Called to Unity

Pastor Melinda Song

I never imagined a day when I would be glad to see all the seats in the sanctuary empty during a Sunday celebration worship service. That was what happened on 15 October 2017 and I was ecstatic with joy. Everyone was in a care group; no one was left out, not even the visitors. 

Ephesians 4:1-6, NIV 

1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

In Paul’s letters the first half are usually doctrinal and the second half are practical. Thus Paul spent the first 3 chapters of the book of Ephesians telling them about the things that the Lord has done for them. In the second half of the book, from Chapter 4 onwards, Paul tells them how they should respond to what the Lord has done for them. 

They are to live a life worthy of their calling as Christians which is seen when there is unity in the body of Christ.  

Unity is powerful

• 3 musketeers

• United we stand, divided we fall.

• In a Peanuts cartoon Lucy demanded that Linus change TV channels, threatening him with her fist if he didn't. "What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?" asks Linus. "These five fingers," says Lucy. "Individually they're nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold." "Which channel do you want?" asks Linus. Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"

• Tower of Babel

• Psalm 133

Unity is beautiful

• Synchronised diving

• Dancers in a ballet corp

• Football players on the field

• Migrating animals  

The key verse is found in verse 3 – Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit. The church must WORK at attaining and maintaining unity. 

• Unity is every leader’s challenge

• Unity is every believer’s choice

THE PROBLEM

People are the problem. We are the problem. 

We are all porcupines.

The German philosopher Schopenhauer compared the human race to a bunch of porcupines huddling together on a cold winter’s night. He said, ‘The colder it gets outside, the more we huddle together for warmth; but the closer we get to one another, the more we hurt one another with our sharp quills. And in the lonely night of earth’s winter eventually we begin to drift apart and wander out on our own and freeze to death in our loneliness.’” (Wayne Brouwer, Holland, Michigan. Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 2)

James writes, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (James 4:1). 

We are all different with individual opinions and preferences.Compounded by our selfish natures, misunderstandings and offences lead to hurt, which later results in bitterness. But discord, dissension, and factions are works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19-21)

THE SOLUTION

1. Cultivate the attitudes essential for unity. 

Attitude is about your state of mind; your mental and emotional position - and the expression of that in your daily dealings with events, with people and with God.

Ephesians 4:2, NIV

2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 

John Stott refers to these as the “five foundation stones of Christian unity.” Many of these qualities are inter-related and sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between them 

Humble

In Paul’s day, ‘humility’ was considered a weakness or character flaw by the Greeks and the Romans. They did not have a word for ‘humility’ in their language.

So Paul created a new Greek word ‘tapeinophrosune’ whichliterally means “lowliness of mind”, which is considered one of the supreme virtues in Christianity. 

In Philippians 2, Paul showcases the Jesus as the supremeexample of humility (Phil. 2:5-11) and he calls us to have this same attitude of humility and lowliness that Christ had.

We are not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Instead, we are to think of others and their needs over ours. We choose not to assert ourselves or lord over other people. 

It’s an attitude and a life choice. 

Warning! Humble yourself before God humbles you!

Gentle 

Gentleness or meekness is usually associated with weakness but it actually implies great strength being withheld. Think of a burly biker holding his newborndaughter. He is a powerful giant who can easily crush the frail little baby. So he holds her gently.

We also tend to think that being gentle means being compliant, mild-mannered and complacent but someone who is gentle can still get quite angry when circumstances call for it. Remember Jesus when he cleared out the temple? 

Gentleness, does not mean never getting angry. It means getting angry at the right time, in the right measure, and for the right reason. This is what is meant in Ephesians 4:26, which says, “Be angry, and do not sin.”

Patient 

The word here can also be translated long-suffering. This word was used when explosives were invented having a long fuse. Dynamite has the power to destroy and annihilatebut the length of the fuse will determine how fast it explodes. 

Here Paul calls us to have long fuses – the ability to bear insult and injury without bitterness and complaint.

All of us have power to cause a lot of destruction with our words and actions so we need to make sure we have a long fuse on our power. We are to exercise self-restraint, be self-controlled when provoked. We have a spirit which refuses to retaliate.

God’s patience toward us is the perfect example of patience. God, in His incredible patience works with us, and time after time forgives us. We should do so to others as well.

Bearing with one another

To bear with one another means to “put up with one another’s short comings.” It is like when parents put up with their children’s short comings because they love them andknow that they are maturing. 

