Ephesians 4 v 4 thru 6

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

So the Church of Jesus Christ lives in a world that is marked by division. We see divisions of nations, of families, of communities, religious groups, and humanity has always struggled with being fragmented, and it's because sin has fractured what God created to be whole. And the Apostle Paul, in response to this, writes to the church at Ephesus a rather radical vision. The church is not united because the members are so similar. It is not united because everyone has the same personality, background, culture, opinion, or preferences, even. Rather, the church is united because God Himself has created a spiritual unity in the body of Christ. Paul doesn't command believers to create unity. He commands them in verse 3, we looked at last time, two weeks ago. I almost said last week. That wouldn't be right. We didn't have any electricity last week. But he commands believers to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, not to create unity. The unity already exists because that unity is a work of the Holy Spirit in the life of every genuine believer. And so the calling of believers is not to invent unity, but to maintain the unity that is there, to preserve what God has already made. And so in that, John Calvin wrote, Since God has joined us together by the Spirit, we must endeavor to preserve that unity which He has established. And so Paul explains the foundation of the unity of the body of Christ by giving seven realities in this passage this morning that define the church. He says there's one body, there's one spirit, there's one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father. And these are not just theological statements, these are the very foundation of Christian identity. Let's look at verses four through six this morning in Ephesians 4. It says, There is one body and 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. Let's pray, Father, we thank you for your word today. Lord, we thank you that we can gather to sing praises to you, to remind ourselves in song of who you are and what you've done for us, and to lift our voices in praise to you. Father, we ask that in this time that your word would instruct us and that we would draw the truths from it that you have for us today. Lord, open our minds and our hearts, open our eyes that we might see your truth, and that it might cause us to become more like Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. So Paul begins with the statement. He says, There is one body. He uses a phrase there, hein soma, in the Greek. It means one or single or united, and soma is the body. And Paul is not describing many organizations that happen to share similar beliefs. He is describing one living organism, the body of Christ. And that it consists of all believers, all genuine believers in Christ around the world. And the church is not just an institution. It's not the Southern Baptist Church. It's not the Roman Catholic Church. It's not the Pentecostal Church, or it is the body of Christ. It is made up of every single believer, regardless of what label you want to place on someone. Every genuine believer in Christ is a member of the body of Christ. And so he wrote earlier in Ephesians in chapter 1, he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body. That's verses 22 and 23 of chapter 1. Christ is the head. Believers are the members. Okay? Christ is the head. Not some guy at the Vatican. He's not the head of the church. Not the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Not some what a president, I think they call him, out in Salt Lake City, because that's not even a church. But the reality is that Christ is the head of his church. And we are the members. What does that mean? Well, what Paul uses is the idea that some of us are hands and some of us are feet and some of us are eyes and we all have different functions, but we all belong to one body. And so a body can't function when its members are fighting against one another. And for example, it would be really weird if your hand just suddenly reached down and started punching your foot and trying to remove it. Your body warring against itself is not the norm. And the reality is that your eyes don't hate your ears. They don't have hard feelings against your hand. Why? Because we're all part of one body. And Paul really explains this in 1 Corinthians 12. He says, For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body are one body, so it is with Christ. So we all have different gifts, we all have different functions. Not everyone is going to stand behind a pulpit and preach a sermon. Not everyone is going to lead singing. Not everyone is going to play the piano. Not everyone is going to lead a class or teach a lesson or receive the offering. Or we all have different functions. We all have different purposes. We all have different giftings and talents and all of these things. And so we bring them together, and together they form what is part of this body of Christ, the church. And it's a it's a very distinctly biblical emphasis that salvation does not just make us better people, but salvation unites sinners to Christ. It doesn't just make us not do this, that, or the other thing anymore, but it makes us one in the body of Christ. Again, John Calvin wrote, Christ cannot be divided. If we are truly united to him, we must also be