One Faith - THERE'S NO "I" IN ONE, part 5 (Eph 4:5b)

We are recipients of that great faithfulness. In light of that, let's open up your copy of God's Word to Ephesians chapter 4 as we go into part 5 of our sermon entitled, There Is No I In One, seeing how there is no individualism, there's no division, and there is no inconsistency within Christianity, is there?

The Objective Foundation for Unity in Ephesians 4

By the way, after today if you would like to look more into today's message, into today's text, I recommend Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones' sermon on the matter. I've actually borrowed much of his structure for the sermon today, and if you want to dive in a little bit deeper I would encourage you to because this is a fairly complex matter that we're dealing with in this particular text.

But let's read the whole starting in chapter 4 from verse 1 on through verse 6 where Paul says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 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.

These are inspired words of God. Let's pray that we would see them clearly. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you once again humbly. God, we have declared your faithfulness and you are faithful in allowing us, your children, to see your word clearly.

So we ask this morning that the Holy Spirit would illuminate our hearts and minds to these truths. Guard me from error, Lord. Lord, we pray that you would be honored in our worship through preaching today.

In Christ's name, amen. Last week we looked at what Paul meant by one Lord there in verse 5, essentially referring to Jesus Christ for who he is, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the one Savior of the world.

And now we, and how we can only understand what Paul means with the phrase one Lord, we remember the context in which Paul is writing this. We have to understand why is he saying one Lord? Why is he declaring all of these ones here?

It's the context. It was in light of him calling us, the saints, to walk in a manner worthy of our calling there in verse 1. Remember how I said last week this sets the trajectory of chapters 4, 5, and 6.

He tells us, he's breaking down what it means to walk in a manner worthy of this calling. And part of that manner worthy of our calling is to maintain, it's to guard the unity of spirit that he mentions in verse 3.

And so when he says one Lord, he is doing so to remind us that we are united under one King, under one Master, under one Lord, and that is Jesus Christ. We are not divided. We do not serve two Masters.

We do not serve a plethora of gods or idols. We serve one God, one Lord, the one that is the head of this body, the church, the one that is the King, the Master of all of creation. You see, this unifies us.

This unifies the church, the people that belong to him, because we are all servants of that one Lord. We have one Master. And so we must continue to keep this same context in mind as we look at the next declaration of singularity, one faith.

One faith is obviously connected with what we talked about last week with one Lord. We see that it's in this grouping of ones. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Now Paul uses this order in a particular progression.

Each one of these seven ones that we've been looking at is in a particular order for a reason. Hence, one faith is not in the first grouping of three in connection with the Holy Spirit that we looked at.

One body, one spirit, and one hope. Those are in a particular order. It is also not in connection with what we'll see later in verse 6 with one Father. No, it's right here in this grouping of three in reference to Christ.

It is placed here for a reason. And ironically, even though Paul is writing this as a reminder of unity, there's actually much disagreement as to what Paul means by one faith. There are two prominent opinions on this, and I want us to see these two opinions.

And to be fair, when we look at these two opinions, and later on we'll begin to see that these two opinions aren't as ununified as most would think. They're connected. So let's look at the first one. The first one is that Paul is meaning one faith in a subjective sense.

Meaning one faith in a subjective sense. In other words, we are unified by a collective sense of our own personal, individual faith in Jesus Christ. That we're gathered as a collection of our own personal, individual faith in Jesus Christ.

It's that ability within each of us that enables us to believe. And that since this is true for all Christians, that all Christians have been able to believe and have faith, Paul must be referring to this as one faith.

The faith that you and I as Christians experience. Because if you're in Christ today, you know where you stand. You know what your faith is in your own soul, in your own mind and heart. At times, sometimes you may struggle with it, but there are other times when you are so concretely secure, you may not see that in others.

We don't know the faith in each individual person. We can only see outward evidence of that faith in others. But in us, we subjectively feel that faith within ourselves. And proponents of this view, the subjective view, believe that Paul is saying that this subjective faith, since it is a faith in the one Jesus Christ, which is what makes it singular, is something that we all experience.

