The Sevenfold Foundation of Unity
By Pastor Matt Black
26
August 2007
Lord's Day morning
Ephesians 4:4-6
Introduction: Open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians 4. The title of this morning’s message is “Look What God Has Done!” Once you’ve found Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, let’s stand out of awe and reverence for God’s amazing grace that comes from His amazing Word.
Let’s read Ephesians 4:1-6, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
You hear some say, “Christians ought to be united.” They are. They ought to love one another. They do. Christians ought to read the Bible. They do. Christians ought to pray. They do. Without exception. John Bunyan said, “Prayer is the natural breath of the child of God. We can sooner expect a natural man to live without breathing as a believer to be able to live without prayer.”
Not everyone who says Lord, Lord is a believer. But everyone who is a believer is unified by seven things that are true of every believer. This morning I want to show you the oneness of all believers. Not every one who is a member of a local church is a believer. Local church membership never saved anyone. But if you have repented of your sins and put your faith in Christ, you are a member of His Body.
Believers are one. They always have been one, and they always will be one. They are not divided. Why? How is that? Our unity as believers in the Body of Christ is based on the unity of the Godhead. Here in this passage we have seven ones. We can all get that. We all understand that.
One Body
One Spirit
One Hope of your calling
One Lord
One Faith
One Baptism
One God and Father of all
Unity Based on the Oneness of the Trinity
Now notice the members of the Holy Trinity are named, and our unity is based on them. Remember Jesus prayed in His high priestly prayer? John 17:21 Jesus prayed, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us”. Out of this prayer of the Lord Jesus you have these verses in Ephesians. Look at Ephesians 4:4. Which of the members of the Trinity is mentioned? One Spirit. Who does this refer to? The Holy Spirit. Look at verse 5, who do we see? One Lord. Who is that? Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And then in verse 6, who does Paul say our unity is based upon? One God and Father of all believers. So we are one as the Father is in Christ and Christ is in the Father and the Spirit is sent from the Father and the Son. They are one, and we are one!
So this unity that we have with one another is because of the ministry of the members of the Godhead to us. We all have this in common.
Notice the order…
Spirit, Lord, and Father:
We are all in one Body because of the Spirit of God who gives us the Hope of our calling—to be like Jesus.
And by the Spirit we come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Christ baptizes us into that Body because we repent and come to the One Faith in Him alone. We trust in Christ alone for salvation. When we do that, God becomes our Father.
God becomes our Father and we are all members of the same family.
And Father, Son, and Spirit in dwell us. And verse 6 tells us specifically that the God and Father of all believers is above us and works through us, and dwells IN us!! The Trinity is one, and we are one in them, even as Jesus prayed.
Why are we ONE? Why are we so unified? First of all because…
I. There is one Body.
A. The Body is organic. It isn’t put together piece by piece. It isn’t that you add two more fingers—add another arm. Now put an ear on that head. The Body all grows organically together. The systems in the Body are connected. They are mutually dependant. You really cannot separate them. How are you going to separate your respiratory system from your nervous system? God says just like the physical Body cannot be separated because it is organically one, so every believer is part of one Body.
We’ve seen this before in Ephesians 1:22. We learn that God the Father has “put all things under his [Jesus’] feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Christ doesn’t have two or three or ten Bodies. He has ONE Body.
B. The Body is not a monster. In the old circuses they used to have the bearded woman. They had the two headed man—a body with two heads. There’s one church, one Body. It’s the “general assembly and church of the firstborn…[who have their names] written in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23). Now while on this earth we are a part of various local churches. At different times during the ages, the local churches of believers have been called by various names. God has sent revival through churches that were not Baptists—at times he’s used the Methodists (John Wesley & George Whitefield), the Presbyterians (Jonathan Edwards, the Puritans and Pilgrims), and the Congregationalists (John Bunyan). Now most of the denominations today have rejected the truth, but the Body of Christ is not any particular local church. Not every one that is part of a local church is a believer. But every believer is part of one Body. The Body of Christ.
