Church Unity #4

Q: What does the Bible say about church unity?

The Bible emphasizes that church unity is rooted in a common experience of God's grace, conviction regarding His truth, and commitment to His concerns, as seen in Ephesians 4. The Bible describes church unity as fundamental to the life and health of the body of Christ. In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul exhorts believers to maintain unity by walking worthily of their calling, emphasizing qualities such as humility and love. The foundation for this unity is established through shared experiences of grace, common convictions about the truth of Scripture, and a mutual commitment to the concerns of God. Without this intentional effort nurtured by the Spirit, church unity cannot thrive in the face of sin and division.

Q: Why is maintaining church unity important for Christians?

Maintaining church unity is vital for showing the reality of Christ's teachings and for the health of the church body. Church unity is important because it reflects the nature of God and the work of Christ within the community of believers. In John 17, Jesus prayed for the unity of His followers, indicating that this unity serves as a testimony to the world of His divine mission. Moreover, a unified church operates effectively in fulfilling God's mission and ministry. If unity is neglected, divisions can arise, which undermine the church's witness and effectiveness. Therefore, Christians must actively work to cultivate unity through love, forgiveness, and mutual service.

Q: How do we cultivate church unity?

Cultivating church unity involves intentional efforts like showing mutual forbearance, practicing forgiveness, and serving one another. Cultivating church unity is an active spiritual endeavor that requires believers to practice mutual forbearance, forgiveness, and serve one another in love. Ephesians 4:2 encourages believers to forbear one another in love, reflecting a heart of humility and understanding. Sanctification involves cultivating these graces as part of our communal life. Additionally, maintaining open communication and addressing conflicts biblically helps uphold unity. The church must strive to develop an environment of acceptance and mutual respect, giving diligence to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Q: What role does forgiveness play in church unity?

Forgiveness is essential in church unity, as it fosters reconciliation and peace among believers. Forgiveness plays a crucial role in maintaining church unity, as it reflects the heart of God toward His people. As outlined in Ephesians 4:32, Christians are called to be tender-hearted and forgiving, mirroring the grace they have received from God. When misunderstandings and conflicts arise, a reluctance to forgive can lead to bitterness and division. Therefore, cultivating a spirit of forgiveness among church members ensures that relationships remain intact and that unity is not easily disturbed. Regularly practicing forgiveness promotes healing and builds a stronger, more resilient body of Christ.

Q: How does mutual service contribute to church unity?

Mutual service fosters church unity by encouraging selflessness and reinforcing the bonds of community among believers. Mutual service is a vital aspect of church unity as it expresses love in action and builds the body of Christ in practical ways. Galatians 5:13 encourages believers to serve one another through love, emphasizing the idea that true unity arises from the priority of serving others over self-interests. When church members actively seek to serve one another, it not only deepens relationships but also creates an environment where unity can flourish. Service requires humility and fosters a culture of empathy, allowing members to view each other as valuable and worthy of care, which enhances the overall cohesiveness of the church.

