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As many of you know, I began a pastoral internship this summer under
the Chesapeake Presbytery (PCA). The
purpose of that internship is to discern whether God has called me to a
pastoral type of ministry. I’m
testing the waters, so to speak, and I would greatly appreciate your
prayers for wisdom as Colleen and I seek the Lord’s will for our
future.
Part of that internship has included putting together
some different Scriptures which describe the ministry and vision of the
church. I expected that this project
would be helpful for pastoral work, and it is. But something unexpected has also come
out of this project. God used His
Word in my life to change the way I think about being a church member. He caused me to see myself as more
closely attached to the rest of the body – you guys – than I
had ever seen before.
Over the next two weeks, I would like to share with
you one of those passages, Ephesians 4:1 – 16, with the conviction
that the Lord has something to say to us about who we are as a part of
Jesus’ body, which is the church.
This week, I will focus on verses 1 – 6; next week, we will
look at 7 – 16.
The
"Package Deal"
If you have ever purchased a computer, or a car, or
an all-inclusive vacation, then you are familiar with
the "package deal".
When you purchase a package, say a computer, the distributor throws
in, for “free”, a mouse, a keyboard, Windows XP, Word, Office,
a monitor, a printer, and so on. The
goal of the package is to give you everything you need to get up and
running when you take the computer out of the box. The key point about the package is
meeting needs ahead of time. The
distributor has tried to look ahead and predict your needs so as to provide
a package that meets those needs.
In a similar way, God has provided an entire package
for us that comes free – truly free! –
with our salvation. When you believed in Christ and passed
from death to life, whether in a single moment or over a period of time,
God not only forgave you of your sins, but He also provided for your every
need by giving you a salvation package of blessings. In Ephesians, chapters 1 – 3,
Paul describes the package in some detail, outlining the things God has
done for us as part of our salvation.
God is so thorough in His work that He has provided for the past,
present, and future needs that we might have.
If
you are unfamiliar with the terms of your package, I invite you to read
further in Ephesians, chapters 1 – 3 to find out what the Lord
has given you in Christ. Some of the
highlights of our package include adoption as His very own children and
full membership in His own chosen people; the Holy Spirit to live in us and
give us the comfort, encouragement, blessings and righteousness of Christ;
and a future inheritance that goes beyond anything this world can possibly
offer.
Theologians, of course, don’t call our
blessings a “package”; rather, they call it our “union
with Christ”, which is a better way to describe it. The idea is that we have been united with
Christ to such a degree that every blessing that Jesus has earned comes to
us through Him. This union is
similar to, but even more real and lasting than, a man’s union with
his wife.
So for the previous three chapters, Paul has been
describing different aspects of our union with Christ. This is our background as he now says “I,
therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy
of your calling.” The calling
he refers to is the calling to be a part of Christ’s body, united
with Him. To put it in other words,
Paul is saying “in light of everything that the Lord has given you
… live up to it!” Your
reality as a believer is that the Lord has provided for your needs and
attached you to Himself. In light of
that, there is only one reasonable response for us, and that is to live in
a manner worthy of that attachment.
Relationship
and Mission
There are two aspects of worthy walking that Paul has
in mind here. The first aspect is
can be described by the word Relationship; the second aspect can be
described by the word Mission. Verses 1 – 6 describe
our relationship with one another, how we are to actively pursue unity with
one another; verses 7 – 16 (which we will save for next week)
describe our mission, how we actively carry out God’s plan to bring
the gospel to the world. Those two
aspects, as we shall see, are not separate but entirely related to one
another.
To understand the type of relationship that is worthy
of the Lord, we need a picture. As I
mentioned earlier, when you became a believer, you were united to Jesus, so
that you and Jesus are connected, and blessings come from Him to you. However, the connections do not stop
there. The Lord does not simply
connect each believer to Himself, but He also connects believers one to
another. Ryan is connected to Jesus,
and Chip is connected to Jesus, and now the Lord connects Ryan to Chip, and
then He connects Ryan and Chip to Dave (all of them), and to every other
believer who is also connected to Him.
Together, all of the believers all over the world (and throughout
time) are called “the body of Christ” – Jesus is the
head, and we are the body.
