature of God as Trinity and unity.

23:39And the church as one body with many members distinct. Are all a hand? Are all a foot? Are all a mouth? Of course not. We need all the parts of the body to be one body.

24:03And to attempt to make everyone the same part, or to equalize all of the roles, is to fashion a gross and grotesque version of the wonderful, distinct, and varied body that God has created. And Paul addresses these exact arguments in his letter to Corinth, where there's divisions amongst the people because there are some higher gifts, those sign gifts, and some have those gifts and others don't. And some could speak in tongues, and some could give prophecy, and others could teach, and inevitably those who didn't have those higher gifts felt left out. And they complained because they wanted to do all of those things that they could not do. Does Paul remedy this by giving everyone the exact same gifts and callings? His exhortation is that though we all have distinct callings and roles, and we do, and that's okay. It's good even. Because no matter the role, we are all equally valuable members of the same body. Yes. So somehow, contrary to our fallen and short-sighted thinking, which is why I said we have to turn off, at least in some respects, our the logical aspect of our thinking here. But contrary to our fallen and our short-sighted thinking, the pinky toe is just as special and valued as the pastor.

25:59So don't despise your gifts.

26:04Don't despise your calling. Don't use it as an excuse to divide. Rather, embrace your call, your position to serve the Triune God in the unity He has made possible for us by Christ. We'll begin to wrap up then on this topic of our one hope. One Lord, one faith, one baptism before that. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. We talk a lot about the goal and mission of Christ. And in those thoughts, it always comes back to the hope of the resurrection, right? The hope of eternal life. I think we can say the same things about any and all discussions around this idea of unity and oneness, as our text clearly shows. There's always an element of the present and future hope that our striving for unity gives us. Why did the Father send the Son? Why did the Son live to die? Why does the Spirit work in men and women's hearts to bring them to repentance and faith? I think we could all say for the salvation of his people and to give them a redeemed eternal life. But why are we in present union with God? Why is he indwelling us now, as he says? Why is God presently making his home in us? Why is he, by his spirit, knitting a people together, both in a local and a universal body, congregation? Why is he empowering us to stay at peace and unity with one another? Why is he doing that? What's the point? Is it just for this life only, so that we can make it through life and then we die and then we just get through to get to our eternal destiny in Christ?

28:18I don't think so. The hope is in the redemption of all of those things.

28:26The redemption of the unity that we imperfectly have now. The perfection of the unity and peace in the eternal kingdom. This is the hope, the point. And so this unity that we strive is grounded in the hope of a redeemed, unified, everlasting life. A life that is together with the triune God and with one another. This is the hope of glory. This is the point of our present unity to look forward to eternal unity together with our Lord. And certainly it has its benefits for today. It's not solely future focused. Living in unity is a better way to live. But as we've said many times, life is a preparation for eternal glory. And that's very good for us to remember that. As much as we strive today for peace and to make this church and this town and this community and our country and our world a better place, and we should, and by God's grace and his will we will, the hope is that our striving isn't in vain, because peace has been won. Unity has been accomplished. Glory does await us. And so we labor on, not as those without hope, but as those who know we will indeed see what all this will look like in perfection. What unity and perfection amongst a body looks like in glory. We all like to reminisce, don't we? Actually, I don't know if I do, but maybe I do. And reminiscing, I looked it up for the definition of reminiscing. I didn't really know, I couldn't articulate it. It's to indulge in the enjoyable reflections of the past. How often, when we are in times of fellowship, does the conversation naturally flow to those perhaps war stories of the past? I've done it. We spend hours going over all those funny things that we have done, all the dumb things that we have done, all those embarrassing moments that we have had. We've all done it. And in that, we find unity in the sharing of our mistakes and failures. As though what brings us together is that each of us is as foolish and careless as the other. Is that what unites us, though? How often in those times do we go over every detail, not of our past, but of the hope of our calling? I will argue this morning and every morning that the goal of unity is not that we look back to find our common connection, or specifically our mistakes, but rather that we have collective support to look forward to see our future unity in Christ. Alone, we are tempted to dwell in the past. We're tempted to go over our mistakes and to consider all the what-ifs and the should-haves. But together, rightly understanding the goal of unity, we are drawn into something much bigger than ourselves. Much bigger than our past.

32:31We are brought together for an eternal future.

32:36Ultimately, this is an indictment of our short-sightedness. We don't see long term very often. We plan our relationships ultimately to fail. We brace our unity to ultimately be broken. But what if we looked to a hope of glory and together we planned together and we spoke and we lived as though we were building relationships that would last a thousand generations?

33:11I'll support that with some scripture.

33:14Philippians 3, verse 12. Not that I've already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. And straining forward that lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Luke 9, the words of our Lord in verse 62, Jesus said to him, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house, there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and to prepare a place for you?

34:22And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

34:40And again, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 17. Sorry, no, this is Romans 8, verse 18. For I consider that the sufferings of this present life are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be dealed to us. And this is 2 Corinthians 4, verse 17. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal, for an eternity of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, that is our body, we have a building from God and a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on we found not to be naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groaned, being burdened, not that we are unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared for us this very thing is God, who has given us a spirit as a guarantee. This is the future hope.

36:21This is where our unity is grounded.

36:27So as we consider then the Trinity, the nature of God, as we consider the doctrine of the church, as we consider the reality of our own union with Christ, our own union with one another, as we consider the hope of our calling, we are pressed into the reality of who we are and who we are going to be. Is like Christ. Not like him in his deity, but like him in his perfect glory and unity with the Father, with the Spirit. Here once more the words of Christ from John 17. This is his prayer to the Father. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name. But you have given me.

37:31This is the point. That they may be one, even as we are one.

37:40The hope of glory, the prayer of our Lord is that we will know and experience the unity of the Trinity. That we would be one even as the Trinity is one. That the fullness of the church will know the unity, will know the fellowship of the Trinitarian fullness of God. And all those traits and those qualities that we looked at last week, those seek to connect us to and shape us in the nature of God, in his perfect, peaceful unity to make us like Christ.

38:27So I ask again, then does doctrine inform our practice? Our call then, Church, is to walk worthy of our call.

38:40To maintain even now the unity that we already have with both God and with one another. Let us then maintain that spirit of unity and the bond of peace and the one who is over all, who is through all, and who is in all.

39:01Amen. Let's pray.

39:17We thank you for the unity that you have made so plain to us in your nature.

39:25We thank you for the unity that you have inspired Paul to lay out for us.

39:34Lord, would you help us to be a church in unity, to be a people in unity? Would you help us to not in our short-sightedness think of only ourselves, Lord? Would you help us by your spirit to consider ourselves as members of your body?

40:05When one member is in need, we all that we are together looking forward to the hope. When all the failures of our past go away. Oh no, we are in perfect peace. Perfect unity. Evermore with you. We ask, Lord, would you give us a foretaste of that here with this body? With this group, Lord. That we may long all the more for this unity to be affected. We thank you, Lord, for the unity that you have given this church thus far.

41:03Pray and ask, Lord, would you help us? Guard it. Keep it. Love you, Lord. Ask all these things in energies.