The following address was delivered
at the 1990 New England Baptist Family Conference. Before we turn to the ministry
of the Word of God, I feel a special responsibility as, I don't know
what else to call, but the senior partner in the preaching staff
this week, senior in terms of just pure birth record validation. And I do believe that there is
a special responsibility upon me. No one has charged me to
do this, but I'm confident I speak for all of you as the Lord's
people and for my brethren with whom I have been privileged to
labor when I say from the depths of our hearts, we are grateful
to Pastor Becker and to the deacons and to the members of the congregation
in East Manfield for all of the labors that you have expended
in past months and even the concentrated labors of this week to make possible
our coming together in this way. And as I've been privileged to
enter into the labors of others over many years in conferences
of this nature, I have a little understanding of all of the labor
that goes on for months behind the scenes as well as the many
labors during the actual conference time, and on behalf of all of
us who have entered into the fruit of your labors, we thank
you in Christ's name and we know that God is not unmindful to
forget your labor of love in that you minister to the saints
and still do minister. And then I want to express a
special word of thanks as well to my brethren who have ministered
to my heart this week, to Pastor John Reese and Pastor Dean Allen,
and say how thankful to God I am that it's become evident, I am
sure to all of us, that someone above and beyond Pastor Becker
has orchestrated the themes, the way they have unfolded, the
way they have interfaced and interlocked and overlapped and
complemented each other And it has been a great delight to have
my own soul refreshed, to be reminded of old things, to have
some aspects of truth opened up in new light, and to feel
that I return to my sphere of responsibility enriched by the
ministry of my brethren. And I thank you for your labors
to my own heart, as well as to all of us in the conference.
And now we come tonight in the ministry of the Word of God to
this fourth and final study that I will be privileged to lead
you in on the subject of church unity. And in our first study,
after limiting the field of our concern to that of local church
unity, I sought to lay before you a working description and
definition of church unity I sought to persuade you of the attainability
of church unity and to convince you of the tremendous importance
of church unity. Then, in the last two sessions,
we have been contemplating the foundation of church unity. And we have seen from the Word
of God that if there is to be anything that approximates the
unity of the Church envisioned in the New Testament, it must
be a unity, as the old Puritans would say, bottomed upon. I love
that old terminology. Bottomed upon, founded upon,
well settled upon, these three great realities. There must be
a common experience of the grace of God, a common conviction regarding
the revealed truth of God, and a common commitment to the great
concerns of God. Now, having considered the foundation
of church unity, what I will attempt to do tonight is really
just to give you an outline with some comments and exhortations
along the way on the whole subject of the growth and the expansion,
the continuance, the cultivation, any of those terms would be appropriate,
of this church unity. The maintenance and the growth
of church unity. If there is to be, as the prevailing
climate of our churches, that unity that we have described
as oneness and harmony of understanding, affection, purpose, and activity,
while maintaining all of our legitimate expressions of individuality
and diversity, it will not simply happen because the foundation
has been laid by the grace of God, working by the Word under
the power of the Spirit. But that church unity built upon
that foundation will mark our congregations only if there is
a conscious effort to see it maintained, to see it grow and
develop, and the use of the means ordained of God to that end. And so what I propose to do in
the time allotted to me tonight is, first of all, to demonstrate
the necessity of conscious effort to maintain and increase church
unity, And having demonstrated the necessity of conscious effort
in this direction, I want us then to focus on the graces which
must be cultivated if we are to maintain and grow in our church
unity, and thirdly, the sins and vices that must be continually
mortified if we are to grow in church unity. First of all, then,
I want to demonstrate the necessity of conscious effort to maintain
and increase church unity. And here I turn again to one
of the passages that we've had occasion to look at at least
twice in the previous messages, Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians
chapter 4. As the Apostle begins this exhortation,
which focuses upon the subject of church unity, note his language. I, therefore, the prisoner in
the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith
you were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering,
forbearing one another in love, giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. Now, the general exhortation
of these verses is that the people of God will walk in a manner
worthy of God's call to grace. The central exhortation is, I
beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith you
were called. Then the Apostle Paul focuses
upon a specific aspect of such a walk as is worthy of our calling. And the aspect upon which he
focuses is that of cultivating a life of mutual forbearance
carried on in a climate of meekness, lowliness, and longsuffering. walk worthily of the calling
wherewith you were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with
longsuffering, forbearing one another in love." We are to cultivate
a climate in our churches of mutual forbearance a forbearance
caused and fueled by this climate of meekness, lowliness, and longsuffering. But then parallel to that, we
are also to carry on a conscious effort to maintain the unity
of the Spirit. In doing all of the things listed
up to verse 2, he then goes on to say, giving diligence to keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And the verb there,
give diligence, it's a present participle, which means to be
continually eager to make every effort in a given direction.
In other words, it speaks of a conscious spiritual endeavor,
and it is to be not intermittently exercised, but continually exercised,
continually giving diligence to keep a present infinity, which
means to guard, to maintain or to retain We are then constantly
to be eager to make every effort to guard, to keep continually
the unity of the Spirit, that is, the unity which the Holy
Spirit has wrought through the truth of the gospel and by His
powerful transforming work in our hearts. In the language of
the two preceding messages, the unity he has effected by laying
the foundation for that unity by his own working in conjunction
with the truth of the gospel. Now that is to be our conscious
spiritual endeavor. Obviously, like every other endeavor,
we are not to do it seeking to find the strength and grace in
ourselves. We are to do it in an attitude
of dependence upon God Himself. We are to do it in a disposition
of prayerfulness. We are to do it in the confidence
that God is at work in us to will and to work of His good
pleasure. We are to do it in the spirit
of Philippians, for I can do all things through Him who strengthens
me. But there is no amount of prayerfulness,
dependence upon the Lord, expectation of His help that will ever operate
at a level that will cancel our conscious endeavor to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The Holy Spirit will
keep that desire alive in our hearts. He will keep the motives
pressing in upon our hearts and our minds. He will give us the
power to cultivate the graces and mortify the vices essential,
but He will never so work as to negate our conscious effort
in that direction. We are to give diligence to keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And wherever you
have a congregation that ceases to give diligence to keep the
unity of the Spirit, whatever measure of that unity they have
