Unity in Christ: Overcoming Division

I get it turned on then, didn't I, real loud? I want to read from the book of Ephesians. I'm going to use several passages in the book, but I'm going to end up reading from the last chapter of Ephesians, chapter 6, beginning with verse 18. The book of Ephesians, I'm going to start reading in chapter 1, verse 9, if you'd like to find that in your Bibles, that's where I'm going to start. The book of Ephesians is, we call it a book, but it's really a letter. A letter Paul wrote to the church, the followers of Christ in Ephesus. And in this letter, he's dealing with an issue that is very important to him and very important to the whole kingdom of God. In this book, the passage that I want to focus on at the very end of it is kind of a conclusion. And whenever you don't get the main ideas in the book, the conclusion doesn't necessarily make the kind of sense that God intends it to make. So I start at the beginning because I want to see, help you to understand what he's talking about when he comes to the conclusion of this book. The beginning, Paul makes one of the most bold and astonishing claims that one could ever imagine. He says in chapter 1, beginning with verse 9, and he made known, he's talking about God, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he proposed in Christ to put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. And Paul calls this a mystery. He doesn't mean a mystery like you would find if you were reading a book that tells a story of some crime and you have to figure out who did it. It's mystery in another sense. I bought a trimmer the other day and it had several heads to it. And so I started trying to take the head off and put another one on. I looked around for a button that would release it. I found none. I took the thing and tried to pull it off and it didn't come off. I took it and felt like I was trying to twist it and it wouldn't come off. And then I resorted to getting the instructions out. They were a sheet of paper about this big, printed on both sides in different languages. I finally read and found what it told me to do, turn the head counterclockwise. It came right off. Until I read that, it was a mystery to me as to how to get the head off that trimmer. But once I had the instructions, it was perfectly clear. That's what the word mystery means in the Bible. Something that is very evident if you have clear instructions and you know what to expect. Now the mystery he's talking about here is that God is at work in the world trying to bring everything in the world together in unity and oneness under the head of Christ. Now we live in a fractured world where people are at odds with each other everywhere you look. You turn on the television, there are people that are fighting each other. You listen to the news programs and there's one group fighting with the other. You watch what's happening in politics. There's division and quarreling and fighting between each other. Everywhere around us that we look, there is division and conflict. It's not new for us. It was true in Paul's day. Paul had this idea that God was at work in this fractured world to bring everything in the world together in oneness and unity under Christ. Democrats and Republicans in unity and oneness in Christ. There is no more unbelievable claim than this in the scripture. So Paul is writing this letter to this church telling them that this is the calling that God has given him and the calling that God has given to them. You need to know what God is at work in your life doing when he brought you into the kingdom of God. It wasn't just to save your soul so you wouldn't go to hell. He wanted to demonstrate in the world the power that he has to transform human lives and the culture of all the world. This is the goal that God has set. And God has revealed this to me, he said. Now the church that he was talking to was a church that was formed out of people who were at odds with each other for centuries. The Jews, they called the Jewish people, people. All others besides Jews had another name for them besides people. They didn't even consider Gentiles as people. The Gentiles saw the Jews who would never eat a pig as people who worshiped hogs. And they saw them with such despicable interest that they had nothing to do with them. How would you want to associate with people who are Jews and the culture that they have? Now in this church at Ephesus, God had come and redeemed both Jews and Gentiles. And now they were in this congregation formed together. Think of the most opposite cultures in all of our country or world. Born-again believers, Muslims in the same congregation, coming to know Christ. What are the barriers that would be there? The barriers were there in this church. Paul said, I write to you to let you know what God is doing among you. He said, my call is to let you know the purpose God has for your life and your church. Surely you've heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to you. That is the mystery made known to me by revelation. Here's that word mystery again. I am going to tell you what God is doing in your church by who he's gathered together there. As I've already written briefly in reading this, then you will be able to withstand, to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations, as it has now been revealed by the spirit of God's holy apostles and prophets. All the way through the Old Testament, God never revealed to the Jewish people his big plan. He told them that through them all the world would be blessed, but they thought that they would be the blessed ones and from their blessing it would overflow to the rest of the world. But now God has revealed to them that God's plan is to bring together both Jews and Gentiles in union and in oneness with each other. This mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. What he's saying is, you people have never liked each other, but you have come to know Christ as your Lord and Savior. And what his intention is, is to take Gentiles and Jews and bring you together in oneness and unity. Larry Fright told me this, so I don't know it on my own. If you take two pieces of metal that are the same and you put them together and you get the material to weld together that's the same kind as those two pieces of metal you put together, then they have the same strength. The metal on each side of the weld and the weld in the middle holds them together with the same power. Here's what he's describing. I'm going to take two people who are not together. And because they both belong to me, I will stand between them. And because of my relationship with both of them, I will make a bond between them that no one will be able to break. Jews, Gentiles, I will make you such one in me that there will be only a seam, no division between you. The people who read this and heard it must have thought it was the most astonishing thing they'd ever heard. How could you take people whose cultures are so different, who for centuries have hated each other, bring them into a group together until they feel that they are a part of one another's lives? This is beyond our human experience. How can you see this happen to people around you? He says this is the miracle of God of what he's going to do. And you, he said to that congregation, are the example of how it's going to work. God is going to hold you up before the whole world so they'll see the mighty power God has to bring together two people who are opposite of each other and bind them into one. Now, Paul describes in the book of Ephesians exactly how this is to work. He says it's the result of God transforming the character of people. For not everyone can do this. Only when their nature becomes the same as the nature of Christ. How does the world happen? It happens when God takes me and changes me to be like Christ, and then he takes my wife who belongs to him and changes her to be like Christ. So there is one person like Christ, then there's Christ, and there's another person like Christ, and one continuous, seamless relationship. Now, that can't happen to everyone, because what God needs to do is to change the lives of people to be like Christ. And in chapter 4, he says, Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. We become like Christ. The qualities of Christ become ours. So that when we look inside of ourselves, we see those qualities of Jesus. When we look inside the life of that other person that we're with, or the other people that we're around, we still see the nature of Christ. There's a oneness there. Now he shows what's going to happen. There is one body, one Spirit. Just as you were called to one hope, you were called when you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all. Everything is bound together into a oneness that is inseparable because of this relationship that we have with Christ. Then in the rest of the book, he says, Now here's how it works in marriage. Then he said, here's how it works between parents and their children. Here's how it works between workers and their bosses. And then he ends this letter by talking about the need that we have to be constantly at war, that awareness that we're constantly at war with the power of Satan to break apart the weld that God has made between us. He talks about it in terms of having the armor of God. He talks about it in terms of spiritual warfare. The relationships between me and my wife, or people in the church and each other, are really not human experiences. They're spiritual battles. That's what it is. It's not that you learn how to get along with each other. It's that you're transformed into another person. And that person you're trying to relate to is transformed into another person to be like Christ. He lets us know that Satan, on every single moment of the day, in every single part of our lives, is trying to fracture that weld that God has made between one of his people and another. Be on the alert, he talks about, like a soldier who's prepared for his battle. He's talking about pray in the Spirit. That is, we ask God to guide us by his Holy Spirit to direct our lives. This is a spiritual union between us. That's what it is. And it can't be made without a spiritual connection to God. A surrender of our lives to God and say, you take control of my life, change my personality, change my patterns, change my habit, change my lifestyle, whatever it takes, I want to be like you. So we're constantly praying as the Spirit directs us to pray. And here's why. He will show you what's wrong with your life if you listen to him. He will show you what to do to change your relationships with people around you. So pray in the Spirit. This spiritual prayer provides us with the tool to be able to listen to God. He says that we're to be bound with the belt of truth. What's really important for us is to learn the difference between what we think and what God says is true and right. To learn the difference between what other people say is right and what God says is right. Listening to the truth is the key ingredient for the transformation that changes your life. You may think you're doing fine until you read the Bible and suddenly you see God says you shouldn't be doing that. This is the wrong attitude. You have the wrong spirit. Then he said you need to cover your life with righteousness. He calls it a breastplate to protect you from the attack from in front. You need to focus your life on being like God. That's what righteousness means. It doesn't mean be as good as the rest of the people around you. It means constantly holding up before you Jesus Christ and his nature and his character and