How We Get Along, Part 1

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. In other words, match your walk to the fact that you have been called by God in his grace when he redeemed you out of darkness into a marvelous light.

He's taken you from the realm of death into life. What Paul is going to do now is inform us that the way you measure whether or not you're walking that way isn't necessarily with how you're treating the unbeliever out there, but how we treat each other here. We are certainly called to show love and kindness to everyone, but one of the defining marks of a Christian church is the love that believers share and express toward each other. One of the most beautiful things about the Christian church is the fact that no matter our backgrounds, we have become one body. We are brothers and sisters, new creations, bound together in unity through the Holy Spirit. So it's imperative that we protect and promote that unity in every local church.

Thanks for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. Today, Stephen opens up Paul's letter to the Ephesians to share with you the ingredients it takes to maintain genuine unity. It's been a privilege today to see a number of people follow the Lord in obedience through immersion, and these are folks that have just completed the greenhouse class. It's one of the richest experiences for me as a pastor to teach this class.

There was a time when I had given it over to somebody else, and I just missed that connection and have been teaching it now a number of years. In fact, a couple of years ago, I began to meet individually with each class member or couple, individual households, and it gave me an opportunity to hear their testimony a little bit and perhaps clarify the gospel. It's been a privilege to see some of them come to faith in Christ during the course of the greenhouse class. If you're new around here, that's new members' class.

You don't have to join if you take it, but if you're wanting to join, you take it. It's amazing to me to see the variety of people that the Lord brings to this fellowship and this assembly together making one family, and this greenhouse class is no different. This is a large class. We've moved over to Colonial Corners to make room for everyone, and we do a little survey and find out where they're coming from and a little bit of their background. Of course, I get a lot of it when I meet with them personally, but it's just amazing to see the variety of backgrounds and cultures and histories and testimonies. Some of them come from a long line of believers. We have missionary kids and pastors' kids in this particular class. Some of them are first-generation believers. That is, they have no family member that belongs to Christ except them, and they're beginning this legacy of faith. Some come from churches that had a high degree of concern for interpreting Scripture correctly, doctrinally, and some came from churches that really didn't care about any kind of doctrinal stand, and that's why they're here. Some have come from churches where there's a high level of liturgy, kind of a high church, and others come from churches that are spontaneous and not structured. So some come in wondering why we don't recite the Lord's Prayer every Sunday, and others wonder why I'm wearing a necktie and not a pair of blue jeans.

That'd be fine, but it'd probably scare you if I did, but they're wondering things like that. Some of the men in this class this semester have been teaching elders in former churches. They know the Scriptures well.

Others in the class are just beginning to get to know this book, and it begins with the book of Genesis and ends with the book of maps, getting familiar with this whole thing. Some mature in the Lord, some new. We have students. Some of our classmates have moved here from Eastern Europe. In this class we have some from the Philippines. We have some from China. We have some from South America. Some from Louisiana.

That's a foreign country as well. I asked my secretary to give me a list of some of the states that she could recollect this week, and she sent me a note. She said, we have people moving directly to Colonial from their home church and their home state located in Maryland, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, California, and Virginia. They've all landed here, by the grace of God, with all of you native North Carolinians, all 15 of you.

Where are you? Oh, we do. Okay, I was wrong. There's 17 of you. I could do a quick count.

Just wonderful. They come from all kinds of backgrounds, denominationally, all different kinds of styles of worship. Some have come from a southern gospel background in Alabama and Mississippi, and others are used to a high church, kind of a formal setting. Some come from churches with a band driven, a contemporary setting. Some people in this class are praying. They're just waiting for us to break out the banjos.

We haven't gotten there yet, but they're hoping. We finally get some good music around here. Some of the class want more music. Some want longer sermons.

Okay, I made that up. We have a number of college students in this class. In fact, the largest group of college students ever, which is really exciting to me to see college collegians, not less committed to the church, but excited enough about belonging that they don't want to put it off. They want to become an active part of it. We have students from NC State, students from Meredith College, joining others here from UNC, and a number from Wake Tech. We even have students from Duke.

No church is perfect. You and I like that. I did. I like that too. Thank you.

I could have used you at 930 and at 8. I love to see the Lord doing this. It's amazing because so many histories, so many cultures, how do we make it together?