known will by degrees erode. Given the reality of remaining
sin in the human heart, the reality of a wise and vicious devil who
goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, given
the influence of a seducing, bewitching world, this kind of
unity that we have been describing from the Word of God this week
is not a plant that will continue to grow if unattended. There are too many hostile elements
in its environment that it will never grow, it will never increase
and blossom and send forth increasing fragrance unless there is a whole
assembly of spiritual gardeners given to the nurture and the
care of that tender, precious, and alas, almost exotic and rare
plant of genuine church unity. Now we could add many other passages,
but surely if this passage does not convince our judgment, I
doubt that five others would. So I trust, if not already convinced,
this passage has convinced you that it is one of your constant
duties as a visible disciple of Christ, as a member of a church
that claims to be subject to Christ the Lord, it is one of
your privileges and your duties constantly to endeavor to guard
and to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now then, how do we do it? Well,
in the pattern that John Owen has so masterfully set out in
so many of his works, particularly in Volume 6, in the three treatises,
Mortification, Indwelling Sin, and Temptation, John Owen again
and again asserts that the whole of the Christian life is taken
up with mortification and confirmation. It is taken up with putting to
death those sins that are displeasing to God. It is taken up with cultivating
the graces of likeness to Jesus Christ. There is no growth in
grace that is real, that does not involve the constant mortification
of sin and the constant confirmation to the image and likeness of
the Lord Jesus. And following that biblical pattern,
which in Pauline language is the put-off and the put-on pattern. Owen was simply trying to express
in fresh language to his generation that whole motif, put off, put
on. And each of us by nature is so
constructed that we will gravitate more naturally to the putting
off or to the putting on. And we must know ourselves and
bring ourselves in hand by the grace of God with the determination
that we shall give equal and biblical proportion to the putting
off and to the putting on. So then, if you would be one
who in your assembly, week by week, month by month, year by
year, and I trust decade by decade if the Lord carries and spares
you, you will be found as a person who is constantly cultivating
the graces essential for the maintenance and the increase
of church unity. Now, I said I could only give
you a bare outline with a few comments along the way, and that's
what I'm going to do. I want to set before you seven
graces And there's no significance in the number seven. Some of
these might be reduced under one of them. Some of them might
be amplified. I claim no special inspiration
for the category. let alone the number of the categories,
but I think if we see enough of them, we will have, as it
were, a conscience and a spiritual consciousness alert to the kindred
graces that may be the first cousin or the second cousin once
removed to one of these dominant graces. But I've sought to focus
upon the graces that are explicitly brought forward and mentioned
in conjunction with passages that treat the subject of the
unity of the people of God. And the first one is right here
in our text in Ephesians chapter 4. We must constantly cultivate
the grace of mutual forbearance. I beseech you, walk worthily
of the calling wherewith you were called with all loneliness
and meekness with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love. Now, to forbear means to bear
up, to hold oneself up. And the whole assumption of the
apostle is that in the real church of God's people at Ephesus, in
spite of all of their privileges in Christ outlined in the first
three chapters, in spite of all of the blessing they have known,
and it was marvelous blessing when we read it in the book of
Acts, Through them, when the apostle was among them, the gospel
was heard throughout all of that area of Asia Minor, and churches
were planted throughout that entire area. Paul is assuming
that in the day-by-day, constant congregational interaction of
the people of God, These believers with remaining sin would be bringing
pressures to bear upon one another, and that they needed to bear
up under the pressure that they brought upon one another. And so he exhorts them to forbear
one another in love. Bear up! with one another in
love. Paul was a realist. He had lived
too long with his own heart and with his brethren to know that
the best of brethren will at times be insensitive to one another
in a crucial hour of need when every single cell of the soul
is longing for the presence of a sensitive brother or sister. That brother or sister who seems
to be the utter embodiment of insensitivity will be placed
in our path. There are some people who seem
to have very, very sensitive antennae to pick up the vibrations
of a hurting soul. Others seem to have all their
antennae broken off. And at the time when you long
for someone to pick up those signals, and you're not looking
for pity. But you're looking for that empathetic
identification in the language of Romans 12, someone who will
weep with you as you are weeping, or someone to rejoice with you
as you are rejoicing. That utterly insensitive brother
or sister is plunked right in your path. And what will happen?
If you do not have some measure of the grace of forbearance to
bear up under the crippling pressure of that brother or sister's insensitivity,
you're going to find a seed of resentment taking root in your
heart. There are others that are relatively
unsharing and uncaring. They have many virtues. But for
one reason or another, they have not cultivated the virtue of
a ready and an open hand. And just at a time when you were
in great need and you were spreading that need before God and trusting
the Lord in His own inscrutable way to meet it, someone will
express something in word or deed that is a crass expression
of unsharing and uncaringness. Well, what are you going to do?
Well, you need great measures of the grace of mutual forbearance. And if you don't have it, you're
going to find resentment and bitterness and irritation growing
up in your heart. And what is that? That is a fissure. That is a crack in the unity
of the Spirit and the bond of peace. How long has it been since
you prayed, Oh God, give me a fresh baptism of holy forbearance? Increase in my heart the grace
of forbearance, and Lord, please increase it in my brethren or
they're never going to get along with me. For remember, you too
have been insensitive at the point where you hurt someone
else. And you have been unresponsive
to their patent need, not willfully and maliciously, but through
the various actings of indwelling sin. And sometimes, because your
own heart may be so torn and broken by God's dark providences
with your own life, that you are shut up in that cocoon that
the old writers called the dark night of the soul. when your
own spiritual struggles are so all-consuming that a man who
at other times would be highly sensitive finds himself unable
to do anything more than groan out the complaint of his own
heart before God. O dear brothers and sisters,
endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit. Seek to cultivate
the grace of mutual forbearance. Then secondly, We need to cultivate
the grace of quick, unreserved, mutual forgiveness. Ephesians
chapter 4, the latter part, verse 30, Grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption. Let
all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and railing
be put away from you with all malice. What are those dispositions? Those are the various dispositions
found in an unforgiving heart. Someone has either truly been
wronged or perceived himself to have been wronged, and he's
not dealt with the issue biblically. And what's the result? His heart
becomes full of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor. His mouth will
indulge railing. There will be a malicious spirit,
all because he has not been brought to the place where his heart