saying God in what way am I not like Christ? What is there that needs to be changed in my life? What needs to be added to my life? You see all of these are preparing you for the kind of person who can be welded together with another person who has the same character of Christ. You need to have your feet shot, he said, with the gospel of peace. Now when we talk about peace, we think of the absence of conflict. But in this book, the word peace has a unique explanation. It is the proper relationship that you have with people. So all of your life, wherever you walk around, wherever you travel, everywhere you go, you're to be filled with the idea of how to correctly relate to people around you. How do you deal with your family? How do you deal with your friends? How do you talk to your neighbors? When God gives us the proper relationship that we should have with people, he helps us to know what needs to be transformed or changed. He lets you know that in every moment of your life, Satan is trying to drive a wedge between you and the people around you. Husbands, he's trying to drive a wedge between you and your wife. Wives, Satan is trying to drive a wedge between you and your husband. Parents, Satan is trying to drive a wedge between you and your children. He's constantly at work in this. It's very important when we raise our children to help them come to the place where they trust their lives to Christ, for without that, they will allow that wedge to come into their lives. But with it, when they have the character and nature of Christ, and the parents have that, they're welded together in unity and oneness. That is unbreakable. God has a plan to protect us from everything that Satan causes us to do. Now, here's the plain fact about this. Every person in the world that you know and meet is going to offend you sometime, somewhere, some way. Just get that in your head. They do it because Satan puts things in our minds to say about other people that's offensive to them. He puts things in our mind to act in certain ways that are offensive to other people. If you have met someone that you've known a long time that hasn't hurt your feelings, made you feel bad or offended you, you haven't been watching or listening to them. You cry. Satan puts that in their mind and they use it. So you have to build a shield from yourself to deflect those things. Because what happens whenever somebody offends you or hurts you is you want to strike back at them. It's simply an animal instinct. You step on a dog's tail and he bites you. You step on the tail of a person and they'll bite you. That's our human nature. But it is not the nature of God. The nature of God is forgiveness. Jesus does it on the cross. The nature of God is compassion, which He shows all the way through the Scriptures. What He wants to fill us with is the character He has. So to deflect those things that would cause separation to come between us, we need this shield of faith. What does He mean? I don't have to attack someone who attacks me. God's going to take care of it. He's already told me that. Trust me. If you live the way I tell you, I'll take care of all the enemies that you have. I will protect you. I don't have to protect myself. I don't have to defend myself. God has given that job to Himself. All I have to do is trust that whatever arrows of injury come toward me, no matter how painful they are, if I respond as Christ responded to the people who punished Him and killed Him, then God will take care of the consequence. And what did He do? Jesus died on the cross. He was buried in the ground. But God raised Him from the dead to live forever. That's our promise. Whatever you can do to the people who hurt you is nothing compared to what God is going to do for you if you act as Jesus acted on that cross. The shield of faith protects you from thinking you have to fight those who have injured you or hurt you. Put on the helmet of salvation. Think in your mind about the fact that you've been transformed and changed and God is going to make you His child and bring you into His kingdom. And then your only offensive weapon is the Spirit of God. And so you take the Spirit of God as if it were a sword and you say, God, here's what my enemies have done to me. What should I do? sword, you are the spirit, you defend me, you fight my battle for me. This allows somebody who's been drawn together in oneness to stay that way. And he ends this passage by talking about how important it is for us to remember that this is a battle we cannot win on our own. And so he says, and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of requests. That's what we're to do for each other, we're to pray in the spirit. What he means by that is we're to pray in every situation in which we're offended or hurt, Holy Spirit, how should I think about this situation? What should I do in response to this situation? Talking to God, who is the cement between us, allows us to know what's on the other side of that cement. What does that other person need from me to be changed and transformed? What is it that I should do in this situation? What should I think? How should I act? What is the consequence of what's happened to me? And as the Spirit comes into our lives, he gives us wisdom to manage the circumstance. Now the Spirit can help you a lot, but you know if you don't know the Bible and you don't know the life of Christ and you're not allowing yourself to be trained so that you know what it means to be like Christ, like in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, what kind of character you should have, your human nature will tell you what to do. And because everyone else around you in the world is doing the same thing, and if you talk to your friend when you go to work, they say, well, I'll tell you what I'd do. You listen to that, and