united to his members. The church is one because Christ is one. Then we have the danger of dividing the body of Christ. Division in the church is serious. I've seen a number of instances in my life of division within a church. One of them was over something so vital and so serious as the color of carpeting they were putting in the sanctuary. And I'm not exaggerating. I wish I were, because that's ridiculous. But the problem with division in the church is that it is an attack against something that Christ himself purchased. And so Paul says later in Ephesians in chapter 5, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now we understand the context of that verse is husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. But the emphasis is that Christ gave himself for his church. So who are we to cause division in the church? The kind of music, the type of instruments, lighting, how loud the PA system is. All kinds of ridiculous things that have caused division in the church. Why? Because, well, I don't like that. Okay. Did you have a point? Because that's not a biblical one. Now, if you say, I don't like it, and it's because scripture says this, and you leave that scripture in this context and you're saying what it says, then we need to take a look at that. But I remember when I was traveling and singing back in the 90s, uh, we went to a church, and the pastor at this particular church didn't know or didn't remember that I had actually graduated high school with his older daughter. And uh we were in there setting up, and I mean we had we were a quartet, we had four vocalists, we had a piano player, we had a bass guitar player, and we had a drummer. And our drummer's in there setting up his stuff, which always took longer than everything else because he had 14,000 drums, even though he only played like four of them. Uh, but he had insisted on carrying his whole kit with him, and and the pastor walks in the back door of the sanctuary. The first thing he says to us is, I hate drums and my people hate drums. First thing, not, hey guys, not good morning. We got there, the church was unlocked, we figured he was there somewhere, there was a car in the parking lot, and so we bring our equipment in, we're setting up, and he walks in, and the first thing out of his mouth, I hate drums, and my people hate drums. And I walked up to him and I said, Well, brother Joe, how are you? And he looked at me kind of funny, like, how do you know me? And I said, I graduated from Warsaw in '85 with your oldest daughter. Yeah, hey, Daryl, how are you? Whole demeanor changed. But he wanted me to know he hated drums and his people hated drums. Well, by the end of it, they were all talking about how wonderful they thought it was. So apparently they didn't hate drums that bad. But so what? That has nothing to do with the unity of the body of Christ. In fact, it goes completely against the unity of the body of Christ. And Paul says what? That we are to maintain that unity, not cause division. In fact, there's a passage in Proverbs that says there are six things that the Lord hates, seven are an abomination to him. And it goes down this list, and guess what number seven is? One who causes division among brothers. And the thing I find interesting is, you know, we think, well, well, God is just looking at the sin, not the sinner. Well, God doesn't send the sin. The sin doesn't go to hell, the sinner does. So God does, it says there, there are six things he hates, and then it lists six different types of people. Not just the sins they do, but the people who do them. So it amazes me when people then try to yank one phrase out of 1 John. Well, God is love, and so, you know, God is love, and that's all I know is God is love. And oh, don't forget Matthew 7, 1, judge not lest you be judged. The two most often yanked out of context verses in our society today. Who are you to judge me? A spiritual man judges all things. I didn't make that up. That's what scripture says. A spiritual man judges all things. What do we judge it by? This book right here. You don't judge it by our opinion. And that's hard. I get it. I grew up in a church that was pretty legalistic. You know, I mean, any of you ladies that have pants on, you would be asked to go home and put on a dress. Uh guys, you all fail, me included, because none of us are wearing ties or coats. And I mean, it just, you know, it was I I was taught to follow rules. I heard the gospel on occasion, but I was taught to follow rules. I I got all the thou shalt nots, but that was really the extent of it. That was the majority of it. You know, go to church camp. Don't hold hands with someone of the opposite sex or somebody's gonna get pregnant. What? By the time I was 13 or 14 years old, I'd had sex education class in school, and I knew that holding hands is not how someone got pregnant. But it was all about keeping rules. It was not about the unity of the body of Christ through the gospel, and that's what Paul is talking about. We must come to Christ through the gospel, Romans 1:16. And then once we are in Christ, we're new creations and we are all members. He says, Jew, Gentile doesn't exist in the body of Christ. We're all one. And he says, for us to maintain that, because the church is not ours to redesign. It is Christ's church. It belongs to him, and the blood of Christ purchased his people. So Augustine said, you cannot