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.
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