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>> Our gracious, loving, heavenly Father, we bow in your presence. May your word be
our rule, your Holy Spirit our teacher and your greater glory our supreme concern through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
John Lennon's song "Imagine" must be one of the most popular songs of the late 20th century.
It's appeal lies not just in the catchy tune but in the compelling vision it presents.
Many of us know the words. “Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say
I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us and the world
will be as one.” And how we long for a world that is as one, a world completely united.
Free from the bitter hostilities that have divided humanity, down the centuries - divisions
of creed, color and class.
Sometimes progress is made and the world rejoiced when the 20th century’s greatest symbol
of division - the Berlin Wall - was toppled. When four years later, apartheid in South
Africa was dismantled and yet for the wise, the joy is always tinged with sadness and
we recognize that progress in one place is always matched by conflict in another, between
Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East, between the Taliban and allied forces in Afghanistan,
between Muslims and Christians in Sudan, Nigeria, many other places. In one sense we've never
been more united. We live in a truly global society drawn together by the worldwide web.
We watch the same television programs. We drink the same colas and yet we're as divided
as ever.
And Christians aren't surprised by that. We know that as soon as human beings push God
out of the world, inevitably division follows. We're divided from him. We’re divided from
creation. We're divided from one another. And the low point, of course, was the Tower
of Babel, as God in his judgment scattered human beings to different areas, different
languages. There’s division which grieves us. But Christians will never despair because
we know that God has a cosmic, eternal plan to put everything right. It's the great plan
we've been thinking about as we've studied Ephesians. The plan chapter 1:10 to unite
all things in Christ. Things in heaven and on earth. And God promised to fulfil that
plan to Abraham. He said through the seed of Abraham, all nations will be blessed and
brought together.
And we live in the days of fulfilment, praise God. As Christ on the cross, he opened his
arms wide that he might draw all peoples to himself, all who through faith will trust
in his sacrificial death for them and then he sent the Lord Jesus his people into the
nations to proclaim the Gospel. By the Spirit, the Spirit is drawing people to believe in
Christ through the Gospel. He's drawing people together to God and to one another and the
fruit of that great work of gathering by the Spirit through the Gospel is local churches
scattered around the world. They look so unimpressive, sometimes just a few people in a home. And
yet, that unimpressive little local church is appointed to the future, a foretaste of
the perfect unity of everything. And so in a world of division, our world should look
to the diverse group of Christians in any local church, different personalities, different
backgrounds, sometimes different races and say, wow, how those Christians love one another.
Yet often we know, far from being attracted by our unity, the world is repelled by the
divisions within local churches and across local churches. It's a tragedy and it's why
the theme of this great passage is so urgent. It's bound together by the theme of unity.
I want us to talk about two great truths which Paul proclaims. Christian unity requires,
number one, an outworking of God's call and number two, a proclamation of God's word.
So number one, Christian unity requires an outworking of God's call. Look at verse one.
“I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling
to which you've been called.” Here's a great turning point of the letter.
In the light of all Paul has said of what God has done for us, and in us, binding us
together in Christ, he says therefore, here is how you are to live. And from chapter four
onwards, he spells out the implications of the amazing work of Christ in us by the Spirit.
And he begins with the vital importance of living together in unity. Unity is at the
heart of God's plan and unity must be the first thing that we're urgently trying to
spell out and live out.
Do notice verse three, we're not urged to become united. We're rather to be eager to
maintain the unity of the Spirit. Christian unity is not first and foremost something
we can achieve. It's a fact, a fact because of the saving work of God himself. Verse four,
“there's one body and one Spirit just as you recall 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.” We are one body because we've been called by the one
God, the Father, through the one Spirit to believe in the one Lord, Jesus Christ, and
although we are very different, that's obvious as we look around us. We share one faith,
one baptism, one hope. Our unity is not organizational or denominational. It is spiritual.