has been suffused with the disposition of the spirit of forgiveness. And I want to make a distinction
that, as far as I understand the Scriptures and have wrestled
with my own heart and with God's people over the years, it's critical
to make. There is a difference between
the internal disposition of forgiveness and the actual conferral of forgiveness
for a particular misdeed. Now when we have been wronged,
we cannot confer forgiveness until the person who has wronged
us seeks our forgiveness. That's what our Lord has in mind
when He says in Luke 17 3, If thy brother sin against thee,
rebuke him. If he repent, Forgive him. That is, confer your forgiveness
upon him. Say, the issue is let go. It's a non-issue. It is done. It's behind us. It's forgotten. It's over with. But now, what
about the spirit in which I go to my brother who has wronged
me? What is the spirit that must be present as a prevailing disposition
when I go to tell my brother who's wrong? There are some who
say you cannot forgive until the person seeks forgiveness.
Do we get forgiveness from God without confessing our sin? No,
it's if we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, 1 John
1.9. Ah, but my friends, God's disposition
to forgive precedes his conferral of forgiveness. If there were
no disposition, there'd be no conferral. And when Jesus hung
upon the cross, I'm amazed at how some Calvinist danced a jig
around that text and tried to prove that everyone there who
heard it was ultimately saved at Pentecost or some other nonsense. When Jesus cried out, Forgive
them, for they know not what they do." He was not speaking
as the judge upon the throne and in the courtroom conferring
forgiveness upon sinners. He was opening up his heart and
saying, this is what my disposition is. My disposition is not one,
Father, consume them in your wrath. No, my disposition is
I extend forgiveness as the disposition of my heart. And you see, we
must be like God in this critical matter. When I am wronged by
another, I cannot deny if I have been truly wronged. And though
the first reaction may be one of wanting to take vengeance,
God says, no, vengeance is mine. I will repay. He doesn't say
vengeance has no place. He says vengeance is mine. Put
that in my hands. I alone can mete out vengeance
apart from the human government to whom I have given a dimension
of my vengeance to mete out upon evil. You are never to take vengeance
into your own hands. You are by my grace, the Lord
says, to manifest a disposition of readiness and willingness
to forgive. Isn't that what Psalm 130 verse
4 says? Thou, Lord, art good and ready
to forgive. You have a disposition to forgive
and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon you. And so we
are told in this passage, let all bitterness. It's never right
to have bitterness in your heart. I don't care what a brother or
sister has done to you. If last Sunday morning, walking
out of church, they looked you straight in the eye, 18 inches
away, spat in your face, stomped on your toes, kicked you in the
shins and cursed you, you have no right to walk two steps with
bitterness in your heart. You have no right at any time
to have bitterness, a wrathful spirit, unjust anger, clamor,
railing, maliciousness, never at any time under any circumstances. No matter what anyone else has
done to you that's wrong, if you have anything but a disposition
and readiness to forgive, you too are wrong. You too are wrong!"
And as my dear mother used to say again and again, it takes
two to make a fight, two wrongs don't make a right. I was brought
up on those axioms. We'd come running in, having
just had a spat, and each one saying, he started, she started,
and my mom said, was there a real fight? Yes, but he, did she?
She said, all right, it takes two to make a fight. You're both
guilty. Who started it is academic. You're both going to get it.
Pow, pow, pow. I'm going to waste my time. Who
started it? It takes two to make a fight. My friends, it takes
two in that sense to make division. It takes someone responding to
wrong in a wrong way. And oh, may God teach us if we
would endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace, to cultivate the grace of mutual forgiveness. Forgiveness
as the prevailing disposition of our hearts, no matter what
has been done to us. And if we must go to rebuke a
brother, we do not go with a magisterial, vindictive spirit. We go with
a spirit that seeks to have the privilege of conferring forgiveness
upon him as he repents, or in the language of Matthew 18, we
seek to gain the brother, not beat up on the brother. He did
me wrong, I'll do him wrong. No, he may have wronged me. But oh, in the language or in
the thought pattern of Matthew 18, what is the debt of one servant
to another servant when you think of the debt of the servant to
his master? When we think of that almost
monetarily grotesque parable that Jesus gives in which that
servant had a debt that was in the millions and was freely forgiven,
And yet he grabbed his fellow servant by the neck and was ready
to squeeze him for every nickel. Jesus said, such a person who
does not have a spirit of forgiveness has never truly known forgiveness. What can my brethren do to me
that in any way begins to equal the horror of what I have done
to my God? I've sinned against the infinitely
beautiful, lovely, majestic, glorious, lovable God of heaven
and earth, and He has freely forgiven me all my sins for the
sake of Christ. And wonder of wonders, in all
of my ongoing sins, He constantly stands ready to forgive. How
can I be living in communion with a God like that? How can
I be going to the infinite God of heaven day after day, receiving
fresh conferrals of forgiveness upon confession of my specific
sins? How can I be living at the cross,
seeking forgiveness, and have any other disposition as the
prevailing disposition of my heart, but one of forgiveness
to my brethren? so that forgiveness must be the
constant disposition and then the periodic conferral when there
are instances where specific sins are acknowledged and forgiveness
is sought. But then there is a third grace
that we must cultivate if we are to know any measure of the
growth and continuance of church unity, not only the grace of
forbearance, the grace of forgiveness, but the grace of mutual biblical
love. Some would subsume all of these
graces under love, and it may be done, but I'm not sure that
it's right to do so, and the Word of God does not do so. We
are told in Colossians 3, verses 12 to 14, another passage where unity is emphasized. Put on, therefore, as God's elect,
holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness,
meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another. Sound familiar? Almost identical language as
we find in Ephesians 4. Put on all of these graces If,
and forgiving one another, if any man have a complaint against
any, even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye, and above
all these things." He didn't say, and comprised as all of
these things. That's why I'm reluctant to just
make them all aspects of love. This is a separate, distinct
commodity. Above all these things put on
love, which is the bond of perfectness. It is the band that holds all
of the other graces together. As certain joints are held together
by the ligaments, the bands of the joint, so all of these graces,
so essential in the midst of an imperfectly sanctified body
of God's people, the band that holds them all together is the
grace of biblical love. The love described in 1 Corinthians
13 that has no marks of heroism. Most of us will live and die
and never called upon to be a hero. Love that bears all things. Love that believes all things. Love that thinks no evil. When there are five possible
ways to interpret a deed, love puts the best construction on
it, not the worst. Love does not do that. I beg
you, parents, to drum this into your children as my dear mother
drummed it into me. You'd come running in, Ma, so-and-so
did this and this because... And she said, now, wait a minute,
stop. What actually happened? Well, this happened. Now, why
did it? Well, because... Well, how do you know she did
that because? Well, I just know it. Wait a
minute. Wait a minute. Did she tell you she did that
