The Apostle Paul pleaded for it. Christ himself prayed for it. But Christians seem to be further from unity than ever before. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah turns to the fourth chapter of Ephesians to underscore the importance of being unified as believers.
How can you contribute to church unity? Stay tuned as David introduces today's vital message: the oneness of our faith. And thank you so much for joining us today. We're so grateful for the opportunity that we have to visit with you each day. Many of you have listened to Turning Point most of your life.
I have people come and tell me they started listening and they tell me how old they are, and they've been with us almost the entire time. Turning Point has been on the air. And we're so grateful for your presence and for your fellowship. And I am so privileged to be your teacher. I look forward to these opportunities to open the Word of God with you, and we do it every day right here on the radio.
Today, we're going to begin two days of discussion on the unity of the church. The message is called the oneness of our faith, and it's based upon Ephesians chapter 4. How important is it to God that we have unity with each other? Unity is not just everybody agreeing to agree no matter what they believe. Unity is based upon the unity of doctrine and truth in Jesus Christ.
And we're going to talk about it today and tomorrow, and we'll get to it in just a moment. Don't forget, your time is running out to get the calendar for 27. Each year, Turning Point produces a beautiful wall calendar.
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And we have a calendar just for you. It's yours for the asking when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point. Thank you for making this a priority in your life. And now, here is part one of the oneness of our faith. Um It was the fall of 2020 and we were in the midst of COVID.
I don't know if you remember this or not, but Burger King posted a message on its social media account with this surprising header. Order from McDonald's. As you know, Burger King and McDonald's are corporate rivals on a grand scale. Right up there with Coke and Pepsi, Ford and Chevy, and Amazon and Walmart.
So what in the world was going on?
Well, the pandemic was difficult for many restaurant workers. many employees of service industries who often needed to go to work to maintain their paychecks, and many of them worked in industries that were hit especially hard by lockdowns and people feeling afraid to go out.
So Burger King was recommending that their customers step up. By supporting local restaurants and their employees, even those at McDonald's. We never thought we'd be asking you to do this, read the statement, but restaurants are employing thousands of staff, really needing your support at the moment.
So if you want to help. I mean, really help. Keep treating yourself to tasty meals through home delivery, takeaway, or drive-through. Getting a Whopper is always best, but ordering a Big Mac is not so bad. That was actually published.
I remember when that happened. I think they even came out some little cards where you could go and use those cards to buy food at somebody else's restaurant. I have to tell you that if Burger King and McDonald's can get along with each other, so can we. Amen. And it's a sad commentary, if you want to know the truth, that since the beginning of modern Christianity, we are often known more for our disagreements than we are for our unity.
We seem to have a hard time getting along with each other, and I want to talk about that today because that's what Paul is writing about in this book. In his book on church unity, Paul Bilheimer said this. The most important, momentous, crucial, but the most ignored, neglected, and unsolved problem that has faced the church. From its infancy to the present throbbing moment, is the problem of disunity. The continuous and widespread fragmentation of the church has been the scandal of the ages.
It has been Satan's master strategy. The sin of disunity probably has caused more souls to be lost. than all other sins combined. Possibly more than anything else. It is the one thing that binds the hands of the Holy Spirit.
And thwarts his work of convincing of sin, righteousness, and judgment. What a picture of the church. We all probably have our stories. Maybe you've come from a church. that was blown apart by disunity.
And understanding this helps us to comprehend why Jesus prayed this prayer.
Now watch this, on the night before his crucifixion, this was the prayer that Jesus prayed. I pray that they will all be one. Just as you and I are one. As you are in me, Father, and I am in you. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them.
as much as you love me. That was Jesus' prayer. On the night before, he died on the cross. And Jesus wasn't the only one who was concerned about this. When Paul wrote his letters in the New Testament, some of the prison epistles and the other letters, if you go through these letters and you look for it, you will find some kind of unity message in almost every epistle.
But the one that is the best commentary on unity in the whole Bible is the passage that is before us today in Ephesians. Notice Paul's plea for unity. In verse 1 of chapter 4. He said, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called. The book of Ephesians, as you know, is a book that was written by Paul while he was a prisoner in the Roman prison.
But look at the language he uses in verse 1. He doesn't call himself a prisoner of Rome. He doesn't call himself a prisoner of Nero. He says, I'm a prisoner of the Lord. In other words, the Lord put me here.
I am here under the direction of the Lord. I'm a prisoner of the Lord. And some people wonder why he would say that. I think he said it to give credibility to his own message that he's about to give. He is in chains, in prison, and his heart is burdened for the unity of the church.