How do we ever hope to get along? Have you ever thought about the fact that one of the greatest testimonies of the gospel to our world is that we do, and we can. The gospel of Jesus Christ is able to bind together dissimilar people, dissimilar backgrounds, dissimilar cultures, dissimilar tastes into a fellowship of genuine and profound unity the world knows nothing of. You need to understand there's a vast difference between unity and uniformity. Uniformity is the only thing the world knows about. In fact, it drives the engine of the world. Madison Avenue is banking on it, that we want to be, we want to look like each other, we want to drive, you know, the same thing or whatever.

Use the same stuff. Fashion, culture. Uniformity is the result of external pressure outside us. Unity is, on the one hand, diversity, and on the other, this shared life. It's the product of internal grace at work through the Spirit of God.

No one is making you get along from the world. The Spirit of God inside creates this desire as we share the life of Christ together. One of the biblical promises the church member makes to the rest of the body is related to preserving and protecting this unity in Christ. We've been covering these past several sessions, the promises we're making to one another. In fact, let me mention that today in the lobby, I understand there are tables or at the welcome desks where you can pick up a draft copy, still being noodled on a little bit, just proofing and grammar and things like that, but we wanted you to go ahead and have it so you can begin to read through the new constitution and bylaws, and in there you'll find the old covenant replaced with these promises. We've had a number of people, by the way, during this series this fall tell me that they want to join this church. It's really interesting.

I can't think of a sermon series I've ever preached where people came up and said, I want to join. This is based on what they're hearing, what we believe, where we're standing, and we're thinking now of teaching the class immediately, again, in the spring. We offer it now through video live streaming. We attempted that this fall.

It's very helpful for those with work schedules. If you're interested, by the way, in this spring, that'll be in January, beginning there and moving forward, let me know. We'll call the church and let them know as well as we make our final decision. One of the promises, and this is the one I want to cover today, is this. We're promising to submit in humility to one another, striving for peaceful unity and harmony in the assembly. That's a mouthful, isn't it?

It's a mouthful. There are a number of New Testament passages on the subject simply because there's always been a need for it, and there's always been a danger for any local church to lose it. So this has been the critical target of the enemy of the church, and we often work in concert with him in our own flesh. In one way or another, the apostles exhorted every church they wrote to preserve and promote and protect the unity of the local body, and that truth is needed again today like never before. And let me tell you this, Satan isn't going to try to destroy this gospel-believing church and other gospel-believing churches like us by coming in and saying, you know what? Let's rethink the deity of Christ.

I mean, that's going to last about 30 seconds. Let's rethink the Trinity. Let's rethink Sola Fidei, faith alone. Let's rethink Sola Scriptura. Let's come up with a council or a creed, and that'll tell us what to do, apart from the scriptures.

No. The enemy does in this church and every gospel-believing church, in an attempt to divide it and disunify it, isn't overtly attempting, coming forward and very clearly openly trying to destroy it. What he does most often is simply join it and then divide from within. I mean, Paul's clearest warning to the elders in Ephesus was the fact that the wolves were going to come from within.

From within. So the Apostle Peter is talking about that lion that roams around seeking somebody to discredit or devour, and he ends his first letter. He says, finally, finally, if you forget everything else, remember this, finally live in harmony with one another. He's writing that to the church. Paul warned the Galatian church, but if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another. Galatians 5, 15. In other words, a divisive spirit ultimately consumes you. How many churches have literally disappeared having been consumed from within by this divisive spirit? No wonder Paul exhorts the church in Ephesus to protect the unity of the spirit of the bond of peace.

In fact, let me have you just turn to that one text today. Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians four. Ephesians four. Paul is going to expand on what it takes to promote true and genuine unity. And just for the sake of an outline, as we go through this, let me identify four of them.

Four ingredients of genuine unity. Let's go to verse one, Ephesians chapter four. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. In other words, match your walk to the fact that you have been called by God in his grace when he redeemed you out of darkness into a marvelous light. He's taken you from the realm of death into life. Now, match that. Match that wonderful calling with the way you walk. I find it interesting. What Paul is going to do now is inform us that the way you measure whether or not you're walking that way isn't necessarily with how you're treating the unbeliever out there or even your family and your home address, but how we treat each other here.

