Perfect Oneness
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· 15 viewsThe basis of Christian unity
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
This morning we are continuing our series from Ephesians regarding the unity of the church and today we will be looking at the foundation of that unity.
eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 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, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Immediately what you should recognize is that the word one is repeated many times in this one sentence. And you might have glanced over the repetition as being just a very strong emphasis that Paul is trying to give to the subject of unity and in part, he is doing that. But there is actually more to the number of repetions than what is on the surface. I want you to count the number of repetions of the word one. What do you find? Seven times, Paul uses that word. In terms of Biblical numerology, the number seven is symbolic of completion or perfection. So what we have here, in the matter of one sentence is the basis for perfect oneness or perfect unity in the Church.
Body
Body
It’s so hard to imagine that something that seems so simple is the key to acheiving something that seeems impossible and out of the reach of normal Christianity. I’ve read countless books on the church and none of them make this as clear as what we see here in this passage. Unity in the church is based on these 3 points that we will take a closer look at.
1. The one Spirit who creates one body with one hope.
2. The one Lord through whom we have one faith and one baptism.
3. The love of one God, who is the Father of all
As you can probably gather from these three main points, the unity of the church was meant to be a mirror of the oneness that we see in the Trinity. Although we may not think about the significance of this fact, only Christians believe in this mind-bending doctrine that the one God has existed eternally as three distinct persons who are equal in essence. This doctrine has incredible implications for how we see love and unity within the human race. Apart from Christianity, all of the other religious views are problematic to our pursuit of oneness.
If there is no god or life is a product of an impersonal force, then love is nothing more than a biochemical reaction in the brain and therefore it should not carry any more importance than say anger, jealously, hatred, or any other emotion for that matter.
But somehow we know intuitively that love is important and so some people conclude that there must be a personal God that created human beings to love. Now, if you’re view of God is monotheistic and unipersonal, like Judaism and Islam, you run into a rather big problem, until God created other beings, love did not exist in this universe. Therefore, the essence of this God cannot be defined as love.
Finally, we have the view that many gods exist but the obvious problem of polytheism is that these gods don’t exist in harmony and peace. They are often in great conflict with one another and they seem more like people than gods.
Only Christianity defines God as existing eternally as 3 persons, perfect in eternal love, perfect in their relationship, perfect in unity. Any Christian would confess that the doctrine of the Trinity is the essence of who God is and if that is the case, the logical conclusion is simple, the core of our existence is to be a part of a loving community. If we are made in the image of God, then we have been created to love and to be loved. I love the way Tim Keller describes the importance of our relationships. He writes, “Ultimate reality is a community of persons who know and love one another. That is what the universe, God, history, and life is all about.”
I think some people during this pandemic have downplayed the harm that all of this isolation has caused in our society, maybe even in themselves. In the years to come, we will begin to see the full extent of the damage that this lack of human connection has created in our world. Solitary confinement is considered one of the cruelest methods of torture for a reason. Even after a short period of time, you begin to lose your mind for the simple reason that you lose all sense of reality. I don’t think it is a hyperbole or an exaggeration to say that the essence of our existence and our reality is found in our connection with one another.
By God’s common grace, most people have access to some degree of relationships whether that’s through family, friendships, marriage, dating, and even social groups, etc. But only Christians have access to the depth of relationship that we see in the triune God because God invites us to share in the love that the Father, Son, and Spirit have enjoyed for all of eternity. But the question, that we might have is “Why is our experience of relationships in the Church so far from this ideal?” The anwer to that question brings us to the first point, the community that we are all looking for is not created by the good intentions of man but it’s a supernatural work in which the one Spirit creates one body driven by one hope.
As individual believers, we all may have different testimonies regarding how we became Christian but at the core, there is a common shared experience of the Holy Spirit that has marked the conversion of every true Christian irrespective of time, place, and culture.
And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
These are the words of Christ as He describes the future ministry of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who would beleive in the gospel after His return to the Father.
1. First, there would be a conviction of sin, our sin as well as the sin of the world. You cannot be Christian unless there is an understanding of the seriousness of sin and how that separates us from God.
2. Second, there is a conviction of righteousness, that the word of God reveals the only true measure of righteousness and and that we all fall short of His glory.
3. Finally, there is a conviction of judgement, that the consequence of sin in light of God’s righteousness is deserving of the judgement of God.
This is the fundamental work of the Holy Spirit and though we value the differences and unique perspectives that we each have as people, at the core, these three steps represent what it means to be born again in the Spirit. (We know that every snowflake is unique but at the same, every snowflake is made my the exact same physical process. In the same way, every beleiver might be unique but we are made by the very same spiritual process.) These convictions are a supernatural work because people don’t generally see themselves as sinners, they don’t naturally measure themselves to the righteousness of God, nor do we think we are deserving of God’s judgment. This only happens as God’s Spirit creates new life in us and opens our eyes.