We are all work in progress. Nobody is perfect, not me, not you. 

Love

This love is the unconditional, no-strings attached, unending, eternal agape love that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13. It is the kind of love God has for us. 

If we love someone with agape love, it means that nothing he or she can do or does not do will make us seek anything but the highest good for them. It is the ability to love the unlovable, to love those who hate you and to love those who don’t want your love.

It is not an emotional love but a love bound to the will. It is the kind of love that keeps marriages going when the honeymoon is over. It is the kind of love that allows Christians to walk in unity.

We should do a heart-check once in a while using these fiveattitudes to find out whether we are living a life worthy of the calling we have received. 

2. Celebrate our diversity 

Unity is not uniformity – we are not robots or clones. 

Biblical unity comes from within and is a spiritual grace, while uniformity is the result of pressure from without.

We come from different backgrounds with a multitude of gifts and abilities. Our differences are not removed but are blended by God and moulded into one. We complement one another and together we make the body of Christ whole and complete.

Ephesians 4:3, NIV 

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Verse 3a - Making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit

Unity is not easy so we must be willing to work extra hard to maintain it. It is a word that a trainer of gladiators in Rome might have used when he sent one of his men to fight to the death in the coliseum: “Make every effort to stay alive today!”

Notice that Paul is not calling us to create or produce unity. He is telling us to keep what we already have in Christ! Unity is given to us by God when we become Christians, and it is simply our task to maintain it in the Spirit.

The phrase unity of the Spirit is just a way of saying that we are all one in the Spirit through the Holy Spirit who indwells us when we become Christians. When we partake of Holy Communion we are reminded that we all make up the loaf of bread. 

Verse 3b - In the bond of peace 

“Bond” refers to a ligament or a tendon. Tendons attach muscle to bone and ligaments attach bone to bone. From a physiotherapist’s point of view, if you had a choice between breaking a bone or tearing a ligament/tendon; choose to break bone even though it seems like a more painful and dramatic option to choose from. Why? Because they are much harder to heal than bone when damaged. [https://www.coreconcepts.com.sg/article/better-to-break-a-bone/]

The Holy Spirit has bonded all believers together, making us one in the family of God. As the Spirit of the Lord works in our lives we begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, PEACE. 

Peace with others begins with peace with God. If you are not at peace with God, there is no way you can be at peace with others. It is only when the peace of God rules in our hearts that we can build unity with one another (Col. 3:15; Jas. 3:13-4:10).

3. Concentrate on what unites us. 

The church is Ephesus was a diverse church made up of both Jewish and Gentile Christians. They struggled with being unified because they were so different. 

In Ephesians 2, Paul called them to be at peace with each other. Now he tells them how. Instead of focusing on the differences that are between them, they should focus on what they have in common which will help them live in unity and love with one another.

We may have disagreements about what kind of music should be played or sung in church. We might have disagreements about how best to run the church. We might have disagreements about what to wear, what people can or cannot drink, what people can or cannot eat and what sort of activities we can or cannot do. Such things will always divide us. Let is focus instead on what we have in common.

Ephesians 4:4-6, NIV

4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Our unity in the body of Christ rests upon the common bondthat we share as members of His body. All of the elements Paul mentions – one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, one Father – are the fruit of our relationship with God, freely given to us by His grace. 

Unity in the church would be an absolute impossibility if it were solely up to us but a careful look will reveal that the Trinitarian God is the unifying factor. Unity in the biblical sense only comes when both parties or all individuals submit to the authority of God and confess the same thing that God says. 

If we focus only on your differences, there will never be peace. A humorous story sums this up.

Some years ago, the elders of a Dutch church decided to send some people over to America to check up on the moral condition of the churches here. The observers were horrified. They reported to the Dutch elders that American women wore makeup and wore expensive clothes. The Americans also drove big cars, had carpets in the sanctuaries, and had both a piano and an organ! As the Dutch elders heard this report, some of them burst into tears, and the tears ran down their cigars and into their beer.

Let’s not focus on what divides us. Let’s focus on the unity we have in Christ.

But note that there is one thing we cannot and must not sacrifice for the sake of unity. TRUTH is a non-negotiable. 

The rule is, “In essentials, unity; in doubtful questions, liberty; in all things, charity.”

