Well, good morning. We don't
have the piano playing to tell us it's time to start, but it's
time to start. If you would, open your Bibles
with me to the book of Ephesians chapter four. We're going to
continue our study of Ephesians chapter four this morning. Before
we begin, let's bow before our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, how grateful we are
to be able to bow before your throne of grace and call you
our Father. How thankful we are to be able
to come and offer our prayers, our praise, our petition, our
thanksgiving to thee, confident that we'll be heard in our Lord
Jesus Christ because of who he is and what he's accomplished
for his people. And Father, we only come before you pleading
the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, pleading his obedience
as our only righteousness, pleading his blood as a cleansing from
all of our sin. And Father, we come before you
this morning as your children, needing to hear a word from thee.
And Father, I pray that you would bless us this morning by your
spirit, that you'd enable your word to go forth in power, to
reveal your glory, to edify, to comfort and instruct the hearts
of your people. And what we pray for ourselves,
Father, we pray for your people who meet everywhere this morning,
wherever they might be. Father, we beg you to bless your
word that it would shine forth in this dark, dark day in which
we live. Father, we pray for those of
our number who are traveling and away from us that you would
give them traveling mercies and a good time and that you'd return
them back home safe to us. And Father, we beg a blessing
on the people that you've brought into the time of trouble and
trial. Those who are sick and heartbroken, Father, be with
your people. We pray for your hand of healing.
We pray that you comfort their hearts, and we pray in these
matters that thy will be done, and that you give us the grace
to willingly bow to thy will, knowing that thou doest all things
well. Father, all these things we ask and we give thanks in
that name which is above every name, the name of Christ our
savior, amen. Now we ended last week's lesson
looking at the unity of believers in verse three of Ephesians chapter
four, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond
of peace. And today I pray that we'll see
why that unity is so important. I've titled the lesson the oneness
of believers. Our text begins in verse four.
There's one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one
hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and father of all, who is above all and through all
and in you all. Now believers are one in Christ. In all these ways, and we'll
look at them individually that Paul mentions here, believers
are one in Christ. Now since we're one, There should
be unity, shouldn't there? Sadly, that's not always the
case, because we're still in this sinful flesh. But for the
believer, seeing how we are truly one in Christ, that will make
the believer want to strive for this unity even more. So here's
the oneness of believers. Number one, believers are one
body. Paul says there is one body. There's only one body,
and that body is the body of Christ. Look back in Ephesians
1, back at page in Ephesians 1 verse 22. And hath put all
things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things
to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth
all and in all. Now the church is not just our
local assembly, it's all believers everywhere, the universal church.
It's one body, it's one body. Now here's the thing about a
body. A body's not going in all different directions at once.
The body's all going in one direction. And believers are all part, we're
all members of this body, working together for the common good
of the whole body. You know, in this part of the
body, I'm not to think about what's best for me. I'm to think
about first what's best for the body, because if I think about
what's only best for me, that may harm the rest of the body.
You know, the hand in a body is not just to think about the
hand. God gave us a hand to serve the
rest of the body, to scratch an itch, to reach out and take
a glass of water, saying, you know, saying he said, how I make
everybody thirsty, standing there drinking water in front of everybody.
Well, the hand's to reach out and take that glass of water
when the body's thirsty. When the body's hungry, it's
the hands to reach out, grab that food, and put it in my mouth.
It's to serve the whole body. Now, we're members of one body,
the body of Christ, and we're not to think of ourselves first.
What we're to think of first is how can I serve? How can I
help? How can I be a blessing to the
rest of the body? And I'm telling you, it is a
special, special blessing. to be a member of the body of
Christ. Look at first Corinthians chapter
12. First Corinthians chapter 12. And verse 25. That there should be no schism.
There should be no division in the body, but that all members
should have the same care one for another. And whether one
member suffer, all members suffer with it. Or one member be honored,
all members rejoice with it. What a blessing to be a member
of the body of Christ to know we're together in this thing.