There’s only one Body. Look over at Ephesians 5:23. We read, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church [i.e., the Body], and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:23-27).
God has done this—let’s not do anything that would disrupt the unity of the Body. We must never put ourselves in a position where we are thwarting what the Almighty is creating. He’s creating a new humanity—a Body, a bride for His Son. “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord beseech you…walk worthy…endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace…” Why? Because there’s only ONE Body.
C. The Body not united on earthly similarities.
1. The basis of our unity in the Body is not racial. There are diversity of cultures. Revelation 5:9 tells us that God has redeemed a people out of every “kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation”. Remember Ephesians two. The Body is not made up of just Jews. It’s not just Gentiles. It’s not black or white. It’s not racial. There’s only two races of people: those born from the first Adam who are lost, and those who are born again by the Last Adam who are part of this one Body. So it’s not racial.
In fact God has chosen to take cultural diversity and to break down the divisions—to create “one new man” out of Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:15).
2. The basis of our unity is not circumstancial either. In the twin epistle to Ephesians (Colossians), Paul writes virtually the same truths. Colossians 3:11, “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” The unity that we have is not based upon the fact that we are free or not free. It is not based upon whether we are rich or poor. It’s not based on your gifts or skills or abilities. It has nothing to do with your circumstances. If you are a believer and have no money, you are on the same level as a millionaire in our congregation. With God there is no respect of persons. What is money compared to the precious and priceless blood of Christ? And you were all bought with that precious blood and placed into One Body.
So the Body’s unity is not based on earthly similarities. I think we all knew that before we came to this verse.
II. And secondly, there’s one Spirit. We are all related to only one Spirit. There’s only one Holy Spirit. “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Romans 8:9).
A. Not many…
There is not one Holy Spirit for the independent Baptists and one for the Southern Baptists and one for the Free Presbyterians. No one can call Jesus Lord except by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit reveals Christ, He regenerates us; He convinces us of sin. Nobody has ever been convinced of sin and seen the cross of Christ lifted up without the Holy Spirit. Jesus said about the Holy Spirit in John 14:16, “He shall glorify me”. The Holy Spirit always points to Christ as the answer for our sins. Ephesians 1:13 tells us we were “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise”. Where were we sealed? Into the Body of Christ. The Spirit is the “the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (verse 14). And every believer that comes to that knowledge, no matter what local church he happens to be a part of has come to faith by only One Holy Spirit. This One Holy Spirit fills the One Body. What is the Body? We just said that as Ephesians 1:22 that God the Father has “put all things under his [Jesus’] feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body….” So there is one Holy Spirit for all who have Christ Jesus as their head in local churches scattered throughout the world!
All believers are related—regardless of our background, our culture, our particular denomination, or our circumstances. We are all related to only One Spirit, and we as believers are members of only One Body.
Now as we all have the Holy Spirit of God, we experience a ministry of encouragement from the Spirit. Jesus teaches us that the Holy Spirit is called what? What is a name that our Lord often uses in the Gospels when referring to the Holy Spirit? Yes, the Comforter. He is the one who comes along side us and comforts us! We have a lot to be uneasy about in our lives. But He comforts us and tells us about the one hope we have!
And so in one breath in Ephesians 4:4 Paul says, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling”. The Spirit that indwells you and all believers in the Body is there calling you to one hope! One great comfort! This life is not all there is!
III. There is one Hope of His calling. It is to be like Jesus. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:12, that right now “we see through a glass, darkly”. Right now, we walk by faith, we have an expectation, a hope, but right now we don’t see our Lord in all his glory, “we see through a glass (a mirror) darkly”, but what? “then face to face”.
I want you to see the hope of our calling in a few passages.
Romans 8:29, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
1 John 3:2, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”
There’s our hope. There’s coming a day—and you hear this calling in your heart every day. You hear the voice of Jesus as one of His sheep, and He’s calling you, “come home!”
Now when I go to heaven, I’m looking forward to having that marriage supper of the Lamb. And I hope to see my mother there. I hope to see my loved ones there. I can hear that call—come home!