Now it may not be completely obvious why these convictions are so important for unity in the Church but if you think about it, it makes a good deal of sense.
First of all, if we have the same conviction of sin and righteousness, it means that we have the same values, the same ideas of what is good versus what is evil, and the same beliefs on how we should live our lives. By no means, am I advocating that we need to live perfect lives without any sin but at least we agree on the basic principles of Biblical morality and we are striving together to grow in holiness.
Secondly, we share one hope. The Christian hope rests on the fact that Christ will return and make all things new. We believe that on that day, all of the pain and suffering that we see because of human sin will be undone and God will recreate a new heaven and a new earth. Knowing that the world is under the judgment of God and believing that only He can redeem is not very popular view of life. But what is the alternative? Are we going to put our hope in all the world leaders getting along and halting climate change, ceasing war, balancing economic inequalities, and bringing about a just and equitable world order. Are we going to hold our breath and wait for the day when Putin, Xi Xing Ping, and President Biden hold hands and sing kum by yah. I would rather put my hope in the second coming of Christ and when Christians begin to share in that one hope, it changes the way we live with one another in the present. The issues that divide us no longer seem so important because we know that the world and everything in it is fading away.
But most importantly, these convictions from the Spirit allow us to share the same reason for why we need a Savior in the first place. And this is how the one body is formed. The Church is not a body of people that are loosely tied together by some mission or vision statement like a corporation. We are the body of Christ and the assumption is that every member of that body is submitted to the Head. You have a huge problem if your body is not controlled by what is going in your brain. It is a symptom of a major sickness and so it is with the church!
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
Some time ago, a person asked me to rethink a statement in our bylaws that defines Christian marriage as a union between one man and one woman. In these culture wars, if we don’t clearly define what we beleive on religious grounds, we open ourselves up for discrimination lawsuits and so this is a part of our bylaws. But this isn’t something I made up based on some conservative political views, it’s based on what Jesus clearly spells out.
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
If this is the definiton of marriage that Jesus gave, then it is the definion of marriage for the Church and all of her members. As part of the body, I have no right to change what the head of the Church has so clearly spelled out. It may be difficult to reconcile this with the views of the world but no one said it was going to be easy to follow Christ and it’s time that we got used to this.
At a higher level, are we operat like Christ is the head of this church? Is He preeminent in our lives? If not we have a major problem. Jesus is the one Lord whom we believe in through one common faith and baptism. When it comes to faith, it’s important that we hold to the the main and plain things of the gospel and the Scriptures. There was a well know Scottish pastor in the early 1900’s who compared the two different stories of the blind men who were healed by Jesus in Mark 8 versus John 9. In Mark 8, Jesus spits on the man’s eye and then heals him by the laying on hands. In John 9, Jesus uses a different method, he spits on the ground and takes the mud clay and applies it to the man’s eye and then tells him to go to the pool of Siloam to wash off the mud. After the man follows Jesus’ instructions, he is also healed of his blindness. The pastor goes onto imagine a conversation between these two men who have been healed of their blindness and they begin to argue about whose healing is more legitimate. The man who got the mud treatment swore by the power of the mud but the man who was healed by Jesus’ spit alone accused the first man of having no faith and that’s why Jesus needed to use the mud.
In the sermon, the pastor goes onto use this example to highlight how Christians argue over insignificant matters and forget the main thing that unites us, the method that Jesus used to give you sight is far less important than the fact you were once blind but now you see. We should be rejoicing together in the fact that we now have spiritual sight because of our shared faith in Christ as opposed to fighting over how we go that sight. It’s interesting that we even divide over something as simple as baptism. Should we immerse or sprinkle the water? Should children be baptized or not? And I think we need to ask ourselves, is this what the Scriptures are concerned about when it tells us there is one baptism? Clearly not. The mode of baptism isn’t the important thing. The important thing is what it represents. That you have been identified with Christ and your life is no longer your own. You have crucified with Christ and dead and buried and you no longer live but Christ now lives in you. That is the one baptism that brings all true believers together.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The third point, we are connected by the love of one God, who is the Father of everyone who is identified with Christ.
When we say that He is above all, it means that He is sovereign and in control over everything in our lives. Only God stands above the floods of this world and remains in complete control.
He is also through all. Through his love, we have evertyhing we need, life, breath, the clothes we wear. As Jesus describes his Father, “If you being wicked know how to give good gifts to your sons, how much does the Father give good gifts to his children.” Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father who has no shade of turning.
Finally, God the Father is in all meaning His presence is in each of us and in all that is good in this world that we live in.
This is my father's world
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres
This is my father's world
He shines in all that's fair
In the rustling grass, I hear him pass
He speaks to me everywhere
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
What is at stake in the unity of the church?
How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which as the last word in human afffairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.