the fight is on. But if you pray and say in the Spirit of God, how should I respond to this situation? And he says, turn the other cheek. You won't want to do that. If you tell your friends you're going to do that, they'll think you're crazy. But praying in the Spirit of God lets you know how you should respond in circumstances and events. And whenever you're trying to build relationships with people, how do you treat them? You pray in the Spirit, God, here is this wife that you've given me. I don't know how to deal with the things. There seems to be conflict between us. What do you think I should do? See, the Spirit of God knows both sides of this situation perfectly and clearly, and He knows exactly what needs to be done. He can tell you what to do, even though you don't know the result that will come from it. Sometimes it may seem foolish to you, but He knows what's on the other side of that bond between you, and He knows exactly what needs to be done. So His requirement for us is, if you're going to live this life, no matter what your relationships are in the world, you must pray in the Spirit. When every conflict or hurt comes to you, instead of reacting, you stop and say, God, what do you want me to do? Now the Holy Spirit connects you to God, and so you ask the question of God through the Holy Spirit, and God then tells the Spirit, and He brings it to you. Here is how you react. So He says, if you're going to be able to fight this battle and have unity and oneness come to you, you must pray in the Spirit on all occasions, and all kinds of prayers, and all kinds of requests. Every time you pray and you bring to God a relationship issue, you must say, God, my life belongs to you, I'm willing to do whatever you tell me, I want you to give me the instructions. All kinds of prayers, all kinds of requests, you're passing on to God, and He's feeding them back to you. And then He says, with this idea in mind, that you're praying to say, God, what should I do? With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for yourselves not only, but all the saints who are around you. That's why we have every week in our bulletin one of the families in our church. Oftentimes our prayers for people are physical or emotional, but I want you to add every week to these that you would pray for the families in our church, that they might have this full armor of God on, and they might have the Spirit of God in their lives, that God would weld all the members of that family together in unity and oneness. And if there are any broken relationships, that the people in those broken relationships might turn to God and say, what do I need to do to change this relationship that I have? Look, God's great purpose is not a physically healthy congregation. What God wants in a congregation is a spiritually healthy group where we're at one with each other and at one with Him. Certainly God wants to heal people. When He walked on the earth, He did it. But His most important ingredient is to make sure that the people who are there are drawn together in oneness with Him, which will make them in oneness with each other. I'm afraid, you know, that we can't often make spiritual requests for other people. When we have prayer request time, it's awkward to stand up and say somebody's name and say they're fighting with their husband or wife, let's pray for them. We don't want to announce that kind of thing to the world. It's private and personal. But what we can do on our own is to guess. And here's a good guess. In every single family, there is separation and alienation between some people and the other. And in every single marriage, from the beginning all the way to the end, there are some times it comes whenever you don't like the person you're married to and you have good reason not to. So it doesn't hurt a thing to pray a real prayer for every couple who's married. God, break down the barriers that exist between them and teach them to treat each other like you treat your enemy. What God is trying to do in this world is very simple. He's trying to bring a man and woman together in oneness. He's trying to bring people together in oneness. To break down those barriers that cause us to be at odds with each other. He died on the cross that we might have this life of union with him and with other people around us. Pray for each other, he said. Because we're all broken people and we're all doing things that we shouldn't be doing. Pray that we might know when to forgive. Pray that we might know when to speak a word of correction. Pray that the people who are involved in following Christ would be filled with his presence, that we might be welded together. Every time you get angry, it is in conflict with what God is trying to do in your life. Every time you get mad at someone, it's in conflict with what God is trying to do. Every time a church finds itself with quarreling and fighting, it's in conflict with what God wants to do. The greatest stroke that Satan has against the kingdom of God is to cause division in the fellowship of people who've been welded together in Christ. Then he can say to the world, don't go to church, it doesn't really work. And when we live a life that proves that what Satan says is true about ourselves and our marriages and our homes, and we prove that it's true in our church, we have defied the very purpose that Jesus Christ is working to accomplish. This is a critical issue with God. Paul said it was revealed to him that God has one great purpose, to bring everything and every person in the world together in oneness with each other and with Christ and with God. And Paul said as he closed this, I'm not immune to it. And he was. He was at odds with John Mark, who went on a trip and went home early. And Paul said, we're not taking him with us anymore. He didn't have enough spiritual strength to do the job. But before Paul's ministry was over, Mark was one of his right-hand men. He experienced the very power of what he was writing, that God dissolves those barriers that exist between us, no matter how powerful they are. So he said, pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will make known, given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel. Pray for me that every word that I speak would fulfill the mystery that God is at work doing, bringing people together in oneness and unity. He wanted it not only for his life, but also for his ministry and his preaching. I want to be able to proclaim this truth and live it so that they would have the sheer knowledge of what God can do. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. Why would it be fearless? Why would he be afraid? Well, I'll tell you why. If you have friends that are telling you they're mad at somebody and you try to say to them, you know, if you looked inside yourself to see what you need to do to change yourself, you just lost a friend. Nobody wants to hear that. May I have the courage, he said, to stand before the people I preach to and say there's something wrong with you all. I see you fighting. I see you quarreling. I see you running each other down. It's not easy to do. You lose people's attention in congregation pretty quick when you do it, but it's a truth. Pray for me that I might not lose this message that God is trying to accomplish in the world, to make every one of us to be like Jesus. And because we've yielded ourselves to Christ, all the relationships we have are sealed between us and other followers of Christ in an unbreakable bond. And when it is broken, it is defying the very message of Christ, I can make people into one. The gospel is preached and taught, but it is not real until it is lived. So God is saying, it doesn't matter how serious the conflict is between you and someone else. I can heal it. Well, other people don't want it to be healed. It doesn't make any difference. I can show you what to do even if they don't. Here's our picture. Jesus on the cross. People have beat Him. People have stuck His head with thorns. People have treated Him with abuse. And there was every reason to have conflict and anger. And there was a lot on one side, the people who were doing it, but on Jesus there was not one single negative response. His response was to say to the Father, they don't understand what they're doing here. And whoever hurts you doesn't understand what they're doing either. They may even think they're helping you when they hurt you. And so you learn to say, Father, forgive them. They don't understand the consequence of their behavior. And in that way, you have peace even though they're still fighting. That's what God wants. Give me the ability, Paul said, to be able to proclaim the truth even when people don't want to hear it. For I know in this there is the very word of life. Would you pray with me? I want to start at the beginning of this by saying this message is for people who have surrendered their life to Christ. I don't mean if you join the church. I don't mean you've been baptized. I mean you've said to God, I want you to take over my life. My time belongs to you. My money belongs to you. My character belongs to you. I want to live exactly as you want me to live. If you have never done that, then God cannot bring union and oneness between you and anyone else because you're not at one with God. Maybe you've made that promise to God, but I'd like to ask you this morning to say, God, I promised you that. Is it really true? And then you listen as the Spirit tells you what might need to be changed in your life. You can't glue something together that has debris between it. If you're trying to, I suppose it's true about welding too, if it has dirt and trash in it, the weld won't stick. So you have to clean your own life up before God can make that oneness between you and Him and between you and anyone else. That's the starting place. And I want you to ask yourself, what are the relationships I have that are broken? It may not be your fault, but they're broken. I'd like you to say to God, I'll do anything in the world you want me to do to make sure on my side that there is no brokenness. You can't join yourself to someone else. They have to be willing for that to happen, but you can make sure your side is ready for the welding when God gets ready to do it. I'm going to ask the pianist if you'd play, and if you'd like me to pray with you or someone else to pray with you about some person in your life or some situation in your life or for yourself, we'll be glad to do that. But this is a time in which God is trying to bind you together with Himself in a seamless, unbreakable bond. Let Him do it. Would you stand, please, for a moment as we pray together? If the world was painted red, God, to exhibit all the places where people are at odds with each other and broken, it would be red everywhere. All we ask for is that that one small dot where each of us live would be a place that would be blue with peace. And we ask that as we gather together that that spot might be large because all of us are at peace with you and each other, that all the world around us is trying to figure out how to get together, whether it's Congress, whether it's our city, whether it's our neighbors, whether it's our family. They would all be able to see that you alone can bring life in its fullness. So make us one with you. Make us one with each other, that we might be able to demonstrate this great mystery that you're working to accomplish, to bring all the world together as one under one head, Jesus Christ our Lord. It's in his name we pray and we live. Amen. Amen? Onward, Christian soldier, marching as to war. With the cross of Jesus going on before.