Walking in Unity (Ephesians 4:1-6)

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Well, let's go ahead and turn in your Bibles.

Meet me at the book of Ephesians. Please meet me at the book of Ephesians. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. Ephesians, you get to Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews, James, Revelation. You've gone too far. Come on back. Ephesians. Ephesians, and we'll be beginning our reading at Ephesians chapter 4, and we'll be looking at the first six verses of Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, beginning at verse 1.

Hear now God's word. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father over all, who is above all and through all and in all. Well, that ends the reading of God's Word today.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. These are some of the most beautiful words that are spoken in the scriptures and I'm excited to dig in to them with you today as we look at how do we have unity in the church.

Well, as many of you know, my wife and I were wedding photographers, and there are many illustrations that I give about being a wedding photographer because it's so central to the human experience, weddings and marriage. And one of the favorite things I have at weddings is when there are the anniversary dances. I love the anniversary dance.

Have you ever seen this before, where people all get on the dance floor, the DJ invites all the couples out, and all the couples dance to a slow song. And as they're dancing, he'll say, if you have been married for 10 minutes, get off the dance floor, and the couple leaves.

And then he says, one week, and another couple leaves. And he keeps going, he keeps going, until they find out who is the couple that's there who's been married the longest. And then at the end of the dance, the DJ always goes up to them and asks them for advice.

So they bring the couple, and they bring the old couple together, and they always ask, what advice would you give them to have a happy marriage? And it's amazing what happens at that point. You'll hear people in the crowd around the dance floor go, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, right?

Because everybody wants to hear, what is the advice? What is it that's going to make this marriage strong? What is it that's going to bind these two together? What is it that gives such longevity? I always loved listening to these wise and old married couples.

What is it that they would tell their young family members? And time and time and time again it was, love them, let the little stuff go, and serve them. love them, let the little stuff go, and serve them. That's how I would summarize the many answers that we heard over years of photographing and hearing these little tidbits of advice.

And so Paul is telling us today, how do we achieve unity in the church? And just as kind of a table of contents or a roadmap of where we're going today, the first is that there is a unity even within the book. And then after that, there is a unity that we have with each other. After that, we're going to see that we need to fight for unity. There's a plea for unity. And lastly, there are going to be several grounds of unity. And so as we look at that, and how do we get unity, this is where we need to start. And we need to start at saying that there is a unity within this book itself.

So look with me at chapter 4, verse 1. Just the first couple words. The prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling which you were called." The second word in that sentence, therefore, ties what Paul is saying here to the full three chapters that came before it. Now there's a big switch that happens here in the book of Ephesians. Ephesians is six chapters, and the first three chapters are all about truth. All about Paul telling and praying for the people. All Paul saying, here's what God has done. Here's what God has done in you. Here's who you are in Jesus. Now it goes, beginning at chapter four, into what we are to do or how we are to walk in light of that.

They can't be divorced, and they can't be put opposite orientation. You can't read chapters 4, 5, and 6 before you read 1, 2, and 3. Because, see, it's interesting here, the truth statements are the foundation for the commands that are coming. In the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians, there was one commandment. Let me say that again. In the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians, there was one commandment. Now in the last three chapters, chapters 4, 5, and 6, there are 39 commands. So chapters 1 through 3, the truth statements. Chapters 4, 5, and 6, the live statements.

But they cannot be divorced from each other, and so each week as we get into these sections, we're going to have to just remember, and I'm going to bring our minds back again and again and again, that this is not legalism, but this is because we are in Christ.

We can't do any of what we're about to look at today with unity, Without Christ, if we try to do so, we're going to fall flat on our face, we're going to get frustrated, and indeed, we can even succeed at the moral commandments and fail at the goal of loving God.

Second Point

And so let's look even more at what does Paul tell us to do. He tells us our second point is to walk in union with each other. Walk in union with each other. And so I want to look with you at verse 2. Paul says in verse 1, walk worthy of the calling which you were called. That's again bringing our minds back to chapter 1. It was God who called us, it was God who redeemed us, it was God who gave His Holy Spirit to us, and now in light of that we are to walk in the Holy Spirit. accordance with that calling. His Holy Spirit's in you, you're united to Jesus, so now how are you to walk?

Well, there are three fruits in verse 2. So let's look at verse 2 together. How are we to walk with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love? The first fruit of our union with Jesus and how we walk in light of that union is in humility.