So he writes to the church in Ephesus with this powerful message. He says, I want you to be unified. And he goes on to talk about this. He says, I'm the prisoner of the Lord. And I beseech you that you walk worthy of your calling with which you were called.
That's a really powerful statement. He said, Ephesian believers, You have been called by God to be a Christian. You're Christians. You have received the calling. That's what it means.
You are now called Christians because Christ came and invaded your life.
Now he says, listen, you're Christians. But learn how to walk worthy of who you are. You're a Christian. In other words, don't do things that are not Christian. Don't do things that violate who you are.
When I was growing up, I used to go to some summer camps. And before we would go to camp, I remember this pretty vividly. My mom would sit me down and she would say, David.
Now you're going to camp while you're there I want you to remember who you are Now she wasn't worried about my losing my identity as a person. She understood what I came to understand, and that was: you're a Christian, behave like one. Or perhaps she might have been saying, your dad is a pastor. Behave like a pastor.
Well, no, she probably wouldn't say that. But essentially, my mom was reminding me that my actions didn't affect just me. I was a representative of Christ. I was a representative of the Jeremiah family. I was a representative of my father's church.
I needed to remember these associations. I needed to walk in a way that was worthy. when I was outside of my mother's supervision. Walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Have you ever thought about that?
Hey, I'm a Christian. I'm not going to do that. That's not worthy of who I am. I saw a woman this week comfort someone who was in sadness. And that woman showed me more about herself in the moment I observed.
Than in all the other things I had seen her do. When you do things that are so Patently Christian. You send such a powerful message to the people who are watching. Paul says, The reason I want you to be walking in unity is because that's who you are. That's fitting for Christians to do that.
Now, in case we don't know what that means, he's going to give us some points of unity. In fact, I don't know if you've noticed in this verse. There's a repetition of a word, and the word is one. O-N-E. It's in the passage of Ephesians 4, 4 through 6, it's in that passage seven times.
Let me tell you something about Bible study. When you see something repeated, take note. This passage is about one. Oneness, unity. The Bible says That you're to be unified because you're in one body.
That's the first unity. What does that mean?
Well, here's what it means. When you become a Christian, when you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, according to the Bible, you become part of everybody else who's a Christian throughout the whole wide world. That's called the universal church.
Sometimes referred to as the invisible church. That's the big church. Everybody's a Christian. No matter where you come from, what your background is, if you've accepted Jesus Christ, you are a bona fide brother or sister with every other Christian in the world. You know what?
That's why when you travel and you meet somebody and they have a distinctiveness about them, you just say, are you a Christian? And half the time they are. They have your DNA, they're part of your family. Paul said, one of the unities we have is that we are all in one body. The Bible says that any person who accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior becomes a part of the body of Christ.
So if you're a Christian, you are not a Christian alone. In other words, there's no Presbyterian body, there's no Baptist body, there's no Charismatic body, there's no Protestant body or Catholic body, there's one body. And you become a part of that body when you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. That makes you part of this incredible unity. Paul says.
Celebrate the fact that you're in one body. And then he adds, and there is one spirit. He says there's not just one body, there's one spirit. Did you know there are not multiple versions of the Holy Spirit? There's no Holy Spirit for America, Holy Spirit for Africa, another Holy Spirit for Asia.
There's only one Holy Spirit. And there's not a Holy Spirit for each denomination either. If you are a Christian, The Holy Spirit lives within you. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12, For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether slaves or free, and we have been made to drink into one Spirit. The Holy Spirit, ladies and gentlemen, resides in every believer.
A lot of things happen to you when you get saved, you're probably not aware of. But let me tell you, when you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, the Holy Spirit immediately comes to indwell your being. He lives within you. Where does the Holy Spirit live today? He lives in believers.
He doesn't live out in space. You know what I know? When the rapture comes and all the church is taken away, the Holy Spirit exits this globe. That's one of the reasons all hell breaks loose in the tribulation. There's no restraining influence left.
The Holy Spirit is gone. Because the Holy Spirit lives in us. When you become a Christian, you get the Holy Spirit. You are in one body made up of all believers. Celebrate that.
You have one spirit living in you who lives in every other body. You have the DNA of the Holy Spirit. And then he says there's one hope.
Now this is not, I wish it were so hope. This is, I know it is so hope. Paul says that every one of us in the body of Christ who has one spirit living within us, we have one central hope. What is that hope? The return of Jesus Christ to receive us unto himself.
The Bible says there are two things about this hope. One is the hope of the resurrection, the other is the hope of the return. The hope of the resurrection is for those of you who have loved ones who've already died and they're Christians. They're in their grave. And you know what the Bible says?