have God as Father unless you have the church as mother. Notice he didn't say Mary. He said the church. What does that mean? Because the church, okay, last month I know it's Father's Day today, but last month we celebrated Mother's Day. When I think of a mother, I think of caring, nurturing, loving, making sure that the day-to-day is taken care of. And that's what the body of Christ should be. That's what we should be to one another. Is taking care of those day-to-day things, making sure that our brothers and sisters in Christ are doing okay. I'm not talking about they're not wandered out in sin, that's important. But do they have the light bill paid? Do they have food in the cupboard and in the refrigerator? Do they have clothes to wear? Do they still have a roof over their heads? That's unity in the body of Christ. I mean, you look in the book of Acts, which I think is where we're going next when we finish Ephesians. In the book of Acts, it's very clear what they did. You know what they did? They brought everything they had together and put it together, and then nobody was lacking. Now, we have to understand that there are descriptive and prescriptive things in Scripture. Not everything is prescriptive, meaning this is what you should do. The book of Acts is a history book. That's why it's called the Acts of the Apostles and not the Acts of You and Me. So in that, we see this is what they did, and the concept we draw from that is we help one another through this life. We are here to encourage one another, to strengthen one another, to sharpen one another spiritually. And so that is unity in the body of Christ. And the point Augustine was making was not that the church saves us, but that God's saving work creates a people. And those people are one. I mean, imagine if you were walking along and all of a sudden your right leg decided it wanted to go that way, but your left leg said, no, we're going that way. You either better be pretty flexible or you're going to wind up on the ground. So we have to be unified. I mean, the book of Acts, it talks about that the disciples were all in one accord. It's not talking about a Honda. I know the old joke, you know, the Bible talks about cars. They're all in one accord. It's not what it's talking about. It means they were all united in purpose. And that purpose was to glorify God, to share the gospel, to proclaim the truth of Christ. And the church has one spirit. There's one body and one spirit. Well, we got to hurry up to it. I'm saying a lot of things that aren't in my notes, and I've got to stick with my notes, or we're going to run out of time. So Paul says there is one spirit, and that is the Greek word again. He uses hain, one, single. Is spirit. It means spirit or breath or wind, like pneumatic. Okay? I use pneumatic tools at work. An air hose is a prime example. It's pneuma, it's air. The picture is it's Jesus talking with Nicodemus in John chapter 3. When he was talking about how a person is saved, he says you have to be born of water and blood. And he talks about how that we don't know how that comes about, when it comes about, why it comes about, except that it comes about. Just like as the wind blows, we see the result as the trees or the grass sways with the breeze. We see the result of salvation in the life of a person by the fruit that they then bear. The fact that they are they they bear fruit in keeping with repentance is how Paul puts it. So Christianity is not just Jesus and me. Christ saves individual people into a covenant community. And so this spirit, breath, wind, this one spirit is referring to the Holy Spirit. It is the same Spirit who regenerates believers that unites believers. United by the Spirit. Paul has already explained earlier in chapter two. He says, In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Chapter 2, verse 22. The Holy Spirit creates the church, which then destroys our pride. No believer can say, I belong to the church because I'm better than. Or I belong because I'm smarter, or because I'm more religious. It is the Spirit who brings sinners to Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, for in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. So the order is important. One spirit creates one body. Unity is not produced by human effort alone, it is produced by divine grace. It is given to us as a gift. And the spirit and true Christianity, the presence of the Spirit is a mark of genuine faith. In Romans 8, Paul writes, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. If you don't have the Spirit, it always cracks me up to hear people on the more Pentecostal and charismatic side about, well, you know, you Baptists, you just don't have the Spirit. I mean, what what's your standard? Because if you don't have the Spirit, you're not in Christ. So when they say things like that, essentially what they're saying is, I don't believe you're a Christian because you don't do the things that I do. Does the Bible say? Confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you'll be saved. For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. To make it even simpler, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Same letter to Rome. And the Spirit doesn't just give gifts to us, he is the one who gives us spiritual life. And the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead raises spiritually dead people to life in Christ.