In humility. The New King James Version says, with all loneliness. This is a loneliness of mind. This is a low esteem of ourselves. This is realizing who we really were in chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. That we really were those who were dead in our trespasses and sins. that when we think of ourselves more lowly, then we are being more like Christ. We need to have a low estimate of who we are.

See, this is different than what the world says. What does the world tell you you're supposed to think about yourself? We are in a culture that's filled with self-help, that's filled with you're able to do this, which is filled with mindfulness and thinking about yourself and looking deep down into yourself for the answers for how you'll be made better. And the scriptures are saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to think lower of yourself than that. You need to think more of God and less of yourself. You need to not lift yourself up, but you need to lower yourself down.

This is exactly what God tells us Jesus did in Philippians chapter 2. It was Jesus who was in the exact image of his father, and yet counted it worth humbling himself. and coming in the likeness of man to serve you, to care for you. Jesus was lowly. Jesus came as he told his disciples to serve and not to be served. Do you remember that day at Passover when Jesus washed the disciples' feet? He considered them higher than himself. He was there to serve them.

If we're going to have unity with each other, if we're going to have unity in the church, if you're just going to have unity with relationships in your life, if the Spirit of Christ is in you, God is conforming you more and more to Jesus. And He is making you more and more humble.

So as you look upon your Savior and you see that humble, that lowly Savior, that's the path we're to walk. We walk in that way. But verse 2 also tells us our second fruit. So the first fruit is lowliness. The second fruit is gentleness. The idea of gentleness here is softness or mildness or meekness. Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 11, come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. And then he goes on, he says, for I am gentle and humble in spirit. He is meek and mild. It is Jesus Christ who is gentle.

This might seem like an odd transition, but we have these cats at our house. I'm sure some of you, ooh, cats, that's fine. Some people are cat people, some people are not cat people. We're not inside cat people, but they keep the mice out from the country, and so they're good to have around the house. But I've never seen cats like our cats. See, my experience with cats is that they're generally shy, and if you try to pick them up, they're not very nice or aloof.

But these cats that we have came from another farm, And when that family brought these cats, they were skittish at first, but now something happens. We have this four-year-old, and what he'll do is he'll just scoop up those cats, and sometimes it's not from the right end, sometimes their legs are up and their head is down, and they just go floppy. And they just let him carry them around. They let this child just pick them up. Even though we know full well that those cats can do a lot of devastation to that little boy, they're gentle with him. This idea is played over into Christ, that he's like the lamb who goes to the shears. He doesn't fight, he doesn't kick, he didn't fight against it, but he willingly, gently went to the shears.

We're to have that spirit in us that we would be gentle, not always fighting, not always harsh, not always mean, but gentle, soft towards one another. Well, the third fruit that we see here in chapter two that's flowing from our union with Jesus that makes us united together is the fruit of long suffering. So verse two, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering.

With long suffering. This is the idea of suppressing your own anger. This is forbearance. See, there are some people in the church or there are some of you who have spouses that you have to suffer long. The Lord knows that my wife, Olivia, has to suffer long with my forgetfulness. but it's purposely putting aside that anger. It's purposely suppressing that in love.

That's one of the beautiful things, again, that we see in Jesus. One of the most remarkable stories in the book of John is when Peter denies Jesus those three times. It's interesting what the text says there. When Peter denies Jesus the third time, it says that he looked at Jesus and the Lord looked at him. You can imagine the eyes of Christ, his Lord, looking upon him. He had told him it was going to happen. And imagine if you had been betrayed like that by one of your best friends. Wouldn't you be upset? Wouldn't you be angry? Wouldn't you want to scream and say, you liar! You betrayer! You blasphemer! You coward! But Jesus doesn't do any of that.

Because He loves Peter, He looks at him and those eyes of compassion, that meekness and that humbleness that He sees in His Lord's face, Peter weeps uncontrollably and runs away. And then when Jesus is raised again from the dead and he sees Peter again upon that shore, he meekly and mildly asks, Peter, Peter, do you love me? He said, of course, Lord. And he asks him again, Peter, do you love me? He says, you know I love you, and Jesus looks at him again, and you can see the eyes of compassion. And as Peter is looking into those same eyes that he had once betrayed, God asks him one more time, Peter, do you love me? Jesus suppresses any righteous anger that he might have and has love for him instead.