What affects one affects everybody else. When one hurts, we all
hurt. I was talking with a dear brother,
I think it was Friday afternoon, His family, I mean, buddy, they're
in it. I mean, in just this horrible
trial that they're in. And I'm telling you, I recounted
the conversation with Janet, we were sitting there on the
porch and just hurt, hurt for them, just heartbroken for them.
When one member hurts, we all hurt. And when one is blessed,
we're all blessed. When one is blessed, the rest
of us rejoice. It's all part of one body. Here's
another thing about the body. The most important part of any
body is the head. The whole body is identified
by the head, by the face. When we identify with each other,
we look in each other's face. That's how we identify each other.
Well, Christ is the head of the body. He's the head of the church,
the savior of the body, and the whole body is identified as Christ. The father only sees Christ.
We're all identified as Christ. We're all identified by Christ. If you're a believer, you're
identified by the Lord Jesus Christ. And since he's our head,
what we do reflects upon the head. Whether it's good or whether
it's bad, what we do reflects upon our head. And every believer
desires to bring glory to the head. to bring glory, the last
thing that we want to do is bring shame upon our savior. The head's
what's important. You know, the whole body gets
its instruction from the head. You know, I move my arm, you
know why I do that? The head told it to. The head
is the one that gives commandments, that directs the body. And I
promise you this, Christ our head is not instructing his body
to go in a bunch of different directions at the same time.
Now he directs the body to one purpose, to one goal. It's to
the glory of Christ our Savior. Now next time you want to start
fussing and fighting and divide with one of your brethren, you
remember that. That's not of the Lord. Ever. That's not of the Lord. What's
best for the body? That's what I'm to do. We're
members of one body. Then believers all have one spirit. Paul says there's one body and
one spirit. And you notice that's a capital
S, that's talking about a person, that's someone's name. He's talking
about the Holy Spirit. Now every believer has the Holy
Spirit dwelling in us. Every believer. In Romans 8 verse
9, Paul said, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, if
the spirit of Christ is not dwelling in you, you're not his. Every
believer has the spirit of Christ dwelling in us. Every believer
has the same Holy Spirit revealing the same thing to us. What is
the job of the Holy Spirit? Is to show us Christ, to reveal
Christ. The Spirit's teaching every believer
the same thing. The Lord says the Spirit will
prove of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. And how will
he do that? By pointing us to Christ. You
know, I only know what sin is when the Holy Spirit reveals
Christ to me. I only know what righteousness is when the Holy
Spirit reveals Christ to me. And I can only understand the
judgment of sin when the Holy Spirit reveals Christ. Christ
crucified as a sacrifice for his sin. Now every believer has
the same spirit, the same spirit of life, the same spirit of faith,
the same spirit teaching us all. Then there has to be union, doesn't
it? Has to be because the Spirit's all pointing God's people in
the same direction. Then thirdly, verse four, believers
all have one hope. One body, one spirit, even as
you're called, and one hope. Now that hope is an expectation.
Every believer has the exact same expectation. A believer
expects to be saved from our sin by the sacrifice of Christ. A believer expects to be made
righteous by the obedience of Christ to the law. A believer
expects to be kept and preserved to the end by Christ our Savior. And one day, when this earthly
life is over, the believer expects to awake in glory made just like
Christ. For we will be with him forever
and behold his glory. Now you know why we expect that?
Is that presumption? Is it? Is it presumption? You
know why every believer expects that? Because that's what the
Savior promised us. He's right to expect what the
Savior promised in it. So the believers hope our expectation. It's a good hope. It's a sure
hope. Through grace. Through God's
grace, not because we deserve it. But because of God's grace
to us. We have this hope. This hope
of eternal life is hope of glory. This expectation because Christ
dwells in the hearts of his people. Christ in you. That's the hope
of glory. That's what Paul told the church
at Colossae. So every believer is expecting the same thing.
We're expecting it because of the same undeserved grace, because
of the same promise of God, because of the same Savior. Then there
can't be any division amongst us. There's got to be unity,
doesn't there? Then believers all have one calling.
