Preserve the Unity of the Spirit

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning. It's a privilege and a joy to be here. I saw a few faces familiar from the church down in Bloomington. So that's nice to see people whom I actually already know. And it's a privilege to work with your session. It's a bunch of good men. And they deserve your time of prayer, especially now during this time of searching for a new senior pastor.

This is hard work, and it needs your support in prayer. So please keep them in your prayers. Now, our sermon text this morning comes from the book of Ephesians. And before I read it, let me open in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your church. We thank you for calling us into your presence, Father. And now as we turn to your word, Father, we ask you to open our hearts and our ears and our minds that we understand well what you wish to say to us this morning.

And would you please bless my words that they may bring you joy and honor. And we pray this in the precious name of your beloved Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. the text is from Ephesians chapter 4 and verses 1 through 6 and this is what the apostle Paul writes therefore I the prisoner of the Lord implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called with all humility and gentleness with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve 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 of all who is over all and through all and in all. This is the word of the Lord. You all know this verse from Psalm 133, Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. and this verse applies not only to a family but also to the unity of god's people in john 17 jesus prays for the unity of his church saying father i do not ask on behalf of these alone the disciples being present with him but also for those who believe in me through their word that they may all be one even as you father are in me and i

in you that they may also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me and you realize that jesus not only prayed for those present with him he also prayed for you because you came to faith in jesus through the words of disciples of disciples of disciples and so on, exactly the way Jesus puts it here. And so therefore, Jesus prayed to his Father in heaven for the unity of this church and the unity of the church worldwide, that God the Father and Christ be in you and you in them.

Jesus prayed this to his Father in heaven, and so his desire of unity in his church must be a commandment to you, that you all be one. In Titus 3, the Apostle Paul commands all churches to refrain from pointless controversies and disputes over secondary religious matters, and to cast out of the church people who cause the church to divide into factions opposing each other through such sinful strife So we see that the unity of the church is a great and very precious treasure We must be eager or diligent, as Paul says here, to preserve it.

Now, a little look backwards. Up to this point in his letter, Paul has explained to the Christians in Ephesus the basics of their Christian faith and the significance of the church for their faith. Paul reminds them that they were dead in their sin, which means hopelessly separated from God. In his great mercy, God saved them from eternal death through faith in Jesus Christ. by faith you have been saved and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not as a result of works so that no one may boast.

Even though they are Gentiles they do not belong to God's people of Israel by birth they belong to God's people through their faith in Jesus Christ, Paul says for God has chosen the church to be his people. As members of the church, they have his kingdom as their inheritance. And that means they possess the hope of eternal life. They possess the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ dwells in their hearts.

They are rooted and grounded in God's love. And they are able to comprehend the fullness of God's wisdom. And this is their calling. the calling Paul speaks about in this text. God called them out of the sinful world to be his people. You know, our word church comes from a Greek word, ekklesia. And ekklesia means a group that has been called out. The church has been called out of the world.

out of the world, it is a people of a special purpose. And brothers and sisters, all of this applies to you. Every single aspect of it is your calling. So when Paul says live in a way worthy of your calling, he means you. and what he means is be eager be diligent to preserve the unity of your church especially now as your elders have begun the work of searching for a new senior pastor as for the ephesians the church is the bearer of your salvation and of your hope outside the church there is no salvation this is what the christian church has taught since its beginning The church is the bearer of your salvation and of your hope.

The church is the link between believers and Jesus Christ. The church is the link between you and your Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from the church, you are not firmly connected to your Lord. And now Paul begins a new section, and the first word he uses is therefore. And therefore, in Paul's letters, always means what follows now is the consequence of these foundations for your life as Christians.

The key word here is unity. Unity which is established through the bond of peace. Now, those of you who know a little bit about the human body know what a ligament is, right? Ligaments hold our bones and our limbs together. Without ligaments, we would be like a boneless chicken crossing the road. Our bodies would have no structure and no form. We would be unable to move. and ligaments are strong, but they are very elastic.