See, as we are united to Jesus, that same composition that's those same attributes that we look at Jesus and we go yes that is my Savior God is telling you here now the Spirit of Christ is living in you these are not somehow unattainable characteristics yes they are goals and we have to work at them but it is part of what God is doing and bearing up good fruit in you again it's not by yourself but it is tying back to Ephesians 2 10 See, God prepared in beforehand good works that you might walk in them.

But it is interesting to note here, this isn't ideal la-la land, okay? This is hard work. I want you to notice what the rest of verse two says, or verse three, sorry. Endeavoring, nope, verse two. with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love." Let me say that again. Bearing with one another in love.

Are there people in the church that you bear? Are there people in the congregation that it's hard for you to naturally like. You can be honest with yourself. The church isn't this place where a homogenous bunch of people get together and all of a sudden, oh look, everything is wonderful. No, there are people that we naturally wouldn't like. This was true in the church during the Ephesian time. Paul is writing to a church with Jewish people and Gentile people. And he's telling them, you're going to live with each other, bear with one another, in love.

Why? Because you're one body in Christ. Now, I just want to take a rabbit trail here for a second, and let me encourage you that online church right now is both easy and dangerous. Let me say that again. Online church is both easy and dangerous. Why?

Because right now, you get to tune in, you get to go on the website, open up Facebook, however you're going to this, on YouTube maybe, and you're just, you're taking it in, you're trying to be worshipful, you're trying to listen, you're trying, but the reality is, you might have your family around you, but you don't have to see that other person that irks you. have to volunteer your time to disciple other people's children. See, the church was called to do many things with one another.

God tells us just a few things that we are to love one another, 1 John 2.11, that we're to instruct one another, Romans 15.4, that we're to serve one another, Galatians 5.13, that we're to encourage one another, to exhort one another, Hebrews 10.24-25, that we're to admonish and sing with one another, Ephesians 5.16, that we're to build one another up, 1 Thessalonians 5.11.

We are to do all those things together, and right now we are apart. Right now, you're in your home, and they're in their home, and we don't have to bear with one another. And that tension, that rub that happens, is supposed to happen. Because as we live life together, that is one of the furnaces of sanctification. That is one of the ways in which God turns up the heat to burn away the dross.

See, we need one another because in doing that we get to show love to one another. There's a danger in the church, the natural danger in every church, the natural danger that's built up in my heart and that's there in your heart. is to make the church about, number one, me.

I don't like the way this is going in church because it doesn't serve me. I don't like the way that pastor says those things. I don't like it. I just don't like it. I don't like the way that church is run in this way. I don't like the way that they dress when they come to church. I don't like the way the worship service is. I don't want, and it's not serving me, and we have a consumeristic type view of church throughout the U.S., and God is telling us here, you got the wrong focus.

We don't grow in unity, in love with one another by looking inward at my wants, my desires, what I need. We look outward at who God is, what God has done, and how we are to live as instruments of love towards one another. So we indeed must be those who are bearing with one another in love. But verse three tells us that this isn't easy. Look with me at verse three. See, the New King James doesn't do it justice there. The word there for endeavoring to keep is the idea of zealously protecting. God wants you to zealously protect the unity in the church. God wants you to zealously protect your unity with other Christians.

It is easy for church folk to fight. Oh man, it is easy for us to pick a grief with someone. It is easy for me to be dissatisfied with how someone else is raising their kids. It is easy for me to be dissatisfied in how someone else reads their Bible.

It is easy for me to look down my nose at others and God is telling us here in chapter 4, verse 3, that we must zealously hold on to. We must with zeal grasp it. We need to hold on to it and not let it go. Unity needs to be one of the core things the church is about. And again, this is not unity just looking over sin. This is not throwing away doctrine just to make people happy. but this is about true unity, about looking at the gospel and saying, hold on, that stuff is superfluous, whatever, that's extra, that's a secondary, tertiary, quadduciary means, I don't care, whatever, I don't care what color the carpet is, I don't care what color the pews are, those things don't matter, we can meet at 10.15 or we can meet at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, okay, Are we going to be central in the gospel? Is Jesus Christ going to be preached? Are people going to be lifted up unto their eyes, lifted up unto God? Is God going to be exalted? Is his word going to be taught? Do we zealously fight for the essentials? And again, this does not mean that we just ignore things. No, indeed.