Verse four, Paul says, one hope of your calling. Now that word
calling, we looked at that word last week, it means a vocation. Every believer is called to be
occupied with something. But this word calling, it means
vocation, but it's not just something that you do, something that you're
supposed to do, it's an attitude. It's the attitude of being called
to a feast. Now, Janet tells her family all
the time, bless her heart, have some decorum, but just act like
I taught you something, she tells them. Act with some sense, you
know. When we're called to a feast, a feast that the king's putting
on. Now, go there with the right attitude. Conduct yourself with
some decorum. That's our calling. Every believer
is called to Christ. Look at Romans chapter eight.
We're called to Christ and we're called to trust Christ. Romans chapter eight. Verse 28. And we know that all things work
together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. 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. 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. Now what shall we then say to
these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Now every
believer is called to trust Christ that way. We're called to trust
him to do all of the saving for us. From beginning to end, we're
to trust him to do all of the saving. That's what Paul told
Timothy. Saint Timothy one verse nine,
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling. This is
a holy calling. Not according to our words, but
according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. This is a calling to trust
Christ. And every believer is called
to be holy. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 2, Paul
wrote under the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them
that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called. Called to be saints,
called to be holy. Now, if we're called to be saints,
walk like it. Don't ever think salvation by
grace means my walk and my conduct doesn't matter. No, we're called
to be holy. Now, strive for it. You won't
reach it and it won't be perfect. It won't make you more saved.
It won't make God bless you more than somebody else. Do it to
honor your father. Do it to honor your head, the
one who called you. 1 Thessalonians 4, 7 says, for
God has not called us unto uncleanness, he's called us to holiness. Every
believer is called to Christ, we're called to holiness. Thirdly,
we're called to have fellowship with Christ himself. 1 Corinthians
1, 9, God is faithful by whom you're called under the fellowship,
the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now let that sink in for a second.
What a blessed privilege to be called to have a dirty sinner,
a rotten beggar, a rebel against God called to have fellowship
with the Son of God, with Christ Himself. God's called us to that. Now don't get your eye off the
ball. Keep looking to Christ. We're called to have fellowship
with Him. I very seriously doubt We're gonna have fellowship with
Christ when we're fussing and fighting with each other, you
reckon? And then every believer is called by God the very same
way. We're called by the preaching of the gospel. Paul said in 2
Thessalonians 2 verse 14, we're unto he called you by our gospel
to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. God
calls his people by the preaching of the gospel. the gospel of
Christ. Now we're called the same way.
We're called to the same place. We're called for the same purpose.
Should be unity, shouldn't it? Then fifthly, believers all have
one Lord. In verse five, Paul says there's
one Lord. Every believer has the same master,
the same owner. That's what the word Lord means.
We have the same master, the same owner. There's one commander. and we all follow him. There's
one commander. He's not giving contradictory
orders. No, he's giving the same orders.
Then there should be unity. Now Christ our Savior, he's Lord
over all. He's Lord over creation. He's
Lord over life. He's Lord over death. He's Lord
over our eternal destiny. He's our master. He's our commander. And every believer has sworn
allegiance to Christ our master. then what are we to do? We're
to follow him. We're not to go off and do our
own thing. You know, the military, you know,
a buck private, he's not allowed to go off and do his own thing.
No, he does what the commander tells him to do, and that's all
he does. That's what we are, we're to follow the commandments
of our head. of our Lord, of our master, and
not to go off and try to accomplish our own little agendas. Now,
what's his commandment? What is the commandment of our
Lord and master? Is to believe Christ. Believe
him. Trust him. Quit trusting in your
works of religion and trust Christ. Is to love one another. This
is my commandment. As I've loved you, you love one
another. And thirdly, is to go into all the world and preach
the gospel. Preach it without compromise. Well, then we're
not gonna go off on our own, are we? Not if we're following
the orders of our commandment, or of our commander. And if we're
doing that, there should be unity, shouldn't there? Then six believers all have one
faith. There's one Lord and one faith. You know, there's not
a bunch of different faiths. There's one faith. There's a
lot of different religions, There's many other Jesuses, but there's
one faith. There's one way of salvation.