unknown 22:40

R.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

C. Sproull often emphasized that salvation is not simply moral improvement, it is resurrection. It's not, well, I got saved because I stopped doing. It's I was dead and God made me alive together with him in Christ Jesus. That sounds really familiar. Oh yeah, that's chapter two, verse four of Ephesians. He takes spiritually dead people and resurrects them to new life in Christ. That's what God does for us. The Holy Spirit takes rebels and turns them into worshipers. And the church has one hope. That hope is a word that means confident expectation and assured hope. It's the kind of hope of Hebrews 11, the faith chapter. It's the evidence of things hoped for. Faith is. So it's knowing, confidently expecting that God is going to do something. It's not, well, I bought a Powerball ticket and I hope I win. It's I have hope in Christ. See, that's what matters, is it's like faith. It's not that we have faith, it's that we have faith in Christ. It's not that we have hope, it's that we have hope in Christ. It's the object of our faith and the object of our hope that is the important part of that equation. Biblical hope is not wishful thinking. It is certainty that is based on God's promise and his word. Christian hope is not, I hope things work out. It is Christ will return. It is sin will be destroyed. It is resurrection will come, and it is God's kingdom will be complete. That's biblical hope. Paul prayed earlier in chapter 1 that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. The hope of a believer is rooted in election, calling, and redemption, because the same God who called us will complete his work. Again, that sounds like something Paul wrote in Philippians chapter 1, verse 6. Being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will carry it out or carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. He started it and he'll finish it. It's not based on us and getting enough brownie points with God, enough good marks to outweigh our bad marks. That's not salvation. That's not the gospel. The gospel is Christ lived a life that was sufficient for our salvation because he was sinless and perfectly obeyed the law of God and the will of God. And so he died on our behalf. The church has one Lord. Paul moves from the work of the Spirit now to the person of Christ. He says, one Lord. It's the Greek word kirios, and it means Lord, master, or ruler. In the Greek Old Testament, Kyrios was used for the divine name of God. If you look in your Bible in the Old Testament, you'll probably see the word Lord a lot where it's all capital letters. The L will be a large capital letter, then O R D will be smaller capital letters. That's the word Yahweh, the name of God. The tetragrammaton. Aren't you impressed? I knew that $3 word. It is God's name. And it is a name that to the Jewish mind was so holy and so sacred that they would not speak it. And so we see throughout the Greek translation of the Old Testament that word translated as kurios, and in English, Lord. We see it over and over again. Paul is declaring here that Jesus is not merely a teacher. There are a lot of religions that will tell you that Jesus was a great teacher, even a great prophet. Paul says he is Lord, he is master, ruler. The early church confessed that, Romans 10, 9. Confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. And it was a radical statement in the Roman world because to them Caesar was a deity and he claimed lordship. He claimed to be their ruler. But Christ alone rules his church. John Chrysostom wrote, When Paul says one Lord, he shows that there is no room for division because we all have one master. We all have one master. Church doesn't belong to pastors, it doesn't belong to denominations. It doesn't belong to personalities. The church belongs to Christ and Christ alone. And then he says the church has one faith. One Lord, one faith. Faith, Pistes. It means faith or trust, belief, the body of truth that is believed. And it can refer to both the faith by which we trust Jesus and the faith which we confess. Jude writes that we are to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Church is united around the gospel. Not every opinion, not every preference, not every tradition. The center is Christ crucified and risen. In fact, Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he said, I determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified. And he says, I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that he was raised. So that is the important part is that Christ is the center of Christianity. It's where the word Christian comes from, Christ-like, little Christ. Not that we are, you know, crazy, charismatic Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, all those people who, you know, want to tell you you are little gods. No, we're not. That, first of all, is heresy. Second