And so it unites us. And I myself will be honest, I actually held this view until recently. I thought, I defaulted and thought, well that must be what Paul is referring to. Believing that this must be what what he's saying.

However, I have recently been convinced that this cannot be. What Paul is directly meaning by one faith. For one, Paul has already clarified this in one Lord. We already have one Master, one Savior. Each of us have been brought into submission to him in a subjective way.

That all of us are united in one Lord. But secondly, Paul is seeking to give sure proofs of that unity, isn't he? And this is the purpose of these seven ones. He's wanting to give concrete proofs so that whenever we are under attack spiritually, when we have doubts, whenever we're plagued by disunity because we're not guarding the unity, we're not maintaining the unity that is already ours.

When any of these things happen in our calling, Paul is trying to give us concrete evidence to sustain us, right? And there's never certainty in something that is subjective. That may be something you personally feel, and I don't believe that's what Paul is referring to here.

Up to this point, Paul has only given us objective truths. Truths to hold on to, right? There's one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord. All of these are objective. They're not subjective. They're not just something I feel.

They're truths out there that are concrete for me to stand firmly on whenever there's disunity or there's turmoil amongst us. So this leads us to the second perspective of what Paul means by one faith, and that is in an objective sense.

So we have a subjective sense and we have an objective sense. Paul is not referring to the act of faith that saves a person here, per se, or even the act of faith through ongoing obedience. Paul is referring to one faith as in this body of doctrine revealed in the Scriptures.

Something concrete, something objective, something outside of what we feel or what we experience. Something that is true whether you believe it to be true or not, or feel it to be true or not, or hope that it's true or not.

Something that is always true. A body of doctrine that unites us. A body of doctrine that we should be eager to guard, right? That we should be eager to rally around and say, no, we will interpret this properly.

We will use a proper hermeneutic when approaching Scripture. We will not distort it. We will not allow distortions within it because guess what? Distortions of that word do. When that body of doctrine gets distorted, what happens?

Division. We're not united. We see this faith mentioned in Jude, well there's only one chapter, verses 3 and 4. Jude verses 3 and 4, turn there with me as a matter of fact. I want us to look at this. If you were with us a few months ago, we walked through Jude on Wednesday nights talking about going after false teachers.

And so you may be familiar with this, but Jude is writing this letter, obviously, because there are people who are perverting this body of doctrine. There are people who are distorting it and bringing about disunity.

They're false teachers. Who in here wants false teachers? Who in here wants disunity? Right? None of us do. Unfortunately, the church today has done a poor job of combating this. The church today is rent in two, torn in two, because we distort this body of doctrine.

And in distorting this body of doctrine, we distort that, the faith. We decimate it. If anyone's going to guard this body of doctrine, though, in the church today, it's assumed that it's going to be the professionals.

It's me and Pastor Jeremiah get to guard this body of doctrine, don't we? We get to go after the false teachers. That's whose job it is, isn't it? However, Jude is not simply writing to professionals, is he?

He's writing to everyone in the church. This isn't just pastors. As Jude shows here, it's the job of the whole church. And we are unified in this one faith should be guarding this. Before we read the text, I just want to share with you, I spoke with a brother a while back.

I shared this on that Wednesday night, but I couldn't help but think of it again as we came to this. I spoke with a brother who felt that we at 12 .5 were being too dogmatic about particular areas of doctrine.

We were being too hardcore and digging our heels in the sand in areas of doctrine, and he tried to convince me that, Nathan, all we need to do is teach people to love Jesus. Teach them to love Jesus. That's all we need.

That sounds very good, doesn't it? That sounds very pious. It says, well, yes, I love Jesus. The problem is, is what Jesus? What Jesus are we telling them to love? How are you telling them to love some subjective Jesus that they get to create in their own mind, or the Jesus that reveals himself in doctrine?