because... No, but I... Well, stop, stop, stop. What
are some of the reasons why your sister or brother may have done
that? Think. Well, maybe because of this.
All right. Anything else? Well, yeah, maybe because of
that. Well, what? Sometimes four or five different
things. And she'd say, now, what's the
best one? Well, this one. She said, assume that was the
reason until you have clear evidence otherwise. Oh, how that has saved
me manifold heartaches in the ministry. People come and say,
Pastor, I hope I didn't offend you. I said, offend you with
what? I had this happen twice last week. I couldn't even know
what they were talking about. Well, my daughter said something
to you that was disrespectful. Yeah, I said, I can't remember.
I said, it must not have offended me. I don't even know what you're
talking about. It's not because my memory's
like that. It's because by the grace of God, certain things
were wrought into the texture of my soul at the end of the
rod of discipline. Love thinks no evil. Love believes all things, hopes
all things. You say, well, you'll get kicked
around if you live naively like that. I'd rather be kicked around
and have a good conscience than be self-protective and have a
bloody conscience and be the cause of disunity in Christ's
Church. We need to cultivate the grace
of love, that kind of love of 1 Corinthians, that kind of love
that Peter says in 1 Peter 4, 8, above all things, having fervent
love among yourselves. He says the love that does what?
Covers a multitude of sins. You see, all true love in a real
context of real sinners in a real church. It will always set up
a blanket factory. The heart of every Christian
suffused with biblical love has a little blanket factory. And
it's always making blankets, and when it sees the faults of
its brethren, it throws the blanket over it and hides it from him. Now, we're not talking about
faults that may cripple the brother unless they're dealt with. If
anyone be overtaken in such a fault, restore such a one. We're not
talking about scandalous sin that may bring into jeopardy
this person's profession and the name of Christ and the testimony
of the Church. There are other passages for
that. But we're talking about the multitude
of sins. Hamartia. They are sins. Sins of insensitivity. Sins of
hogging the conversation in a social situation. Sins of indifference
and lack of responsiveness. But the sins that are part of
our common infirmities in our present state and in the heart
of every child of God filled with the Spirit. There is a blanket
factory producing blankets to throw over the sins of His brethren. But alas, some Christians seem
to have made a magnifying glass factory in their hearts. And
they are all the time producing a magnifying glass and putting
it over the faults of their brethren and blowing them out of proportion.
There will be no unity where you have too many magnifying
glass factories and not enough blanket factories. Then, fourthly,
we need to cultivate the grace of mutual preference. The grace
of mutual preference, what's that? That's the opposite of
me-first-ism. And isn't that what Paul emphasizes
in such a passage as Philippians chapter 2? As he exhorts the
Philippians to unity, what grace does he focus upon? Make full
my joy, Philippians 2.2. You be of the same mind, having
the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, doing nothing through
faction or vain glory. but in lowliness of mind, each
counting other better than himself, not looking each of you to his
own things, constantly thinking, how will this affect me? How
will this affect my plans, my schedule, my taste, my likes,
my dislikes? No, each of you not looking to
his own things, but each of you also to the things of others,
so that the first reaction when the deacons announced the day
for the annual church picnic is, oh rats, why did they have
to plan it on that day? I've already got something planned,
and then you're ready to stir up a fuss! You don't know how
many hours they spent checking with all the other departments
in the church to see what was the least occupied day. They didn't make that decision
hastily. They didn't make it to be me-me's. But if you're only looking to
your own things, the announcement of a certain day for this church
picnic can cause division. How does it affect Almighty Me?
My friend, if that's where you are, may God have mercy on you.
We need to look on the things above. My brethren have proven
that they're sensitive to the needs of the church. Surely they
didn't settle on that date arbitrarily. That may have been the only date
available for the only suitable place for a church picnic. It
may be in the light of this and that and the other thing. These
are trusted brethren. I acknowledge them to be gifts
of Christ, full of wisdom, full of faith, full of the Holy Ghost.
Then I'm going to turn around and treat them like they're knaves
and dopes? If you evaluated them biblically,
they're worthy of your trust. And the words trust and loyalty
have pretty well gone out of this generation. You have been
raised to be suspicious of the motives and judgment of anyone
in authority. And you better face it, that's
one of the crowning sins of this generation. Remember what the
cry of the 60s and the early 70s was? Don't trust anyone over
30. And implicit in that is don't trust anyone with enough age
and experience, and certainly, if they have any position of
authority, be suspicious of them. And it's one of the biggest battles
to be faced in our churches in this coming generation, that
we not overreact into a kind of Gestapo-like leadership on
the one hand, nor that we cave in to a wretched congregationalism
on the other. And the antidote is the grace
of mutual preference. Paul says it in Romans 12 and
verse 10, the same thing. He says it more briefly, but
it is exactly the same thing. He says, In love of the brethren,
be tenderly affectioned one to another, in honor preferring
one another. No, my brother, Your mind in
the matter is more important than mine. No, my brother, your
feelings about the matter are more important. My concerns in
this are purely personal. May God grant that we will cultivate
the grace of mutual preference. Now, you children, listen to
me. That's why some people think, well, little things like courtesy,
they're just customs. When you think of that woman
who's in front of you and she's going to get to the door ahead
of you if you walk at the same pace and you quicken your pace
to get there and say, sorry ma'am, I'll open the door. Those little
things are cultivating the grace of mutual preference. What are
manners but an application of this grace to the specifics of
our culture? When a man holds the chair for
a woman and helps seat her, she's not helpless, sure she can pull
her own seat under her rump, of course. But what it's saying is that
I'm treating you with honor. That's what God says I'm to do.
Honor you as the weaker vessel, not demean you. And you see how
vital it is you parents don't regard manners and social courtesies
as matters of just, well, I'm not running a finishing school
here. It is these things taught long
before grace effectually works in your children that when God
is pleased to save them, will at least find a framework for
the cultivation of the grace of mutual preference. that then we must, in the fifth
place, cultivate the grace of mutual acceptance. Mutual acceptance. And the key text here is Romans
15 and verse 7. Right after that glorious exhortation
that we looked at last night, concerning the whole problem
of Jew and Gentile with all of the diversities of cultural and
religious backgrounds and sensitivities and convictions about things
that are sinful and not sinful, etc., etc. After Paul gives that
exhortation that they may with one mouth and one accord glorify
the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, wherefore,
If you're ever going to attain this, wherefore, receive ye one
another, even as Christ also received you to the glory of
God. You see how the redemptive dynamics
come in again and again and again? We're to forgive as God forgives. We're to receive as God received
us. Now let me ask you. When God
in Christ received you, how did he receive you? At arm's length,
while he analyzed all the things he was going to change in you