of all, it's it you've made it an idol of yourself. That's a dangerous place to be. So then he says the church has one baptism. Paul is continuing this list of one thing, one, one, one. And this word baptism is baptisma. It comes from the Greek word baptizo. And it means to immerse, to identify or unite with. That's why we practice immersion, not sprinkling, because the word means to immerse, means to be completely in, all in. Not just baptized in water, but when we are baptized in Christ, we are all in. There's no, well, okay, I'm going to follow Christ, and we can't add to that. Baptism is a picture of our union with Christ. And so, Romans 6, 3, do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ, Jesus, were baptized into his death? Baptism shows that we belong to Christ. From a biblical perspective, baptism is a sign and a seal of God's covenant promises. It does not by itself save us, but it points us to the grace of God that is received through faith. Calvin wrote, baptism is the sign of initiation by which we are admitted into the fellowship of the church. And then Paul reaches the highest point in the next phrase when he says, one God and Father of all. Because who is Paul writing to? Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. He's writing to believers. So we have to make sure we don't just assume that all means every individual ever born, every individual alive on the earth right now. That's not what it means. In the context, Paul is writing to believers at the church at Ephesus, and there by extension, all believers everywhere through all of time. And he says that he is, that God is, we have one God and Father of all, of all who, of all believers. He is certainly father in them in the means of creation over every individual, but not in the relationship. Remember, Paul says, chapter 1, that we were chosen and adopted. We were grafted in, is how Christ puts it in Matthew. And so he says, You have received the spirit of adoption as sons, Romans 8.15. And that God is over all, meaning he is sovereign. There is nothing that escapes God's authority. That he is through all, meaning he sustains and works through his creation. And that he is in all, meaning he dwells among his people. This is the God-centered foundation of Christian unity. That Christ purchased the church and that it all rests on the Father. It all rests on God being God over all, in all, through all. So, what do we do with this? Well, we need to protect the unity of Christ because He purchased it. This is not optional. This is not, if you wanna. This is not a suggestion. You know, I've heard preachers say over the years that you go back in the Old Testament, God didn't give Moses the ten suggestions or recommendations. He gave the Ten Commandments. Jesus prayed in his high priestly prayer in John 17. He says that they may all be one so that the world may believe. See, when when we're fighting amongst ourselves, the world thinks those people are crazy. They claim to be part of one thing and they're arguing with each other and fighting with each other. Now, there are certainly hills that we need to be willing to die on. Someone's preaching a false gospel, they're not Christians, and don't be afraid to point that out. Read Galatians. If we or Paul uses hyperbole, even an angel from heaven were to come to you and preach another gospel other than the one you have received, let him be anathema, accursed, damned to hell. That can't be describing a believer because they're saying it's Jesus and, or maybe you don't even need Jesus, just do your good works. And if you're a good enough person, well, you're not, and neither am I. No one is. So we have to be sure that we are following this concept because our unity is a testimony to the power of the gospel. When we are unified with other believers in Christ, it testifies to the world. Jesus said, I don't know, something crazy like that when they see your good works, they'll glorify God. That John wrote in 1 John something about if we, I don't know, love one another, the world is gonna know that we're Christians in that we have love one for another. And then the second thing we have to reject pride because the church is not built by impressive people. It's not built by great speakers and wonderful orators and people who can just dazzle you with their speeches. How do we know that? Ooh. This just came to mind, and I might pop some of your bubbles and maybe make some of you mad, I don't know. But who, if you think in the world in say the last hundred years, who comes to mind when you think of a great speaker, someone who could just captivate an audience? I think of Martin Luther King Jr. Who denied the gospel, though claimed to be a pastor, claimed to be a reverend, denied the gospel, and was a communist. He's preaching another gospel. He may dazzle you with his abilities to speak. But we can't just look at that. What's the content? What