Ephesians 4 - Christian Unity is Unity in Doctrine

All right, I'll be reading from Ephesians chapter 4 the whole chapter These are the words of God.

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 in 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

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift

Therefore it says when he ascended on high he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men

In saying that he ascended what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions the earth he who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things and He gave the

Apostles the prophets the evangelists the shepherds and the teachers to equip the

Saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the

God of Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature in the fullness of Christ So that we may no longer be children

Tossed to and fro by the waves and carried out carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning by craftiness and deceitful schemes

Rather speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him Who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped?

When each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love

Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds

They are darkened in their understanding Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality greedy to practice every kind of impurity

But that but that is not the way you learned in Christ Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self

Which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind

And to put on a new self Created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness

Therefore having put away falsehood let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another

Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the Sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil

Let the thief no longer steal But rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he might have something to share with anyone in need

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear and Do not grieve the

Holy Spirit of God by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice

Be kind to one another tender -hearted forgiving one another as Christ as God in Christ forgave you.

This is the word of the Lord All Right, so this morning

I was going to focus on the first half of this chapter As I mentioned here last week,

I believe that the book of Ephesians is Extremely relevant to the topic of Christian unity the debate regarding Christian unity that's happening within sort of general reform them today if you remember

Ephesians chapter 2 We found that that chapter demonstrated that for Christians our unity is a foundational result of our gospel

Jesus Christ accomplished a complete unity for his people that goes deeper than anything we can imagine there's absolutely nothing we can do to add to our unity that we already have in Christ and Likewise there is absolutely nothing we can do that will take away from the unity that we already have in Christ Everyone who is in Christ By grace through faith is a fellow citizen right now

Everyone who is in Christ by grace through faith is a brother and sister. We're in the same household right now

This is the truth that we accept because the scripture says so we accept that truth by faith

Because sometimes it doesn't look like we're all members of the same citizenry, right?

Sometimes it doesn't feel like we're members of the same household We've created artificial divisions

But we know so we've already established from Ephesians 2 we accept by faith where we have unity in Christ But we've created all kinds of artificial divisions we are experts at that Think about the the artificial kind of walls that that Christians have sort of Created at least on the surface again that kind of show that maybe we're not as united as we think we are

For example denominations, right? Like I think I can understand why an outsider would look at the church and be like well

So what's the deal with the church? I mean just Presbyterians There's even forms of Presbyterianism, there's

PC USA, there's RP, OPC, PCA like what is going on with this?

There's Charismatics. There's Anglicans. There's Episcopalians. There's Baptists. There's Reformed Baptists. There's Traditional Baptists, Southern Baptists, Fundamentalist Baptists That's a lot and that's just a fraction of what

I could have said. That's a lot I could understand why an outside observer would be like well, what's what unity are you talking about?

And of course last week we talked about the apparent You know superficial divisions that we could talk about people sit talk about the black church

They talk about the white church the Latino Church Korean Church Even in a small town like Rutland we don't have that many people here and yet from an outside perspective

They're like well, how many churches do we really need? There's division here And so we accept by faith that we have unity in Christ But on the on the superficial level we have some divisions that are you know, not fundamental not really deep -seated

But they're there and so what we need to do is we need to manifest the unity that we already have in Christ better Tomorrow than we do today

That's that's the point and I'm not saying denominations are wrong But they do demonstrate a sort of a superficial at least disunity

They do demonstrate a little bit of a problem that that we have right now that we need to work out our unity better and so Paul is not the kind of person that says well, here's the problem and Just leaves you like in the lurch.

He actually gives you a way forward. And so the question is What is the plan that Scripture gives us in order for us to manifest our unity in Christ?

better The problem is that there's all kinds of fake unity out there as well

There's all kinds of fake unity. Like if you want to see some fake unity All you got to do is watch a

World Cup game. There's one going on right now We're a football game Because there you'll have people that are that seem united like it doesn't matter what their economic standing is

It doesn't matter what their political opinions are their skin color Everyone will be cheering the same things, right?

They're wearing the same colors. They're drinking the same beers. They're having the same hot dogs

Rich or poor they're eating hot dogs the same food at the football game But all the while we know that in their hearts there's division

There's divide. There's there are divided people there. So it's not a deep -seated unity.