over the next year, and then after a year, draw his arm back
a little bit and say, well, you've made some real progress now.
You can come two feet closer. And then after a year, you made
some progress. He drew his arm back a little bit and said, now
you can come three feet closer. And then after ten years, he
opened his arms and embraced you when you met a certain standard.
Is that how God in Christ received you? That isn't how he received
me. He received me as the father in the parable of the prodigal
son. No sooner does the father see that son returning, and the
scripture is clear, the son did not run to the father. He was
frozen in his tracks by his sense of guilt and shame. But it says
the father ran to him, threw his arms around him, embraced
him, kissed him, and the father began to bark orders, bring the
robe, bring the ring, bring the sandals, and grab the fatted
calf. That's how God in Christ received
me. That's how he received you. Now
he says, receive one another that way. Now that's not natural. That's not natural. Some of us
were brought up believing so many ethnic stereotypes. It's
in our bloodstream. It's a part of the texture of
our souls. And we have this perspective
and that perspective about this group and that group and the
other group. Paul the realist understood that and said, if
you are ever to attain this kind of unity, wherefore, receive
one another even as Christ received you to the glory of God, so that
there is no holding people off until we, quote, see if they
shape up in this area and that area. No, we receive them with
all of our hearts You say, well, what if they prove to be hypocrites?
Well, then you'll treat them as hypocrites. What if they prove
to be temporary believers? Then you will treat them accordingly.
But there is no intimation in the Word of God that someone
must come by degrees into the acceptance of the people of God. Once a credible profession of
faith has been made, and they are prepared to bear witness
to that and cast in their lot with the people of God, in the
way of God's appointment. There must be cultivated among
us the grace of mutual acceptance, and if there's anything almost
any group of people and any individual can pick up more quickly than
anything else is whether or not there's a climate of unfeigned
and genuine acceptance. When God first began to bring
a number of blacks into our assembly, After having had a black man
as one of our elders, not as an assistant pastor, but as one
of the elders, co-pastor, and our people evidenced that in
their heart they were prepared to look to a black man as their
shepherd, when God began to grant an influx of blacks into the
membership, I began to probe and I began to ask questions
because I wanted to learn from my brethren. And I said, What
was it that made you come back a second time? You came out of
Newark where all you knew of religion was typical black cultural
religion with the little strands of truth here and there, but
predominantly an embodiment and the preservation of your own
American black culture. What made you come back a second
time? Time after time, these black brothers and sisters said,
because pastor in this place We were conscious of genuine,
unfeigned acceptance. We've gone to places where people
fell all over themselves to prove they weren't prejudiced, and
the very way they did it showed they weren't comfortable with
it in their own hearts. And we felt we didn't have to
be white in order to be at home in this place and hear the truth
and love the God who's loved and served in this place. I say
that to God's praise because that didn't happen overnight.
I could name the groups of people who had deep prejudices to blacks,
and God used Pastor Blaze as one of the great instruments
to break that down initially, preparing us for the day when
there'd be this tremendous influx of blacks. I look back at God's
marvelous ways of dealing with us as a people, but there must
be the grace of mutual acceptance. And then in the sixth place,
there must be the grace of mutual service. And here I must just
quote the text as time is getting away so quickly, Galatians 5,
13 to 15. We're not to use our liberty
as an excuse for indulging sin to the gratification of our own
flesh and to the stumbling of our brethren. But Paul says,
use your liberty now. as the means of serving your
brethren in love. Through love be servants one
to another. Ephesians 5.21, the five participles
that follow the present imperative of the verb, be ye being filled
with the Holy Spirit. And how does a Spirit-filled
life manifest itself? Speaking singing, making melody,
and the fifth of those participles is submitting yourselves one
to another in the fear of Christ. A man full of the Spirit is not
full of self-importance. He has been given in principle
the grace to serve his brethren. Jesus said, He that would be
great among you, let him be a table waiter, a deacon. He that would
be greatest, let him be doulos, let him be slave of all. Is it
wrong to have aspirations to be first in the realm of the
spiritual? No. The Lord says you want to
be first, then be last. Take the place of serving your
brethren. It's interesting to watch I've
watched in the cafeteria no fewer than about seven or eight times
this week. I've ticked up paper napkins
on the floor that many of you, my brethren, have walked right
by, and I think your eyes saw them as well as mine. Why didn't you stoop to pick
it up? Is it beneath you to serve the staff and your brothers and
sisters who inadvertently dropped a napkin?" He said, Pastor Martin,
that's ludicrous. No, it isn't. When you're seeking
to cultivate a servant's heart, you look for every opportunity
to do a servant's deed. Isn't that exactly the lesson
Jesus taught? He was there with his disciples.
What was the servant's deed in that context? To wash feet. So
he laid aside his outer garments, girded himself with a towel and
stooped. and wash the disciples' feet.
Oh, how we need to cultivate the grace of mutual service,
not in some great big thing. That little phone call that simply
says, I was praying for you this morning. Are there any special
burdens you want to share with me? No big deal. Nobody organizes
it. You don't need a three-day seminar.
You have a heart to serve your brethren. I've got a Saturday
afternoon without a shopping list of projects. And you know,
someone who's a widow, someone who's just moved into a new home
and they had to get one that was barely livable in order to
afford it. And you know, they're striving
to make it presentable for the children and for the family and
for Christian hospitality. Don't embarrass the brother and
have to have an announcement made. You've got eyes you can
see. You got a skill, maybe just the skill of pushing a scrub
brush with some Lysol and some old naphtha soap, and you offer
yourself. Brethren, these are the things
that foster unity according to my Bible. Submitting yourselves
one to another, the grace of mutual service, and then the
seventh grace that must be cultivated among us if we would maintain
and grow in our unity. is the grace of mutual biblical
resolution of differences. The grace of mutual biblical
resolution of differences. If the sins are such that if
you try to throw the blanket over it, it keeps working a hole
in the blanket and growing up and staring you in the face.
And you throw another blanket over it and it grows up through
again and sprouts. Now it's time to go to your brother
or sister in the spirit of Proverbs, which says, as an attractive
earring on a beautiful ear, so is a wise... no, as an attractive
earring on an attractive woman, so is a wise reprover upon an
obedient ear. A wise reprover. And you go to
your brother or sister and say, look, I'm sorry, the problem's
probably with me. And it may be that I completely
misconstrued something, but you remember three weeks ago, such,
yes. Well, in that situation, you remember, yes. Well, for
the life of me, I can't get the thing out of my mind. It appeared
to me that. And you come with that disposition,
and it may well be as it is so often with me. The person will
then say, I'm sorry, it never occurred to me. I've had to say
that dozens of times and say, brother, looking at it through
your eyes, I can see how I've had all the appearance of crass