is he saying, not how is he saying it? Am I drawn in because he's got this great personality? Am I drawn in because whatever the reason may be? Or am I drawn in because it's true, it's biblical, it's accurate. So we reject pride because the church is not built by impressive people, it's built by grace. It's built by grace. Richard Baxter, who was a great Puritan preacher, wrote that the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. We probably all heard that and didn't know who said it. Richard Baxter, Puritan preacher. Because every believer stands on the same ground. And what is that ground? The mercy of God. God have mercy on me, a sinner. Luke 18, 11. Then we have to treasure the gospel above preferences, because a lot of divisions happen because people will elevate secondary matters to the level of primary truths. What do I mean? Primary truths, we have to get the gospel right. Otherwise, we're not being biblical, we're preaching another gospel, and we ourselves can't be Christians. Because we are anathema. So we have to get the gospel right. What are the secondary issues? How do you feel about the spiritual gifts? I can tell you how I feel, I can tell you what I think based on history and scripture and studying 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. Am I ready to build a church on it? No. Do I think there's a lot of false, supposed spiritual gifts out there? Absolutely. How do I know? Well, for example, I know people who my my sister-in-law, Carrie's brother, his wife, was raised at Central Assembly of God in Springfield, which then, before James River exploded, was the biggest Assemblies of God church in Springfield. Probably a couple thousand people. And that's the church her parents took her to, and she was in the youth group. And every week she said that the youth leaders would come around, and there was always her and one other girl that they would gather around and pray that they would receive the spirit and have that demonstration of speaking in tongues. So one Sunday, her friend starts this, you know, untie my boat, who stole the kidnah. And she asked her friend, she would afterward, she was like, Did you really speak in tongues? She goes, No, I just did what everybody else does and made up something so that they leave me alone. It's learned behavior. There are videos on YouTube, and I encourage you to watch them, that are talking about, I mean, it shows demonstrations of how repetitive this supposed, and they'll they'll claim, well, it's it's not a known language, even though that's biblically what tongues were. It's a heavenly language, Paul said, even if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. That's called hyperbole, folks. Learn how to read and understand what you're reading. He's using hyperbole, just like when he said, if we, meaning the apostles, or an angel from heaven preach to you another gospel. Well, the angels are never going to do that because they're God's messengers. That's what the word means angel, messenger. And so they're never going to do that. But we have to understand that that unity in the body comes from the fact that we can't elevate those secondary issues to the same level as the gospel, because those folks will tell you, well, I'll agree you don't have the spirit, and so therefore you aren't saved. Which I I mean, I read you that verse earlier, Paul said that. If you don't have the spirit, you are not in Christ. But because I don't have the spirit, because you misunderstand scripture, that's not your call to make. Why? Because now we've created classes of Christians. Well, I have the spirit and you don't. Because I. Wrong answer. Because Christ. I'll listen. Because I? Nope. You've already started out on the wrong foot. Okay? So the church always has to return to one Lord, one faith, and one hope. So this passage reminds us that Christian unity is not created by human agreement, but by divine redemption. We are one body because we belong to Christ, because we have one spirit, because we have one hope, because we confess one Lord, because we hold one faith, we have one baptism, we are one because we worship one God and Father. A great preacher called the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon from the 1800s, said the nearer we come to Christ, the nearer we come to one another. The nearer we come to Christ, the nearer we come to one another. So the answer to division is not just trying harder to get along. The answer to division is returning again and again to Christ. Come back to Christ. Come back to Christ because He is the center, He is the head, He is the one who is Lord, and His church is one. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word today. Lord, we thank you that we have unity in Christ and that that unity is not dependent upon us, it's not dependent upon our actions, it's not dependent upon anything we could even fathom to come up with.