It's just a very superficial Well, we cheer for the same team. So we'll come together You want you live in you guys live in New York and that you could see this in the subway cars, right the subway cars

Bring everyone together like we've got really rich people in the subway cars and we've got really poor people in the subway cars

But there's no real unity there So this is the thing we want to avoid the fake unity

We want to avoid the appearance of unity, but we do want to manifest the actual unity that we have in Christ So here's what

Paul says How do we do this? Paul says this he says in verse 1

I 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 So he calls it the unity of the Spirit And folks

I ask you like I did last week. How many spirits how many Holy Spirits are there? Well, there's just one

There is no black Holy Spirit, there's no Latino Holy Spirit, there's one And so he tells us we should walk in a manner that demonstrates an eagerness to maintain that unity again, we can't break that unity, but we want to demonstrate you want to manifest it and So we want to walk in a way that that we're not only not only are we united in Christ?

But it also it looks like it we actually acting like it And so here's the thing

We know this can be hard We know this can be hard because we all act like we're not united sometimes.

I Love talking about how if you know, this is not a Presbyterian Church But I love talking about the Westminster Confession when

I when I have debates and so I have a lot of unity with people there But sometimes I act as if I don't have a lot of unity with Reformed Baptist.

That's not actually not true So we all act like this sometimes And Paul says that What he wants you to do is walk in this in this way

That's this way that shows your eagerness and he knows it's hard because he knows and this is why he says he says walk with Humility, right?

He knows that in these issues where there is division a Lot of times there's a tendency to think that your position or even you yourself are better than you are

We talked about this every week. We talked about Philippians chapter 2 right before communion every week consider others more important than yourselves

Paul says walk in humility. That's one of the keys here He also says to walk with gentleness

This means that when there when there's division or there's disagreement that we don't just get angry automatically

Sometimes there's a time for anger But here's the thing what it means is when people bring up things that maybe maybe we think in our opinions

So is division we should still take them. We you know, maybe if you're angry, that's okay. Take them seriously

Treat them with respect don't respond in harshness That's what he means when he says he's walking gentleness

Hear people out consider them more important than yourselves and respond in a loving gentle way, even if you're in disagreement

He goes on and he says walk with patience and bearing with one another this what this means

By the way, is that when someone says something or does something that in your mind causes division?

The default starting point isn't all right. Well, you're a heretic. Let's excommunicate and forget about you

That's not the default Bearing with one another, you know, that's the thing that there's a lot of people in this debate that you know

They operate from a stance where it's just sort of like a hair trigger, you know They say something that's a little bit off and they're like, well, you're out of the body

That's the opposite of bearing with one another That's the opposite The bearing with one another means that you operate from a stance that says look

I'm gonna put up with as much as I possibly can and still be biblically faithful Because I love my brothers and sisters and I'm committed to not cutting them off unless I have a biblically commanded reason

To do so bearing with one another is very hard That is one way that we can manifest our unity better than we currently do

You know, I mentioned the the current debate in the reform world and that's a division that is happening right now before our very eyes

Many people who take the same perspectives that I would take on that issue Have sort of given up on the other side

A lot of them will say well, they don't they don't even think these guys are Christians anymore Or if they are there, they're barely Christian And there's people on the other side that would say the same about people on my side

There are people that don't think I'm a Christian because of the stance I take on this regarding ethnic unity

But you see I don't think we should take that perspective. I don't think that's bearing with one another. I Think the people

I'm critical of are wrong. I think that they're causing they're doing much damage to the unity of the church but The stance

I'm taking and I hope that others will take this as well Is that I'm gonna put up with as much as I possibly can from that perspective before I start lobbying my anathemas at people

Because I want to bear with one another. I want to be patient as Fellow citizens because I consider myself fellow citizens with the people

I disagree with very strongly That's how Paul tells us to maintain our unity of the spirit in the bond of peace

But obviously that leaves the fact that we are we do disagree with people Right, like even if we stay humble or patient even if we are gentle with our responses

There's still a disagreement that and a disagreement is a form of disunity And so what do we do about our disagreements because they're there and they're real we shouldn't just pretend they're not there

We should deal with them That's see pretending they're not there is like the people that all gather at the football game and pretend that they're united.

They're really not It's just for a few hours in a day. They can put it aside and pretend like it's not really there

And so here's what Paul says about our disagreements this is verse or I'm sorry, yes verse 11

Paul says he talking about God Gave the Apostles the prophets the evangelists the shepherds and teachers to equip the

Saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the

Son of God and So to Paul, that's the job of the Apostles prophets evangelists teachers pastors to equip the

Saints that's you and me and It's our job For doing you know, there's the

Saints they're doing the ministry. They're doing the God's work essentially So you and I all of us are to be working in ministry under God in our various spheres of influence

And that's gonna look different for each of us, right? So some of us we have our family That's a sphere of influence

And so we we do our ministry work to equip the Saints for God's work in our families.