insensitivity. Will you forgive me for even
putting that grief in your heart for three weeks? It's the last
thing in the world I'd do. Sure, I forgive you. You embrace
in the lumps gone from under the rock. A determination to
deal with differences in a biblical manner. If thy brother sinned,
go, tell him his fault between thee and him alone. Don't tell
it to an elder. How many hundreds of times through
the years have I had to say to people when they've called me
as a pastor, I don't know what to do in this situation. Well, what
is it? Well, someone has done something. I said, oops, don't
say any more. Don't mention the name. Don't mention the thing.
I want to ask a simple question. Have you gone to them? No. Well,
do you need some light as to how to go, in what way to go?
Don't mention names, don't mention the situation. I'll be glad to
give you the biblical principles that ought to guide you, but
until you've done what the Word of God says, don't put it in
my ear. If we would be determined to
deal biblically in the resolution of differences, oh, how peace
and unity would prevail among us. And here I refer, of course,
to the Matthew 18, 15, Luke 17, 3, and parallel passages. Well, those are the graces, and
I wanted to spend most of my time on the graces, the positive. These graces must be cultivated,
and they can only be cultivated as we ourselves are living in
communion with Christ and feeding upon Christ crucified. have a
growing awareness of our own sin and a growing appreciation
of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. Evangelical motives and
an evangelical spirit pervading our hearts will cause these graces
to grow and to flourish. But now there are certain vices
that must be mortified. They must be mortified. If they
are not put to death, Unity, peace, and harmony will not grow,
they will not mature among us. And let me list very quickly
several of them. Number one, we must mortify the
sin of allowing anyone or anything to rival our supreme allegiance
to Christ. The quickest way to create disunity
in a church is for the corporate loyalty to be divided between
Christ and someone or something else. Think of that. What is it that brought us together
in the first place? We were called in one hope of
our calling The Holy Spirit showed us our sin. Through the gospel
He showed us the glory of God in the face of Christ. We discovered
Him, as He Himself said, as the pearl of great price. And in
repentance and faith, whatever else was true, Christ was given
the place of supreme allegiance and affection. And that became
the very thing that bound us to others who found in Christ
the pearl of great price, the treasure hid in the field, And
when you have a group of people who can corporately say, for
to me to live is Christ, there you have a united people. But
what happened to the Corinthians? They began to divide their loyalty
to Christ, to the very servants of Christ that God had blessed
them with. And supreme attachment was divided between Christ and
Paul and Apollos and Cephas. And so Paul had to say, look,
you're all wrong. I was not crucified for you. You were not baptized into my
name. What are ministers? They are
not instruments sent of God to divide your supreme loyalty to
Christ. They are ministers of Christ
to enhance and deepen and increase your supreme loyalty to Christ.
And whenever in any church that supreme loyalty to Christ is
shared with anyone else or anything else, there the seeds of disunity
have been sown, and it's only a matter of time before the ugly
plants will flourish. The second sin that must constantly
be mortified is the sin of pride. Proverbs 13.10 Only by pride comes contention. When a man has too high an opinion
of his notions, his perspectives, A woman, she knows better than
the combined wisdom of the elders and the deacons in an administrative
decision, of course. She hasn't been privy to the
eight, ten, twelve, fourteen hours of fact-finding and prayer
and wrestling, but she knows instinctively there's a better
way to do it. And that man, he has not been
recognized as one who's spiritually minded, who thinks in biblical
categories, who has a deposit of divinely given wisdom and
holy sagacity. That's why he's not been recognized
as an elder or a deacon. But there's not a decision made
by the recognized leaders that he can't think of four other
better ways to do it. And he's ready to tell anyone
who'll listen to him. this great wealth of his wisdom and insight.
And what do you have? Division. Because there are other
proud people like him that puff up each other's pride by sitting
and criticizing the decision of those who are in places of
leadership. Only by pride cometh contention. Never are we more like the devil
than when we have unmortified pride in our hearts. Never forget
it. The devil is the devil because of pride. The thing that makes you most
like him in the second and third place is when you lie and when
you hate. He's a murderer and a liar. But he is the devil because
he would not keep his proper place. I will ascend to the hill
of the Most High. Oh, dear brethren, cry to God
that God, by the power of the Spirit, will mortify increasingly
the pride that yet lurks in the shadows of your hearts. And then
thirdly, we must mortify continually the sin of carnal personal ambition. It was this sin, Paul said, that
would create fissures in the church at Ephesus. How it must
have broke his heart when he charged those elders in Acts
chapter 20 And he said, Take heed to yourselves and to all
the flock of God, in the which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers, to perform the role of shepherds to the flock. Shepherd
the flock of God which he has purchased with his own blood.
And what is the particular area of his concern? I know that after
my departing, grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not
sparing the flock, wolves from without. but from among your
own selves." Did he mean the Ephesian church in general, or
did he mean, and the language and the context would bear it,
from among the ranks of their own leaders? These were elders
he was speaking to. From among your own selves shall
men arise speaking perverse things. Why? In order to draw away the
disciples after them. They feel they don't have a prominent
enough place of leadership. So they concoct new notions around
which to gather a greater following for themselves. That's exactly
what Paul understood would happen. And you have a classic example
of that in that ugly man described in 3 John 9 and 10. Diotrephes, who loves the work
of God, no. Who loves the people of God?
No. He loves to have the preeminence. And what did he do? He caused
division. He would not receive the brethren.
He would not even receive the Apostle John. He wouldn't receive
trusted brethren. He cast out all rivals to his
place with absolute insensitivity to biblical norms. Why? He was
possessed with the sin of carnal personal Dear people, remember
this. It's Christ's Church. He bought
it with His own blood. He governs it by His Word and
His Spirit. And when it is His Church and
every member acknowledges it, including every elder, every
deacon, everyone in any position of delegated responsibility,
it is Christ's Church. He bought it. He governs it. He rules it. and he alone is
to receive the glory for any blessing received or dispensed. What a blessed unity is then
experienced. No matter the measure and nature
of the gifts that Christ may deposit in any given church,
there never need be carnal, personal ambition motivating anyone in
that place of leadership or among the rank and file. of the people
of God. The fourth sin that we must constantly
mortify if we would increase our unity is this, the activity
of a sinfully loose tongue and the carnally opened ear. And the two always go together.
The activity of a sinfully loose tongue and the carnally opened
ear. These are what I call devilish
twins. A carnally loosened tongue can
do no damage unless there is also a carnally opened ear. A loose tongue soon gets tired
of spilling out words when no one receives them. And need I
tell you from James chapter 3 The damage done by a loose tongue
go through the many proverbs where it speaks in Proverbs 16,
28 and 18, 8 and 26, 20 to 22. The words of a whisperer are