There's one faith, and every believer has the exact same faith.
Every believer. Every believer believes that
we're saved from sin the exact same way. It's all in Christ. Paul wrote in Titus 1.1, he wrote
of the faith of God's elect. And then in Titus 1.4, he called
it the common faith. Every one of God's elect has
a common faith, the same faith. And it comes from the same source.
It's a gift of God. And our faith is Christ. We believe him. Our faith is
Christ. Every believer believes the same
thing. Every one of us believes Christ did all of the saving
for me. If you believe something else,
you don't know Christ. If you know Christ, you believe
this. He did all of the saving for me. I was lost, and Christ
is the one who found me. I was dead in sin, Christ is
the one who gave me life. I was ruined in sin. I mean,
my sin debt ruined me, but Christ paid the debt with his precious
blood, and I would wander away. I'd wander away from him in a
heartbeat, but Christ the Good Shepherd keeps me. From beginning
to end, it's all Christ, isn't it? That's our common faith. Every believer believes this,
that Christ is all of our salvation. We may disagree about who Melchizedek
is, but we agree on this, Christ is all. Christ is all. He's my wisdom, my righteousness,
my sanctification, my redemption. He's my prophet, he's my priest,
he's my king. He is absolutely everything I
need. Now, if we're all in love with
the same person, if we're all trusting the same person, there's
unity, there's unity. Then number seven, believers
all have one baptism. There's one Lord, one faith,
and one baptism. Now we hear that verse, I would
say, that immediately all of our minds go to believer's baptism. And there is one form of baptism. There's only one form of confessing
Christ our Savior in baptism, it's believer's baptism by immersion
in water. That's the only baptism that
there is. And the reason for that is, what
does immersion, baptism by immersion in water, what does that picture?
It pictures Christ. Remember, he's the head of the
whole thing. He's the reason for the whole thing. He's the
captain of the whole thing. Believer's baptism pictures Christ. When someone is baptized, what
they're saying is this is my public confession. My only hope
of salvation is when Christ died, I died in him. He died for my
sin. When he died, I died in him. And when he was resurrected,
I was resurrected to new life in him. He's my only hope of
salvation. The only, when a person is baptized,
this is what they're saying. I am so sinful, the only way
I could be saved is the death, the burial, and the resurrection
of almighty God come in human flesh. And I believe because
of who he is, he's completely and utterly saved me. Now that's
what believer's baptism confesses. That's a good thing to talk about.
I like to talk about that, don't you? But you know, I'm confident
of this. Paul is not primarily talking
about believer's baptism here. And the reason I say that is
this. It's possible for a believer to be a believer and not be baptized. Not be baptized in water. Abraham,
David, Isaac, the thief on the cross, they were never baptized
with water, were they? Now let me say, I said it's possible
to be a believer. and not be baptized in water.
Let's make this right clear. Our Lord's commandment to his
people, to those that believe him is, confess him and believe
his baptism. If Lord saved you, sooner or
later, you're gonna come and say, I have to be baptized. I wanna be baptized. Because
if Lord saved you, you want to confess him. If Lord's done something
for you internally in your heart, you want to confess him in publicly.
But it's possible to be saved and never be baptized. So what's
Paul talking about? What is the one baptism that
you have that Abraham had two? What's the baptism you had that
Abel had two? It's being baptized into Christ.
It's being immersed into Christ. It's being put into Christ. You
know, when someone is baptized in water, we baptize them under
the water. And for a moment, you can't see them, can you?
No, they're under the water. When a believer is baptized into
Christ, this is so thrilling. The Father doesn't see you anymore. You're baptized into Christ.
So all he sees is Christ. Now, if you're in Christ and
all he sees is Christ, you're accepted, aren't you? And you
have no fear of ever being rejected. You have no fear of ever being
condemned because you're in Christ. That's what Paul's talking about
here. This is the way every believer from the first one to the last
one has been saved. It's through this gospel truth
of representation. The father put his people into
his son. So that's what they are. They
have become the body of Christ. That's the only way a sinner
can be saved. It's the only way it's possible.