Sometimes some of us have businesses Some of us interact on social media. Some of us are involved in the communities and so Paul says that the

Apostles the prophets the evangelists the pastors equipped the Saints for that ministry essentially the ministry of unity of the faith and so that's

That's the issue here the ministry the work that we're have to have to do is

Until he says until we all attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.

This is What we do about our disagreements in the church This is the solution

See, this is what we really need to understand right the unity that we need to be eager to maintain

The unity that we should be eager to manifest The unity that Paul is talking about is not a superficial unity.

It's not a appearance of unity But rather it's a unity of the faith

Unity of the knowledge of the Son of God and all of that is contained in this book

Unity of the faith and unity of the knowledge of the Son of God is contained in the Bible And so when

Christians disagree on something whether it's economics or politics or church government or church diversity what whatever it is

The way that we achieve unity is to make sure that whatever we're promoting whatever our position is it's in line with and derived from the scriptures and And so we need to be debating our ideas weighing them even in the scripture

Paul says, you know, we weigh what the prophets say That's the point we want to find out is it is what

I believe is what I'm promoting is it biblical We want to go back and forth with people and hear people out

By the way, we can't really do that If we're lobbying anathemas at people and say well, you're out of the body of Christ like that's not how you debate ideas

And so we find out are my ideas biblical and we let the truth rise to the top I'm a big believer in in sunlight being the best disinfectant

And so if somebody has an unbiblical idea, I want it to be exposed. I want to talk about it.

I Want to show it up to the light of scripture and find out whether or not it holds water And I think we should be willing to do that with our own ideas as well

That's the kind of we need to subject ourselves to some scrutiny I think sometimes This is the work this is the ministry that pastors and prophets and evangelists should be equipping the church to do

This is this is why we need humility, right? Because having a debate a conversation with someone which with which you agree on everything you don't need any humility for that You don't need any patience for that But Someone you disagree with that's when you need to be humble.

That's when you need patience That's when you need to bear with people because you don't agree with them and we need to find out what is actually biblical

That's what we need to treat people with gentleness and respect. Nobody ever needed to be Warned hey, you know treat the people you always agree with with respect like that's you don't need that warning.

Everyone already does that And so that's the thing That's how we achieve the unity rather the

Manifestation of unity that Christ has already given us. It's not through some diversity scheme. It's not through ecumenism

It's not through affirmative action No, no Christian unity Real unity is in the faith and through the knowledge the

Son of God. It's doctrine essentially. That's how we do it. It's doctrine And so that's why

I'm constantly saying to people online when I'm doing my my my my YouTube videos, you know

Interactions online. I'm constantly saying just well just show me in the Bible show me in the scripture Doesn't have to be a chapter in verse but it could be a sort of a an argument, but just show me how the scripture

Teaches this I'm a very simple person, right? If your diversity plan is in the Bible, I'll believe it

If your economic system is in the Bible, I will implement it as best I can that is the key

The unity that we see can only be achieved through right doctrine and scripture Verse 13 the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the

Son of God to mature manhood To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ so that we may no longer be children

Tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning by craftiness and deceitful schemes

So you see this is how it works When we don't have unity of faith and in the knowledge of the

Son of God Paul says we're like children Will believe anything

When we don't have unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God We could be carried along and tossed to and fro by human doctrines made up doctrines fake doctrines

We can be deceived and carried along by deceitful schemes and craftiness human craftiness it says

This is why I cut you know in a lot of ways as believers we need to have a one -track mind We need to be laser focused on the scriptures because they reveal the knowledge of the

Son of God Like does that does that make sense like we need to be like really just like a one -track mind almost obsessed with it

That should be our obsession. What is what is the word of what does God say to us? Because if we love

Christ and we say we do we sing about how we do If we love God, we want to show our love for God by doing what he says

That's the that's the key And so if we're gonna manifest our unity in Christ with our black brothers and sisters if with our

Latino brothers and sisters our poor brothers our rich brothers If we're gonna manifest our unity with our

Republican brothers and our Democrat brothers We have to be laser focused on the scripture because they reveal the knowledge of the

Son of God If we're not the danger is this if we're not

Focused on the scriptures and the revelation of the knowledge of the Son of God We try let's just say we we put that aside and we try to implement the world strategies for achieving unity.

I Guarantee you it will lead to more division. I Guarantee it

There's in a recent video. I was I was very critical of a very famous pastor and author who

I love I Love this guy his sermons and writings have been such a blessing to me and You know very formative in my early years of being a

Christian But he recently had come out and advertised that part of his pastor search committee

He was trying to find a pastor for one of his churches. He was using skin color as a qualification

He wanted to hire a black man. And so he said very publicly I'm willing to overlook these other qualifications in favor of skin color.

And that was his strategy to promote unity and diversity in his church And so I was very critical of that.