as dainty morsels that go down into the innermost parts. The
words of a whisperer separateth chief friends. He that harpeth
on a matter separateth friends. People have spent years cultivating
friendships only to have them utterly broken and brought to
nothing. Why? The words of a whisperer. But you see, the whispering tongue
must have an evil ear. And I want you to look at Proverbs
17.4. It is the one text I want you
to get through the eye gate as well. It's so crucial. It says an evildoer gives heed
to wicked lips, and a liar or falsehood gives ear to a mischievous
tongue. You see, it's a carnal tongue
that is attracted to a carnal ear, and it's a carnal ear that's
seeking out a carnal tongue. I had someone just this week
come to me and mention the name of another brother, and I said,
I said, you ever heard me mention that brother? No. Ever heard
me speak of him on the tape? No. You ever heard me speak of
him in public, in a derogatory way? No. Have I spoken to you? No. I said, then don't you introduce
the name of another brother and seek to get me to speak evil.
I shut him off. Why? Because God's Word would
judge me as an evildoer. If I listened to wicked lips,
you're judged not only by what you do with your tongue, but
with your ear. And oh, the horrible disunity
in local churches when people have had carnal ears open to
carnal tongues. And as James says, behold how
great a forest fire is started by a little match. May God help us to guard our
tongues and our ears. And then I just list the others
and I'm done. We must mortify the sin of unjust
prejudice and suspicion. That's what brought treasure
in the churches of Galatians 2, 11 through 14a. Peter grew back, separated himself,
and Barnabas, son of consolation, was carried away with Peter's
dissimulation. Think of it. Years after Pentecost,
years after the Lord took him to the household of Cornelius,
Peter was sitting there and eating away with Gentiles, enjoying
pork chops and hot dogs that weren't kosher, having a grand
time, until some of his Finkelstein and Rubenstein friends showed
up and, whammo, Peter split. And he went over and only would
sit with the Jews and eat kosher food. And after a while, even
Parnibus said, well, maybe I ought not to be found with these Gentile
dogs either. What happened? They gave way
to residual unjust prejudice and suspicion, and it brought
division in the church. Oh, dear people, how we need
to cry to God to put to death in our hearts suspicion of each
other based upon their race or ethnic background, suspicion
of one another's motives, We need to cry to God that these
things would be put to death. And then finally, one of the
surest ways to create division and not to foster unity is the
sin of allowing divisive people to remain in the church. The
sin of allowing divisive people to remain in the church. Divisiveness
is such a sin that if it is known and addressed and not repented
of, Romans 16, 17, and 18, and Titus 3, 10, and 11 are as plain
as the nose on my face. Mark those that are causing the
divisions contrary to the teaching which you received and have nothing
to do with them. He that is divisive, he that
is an heretic, a divisive man, after a second and third admonition,
reject, knowing that such a one is perverse. 1 Corinthians 5.11
No slanderer shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore,
one whose pattern of life is slandering has no business remaining
in the visible church of Christ as an impenitent slanderer. And
under the guise of being loving and patient, many church divisions
and the absence of unity are God's judgment on churches that
would not do the dirty work. of biblically balanced church
discipline. It is the divine deposit of the
spiritual body's immune system, and as God has given to the physical
body, those things that are triggered when invading bacteria or viruses
would destroy us, the body reacts and rejects So Spirit-directed,
biblically-based church discipline is the deposit in the spiritual
body of a divinely conceived immune system. And if the immune
system breaks down and your church has got spiritual aids, it will
die! It will die! It will die! If you get comfortable tolerating
the slanderer, it won't be long before you get tolerating the
thief, and then the immoral, and then what else? You say,
that can't happen. Read Revelation 2 and 3. It happened
while one apostle was still alive. When I read those seven letters
to the seven churches, I hit my head and I said, God, how
could it happen so quickly? There was a prophetess in the
first place. What in the world are they doing
allowing a woman such a place of prominence? And her doctrine
is one that encourages fornication and they won't cast her out of
the church? What a horrible way to give over
the church to division by refusing to deal with divisive people
in a biblical manner. That sin of ungodly timidity
must be mortified, and we must have the grace to pursue biblical
discipline for the good and health of the body of Christ. Well,
this is not an exhaustive list. I had to be selected, and much
of the selectivity was based upon the things that I not only
see in the Word but have found come up again and again and again
as the root causes of either the waning of unity or those
graces which were the fostering of that unity. I don't speak
as a theorist. The dear people at Montville
have wonderful patience, having put up with me some of them for
twenty-eight years. So I'm not speaking in a vacuum.
I'm not speaking just having come fresh out of seminary with
some new ideas in my head. I'm not speaking out of the matrix
of some situation that's culturally insulated. No. As some of you
know, God in his mercy has mixed all kinds of people in that assembly
from different racial and ethnic and sociological backgrounds
and all of the rest. And there are times when I stand
and I marvel when I see them with one voice and one heart
praising the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. And I know the
only reason is because these graces have been implanted and
are kept alive by the presence and power of Christ, and the
minute he removes them, we've had it. And by the grace of God,
those sins are being mortified by the same grace of Christ.
So may we, as we contemplate the unity of our churches, look
to our blessed Lord Jesus to do his work of imparting every
needed grace and Grant us grace to mortify every sin that would
militate against that unity. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you
that in the Scriptures you have given to us a sufficient rule
for faith and practice, and how we plead with you that by the
power of your Holy Spirit We may be marked as a people who
abound in the graces which foster church unity, that we may be
a people diligently mortifying every sin that would undermine
the unity of our churches. Gracious God, if our hearts are
grieved, how must your heart be grieved to see churches brought
to ruin and to shame and to public scandal because someone wants
his way on such piddling issues, because someone else will not
forgive a brother or sister who has wronged him. O God in mercy,
so deal with us that none of us will ever be the instrument
of disrupting that unity for which Christ himself prays. and which is the validation through
the church of His identity and of ours as the new community
in Him. Seal these things to our hearts
and give us grace to walk in their light. We plead in Jesus'
name. Amen.

Church Unity #4

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about church unity?

Why is maintaining church unity important for Christians?

How do we cultivate church unity?

What role does forgiveness play in church unity?

How does mutual service contribute to church unity?

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About Albert N. Martin

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Church Unity #4

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about church unity?

Why is maintaining church unity important for Christians?

How do we cultivate church unity?

What role does forgiveness play in church unity?

How does mutual service contribute to church unity?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

Comments

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