And his words are his words, and they're true because he's king, and so they stand firm. And so he's saying, just teach people to love Jesus. And all I could think the whole time was, you've just sat here the rest of this meal that we were having lunch, and you've pointed to the fact that the church you're a part of is in shambles.

He himself was acknowledging that his church was unhealthy and ununified. He couldn't put two and two together, though, right? Well, you better teach them to love Jesus a little more. Maybe you should teach them who Jesus is, and then they will love that Jesus.

How about that? This is this body of doctrine that we have. This is the one faith. We can't just open-ended leave it be and say, well, when Paul says one faith that unites, we can't just say, well, you have your interpretation, I have my interpretation, and I'm just going to kind of feel it out.

God's sending me all I need to know to love Jesus via Wi-Fi right to my brain. It's not how it works, is it? And that is this perspective of much of today's Christianity. They see that the church is ununified, they see that the church is unhealthy, and their answer is more love.

And we would say, absolutely, you're right, that is the answer, within its proper context and true meaning of what love is and who Christ is. And often, the most loving thing we can do is contend for that one faith, the one faith, and combat false teaching, combat a distortion of that body of doctrine.

And we see Jude doing this very thing here. Jude is not just some theobro causing division, is he? When we get that accusation brought at us, you guys just love theology and you're majoring on the minors.

Just love Jesus. That's not what Jude is doing, is it? This is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit inspired Jude to write this particular letter. So let's look at it. Jude 3. Beloved, I think there's a principle here because we get everything imbalanced, okay?

I want to talk about this. Notice how he starts off there. Jude is showing us his maturity and his love for the people here, isn't he? This isn't just a love for truth. This isn't just a love for the body of doctrine.

Somehow that body of doctrine has informed his love for the saints. And it's expressed, beloved, all the people that I love so dearly, saints. I think this is a starting point for us to distinguish divisive intention and true intention, right?

You want to know if somebody is just being that theology nerd that just wants to pound you over the head with knowledge or somebody that wants to use that body of doctrine to say, no, no, no, brother, sister.

Let's see who God really is and what the faith truly is. There's a difference. It starts with love. For us in here, people that love doctrine, we have to ask the question, do we love truth for the sake of truth or because we love God and God is truth?

Don't get the cart before the horse. If you love truth more than you love God, there's a problem. And if you love God, then you love his people. And the saints will be the beloved. You will not desire to hammer them over the head with a sledgehammer of evidence and truth.

You will desire to guard that one faith, that body of truth and evidence from his word with precision, but with love. He doesn't start with harsh words. He starts with a soft, loving, pastoral approach.

He says, beloved, although I was very eager, right? His first inclination is not to focus on controversy, notice. He says, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation. He's eager.

He's excited. He's longing. This is what his heart wants. His heart doesn't want to go to controversy for controversy's sake. His heart is to go and tell his brother's love, the truth, and the gospel.

Let's just talk about the gospel. His natural leaning is towards unity, is towards common ground. It's, hey, there's one faith that was delivered for the saints, right? That's the faith that I long to just talk about.

Let's just gather together and look to Christ and have unity. That was my desire, beloved. This is the heart of Jude. This is very different than guarding that body of evidence, that one faith, from a perspective of just wanting to be right and from a perspective of wanting to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, right?

These are very different things. This should serve as another warning sign. It's even a qualification for an overseer. We must not be quarrelsome. You want to talk about an unhealthy pastor, find you a pastor that's quarrelsome.

There's always conflict around them. Are we looking for a fight or are we looking for unity? Are you looking for a fight or are you looking for unity? Are you looking to be right or are you looking to gain a brother?

Because this will expose our intention. What do I love more, the idea of truth or truth itself, God, right? This is what we're getting at here. Because if it's God, our minds will be like the Apostle Paul when he said in Philippians chapter 4, he says, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, throw it out.

Is that what he says? What does he say? You all know this verse. Think about these things. Think on these things. These are the things that should consume our thoughts, not the negatives. And when we get into a church dynamic like this and we see all the wrong that's going on in the body and we see all of the distortion of this body of truth and we see the faith being distorted over and over again, that is our propensity sometimes to want to focus on trying to resolve that issue, to bring everything back to truth.