To an extent, this connection is invisible, so that
when we pray for someone far away, like Dave Owens, a missionary in Japan, the Lord hears us and blesses him as a result
of our prayers, even though we can’t see him. In other ways, this connection is quite
visible and concrete. When we walk
into church and interact with one another, we are living out (whether well
or poorly) our connection as fellow members of Christ’s body. Every action that we take, every word
that we say either confirms and enhances or else denies and degrades the
connection we have with one another.
Now, I should say that our connection to one another
is not like the Borg out of Star Trek.
We don’t lose our personalities and become assimilated
functionaries within the body of Christ.
Instead, when the Lord incorporates us into His body, He gives us
each a unique role according to who we are, how we are made, and how He
works in us by grace. In fact, we
are called the “organs” of Christ’s body, each one with a
unique role in the body, and each one cared for personally by Christ
Himself.
With this picture in mind, it becomes clear how
essential it is for our relationships to be worthy of this calling to be a
part of Christ’s body. To use
Paul’s example from I Cor. 12, imagine what
would happen to your body if your eye were to say to your hand “I
don’t need you.” Imagine
what would happen if the head were to say to the foot, “I’m all
that’s needed in the body.”
Imagine what would happen if the stomach and the liver found each
other so offensive that they refuse to be in the same abdomen together. The medical term for this situation is
“disaster.” In the same
way, when members of the body of Christ reject one another, pulling apart
from one another, it disfigures the body and makes it an ugly thing.
In the body of Christ, the only way to fulfill our
calling as members is to practice deference and humility, accepting one
another in love. We can spare no
effort – we must exert our whole strength – to actively
maintain the oneness with each other that God has created.
But why “actively”? Couldn’t somebody argue that
because God has already made us one, therefore nothing else need be
done? How could we improve on
God’s work? Aren’t the
connections between us automatic?
Low-Maintenance
Christian Unity
Such
questions simply reveal the motives that cause the problem: in our sinful
way, we want our unity with one another to be low maintenance. We don’t like have to give
ourselves to others. Real
relationship is uncomfortable.
It can hurt. It puts us in
awkward situations where we have to use words like “Did I offend
you?” or “You hurt my feelings” or “I’m
sorry.” Giving ourselves to
others can mean listening when we’d rather talk, or letting someone
else shine when we want credit, or having to plan ahead to take care of
someone else’s needs.
This
is why Paul uses these odd words “humility” and “gentleness”
to describe worthy walking. The
connections between us are not automatic, and they can be easily
damaged by pride or rough treatment.
We already mentioned that the different members of the body have
unique roles and gifts. It is hardly
surprising, then, that people who are really different from each other and
have sinful tendencies on top of that will naturally experience some
friction. The oil that lubricates
and cools the friction between members of the body is humility and
gentleness. Even when the body is
working well, it will still require an active maintenance of the unity of
the Spirit.
We
might be tempted to take short-cuts with unity. One of the church trends in the 90s was
to have Sunday School classes for people in particular places in life:
middle twenties with kids, for example.
The desire is to provide a niche for people to belong so that they
might feel comfortable. In this
arrangement, comfort is seen as a first step towards unity. But think about the long-term result of
such an arrangement: the place where you form deeper relationships is the
place where you find people who are exactly like you. This is not the unity of hands and feet
and eyes and ears all in one body.
Instead, it is a unity of all hands in one place and all feet in
another … it is a situation where the body never grows up and learns
to be a real body.
The Lord exposes me on this issue of humility. I have this irrepressible urge to want to
be first. It is not natural for me
to defer to others. Furthermore,
being both sinful and male, I tend to cheerfully overlook other
people’s needs. My level of
active maintenance of the unity of the Spirit is woefully inadequate.
I
suspect I’m not alone. Stop
and reflect for a moment about how you relate to the body. How does your self-centeredness entice
you to place yourself over others. Do you have blinders on, seeing only your
own interests? Think about who you
interact with at church, and why. Do
you defer to others? Do you treat
others with gentleness? You have a
conversation with a fellow believer: do they walk away feeling encouraged
and accepted in the Lord or impressed with you? Are you committed to speaking the truth,
in love? What do you do with your
anger at the inevitable irritations which are a part of being in a church?
Let
me be specific. Middle school and
high school students: Are there cliques among you? Do you actively pursue relating to others
who outside of your comfort zone? Do
you show humility and gentleness and refrain from making fun of
others?
College
students: Have you considered how to make and maintain connections with
other people not your own age?
Parents
and elders: How active is your part in the unity of the church?