They are firmly fused to the bones. They connect the bones and hold them in their proper position so that they can function. And similarly, the bond of peace firmly connects the church to God and the members of the church to one another. The bond of peace is firm and yet elastic so that the church is being held together as one body It is the bond of peace between God and the church made possible by the death of our Lord and the bond of peace among the people within the church, among you people, commanded by Jesus and brought about by the Holy Spirit.

The key word for the unity of the church is one. Seven times one in this little passage. One body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father. The bond of peace binds the people in the church firmly together so they become one body. The bond of peace binds the Trinity together. One spirit, one Lord Jesus Christ, one God, the Father. One faith, one baptism, and one hope bind the church firmly to the triune God.

Three are better than two, says Ecclesiastic, for a threefold cord is not easily broken. And here too, it is like a threefold cord. The Spirit is the first cord. He unites the people with God as one body through their shared hope. The Lord of the church, Jesus Christ, is the second cord. He unites the church with the Father in heaven through faith and baptism. God the Father is the third cord.

He unites them all. There is one God and Father. Deuteronomy 6 says of this one God, Yahweh, the Lord, is our God. The Lord is one. And Jesus testifies that this is the supreme commandment. The Lord is one. And that we should love the one God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. There is one Lord, God's only Son, Jesus Christ, of whom the Father says, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

Listen to him. God sent us his one Son. He didn't send us many sons. There's only one way to eternal life, only one salvation from eternal death, and that's the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who said of himself, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. There's one Holy Spirit of whom Jesus says he is the Spirit of truth.

He will guide you into all truth. God pours out his Spirit, not his spirits. The unity of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the foundation of our Christian faith. the Nicene Creed is one of the oldest and most important Christian creeds it was composed and written down in the year 325 and it says I believe in one God and in one Lord Jesus Christ and in the one Holy Spirit it is one faith because it is faith in one God the word of God tells us who this one God is, what he is like, what he has done, what his will is, and what he expects from us.

You know, today it has become fashionable in some theological circles to say that we don't need the God of the Old Testament anymore. We only need the God of the New Testament, the loving God who sent us his son. But think about it. Without the God of the Old Testament, there would be neither law nor justice from God. There would be no sin and no divine grace and forgiveness of sin.

Jesus' death on the cross would be no more than the tragic story of a poor itinerant preacher. There would be no resurrection of Jesus because there would be no one to call Jesus back from death into life. Jesus would be an excellent man, but with no significance for you. We would have no hope of resurrection ourselves. and so if we abandon the unity of God we lose the very essence of our Christian faith now the oneness of God forbids us from praying together with people of other religions.

We must not, we cannot pray together with Muslims because the claim of our God, I am the Lord, is not compatible with the claim of their God, Allah, to be the one true, great, mighty God, as the Quran says. He is Allah. There is no God but Him. You know, Yahweh and Allah are not friendly colleagues. Both of them claim lordship over your lives. Yahweh wants it all, and Allah wants it all, and this becomes a matter of salvation.

Only those who place their full trust in Yahweh possess eternal life. No one, Jesus says, can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Now, worship is an act of service to God. Prayer is an act of service to God. Other religions may seem fine and good to us at their core, but faith requires a decision and commitment.

Isaiah warned the people of Israel, if you worship other gods, Yahweh will not strengthen or sustain you as his people. And because they failed to take this serious, because they failed to take the oneness of their God seriously. They lost the unity of their land, the unity of their people, and the unity ultimately of their homeland. Now, some years ago, I attended an event over in Europe that was focused on peace among different religions.

and at this event there were representatives of various christian churches protestants catholics orthodox there were also some muslim preachers and some hindus there was a famous theologian protestant theologian who declared that all religions are equally good because they essentially desire the same thing, peace. And all believe in the same things, the goodness of man and love. Now, I don't believe in the goodness of man. We wouldn't need forgiveness if we could believe in the goodness of man.

But here is what the Muslims replied. The Muslims got up and they said, Allah alone is the true God and he will destroy you if you don't believe in him. Fearing the wrath of Allah, they refused praying together with the Christians. Do we still have fear of God in the way they do? I wish we had. The Hindus who have multiple gods, they said, oh, we have no problem praying to the Christian God as well.