But what is our heart's desire? What consumes our thoughts? Is it desiring to know God or desiring to be right? I'll be honest, I remember when we taught this in Jude a few months back, I felt the weight of that and I had to repent before the Lord for many things in my own life.

And I know that some of you feel the same. If they consume our thoughts, guess what naturally comes out? Beloved, I desired to write to you about our common salvation. That was my first inclination. That was what my soul longed for.

When you're cut, do you bleed conflict or resolution? What's the pattern of your life? And that gets to the heart of the individual. Heart that seeks after unity, that desires to talk about our common salvation.

But notice, that can never deter from the absolute necessity of truth. That just gets to the intent of why we're doing it, right? It can never deter from the absolute necessity of truth and that's where many of our brethren get it distorted, don't they?

They think that the loving thing is to never confront, to only continue to talk about our common salvation, but never have the hard conversations. And then they can't figure out why there's so much disunity running rampant in their midst, right?

Look at what he says next. I desired to talk about our common salvation. I found it necessary, non-negotiable. I didn't have an option. I thought it was an absolute necessity to write appealing to you, to contend.

Again, who's Jude talking to? Pastors? Everyone. Every saint, right? And this word appealing, this word Jude uses, is not a suggestion. It's an exhortation. It's a command. He's saying, I'm pleading with you.

I am calling you to task. I have found it necessary to call you to task, Christian. You must do this. This is an absolute necessity that you do this. And what is that thing? It's to contend. In the Greek, that word is apogonizomai.

It comes from the word agonizomai. You can hear our word that comes from that, agonize, right? Apogonizomai. It's an athletic term for contending, for striving, for pushing. This is not just some passive move.

This is absolutely necessary to strive. He's agonized over this. What are we to contend for with such urgency? Look what he says next. For the faith. There's that same word there, right, that we see back in our text, the one faith.

Jude is saying, you are to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. To agonize over this. To go to war over this. Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

What is Jude talking about here? He's talking about the apostolic teaching, isn't he? We've already seen in Ephesians, remember, when he says that Jesus basically is the cornerstone, and it's being built now, that temple, that dwelling place for God is being built with the Apostles as a foundation, based off of that cornerstone, and building and building.

We're building on this faith that has been handed down from the Apostles, from Jesus to the Apostles. We now have that in Scripture. That's what we have in all of the books of the Bible. This is that foundation.

Unfortunately, the enemy has done a very good job of penetrating the church with relativism, and has made it difficult to do this. How do we respond to people who say, well, whose interpretation is true?

How can you be so sure, much less contend? It feels like you guys are going to bat for something that an awful lot of people disagree upon. How do we do this? Well, I think Paul explains that in 2 Timothy 1.

As a matter of fact, turn over there with me. 2 Timothy 1, 13 or 14. Paul, in one of the pastoral epistles to his protege Timothy, in the second letter that he writes to him in chapter 1, starting in verse 13, he tells Timothy, he says, Timothy, follow the pattern of the sound words.

See, a proper good hermeneutic. Study it. Look at the pattern. Evaluate it. This pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me. Most of the division that I've ever seen that is really, really distorting and unhealthy and leaving the faith, at some level begins to try and pit the Apostle Paul against Peter, and Peter against Jesus.

They always say, well, I'm not so much into Paul's letters. Paul was a patriarch. He was a product of his own time. He was a little aggressive. But this is Paul writing scripture under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

He says, follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. When you're in Christ Jesus, what do you have within you? The Spirit. That's what he says next.

By the Holy Spirit, right? By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. By the Holy Spirit that is within you, within me, if we are in Christ, He can reveal the truth of God's Word to you through study. That's why he finishes out the statement.

He says, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. That's our very own Pastor Jeremiah's go-to verse for his apologetics ministry, right? We've got the apologetic dog guarding. Guarding the deposit that's entrusted to us.