But do you know that the calling that we have is a call that says we’re going to be like Jesus. We’re going to have a body like unto His glorious body.
And in that day, we shall be His people, and He will be our God. God says of all His children in Revelation 21:4, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
Look at 2 Thessalonians 2:14 we see it again, “Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Glory! We have a calling that will justify us and will sanctify us. But it won’t stop there. We have a summons calling us up to heaven that will not stop anything short of glorification!!
I’m looking forward to glory! That’s our calling. Then we see a new section in verse 5. We have in verse 4 a verse about the Holy Spirit.
IV. There is one Lord. When we crown a king, where do you put it, on his fist? No, you crown the head! When you have a picture in your house, do you have any pictures of a person’s back? No, we take a picture of the head! One Body, that’s the reason believers are one. All that we are as believers and all that we do is founded upon Jesus Christ! 1 Corinthians 3:11, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
A. The Church’s unity does not Who are we to glory in at our church?
Is this the church of Paul or Apolos? Turn over to I Corinthians 3. Look at verse 3. The Corinthian church was divided over their ministers. Various men had influence on them. Paul, Apollos and others had mentored and discipled them. And now some were dividing over this, and Paul rebukes them. 1 Corinthians 3:3, “For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? 4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? 5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” So those whom God uses in the church are nothing. We could say it this way. Who then is Wesley, and who is Whitefield? Who then is Luther? They are all ministers that planted and watered, but it was God who gave the increase.
Skip down to verse 21, and we find the conclusion: “Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23 And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s”. We could say it this way: The Puritans and Presbyterians by whom God sent the Great Awakening—they are all yours! The Independents like Moody are yours! The Baptists like Bunyan and Spurgeon—they are all yours! Rutherford, the Scottish Presbyterian who wrote “The Sands of Time are Sinking” and was Moody’s favorite hymn—he’s yours! The ministers are all yours, because there’s only one Body in which they all were members, and there is only One Spirit that they were all indwelt by. But what is the centrality of the church founded upon?
Look at verse 11, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Christ is our Foundation. There is One Lord.
B. The meaning of the word “Lord”. The word Lord is kurios. It is the translation of the Hebrew word “Yahweh” or LORD in the Old Testament. It is not simply referring to deity—it does of course when referring to Christ mean that, but it also means “supremacy”. And this is the center of the Gospel.
We cannot both serve sin and serve the Lord—the master. Look at Luke 16:13. We read, “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
C. The Lordship of Christ. Philippians 2:9 tells us that God has highly exalted Jesus.so that every knee should bow and “that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. It’s all coming down to this. When time is over, every person who has ever lived is going to get down on their faces before Jesus and worship Him as Lord. All people—saved and unsaved. The saved will be in glory and the unsaved will be cast away.
V. There is one Faith. 1 Corinthians 15—the Gospel. Example of Wesley and Whitefield.
I Corinthians 15:1ff, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 5 And that he was seen… [of these credible witnesses].”
You see this one faith is not by being a Baptist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian. The one faith is that
1. Christ died.
2. He was buried
3. He rose again and was seen by credible witnesses
Our one faith that we contend for is in other words the Gospel. And if you repent and believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, then you will be in heaven! Now there are issues that are secondary to the Gospel that make us Baptists. We believe a person should be baptized by immersion as a believer. Others have different modes of baptism. Some of these issues prohibit us from worshipping with others that hold different views.
For instance we read the books by Jay Adams or RC Sproul. These men are Presbyterian. But they are our brethren in Christ. And when we were at the counseling conference in Lafayette, and Jay spoke, we were all blessed. But the faith is not our denominational differences. We are going to be eating fruit from the tree of life together in heaven one day. The faith is much more foundational than that. It is that we are brothers because we believe that Christ died, was buried, and rose again for our justification!
Now sometimes there is controversies in the churches over issues. I think of this historically in the life of George Whitefield and John Wesley.