CONCLUSION

‘Unity’ in the body of Christ is critical if the body is to be healthy.  The body of Christ is like our physical bodies.  If all of the organs in a person’s body are not working together for the good of the whole then the body is going to be ill and hampered from optimal and full functionality as a result. Without ‘unity’ the body of Christ is ineffective for the Lord.

A unified church is also an incredible testimony to non-believers of God’s working in and through our lives. The unity and diversity of God's people is to reflect the perfect harmony of love and diversity of working in Persons of the Trinity. The Church thus reveals the glory of God. 

‘Unity’ in the body of Christ is so important that in Jesus’ high priestly prayer for His disciples just before going to the cross was that His disciples then and on into the future might be “one.” He prayed: 

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17:20-23) 

Unity pleases God and it is there that He commands His blessing (Psalm 133). 

So is unity possible? Absolutely because it is of God. Unity is already ours. We only have to be diligent in preserving the bond of peace that the Holy Spirit has produced within us. It is our CHOICE to either keep (preserve) the unity or destroy it. 

Be A Peacemaker

Rev Gideon Lee

This morning, God laid this on my heart. To be a peacemaker. What does that mean? Does it mean that as a peacemaker you try to smooth things and not look at what's right? As Christians we are called to be a peacemaker. I want this morning to look at the scripture to see what it means to be a peacemaker.

The outline of my message is:

1. Do not let rage drive you.
2. To seek to be a peacemaker.
3. To speak to build others up.

One day there was a minister preaching in a church. He made a joke as an icebreaker. He said, I've been living with a woman for 17 years who's not my wife. It caught everyone by surprise.

Then he said, that woman is my mother. And he went on to preach a sermon on Mother's Day.

A preacher in the congregation heard his statement and he tried to say the same thing in his church on Sunday. He said I've a confession to make. I've been living with a woman for 17 years who's not my wife. But he missed the punchline. He stood there for 5 minutes and forgot what to say. So to remedy the situation, he said I've been living with a woman for 17 years and I've forgotten who she is.

1 Samuel 25:1-13

David, Nabal and Abigail

1 Now Samuel died, and all Israel assembled and mourned for him; and they buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David moved down into the Desert of Paran.

2 A certain man in Maon, who had property there at Carmel, was very wealthy. He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel. 3 His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband was surly and mean in his dealings—he was a Calebite.

4 While David was in the wilderness, he heard that Nabal was shearing sheep. 5 So he sent ten young men and said to them, “Go up to Nabal at Carmel and greet him in my name. 6 Say to him: ‘Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours!

7 “‘Now I hear that it is sheep-shearing time. When your shepherds were with us, we did not mistreat them, and the whole time they were at Carmel nothing of theirs was missing. 8 Ask your own servants and they will tell you. Therefore be favorable toward my men, since we come at a festive time. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them.’”

9 When David’s men arrived, they gave Nabal this message in David’s name. Then they waited.

10 Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. 11 Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?”

12 David’s men turned around and went back. When they arrived, they reported every word. 13 David said to his men, “Each of you strap on your sword!” So they did, and David strapped his on as well. About four hundred men went up with David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies.

David was driven by anger. Most of the time when we are angry we don't response. We react. I find that people in times like these tend to react in anger. He lost his cool and got angry. It could happen to anyone including me.

A study showed that most anger happens at home. The average man loses his temper 6 times a week while a woman only 3 times. Men gets angry at things while women gets angry with people. Men are more likely to react physically when angry. Like you see men hit the wall with their hand when angry. Don't know why they do that. Just hurting themselves. Most anger happens at home because that's where you are who you are. And usually it's towards those we love than to strangers.

Proverbs 16:32

Better a patient person than a warrior,

one with self-control than one who takes a city.

Anger is a normal human reaction. Even Jesus got angry. Anger is repeated more 300 times in the OT. But the Bible says do not sin in your anger.

Here Samuel the prophet just died and Saul did not like David. This rivalry between Saul and David was bad that David wanted to kill Saul. David was moving from hideout to hideout. David was in the wilderness. It was a dangerous place. There were robbers there. David chanced upon a man man called Nabal. He was not easy to deal with. Just not a nice person. David wanted to help Nabal. He gave protection to all the shepherds that Nabal had. There were no raiders because of this. But it was time for shearing and it was a custom back then for those that help, the owner will give a portion of the profit to these people.