When Jesus comes back, They're going to go up first. And you're going to come up after them. I have an old friend who said that's because they got six feet further to go, but I don't think that's the reason. They're going to go up first, and then the Bible says, and then we shall be joined together with them. That is the hope of every Christian.
That's why when Christians die, there's always sadness, but there's not despair. We know that death is not the end, it's the beginning of a new existence and ultimately a glorious existence with the Lord Jesus Christ.
So here's what Paul is saying. Here's what I want you to know. He says, we're one. There's oneness in our faith. We have one body we're all in.
We have one Spirit who lives within us, and we're all looking for the same thing because we're Christians who we know that Jesus has promised that He is coming back. Here's the next one. He says there's one body, one spirit, one hope. And there's one Lord.
Now, I want to pause here for just a moment and give this one a little extra time. One Lord. There's just one, not many. Just one. I know some of you people hear folks say to you when you go to work, well, I have my God and you have your God.
No, there's not many gods, there's one God and one Lord. He's not one among many, and I'm going to prove it to you in a very interesting way. If you go to Rome today, one of the buildings that still is pretty much intact is the Pantheon.
Now let me take that apart. The word pan means all, and theos means God. The pantheon is a place for all gods, and if you walked into that building, you would see shelves where the different pagan gods have been placed. And when the Romans would go and fight against another nation, They would bring back captives when they won, but they would also bring back all of their gods. Guess what they did with them?
They put them in their pantheon. The Romans had this deal: if you get enough gods, there's going to be one there for everybody and for everything you're going through. Go find the God for this and God for that. The problem is, there's only one God.
Now, let me ask you this question: Do you know why the Christians were killed by the Romans? Romans were angry at Christians because they were Christians. In fact, the Romans were very accepting of other religions based upon their pantheon. But the Romans came to the Christians who said Jesus Christ is our Lord, and they wanted to put their Lord in the pantheon. And the Christians said, We're not putting our God on the same shelf with Jupiter and Juno.
No, he's one Lord. He's not among many Lords. He's not going in the Pantheon. And they fed the Christians to the lions. They fed the Christians not because they were Christians, but because they said there is one Lord.
I need to tell you, that's a hard saying today. Everybody wants to be kind and let's all get along and all that. And your God is as good as my God. I mean, I hate to say this, but the Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible says that there's one Lord.
One lore, that's it. The Bible says there's one man between God and us, and that man is Christ Jesus. And Jesus himself said this: He said, I am the way, I am the truth. I am the life.
Now, in case you don't understand that, he added another sentence. No man comes to the Father except Through me. You say, isn't that kind of hard line?
Well, I just want to be what the Bible says I should be. The Bible says that's true. There are not many religions that lead to the same place. If you want to go to heaven, you have to find Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior. He is the only way to heaven.
And the Bible says when you're a Christian and you come to grips with that, now you can celebrate the fact that you're in one body with all the other Christians. You've got one Holy Spirit living in your heart. You've got one hope that heaven is coming, and you have one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is. The Bible says, one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We have one Lord.
Amen. So Then he says, we have one faith. Oh, you say, Pastor, there are many faiths. No, that's not what he's talking about. He's saying, as Christians, we have one faith.
What is our faith? We have this book that instructs us to do what we need to do. This book will tell you how to get to heaven. And it will also tell you how to get along on your way to heaven. This is God's book of instruction.
You want to know how to live the Christian life? You got to read this book. You want to know how to be successful and prosperous as a Christian businessman? You got to read this book. You want to be a good, godly Christian parent?
You'll find some great things in this book. All the things you need to be a Christian is in your book, The Bible, and that's your faith. And there's only one. I mean, there's a lot of different versions of the Bible, like the King James, and the New King James, and the New International. I preach from the New King James.
And people ask me, why do I do that? I tell them, because I want to. This is the Bible I read. I grew up on the King James, and when my father was in the last years of his life, he was on the committee. That drafted the New King James, getting rid of some of the words that antiquity has lost meaning for.
And I've loved this translation of the Bible. I don't say there aren't any others, but this is what I study when I'm trying to figure out what is my faith. And Jude tells us that our faith has been once for all delivered to the saints. What does that mean?
We have everything God wants us to know. If somebody comes along and says to you, I know this is not in the Bible, Pastor, whoa. If it's new, it's not true. when it comes to your faith. Because God has said everything He's going to say about our faith in between the two covers of this book.
We call the Bible.
So he says there's one body. If you're a Christian, you're in this universal church. There's one Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, that lives within your heart if you're a Christian. There's one hope if you believe what God says, you know that one day. You're going to go to heaven.