Our
relationship with one another is made difficult because of our sin
nature. Furthermore, the more
seriously we take Paul’s command to diligently pursue the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace, the more our sin nature is exposed by our
efforts to be unified. The
“bonds” of peace that Paul refers to can sometimes seem very
much like bondage indeed. Being a
part of the church is bittersweet.
Sometimes
being a member of Christ’s body can really hurt. When people act with pride or lack of
consideration – almost everyone here has seen it happen before
– there is a sense of disappointment, perhaps even anger which wells
up within us, and we want to fight back or else run away.
Many people stop right there. "Once burned, twice shy" goes
the old saying. If someone has been
in a church and been hurt, or if simply fears being hurt, then he or she
will often attempt to take a passive approach to being in the body. He or she might attend every now and
then; or perhaps come to church but only interact with people who are
“safe.”
Glorious
"Oneness"
But for all of us who find ourselves frustrated at
some level with the unity of the church, there is a strong hope in the
Gospel. The glorious and sweet part
of belonging to Christ is that God not only commands us to be one because
of our union with Christ, but He also provides the resources for us to be
one. When I look at myself, I see
pride and self-centeredness. But
when I look at Christ, He has patience and humility and an incredible
endurance to spare no effort on behalf of His body. That patience, humility, and endurance
are mine, by faith, coming to me through the ministry of the Holy
Spirit. They are part of the package
called “union with Christ” that came with salvation.
Some people think about the Holy Spirit and think of Toronto blessings or speaking in tongues or miraculous
healings. That’s
television. The true basic function
of the Spirit, according to John 15, is to bring Jesus’ encouragement
and comfort and righteousness to us.
The Spirit is the one who makes unity possible by changing us, conforming us to Christ’s image. This is why Paul calls our unity the
“unity of the Spirit.”
It is only possible because of the Spirit, and therefore it has the
same character as the Holy Spirit.
This is how you can tell true unity when you
see it: it is characterized by the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and
self-control. God’s work has
his unique stamp of grace on it which can’t be mistaken for anything
else.
I don’t want to be naïve about unity in the
church. There are of course serious
doctrinal issues which splinter the church in pieces. There are also personality differences
where the stomach says to the liver that there ain’t
room in the belly for the both of us.
We all have come in contact with awful church situations which make
it hard to believe sometimes that God is really at work in His body. In the face of discouraging news about
the church, we need to recognize that the destiny of God’s church is
to be united. In Revelation 21, we
find the church represented as a bride without stain or blemish, made of
Jews and Gentiles alike, all joined in one body. Just as God does not leave individuals
alone without help, so also God does not leave the whole body alone without
help. Despite the pains and
blemishes and discord that can sometimes characterize the church, there is
also evidence that the Holy Spirit does bring unity and peace in difficult
situations. Our own church has
experienced some of that in its history.
In
fact, in Eph. 4:13, Paul alludes to a time when we will all reach unity of
faith. Perhaps that time will not
come until the Lord returns. But
that time will come. And so we have
confidence, then, that the work of continuing to reform the ministry is not
a vain occupation. Instead, it is
part of God’s plan to bring everything under one head.
Also, we need to know that our unity is an integral
part of the mission of the church.
Our love one for another causes the world to know that we really do
belong to Christ. When we exhibit
unity, even an imperfect unity, we display something supernatural that goes
beyond normal human sinful nature.
When the world sees us giving preference to one another instead of
using each other for our own agenda, it sees a living picture of who Jesus
is.
Your
Personal Mission to Others
So where are we?
Well, the Lord has called us to spare no effort to preserve the
unity of His body. We do that, in
part, by walking in humility: that is, showing deference and gentleness to
one another. We do that, in part, by
patiently bearing with one another’s faults. And we do it all because there is but one
body to belong to, one Spirit that we all partake of, one hope, one Lord,
one faith, and one baptism – there is in fact but one God.
Think about your membership in the church, both in
the larger church and in the little corner of the church at your own
congregation (if indeed you are a member there). I encourage you to pray, as I have and
will also pray, that God will reveal to you ways in which to actively
pursue the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Perhaps a specific conflict needs
resolution. However, most of us,
like me, just have a general blindness that keeps us from seeing other
people as fellow organs in the body.
Jesus can cure our blindness; that’s one of His
special gifts. By faith, take hold
of your union with Him so that you can walk in unity with the rest of His
body.
JRC
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