He's just one of many. But we must not pray with them because doing so would give their gods an honor that only Yahweh deserves. The chatter about peace among different religions, it's empty talk from people who do not believe in Yahweh. and nevertheless brothers and sisters we can and we must as Christians strive for peaceful coexistence with people of different religions when Muslims and Hindus in our neighborhoods face hostility we ought to stand up for them and defend them but we cannot pray together with them for there is only one God one Lord Jesus Christ and one Holy Spirit.

Now, mind you that the oneness of God implies that the same is true for all other ideas, concepts, and things in your life. You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve God and your career. you must not put God and your nation at the same level of commitment faith in God requires that your commitment, your love, your being and your career. You must not put God and your nation at the same level of commitment.

Faith in God requires that your commitment, your love, your obedience to God must always be greater than your love, commitment, and obedience to anybody or anything else. And it is your duty as Christians to think about that. To examine yourselves. whether you truly love and obey our God more than anybody or anything else. There is one God and therefore one faith in him and one hope we place in him.

That one hope is that Christ, in his judgment on Judgment Day, he will invite all who believe in him to eternal life in his Father's kingdom. And that hope is grounded in the conviction that what Jesus said about us, about himself, about God the Father, and about the Holy Spirit is true. What did he say about us? That because of our sin, we have earned eternal death.

About himself, that whoever believes in him has eternal life because he is the only way to escape death and attain life. about God the Father, that he is the creator of the world who made us and grants us life in his kingdom out of grace, provided we are saved. We confess our sins and believe in Jesus as our Savior. And about the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit guides and leads us as we follow Jesus, directing us.

Towards a life that honors and pleases God. you And that's the essence. Of the one faith based on the gospel. That's the essence, the court. Everything else, brothers and sisters, are secondary matters. Things we are free to believe or not. Paul reminds the Galatians, for freedom Christ has set you free. Freedom in faith means that regarding secondary matters personally, We can place different emphases. We can tolerate differences.

Must women wear head coverings during worship or not? Should we baptize children or only adults? Should we celebrate the Lord's Supper with juice or wine? All these are questions that can be answered in different ways. even within a single faith. Thank you. you There is one God, and therefore his church is one body. Going back to the Nicene Creed, it says, I believe in the one holy Catholic church.

Now, That's not the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church didn't exist when this creed was written. Catholic means universal. all-encompassing, So the Catholic Church in the Creed is the community of all those who believe, believe, Those who have believed and those who will believe in Jesus Christ. This church is holy because she was created by Jesus himself. The church is holy because she was chosen by God as his people.

It is holy because she is God's instrument for revealing his will to the world. How does the church reveal the will of God to the world? By showing that believers believe. Can live in loving fellowship. with their Father in heaven, Jesus, and among themselves. That's the will of God. And that's what the church shows to the world. And finally, the church is holy because at the end of time, she will fulfill the will of God, namely the eternal loving communion of all believers with God and with one another.

The church is one body. Because the entire Catholic Church, as the creed has it, the entire church has Jesus as her Lord and head. Because all her parts depend on and are governed by Jesus. And because she is the one. The church can only exist in unity. When groups or parts of the church separate themselves from this one body, they lose their connection to their Lord God.

And they wither away just like an arm. When you cut off my arm and you put it somewhere, it withers away. It dies. Whoever deliberately destroys the unity of the church wounds the body of Christ, and that is a grave sin. Against which we must guard ourselves. And nevertheless, the church also always takes a concrete local form as a community of people in Indianapolis, for example. as well as in many other places around the world.

Cleonote Church in Indianapolis is part of the one body of Christ, but it's not the whole body of Christ. There are many different kinds of Christian churches, Reformed, Baptist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Orthodox, and many more. And so you can ask, well, is it really one body? But then you want to realize that when the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians, there was already a considerable number of local churches.

Jewish Christians, Greek Christians, Roman Christians. There were churches in major cities like Ephesus and Rome, and there were churches in small towns like Colossae. The letters of the apostles to these churches bear witness of the diversity of their theologies. And of the challenges of living together. And yet, the apostle says it is one body. So that shows us that the unity of the church is not a matter of making all local churches identical or uniform.