This is the purpose in which we're supposed to be looking to. The apostolic teaching with a good hermeneutic, indwelled by the Holy Spirit that illuminates the truth for us, and we are to guard it. We are to maintain the unity of the Spirit, right?

Essentially the same thing, to guard the deposit that is entrusted to us. To care for it. What did Paul teach? What did Peter teach? What did Jesus teach? What are the words of God telling us in a proper historical context, right?

So many people leave that. You see, we have a sure hope. Are there things in Scripture that aren't super clear? Let's be honest, right? There are some things that just are not super clear. Yes, those types aren't hills for us to die on.

There is absolutely no reason to disrupt unity over those, but Scripture is clear more often than not. There's less gray area than you would think, right? We may have a brother or sister that misunderstands this particular doctrine or that particular doctrine, specifically not those doctrines that directly affect the gospel.

You know, the Protestants get a lot of slack, or slack, not get a lot of slack. They should be given some more slack. They get a lot of pushback because they say, well, if it's one body that's united, you guys are awfully divided.

But when you really look at the body of doctrine within true evangelical Protestant churches, we have a whole lot more in common than not. A tremendous amount in common. And so we must be careful with that.

There is one faith, this body of doctrine that we hold true to. And even when we have disagreements with those disagreements with our brothers, we hold those with a loose grip, don't we? Knowing that this one faith is what we all know to be our authority.

That's why men like John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul were such good friends, right? The two of them understood the modes of baptism differently. They saw the covenants in a slightly different way, but what did they unify under?

The gospel. Faith alone, and Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. Scripture alone. They held to it. They both were men that said, Scripture is the final authority, and I will burn every bridge in my life down to align to it.

And the basic fundamental truths of Christianity, that one faith, that body of doctrine, were true in both of their lives, weren't they? And so we can have slight differences over small misunderstandings, but that body of doctrine must hold firm and true.

Is Scripture your final authority? We must keep this in balance. Now, looking back at our text and one faith, it is true that the subjective and objective cannot be separated. Even though I believe Paul is speaking of an objective faith in the context of our verse, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, he's speaking of this body of doctrine, the objective truth that is firm no matter what you feel, but we cannot detach the objective and the subjective.

When a person surrenders himself to Christ as Lord, what's happening? He's at the same time accepting the body of truth with reference to Him. It's what we talked about last week. If you've come to Christ, you've come to Christ for who He is.

And who is He? Lord, Master, King. If you come to Christ, you've seen who He is, and you've come to Christ as Lord. And so that subjective faith that we've been brought in, you and I, that feel within our own hearts and in our own minds, that is not what gives us firm foundation, is it?

When you're feeling the weight of sin and brokenness around you, right? As we sang great is thy faithfulness earlier, I couldn't help but just be overwhelmed with like, oh man, I've been so unfaithful to you, Lord, but you're so faithful.

But we feel those moments, don't we? Do you feel them? Quit looking at me with a holy look like, I felt really, really faithful this week. I've been very secure in my subjective faith, pastor. I know that I'm good.

No, you don't always feel that. I don't. I don't. So that is not something for us to stand firm on. When Paul is saying, guard, maintain the unity of the Spirit, and he starts to list off all of these things, these are objective truths.

It's just like the psalmist. When the psalmist always starts off with, woe is me, the whole world is crumbling, why are the wicked flourishing so, and the righteous are perishing, all is bad, all is bad, boom, boom, boom.

And then the very end he's like, oh God, but you're seated on your throne. That's an objective truth. I don't feel it. I don't experience it, but that doesn't matter because it doesn't mean it's not true.

It's still an objective truth. It's one faith. When you're striving to guard the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace within the brotherhood, you're doing so knowing that it doesn't matter what I feel like.

It doesn't matter what I think is true. It doesn't matter what I want. It doesn't matter how I am, who I am, what I am. None of it matters. All that matters is an objective truth of the one faith that we stand firm on, and it is true no matter what we feel.