We need to be peacemakers, and peacemakers are people who do not stray away from those things, but with forbearance, with patience, with humility, and with gentleness, go to people who are sinning against us. If there is actual sin, we don't just say, hold on, we want unity and we want peace, so we're just gonna ignore it and push it away.

No, that's just gonna make the problem grow worse. But in Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 through 19, God gives us principles for peace, for conflict resolution, for when our brother is sinning against us and our goal is forgiveness, our goal is repentance, our goal is bringing people back together for true unity.

God says, if you have someone who has an offense against you, what are you to do? Go talk to that person one-on-one. And if that doesn't work, and this is an open sin, and more people see this than just you, go take someone else and try to bring them back together. Try to bring this person to the Scriptures and back to the Gospel and see that together. If they still won't, take it to the church, tell the elders. Go tell John in our church. Go tell John. Go tell Jim. Go tell myself.

Let's get together so the elders can add some weight to this and some wisdom and say, let's bring this back. Let's get this conflict worked out. Let's deal with this biblically. It's not about sweeping things under the rug, but it's about zealously protecting the unity in the church. So there are times There are times when we need to look at the issues that are going on in the church. And if you've been going and talking to people about an issue in the church and not doing anything about it, I would encourage you to go do something.

Either take it to the Lord in prayer and say, Lord, I'm just going to forbear this in love, and I'm just going to let it go. I'm going to cover it over in love. Or are you going to say, Lord, This is an issue of real sin, and my heart keeps being burdened down by it. I need to stop talking to people, and I need to go talk with that person one-on-one. I need to give them a phone call. I need to send them a Marco Polo. You need to go and talk to those people, but talk to them with gentleness, with humility, with long-suffering, covering things over in love.

See, it's amazing when Paul says that in Ephesians chapter 3, it reminds me of what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, when he tells us how love acts. Right? Love suffers long and is kind. 1 Corinthians 13, 4. Love suffers long. Love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. Love is not puffed up. Love does not behave rudely. Love does not seek his own. Love is not provoked. Love thinks no evil. Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but love rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Love endures all things. Our basis for unity of conflict resolution, our basis for unity in gentleness, in humility, in long-suffering, is love that we see in God. And that's alive in you. His Holy Spirit is in you. And that's where I want to go to next.

I want you to see that there are seven different grounds for unity that Paul gives in the next few verses. There are seven different grounds for unity that Paul gives in the next few verses. Look with me at Ephesians chapter 4, verses 4 through 6. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. Seven different grounds we have for unity. First ground is that we are one body. You are one body. We, being many, are one in the body of Christ. We are one body.

We can't boast against each other. The hand can't say to its mouth, to the mouth, I don't need you. Right? There are parts of the body that are feet, and people serve, and people walk, and they got calluses on them, and they are doing hard work. There are some people, part of the body, that they are a right hand, and they are strength, and they are good for the body. But the pinky toe can't say, why am I not an arm? Because you might be the pinky toe, and we need you to give us balance.

See, we are one body. We are also one spirit. We are one Spirit. There's no one who's able to say, oh, hold on, I got more of the Spirit. Oh, hold on, I got more of Christ than you do. Oh, hold on, I got the Spirit and you don't. No. No, when we realize that that person who we don't like, whom you don't really care for on the other side of the pew, is indwelt with the Spirit of God, that's someone who has the same Spirit that's alive in you.

You are no better than them. They're no better than you. But in the church we are on equal grounds, one body, one spirit, one hope. We are called by God to be in Christ. He's not more of my Father than He is of your Father. He's not more my God than He is your God. It's not like somehow I am united to Jesus more than you are united to Jesus, or that somehow you have more of the promises than I have of the promises.

No, no, no. No, we all have this one hope, this first three chapters of Ephesians. We all know that we are all the church, all of us who believe in Jesus Christ, who have been made alive by His Spirit, who have been called. We all have this one hope, the hope of Jesus Christ. We all have one body, one spirit, one hope, and we all have one Lord. There's a reason why we started with Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is Echad, one. The Lord is one. One of the favorite terms for Jesus in all the epistles and all the letters of the New Testament, they call him again and again and again, Lord. Kurios in the Greek. Yahweh in the flesh. It is Jesus Christ.