I Was very critical because what I did was it's very simple. I want one track mind, right? I look at the scripture.

I Look at the place where we go when we want to find unity and faith the unity of knowledge of the Son of God That's where I went.

I went to the scripture and I saw that skin color was not a qualification of elder So I said

I was critical of it I went back to the scripture again because you want to be humble about this you want to see what's going on with this kind of a strategy for unity

I went to the scripture that's the place where we look for unity of faith and of the knowledge of the

Son of God and I saw that Essentially the Bible says that that showing partiality based on stupid things like skin color.

For example, that's sinful And so as a believer I hear a famous pastor telling me what he's doing to achieve unity

People cheering it and then I look at the Bible and say well No but that's not what you do to achieve unity and so I know for a fact it's an easy criticism to make because I know

For a fact that scheme will not produce the desired result. It will not promote unity

Now I know that that pastor's heart was in the right place he wants to promote church unity between black and white and so do

I but the problem is that a Scheme that is based on human cunning

Will never work It will never work and the scripture demonstrates that it will never work

See the consequences of not looking to scripture are very high They're very high if we do not stick to the

Holy Word of God on these issues of unity in the church It will make our apparent division worse and not better and again

I stress you cannot do anything about the actual unity. We have the unity we have with black and white

Christians is You can't change it Christ accomplish. It's perfect, but I'm talking about what people see

If we stick to the Word of God We won't have these apparent Division issues that we currently do now and if you try to implement human cunning

You'll drive a wedge between the races deeper instead of building bridges and so I'm passionate about this kind of stuff about the unity of the church because I I love

God and I love his church and I want to see it Manifest the unity that we have in Christ better than it does right now

And I know the only way to do it is through the scripture Now this is a kind of a funny comment

I made I don't know if it's actually true but I Bet you it is. This is a very small church and If you look at our church, it's very small and you you go by percentages

I think we probably have the most diverse church in Vermont. I Really do

I Mean you count me and my kids You of course you count

Andrew. I think we're doing pretty good and The thing is though and I'm joking about it, but it's true

I mean we didn't get here by human cunning, right? We didn't get here by a man -made diversity initiative

The way that we got here is Because we have unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the

Son of God. We love God. We love his church and God just so happened to see fit to bring us together in this configuration for his own glory

And we thank God for that. That's a beautiful thing that Diversity is a beautiful thing in the

Church of God But the unity that we have It's not because of what we do and how we try to set things up and we'll bring in a black pastor here

And then maybe we'll get some black people here No the Unity that we have is of the knowledge of the Son of God and God gets the glory for bringing the people that he wants to bring together together and So I pray that we continue to demonstrate our eagerness to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace

And I ask God that he would do his will in every church around the country to grant us a commitment to the scriptures and a

Commitment to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God that we can achieve with them.

Let's pray Lord God, I thank you for the clarity of Paul's words

God I I thank you for the clarity that Paul had last week in chapter 2 when he talked about the unity that Christ accomplished for us on the cross

Killing the dividing wall of hostility. I Thank you so much for that Lord that that reality is real

No matter what it looks like we have that unity with brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia Everywhere where where they named the name of Christ We're grateful that we're fellow citizens that we're of the same household that that's just such an amazing

Mystery that you revealed and so thank you for that word, but I Acknowledge that even though we have that foundational fundamental unity that sometimes it does we don't act like it

We don't act like it and sometimes that can be across denominational lines. Sometimes that could be across ethnic lines

Economic level lines. There's all kinds of things that we manifest division when we actually have unity

And so I pray God that you would give us Give us the the eagerness to maintain the unity that we already have

God give us the eagerness to Remember that there's one Lord There's one

Lord God and and we We know that we're responsible for for sometimes not acting like we have unity with people

But God, I pray that you would change our hearts God that you would remind us of where we find our unity How we achieve it

God and and that you we would be laser focused on the scriptures and on the doctrine that brings us to together

Lord that we would Never seek to implement our own schemes or even God forbid the world schemes to achieve unity

But rather we recognize that those things are false unity Those things are appearances of unity, but not the real unity we have in Christ I pray

Lord that we would be laser focus on the scriptures God I pray that you would be humble to realize that you know

Maybe we're not understanding the things the way we we ought to God I pray that we would be patient with our brothers that we would not seek to anathema ties people that don't see things the same way

We do God that we would be eager to to bear with people because we're all kind of We're all understanding who you are and and and and knowing who you are

Better every single day and so let us give grace to people who you know in our opinion might not understand the way we do

Because we have to remember that we don't understand the way we should So I pray

God for unity I pray for us to be patient out for us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ all around the world in Jesus name