Illustration: Whitefield preached an emphasis of sovereign grace and election as to how a person is converted. Of course, Wesley had the mindset and emphasis of free will. But God was using them in sweeping two continents with revival –in Great Britain and in the American Colonies.
During this time Wesley would right very critical articles in the public papers about these differences in emphasis. Even though Whitefield was a younger man, he died 20 years before John Wesley. And somebody asked Wesley “You know, I’d really like to know, do you think you’re gonna see Whitefield in heaven?”
And in that moment, when we are really talking about what the Christian faith is, we see something in Wesley’s reply. Wesley said, “No I don’t think I’ll see him in heaven. Because when I get there, I’ll be so far back from the throne, and he’ll be so close, I won’t be able to see him!”
You see Wesley knew that the one faith that we hold is not his version of Wesleyan Methodism.
Did Whitefield and Wesley believe the Gospel that Christ died for their sins? That he was buried and rose again? Amen! That’s the one faith that all believers everywhere have!
VI. Then there is one Baptism.Verse 5 now this is speaking of spiritual Baptism , but it is in verse 5 that speaks of our One Lord. Why isn’t it in verse 4 with the One Spirit. Because The Spirit’s ministry is not to baptize—the Spirit is what we are baptized with. Look at Matthew 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
VII. There is one God and Father of all believers.
Look at verse 6, “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Listen, If Christ is your Lord and the Spirit of God is in you, then God is your Father. He loves you with an everlasting love.
A. He is above all. His sovereign hand is directing all of His children. No one can pluck them out of the father’s hand.
B. He’s through all of His children working His will
C. He’s in you—He’s encouraging you and giving you the strength you need.
Conclusion: I want to close by showing you our commonality and unity by opening up our hymnal. This hymnal was put together by Frank Garlock and Ron Hamilton. They are independent Baptists..
But now look at Hymn 1, Rejoice the Lord is King. Who wrote the words? Charles Wesley. Charles Wesley came out of the Anglican church and with his brother John Wesley helped revive the church of God during the First Great Awakening in America. God was pleased to use these brothers who began to be called “Methodists”. But as a brother in Christ, Charles Wesley wrote some words that we can all relate with. This morning does your heart cry out:
Rejoice, the Lord is King!
Your Lord and King adore;
mortals, give thanks and sing,
and triumph evermore.
Lift up your heart,
lift up your voice; rejoice;
again I say, rejoice.
What about Hymn 6, I Sing the Mighty Power of God? Can you relate with that?
I sing the mighty power of God, that made the mountains
rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at God’s command, and all the stars obey
We just came back from the Creation Museum, and saw some the awesome and mighty power of God in creation! Now Isaac Watts wrote the words to this song. He is our brother in the Lord.
Isaac Watts was a Congregationalist preacher, and at his funeral he had two Baptists, two Congregationalists, and two Presbyterians conduct the Funeral service. We all love songs written by Isaac Watts. He wrote:
Am I a soldier of the cross?
When I survey the Wonderous Cross
Joy to the World
We’re Marching to Zion
How about number 68, Holy Holy Holy. That song resonates with all the saints of God.
Holy, Holy, Holy all the saints adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!
Reginald Heber was the Bishop of Calcutta for all of India for the Anglican church. Now we don’t even believe in the office of Bishop as they interpret it. Yet he was a brother in Christ! Other Anglicans God used were Wesley and Whitefield and JC Ryle.
The point is that all who name the name of Christ are part of the one body. They have one Holy Spirit indwelling them. They have the hope of being like Jesus one day. They have one Lord Jesus Christ, and one faith in Him the Gospel! They have been baptized with one baptism by Christ into this body. And all who are believers have one God and Father.
Now while we are on this earth, because of conscience there are brethren we cannot formally worship with. Presbyterians because we believe they will not submit to believer’s baptism, but we can esteem them as brothers.
And among ourselves, let’s endeavor to work to the point of exhaustion to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and be in a place where we can be used of God!!
Closing Hymn: 191 Jesus is Lord