If he comes back before you die, you're going up in the rapture. If he comes back after you die, you're going up in the resurrection. And he says there's one Lord, not many, just one. And there's one faith, that's the Bible. And there's one baptism, and boy, I'm going to stop here and talk to you for a minute.
You're probably thinking there are many kinds of baptisms. Maybe you come from a different tradition. You know, I know of several kinds of baptisms, some people get sprinkled. and some people get poured, they actually pour water on them. And some people are dunked.
That's what they call our baptism. And you know what? Back in the Midwest, there are some churches that practice this doctrine. Triune immersion. You know what that is?
Triune means three. When you get baptized once for the Father, once for the Son, and once for the Holy Spirit, you come out dried as a prune, but you get baptized. No. Baptism is a very important thing, and I'm not making light of it at all. I remember when I first started in the ministry, I discovered that there were a lot of things I needed to know that they didn't teach me in seminary.
Nobody ever taught me to baptize anybody. I mean, I feel sorry for the first people I baptized.
Well, I want to tell you about this woman who was the first lady I ever baptized. I don't think she'd get mad at me because we joke about this now since we still know each other. She was the thinnest woman I ever met in my life. I mean she was absolutely Almost not there. But I didn't understand when you put people in the water.
You got to bring them back up and her feet wouldn't go down. They floated on top. Ladies and gentlemen, I floated her out of the Baptistry to the other side. She'll never let me forget that, ever. I remember baptizing a guy that I had led to Christ.
He was a former. A football player, he weighed 350 pounds. When I put him in the water, the water displacement baptized the whole choir. I mean it was unbelievable.
So I've been through some baptism experiences now. Baptism is so important in the Bible because it's the first command that is given to every person who becomes a Christian. And it is also commanded that when you preach, go into all the world and preach the gospel, baptizing those who believe. That's what the scripture says. When I was growing up in my daddy's church, here's what they did.
When it was time for a baptism, somebody would come in through this way. They had two ways. And when they got into baptism, my father would say, Do you believe in Jesus? Yeah. Are you trusting in Him for eternal life?
Yes. I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And they're gone. They never said a word. But here's what I found out, ladies and gentlemen.
When you got baptized in the New Testament, it was the line of demarcation for your faith. If you were just a Christian, you wouldn't get in trouble, but if you were a baptized Christian, you were a target. Because in baptism in the New Testament, they didn't baptize in a warm pool. with a bunch of Christians watching. Their baptisms took place in the center of town, in a creek or a river, or whatever is there, and they stood before their whole pagan culture.
telling them that they had become a Christian in one Lord. They had put their faith. And from that moment on, They were targeted. But there's no reason for us not to get baptized when it's God's first word to us. You say, if I don't get baptized, am I going to heaven?
Absolutely. The thief on the cross was saved, he didn't get baptized, and he went right to paradise. Baptism doesn't save you, it's the outward expression of your faith. But it's important and we have Somehow allowed it to get pushed down. I'll tell you the truth: I'd rather have one baptism in every service where a man or woman, young man, or young woman gets up and says, This is how I became a Christian, and I've come here to be baptized, than to have 50 people running through the water as fast as they can just to say they were baptized.
Ladies and gentlemen, baptism is important. If you're not baptized, that doesn't mean you're a lesser quality of Christian.
Some of you aren't baptized because you didn't know it was important. But the Bible says it is. If the early Christians could stand in the middle of their town and preach the gospel with their testimony in front of all the pagan people who didn't like them and ultimately wanted to kill them, By the grace of God, we can stand up in front of a bunch of our friends in the Christian church and say, I'm being baptized to tell you I am a Christian. Amen. Amen.
And you know what? That's what happens almost every week at Shadow Mountain in one of our services.
Somebody gives their testimony, and at the end of the testimony, they say, And I'm here to tell you that I am a Christian. When we do that, something happens in our hearts. We are solidified in our faith, and the testimonies are such a blessing to all of us. I've often told people I could give the invitation after. The baptism, and I think many people would come to Christ because the invitation is.
an invite to what they just told us they have. Friends, don't forget to be with us tomorrow as we conclude this month together. Don't forget to order your calendar for 27 because time is running out. We only have a couple of days left to make this available. It's yours for the asking when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point.
You will be blessed by this calendar all through the year, and we're privileged to send it to you. Thanks for listening. I'm David Jeremiah. Have a great day. For more information on today's special message from Dr.
Jeremiah, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected. Our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of our 14-month 2027 calendar, The Light of the World, and deepen your faith daily throughout the coming year.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King James Versions, available in several attractive and resilient cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow for more of our special message from Dr.
David Jeremiah here on Turning Point.