We have one Lord. We have one Savior who sits upon His throne in heaven. We have one Sovereign Master whom we serve. We have one Lord. And this one Lord, this holding on to one Lord, Jesus Christ, was such a central part of the ancient church. that when Caesar told them that everyone had to confess that Caesar is Lord, Caesar is Kurios, Christians would say, I would rather die than say that Caesar is Lord. Because I have one Lord. His name is Jesus Christ. You have one Lord.

And when we fix our eyes upon our Lord, when we get our eyes off of me and onto Him, It brings us closer together. That's an amazing thing that happens even in marriages. As two people look more and more up to God, as they look more and more, if the two people are these sides of the triangle, and Christ is here, as they continue to look more and more to Christ, their marriage will get closer and closer and stronger and stronger. When we look to Christ, our one Lord, It brings, it fosters, it grows more unity.

And we have one faith, we have all one faith, when we all believe this one reality that God the Father chose us, called us, that the Son redeemed us, that the Holy Spirit is in us, applying the gifts of redemption to us, when we have that one faith, It puts us all on the same ground. That we look to Jesus, who is that cornerstone, the foundation of our faith. When we look there, we have a basis upon which we can stand strong and united together. When we have one faith, we're able to come side by side as comrades in this battle of life, and we're able to stand firm as a phalanx, and we're able to guard off the attacks of Satan. You are able to do this, Church. because I know the Holy Spirit is alive in you. We have unity in our one faith.

We also have unity in our one baptism. This is why it's so important that when Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 28, that he told the disciples, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, and then they were baptized into the name, one name, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We are baptized into that one name with that one baptism. We are baptized into that triune God.

The Spirit who is alive there is the one who put us to death with Christ and raised us with his resurrection. He has justified us, he has cared for us, and he is building you up, church. He's caring for his church. His covenant is still going strong.

The promises that are there in baptism of his people truly being his blood bought people brings us unity. Let me ask you, did Jesus have to pay more blood to redeem you than me? No, no. He shed His blood for all of us. His blood, which is more costly, more precious than any silver or gold. He redeemed you at the same price that He redeemed me. And it cost Him everything.

And we are baptized into that name, into that faith, with that same Spirit. when we start seeing that all of us are on that equal playing field of sinners. As one commentator said it beautifully, he said, we are one congregation of redeemed rebels. All of us together are a congregation of redeemed rebels. All of us are baptized with that one baptism.

But lastly, that final ground is we have one God and Father who is above all. and through all and in all. It is God the Father who is the highly and exalted One. It is God who has called you. It is God who has elected His people. It is God who has set forth His plan of redemption. It is God who redeemed His people and it is God who is going to preserve His people.

It is our Father who is totally transcended. The highest of the heavens cannot contain Him, for the heavens are but His throne. And yet God is not so totally transcendent that He doesn't care about you. Indeed, the text tells us that He is also imminent, that He is also close to you. He is in all and through all of us.

See, we have a great bond of unity together, church. We have a family together. We have one body together. We can bear with one another in love because God has loved us. We can't do this on our own. I'm gonna encourage you, if you've thought that we can just have a happy-go-lucky church and things are just gonna be just fine if we just try hard enough, no. That's not how church unity is obtained. but it's by looking to Christ and walking in a manner according with our calling, that when we look to Christ and that when Christ is deep down in us, that we will bear these fruits. as we repent of our own self-righteousness, as we repent of our own selfishness, as we repent of our hardness, as we repent of our unloving nature towards other people around us, as we repent of just sweeping things under the rug. When we walk in a manner according with this, God is glorified and he builds up his church. He teaches us to love one another. So brothers and sisters, If Christ is in you, walk in humility. If Christ has redeemed you, walk in gentleness. If the Spirit is alive and active in you, forbear one another in love. If God is in you, continue to look up to Him.

Closing Prayer

Plead with Him to grow these fruits in you as His disciples. as we learn to walk in unity together. Well, let's pray. Oh God, we thank you so much for the work that you are doing in your church. We thank you, Father, for your love and for your mercy. We thank you for your kindness, your forbearance, your mercy, your humiliation of yourself that you would come in the likeness of a man to see sinners, rebels like us. God, please, Lord, please build up your church Let us have true biblical unity. In Jesus' name, Amen.

We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.