Just as there is diversity among the limbs and the organs of the human body, there is diversity among local churches, and yet it is one body. And realizing this is actually, it's wonderful because it grants you freedom. In how you shape this local church. The unity of God... And the unity of hope and faith define the boundaries of this freedom. The reformers Luther and Calvin taught that the marks of a true Christian church are the right preaching of Christ's gospel, the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper in the biblical manner, And that people truly live together as disciples of Jesus Christ.

communities that preach something else, something other than the gospel. are not... Christian churches. Those who preach that God is a kind old gentleman. They don't belong into the body of the one church. Those who believe that the God of the Bible is just one among many other gods are do not belong into the one body. Those who think that Jesus was merely a special human being don't belong to it.

Those who refuse to acknowledge and confess their sin before God or who believe that they can enter heaven without the grace of God do not belong to the one body of the church. And those... How the easier matters. There are also some matters where the Bible does not give us as clear-cut answers to As we may wish. For defining the boundaries of the church. And in such cases.

We must struggle. Strive to discover the truth. And determine the boundaries of the true church. Thank you. Anyone who claims God's grace for himself, but is unwilling to change his way of life, unwilling to keep Jesus' commandments, does not belong to the true body of the church. People who profess faith, faith in Jesus on Sundays, and yet from Monday morning to Saturday night, live in ways marked by pride, selfishness, and disregard for God's commandments, belong to the one body of the true church.

You may welcome such people as guests. You may hope that they will come to true faith, but you can't regard them as true brothers. And the clearest sign marking the boundary of the church has always been the Lord's Supper. Only those who truly belong to the body of Christ through both their profession of faith and the way of life should participate in this feast of fellowship between believers and their Lord.

As the Apostle Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians. There is one bread, therefore we who are many, meaning very different people, are Form one body. Thank you. Now that raises the question, The question is, can we truly judge whether a person is a disciple of Jesus? And, you know, this question is as old as faith in the church is. themselves. One person fasts often. Another never does.

One sings only psalms, another sings songs of worship. One observes fixed times of prayer every day and another prays whenever it feels right and necessary. And the question is, why? Who is a true disciple? What is true discipleship? If someone works 15 hours a day and has no time for church, that might be a sign of lack of faith, but it could also be that that person is investing heavily to provide for his church and for his family.

And so the point is, it is often far from easy to judge what constitutes true discipleship and what does not. And on that matter, The apostle says, show tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to maintain the unity of the church. you In 1 Corinthians, Paul says, love is patient and kind. It is ready to yield and it bears all things. As brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ, who purchased us, As his church through his death, we stand under his commandment, love one another as I have loved you.

None of us Thank you. Needs to. None of us should make his own way of following Jesus binding for everybody else or force it upon others. When it comes to the truth of the gospel, when it comes to the truth of the sacraments, we make no compromises. But in the practical matters of life, Yeah. We encounter one another in love in order to preserve the precious gift of the unity of the church.

Given the diversity of people, the diversity of their gifts and needs... The diversity of their life stories and cultures, diligence for maintaining unity, and the Is an integral part of the life of the church. And the apostle tells us how we should pursue it. Not like strong men wrestling one another to the ground, but rather in humility, gentleness, and patience. We are called to be humble and acknowledge that we might be mistaken when it comes to the nature of true discipleship.

We are called to be gentle and give our brothers and sisters space to follow Jesus in ways that differ from our own. We are called to be patient and give them our time and a listening ear. We are called to tolerate or bear one another. That is to accept that there are different ways of living out true discipleship of Jesus. And brothers and sisters, I know this is sometimes difficult.

And it's especially difficult because, When we think about secondary matters. Because nothing is dearer to our hearts than secondary matters. And sometimes it's even painful because it challenges our own ways of being disciples. And that's precisely why Paul commands us to bear one another in love. brothers and sisters, God has called you out. He has redeemed you for life with him. He has welcomed you into his church, even though you are Gentiles and you were born in sin. And therefore, you should strive eagerly to preserve the unity of his church. Unity requires boundaries so that freedom can prevail within. And so, bear one another with love, patience, and gentleness. Amen. Thank you.