The 20th century could be called the ecumenical century. The momentum for the great ecumenical
movement began exactly 100 years ago at the Edinburgh missionary conference. Christians
committed to mission, gathered from around the world with a noble aim of the evangelization
of the world in this generation. They recognize many of the divisions between Christian groups
were not only obstacles to mission but were in an affront to God. And they resolved to
work towards visible unity. There was much that was very good and very right about that.
But as time went by, a concern for unity led to a marginalization of doctrinal truth and
ecumenism drifted into what Jim Packer has called ecumania, in his phrase “The uncontrollable
urge to merge” with his mantra, “love unites, doctrine divides.” There’s been
a trend to a lowest common denominator kind of theology, which is being willing to water
down or even abandoned core doctrines in order to keep people together. So the hand of unquestioning
Christian fellowship has been offered even to those who denied fundamental truths: the
uniqueness of Christ, the sanctity of marriage is the only context for *** intercourse,
all in the name of unity.
That's not the unity of the Spirit that Paul is speaking about here. This unity of the
Spirit is not something that we can create by ecumenical effort. It's the unity that
God has created by the Spirit through the gospel. It is spiritual, it is evangelical
unity, which hasn’t sidelined truth. And God has used truth to bring it about.
Chapter 1 and verse 13, Paul says “you also were included in Christ when you heard the
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” Through the truth, through the Gospel by the
Spirit, we are one family in Christ with all converted people made alive by the miraculous
work of God and now Paul calls us to live out the implications of that truth to walk,
verse one, in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called.
Lindsay Brown in his excellent book which speaks of Christian work in universities throughout
the world gives a very good example of just this kind of living out the unity we've received.
He describes a time of great tension in Burundi between Tutsis and Hutus and a number of Hutus
were killed on campus as a result of tribal fighting, and so many of their fellow Hutus
fled to the mountains, at which their Tutsi Christian fellow students followed them. They
brought food and clothing first to the Christians and then to others. As a result of that action,
some of them were rejected by their families because they put the claims of Christ and
their fellow Christians above allegiance to tribe and family.
But the non-Christian Principal of that university said this. He said, “Our culture is disintegrating.
On our campus there are three types of people: there are Hutus, there are Tutsis and there
are Christians. If our culture is to survive, we must follow the example of the Christians.”
It's a very challenging example. Too often we only make the effort to offer fellowship
or love to Christians exactly like us - same tribe, same race, same class, same grouping,
same convictions and every minor detail. You must know of the notice outside one church
which said this. We are a pre-millennial, dispensationalist, single rapture church and
we welcome all who are one with us in Christ Jesus.
We all do it in different ways. We put barriers up. We imply that you're only really welcome
if you're exactly like us. And Paul says, no. Be eager to maintain the unity of the
Spirit. And that begins not with commissions to discuss organizational unity. They have
their place. It begins not with great global congresses like this. This has its place.
But it begins with a daily battle against sin in local churches.
Recall verse two, “to live with all humility and gentleness.” So often our divisions
are not because of theological principle but pride as we ignore those who are different,
treat them as if they're beneath us, think ourselves as so important. We strut around
expecting everyone to fit in with our preferences. We take offense quickly, we nurse grievances
and Paul says, no. Bear with one another in love. It's only by the gracious love of God
that we belong to his family. And that gracious love is to be the model for our relationships
within the local church and the cross our dealings with other churches, with other organizations
so that we look at other people and don't immediately think difference. It's easy to
do. They're not like us. They’re Armenian. They’re Calvinist. They're charismatic.
They’re conservative. They’re Baptist. They’re Presbyterian rather than seeing
the born-again believers first and foremost Christian. We're brothers and sisters. We're
family. Love for those who are like us, said someone, is ordinary. Love for those who are
unlike us is extraordinary. Love for those who dislike us is revolutionary. That is the
kind of love to which our Lord God calls us. Christian unity requires an outworking of
God's call.