It's by being in Christ. Otherwise, we're in Adam, our
first representative, and we'll be condemned. Let me show you
that Romans chapter six. Romans chapter six. Verse three. Know ye not that so many of us,
as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, we're baptized into his
death. Therefore we're buried with him
by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from
the dead by the glory of the father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together
in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness
of his resurrection. Every believer has been baptized,
been put into Christ by God, the Father, so that when he died,
we died to sin in him. We died to the law in him so
that the sin and the law has no more dominion over us. The believer is free from the
condemnation of the law. We already died in Christ. We're
free from fear of death. We've already died in Christ,
and we've risen in Christ, and we walk in the Spirit. We walk
not by sight, but by faith in Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12,
verse 13, Paul writes that by one Spirit, we're all baptized
into one body. It doesn't matter who you are
or where you come from, whether you're Jews or Gentiles, whether
you're bond or free, We've all been made to drink into one spirit. God the Father has made every
believer one in Christ. So that all he sees when he looks
at us is Christ. Since that's the case, there
should always be unity. There should always be unity.
What an absurd thing to think about the body of Christ trying
to divide itself. That's absurd. Then here's the last thing. Believers
all have one God and one Father. Verse six in our text says, one
God and Father of all, who's above all, through all, and in
you all. Now God is the Father of every
believer. Now you know what that means? Our Father is in charge of us. He's in charge. When our girls
were little, and they were at home, I'm the daddy. I was in
charge. Now, what I said went. God's
our father. We live in his house. He's in
charge. He's in charge. I mean, now think
of the blessing to be able to say this, that almighty God is
your father. You can say that and it'd be
true, because what did our Lord tell his disciple before he went
away? He said, I go to my father and your father. My father, he
said, is your father. You think what a blessing it
is, God's your father. Now if God's your father, not
only is he the one in charge, not only is he the one responsible,
he's the one that gave us life. We get our life from the seed
of our father. If God's your father, he's the
one that's given you life. We have his nature. That's true
of every single believer. If we all have the same nature,
there should be unity, shouldn't there? There should be unity.
It says God is our father and we're all his children. Children
in the same family ought to get along. They ought to love one
another, they ought to take care of one another. I think one of
the absolute, she's going to hate that I say this, but one
of the absolute best things Janet ever did as a mother, she utterly
refused to have anything but peace in her home. There's only
going to be peace. If those girls start fussing
and fighting, you know what she did? She made them stay literally
nose to nose until they got over it. I mean, there's going to
be peace in our home. It made our home so nice, such
a pleasant place to be. Well, shouldn't God's children
get along? Of course they should love one
another, take care of one another. We're all dependent on the same
father. to provide for us, to give us life. We're depending
on the same father to teach us, to take care of us. And when
we're all looking at our father, there is peace. I've told you
all these reasons why there shouldn't be peace. You want me to tell
you when there is peace? When we're all looking to Christ.
Then there's peace. And let me close with this. Look
at Proverbs chapter 16. I'll show you how important This peace
is to our father that he have peace in his home. One sure way
to displease our father is to disrupt this peace, this unity
that God's people have. Proverbs chapter six, verse 16. These six things doth the Lord
hate, yea seven are an abomination, a proud look, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood, and heart that devises wicked
imaginations, feet that be swift and running to mischief, a false
witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among
the brethren. God says, that's an abomination
to you. I don't want to displease my
heavenly father. I didn't want to displease my
earthly father. I sure don't want to displease my heavenly
father. Then what should we do? We should be endeavoring to keep
this unit. Do whatever you can do as part
of the body of Christ to keep the unity of the Spirit and the
bond of peace. And like I said a minute ago,
the very best way to do that is keep looking to Christ. If
we're looking at Him, Everything else is gonna be put in its proper
place. All right, well, God bless that
too.