David asked his people to tell Nabal what he can provide for them. But we all know when David's men went to ask, he said David was a nobody so why should I give him anything. He knows that he benefitted From David's protection. He was like an extortionist, collecting protection money.

1. Do not let rage drive you.

It leads us to do foolish thing. David decided to get his men to kill Nabal out of his anger. Sometimes we get into that situation. David got into the situation. He sent His 400 to kill Nabal. Our anger sometimes blind us.

Romans 12:17-19

17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

We are to do what is right and that includes revenge. In your anger do not sin. Being a peacemaker do not let your rage drive you. It is not just justice but to show love and kindness. To seek unity and peace. Anger sometimes overtake us but as a peacemaker it is to extend mercy and grace.

2. To seek to be a peacemaker.

1 Samuel 25:14-19

14 One of the servants told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them. 15 Yet these men were very good to us. They did not mistreat us, and the whole time we were out in the fields near them nothing was missing. 16 Night and day they were a wall around us the whole time we were herding our sheep near them. 17 Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked man that no one can talk to him.”

18 Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. 19 Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

The moment Abigail heard what happened, she had more discernment than the husband. She had to make things right. He said David and his men had been good to us. That's why the Bible says he who finds a good wife finds a good thing.

She sent gifts ahead to David. She was preparing an atoning sacrifice to atone for the sin of her husband. Jesus became our atoning sacrifice.

1 John 2:2

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 4:10

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

For Abigail, she was to make peace and not justice. We let anger drive us and we don't try to make peace. She could have just let the husband do what he does and face the consequences but she didn't.

1 Samuel 25:20-30

20 As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them. 21 David had just said, “It’s been useless—all my watching over this fellow’s property in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good. 22 May God deal with David, be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!”

23 When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, and let me speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. 25 Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent. 26 And now, my lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal. 27 And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my lord, be given to the men who follow you.

28 “Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, because you fight the Lord’s battles, and no wrongdoing will be found in you as long as you live. 29 Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling. 30 When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler over Israel,

Abigail respected David, and told him don't let this small thing destroy his more important calling. Not to be like the foolish Nabal. Her words and actions disarmed David. And the last thing was that he reminded David that one day he will be king and not to taint it with murder. So David listened.

Proverbs 25:21-22

21 If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;

if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

22 In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.

When I first read this scripture, what came to my mind is that it was some form of punishment. Actually what it means is that God is asking you to do a good thing. Coal is needed to cook food so in ancient custom, even when your enemy ask for coal, you need to give them because it's needed to build fire for cooking. It is to show that even with enemies, we are to extend grace and mercy. To put aside the offences and help your enemy. It tells.me not to be driven by your anger and seek to be a peacemaker.

3. Speak to build each other up.

Nabal spoke to tear David down but Abigail spoke to build David up. She said God will protect and watch over you and bring his promises to pass. She said David will be king. May I encourage you to speak to build one another up.

That should be our goal to be a peacemaker. The tongue is a small part of our body but it can do good or evil.

So let's remember this.

1. Do not let rage drive you.
2. To seek to be a peacemaker.
3. To speak to build others up.

I pray that you'll choose to be like Abigail. Choose to be a peacemaker.

I stay in Setia which is a gated place. One day as I was coming home there was a car that was parked in the middle of the in entrance. Because he parked there all had to use the out entrance to go in and out. I was curious why this guy parked here. So I asked the guard. He said this guy was angry because he didn't have a sticker so was refused entry but he said he's a resident. So he got angry and parked his car at the entrance. The guard said he was doing his job and cannot let him enter because he had no sticker. The guard even tried to give him a sticker but he refused. The management even tried to talk to him but he refused. So the management called the police and the police issued a summon. He left the car there for a week. He refused and asked the management to pay the summon or he won't move his car.

The management tried to make peace but he would not accept any apology. Finally he moved his car and went to complain to MPPP. It inconvenienced the whole place because of his anger. Until today I know where he lives because of this. This morning are you holding on a situation so badly that it's not just affecting you but your  family? Let's be like Abigail. She's not just beautiful but also wise. Don't be like Nabal. Please be a peacemaker.

Let me read to you the rest of the passage.

1 Samuel 25:32-35

32 David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. 33 May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands. 34 Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”

35 Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.”

Let's learn to be like Abigail. 

2 Corinthians 5:18-20

18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.