This is what gives us great hope, isn't it? This is what gives us this courage and this ability to stand firm in His faithfulness. All of Scripture is pointing to this triune God, and it is His plan to unite all things to Himself, right?

That's what we're seeing in Ephesians. That's His whole plan. He's chosen us, a people for Himself, and His Son has come and redeemed us, and now the Holy Spirit seals us, and the whole purpose is to unite all things to Himself.

That's the whole thing, right? We see both the subjective and objective in Romans chapter 1. I just want to read this text to you, and I'll begin to wrap this up. In Romans chapter 1, we see in verses 16 and 17, where Paul says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, right?

There's an objective, there's a subjective faith. This is what God has done for us, and each one of us experience it, both Jew and Greek. But verse 17, we see an objective faith, for it is the righteousness of God, for it is the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

The righteous shall live by faith, an objective faith, a faith that we may not feel, a faith that we may not experience, but that we guard, we maintain. We see, maintaining the unity of the Spirit requires us to guard that deposit entrusted to us.

Do you want to know if we have unity with other churches? Do they affirm and guard that deposit? It's that simple. Do I have unity with another church down the road? Do they affirm and guard that deposit?

Do they affirm the one faith? If they do not, I have no unity. It doesn't mean that there aren't any Christians that are in their midst, it means that there are Christians who are deceived in their midst, but they are not a church.

Only a church guards that deposit. Do you want to know if you have unity with another Christian, your neighbor, your co-worker, somebody that claims Christ? Do they affirm and guard that deposit? If they do not, they do not understand the gospel.

They have not been awakened to it, it has not been revealed to them, because there is only one faith and it is excruciatingly exclusive. That sounds mean to say, doesn't it? It's what our Savior said.

He said, no one comes to the Father except through me. That's it. Singular. And who is he? Who's Jesus? We already talked about that last week. He's Lord, right? He gets to set what's true. He gets to say what happens, how it happens, when it happens, where it happens.

He gets to make the rules, not us. So we don't get to distort his words to say what we want church to be or how I want to live. We align our lives to the one faith, that objective faith of truth. I'll be honest with you, I don't always feel that.

I didn't even feel it walking into this building this morning. I'm laying my cards out for you. I did not want to preach today, because the subjective part of Nathan didn't feel connected to the Lord.

But praise God that I rely on objective truth. Rest in that, Christian. Rest in it. That's it. That gives us great hope, doesn't it? That's how we stand firm. That's what unites us. Praise the Lord. In light of that, let's go to the table.

The Lord’s Table as a Declaration of One Faith

Y 'all ready? I'm ready. We're declaring that one faith when we come to this table, aren't we? We're making a declaration of this objective truth and the fact that our Savior lived the life that we could not.

Sinless, perfect, fulfilled the law in its perfection. Died the death that we deserved, paying a blood ransom on our behalf, raising from the dead and defeating death. Because He is the better Adam, right?

Adam couldn't do it. He did it for us. And He bought us. He brought us to the Father and said, here they are. All that you brought to me, I've not lost one. That's an objective truth to hang on to, right?

And when we come to the table, we get to partake in the wine and the bread, the representation of the blood and the body of Christ, that we are in Christ, He is in us. And we're affirming to ourselves, to each other, that, hey, I'm a part of this objective truth, this faith, this one faith.

So let's pray that God will be honored in it. If you are a follower of Christ this morning and in good standing with an evangelical Bible-believing church, you are welcome to this table. Let's pray that God would be honored in our time of worship.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this truth. Thank you for your Word. Thank you that you are clear. Thank you that we, even though in our frailty, don't feel something all the time, but that we can look and go, no, that doesn't negate the fact that this is true, and I stand firm on it, this one faith.

Oh Father, help us to do so as we come to the table, that we get to partake in this beautiful meal, this ordinance that you have prescribed for us to express our oneness and unity with you, the triune God, through Christ our Savior and His sacrifice.

Be honored in our worship, in Christ's name, amen.