Here are the ingredients. The first one you need to mix into the recipe of genuine unity is humility. Look at verse two. With all humility, let's just go ahead and start with the easiest one, right? With all humility, you can translate that, be completely humble.

Be completely humble. We've been studying together before we set that aside, the book of Philippians. You remember in chapter two where Jesus Christ is shown to be amazingly, wonderfully humble. And lest we think that's good for Jesus and not for us, he says, the same attitude you saw in him, let that be yours. In other words, it isn't just for the Lord. It's for us to imitate that which we see in the Lord. This is the heartbeat then of Christianity.

It must be part of what makes us a body. This makes our unity so clearly unique from the world. In fact, that very word is different from the Roman Empire. To the ancient Greeks and Romans, when they're reading this and this culture in the first century, they would have snickered.

They would have scoffed. The word humility, that same word the philosophers would say belonged to slaves. It was a slave-like, they called it, characteristic. The great people in the Empire, the people to admire were those people who were self-sufficient and self-assured and self-promoting just like it is today.

And so you have in our own culture people running around talking about how proud they are of themselves. Humility has never been politically correct. In fact, when Augustine, the great theologian of the late fourth century, was asked, what are the three most important principles in a Christian's life and in the church, he said, oh, that's easy. Number one, humility. Number two, humility. Number three, humility.

So begin there. You won't have unity without it. Paul adds next to the ingredient of gentleness, you'll notice in the text, gentleness, your translation may render it meekness. When you hear the word meekness, it's translated that way in other passages in the New Testament, you think of, you know, kind of a timid wallflower, doormat, perhaps no spine, can't make a decision, meekness, we think of it as weakness. In the New Testament mind, meekness was not weakness, it was incredible power under control. In fact, the word was used in Paul's day for war horses. These stallions were called meek.

What it meant was that they were trained to respond to the warrior on its back. I was given an opportunity to understand this a little better as a kid, I'll never forget my family. In the summer, we would go on deputation, my missionary parents would visit those who supported them and many of them were up north, which is where our home was and my birthplace in Minneapolis.

So I'm not a native North Carolinian, by the way, or be 18 here instead of 17. But at any rate, they'd kind of work deputation into vacation, which was interesting because it gave us kids different sites and churches and people. I remember going to one particular ranch where this guy trained Arabian horses and he gave us a demonstration. He got on the back of one of them, he said, okay, I'm going to show you how this thing is trained. And he let go of the reins, he was hands free and just by nudging it with his knee, it turned one way. Nudging it with the other knee, depending on how hard he nudged it, it would turn the other way. If he leaned forward, it would speed up, it could canter into a gallop just by him leaning.

If he leaned back, it would stop. That was a picture in Paul's mind of meekness, great power, but under control. In fact, Jesus Christ is very interesting to hear him describe himself. He described himself. Matthew records for us in chapter 11 and verse 29. He said, I am meek and humble of heart.

I am meek and humble of heart. The meekness of Jesus Christ was demonstrated by the fact that he had all power. He could retaliate. He could get his way. He could change everything from the weather to someone's response, and he never did. He had all authority to do as he pleased for himself, to suit himself, to make his life more comfortable, and he never served himself. Jesus Christ is the epitome of power under control. Disunity in the church is frankly most often tied to the lack of this ingredient, the ensuing determination to dig heels in and have our way, to display some kind of power, some kind of perceived authority or influence.

You want unity? Stir in the ingredients of humility and gentleness. He adds a third ingredient in verse three. Notice, with patience showing forbearance to one another in love.

Now, that's another mouthful. In fact, he couples patience with forbearance. Forbearance refers to being patient with other people while being provoked. So you need to notice that Paul here isn't just saying that we're supposed to be patient until we can get out of the parking lot. We're to be patient with other people so long as they're looking at us.

This is, Paul is kind of closing down every loophole. He is saying, be patient, but show forbearance, this long suffering with people in love. So when you're not treated like you think you ought to be treated, when people don't respond to you like you think they ought to respond, here's the question. Do you care more about the unity of the church or yourself?

What matters more? Whenever the controversy arises, whenever the confrontation occurs, what matters most? The unity of the church or my own personal feelings? Dwight Pentecost, who's now with the Lord, one of my old professors from Dallas Seminary, told of a church split that was so serious that each side in the argument, which had long been forgotten, both filed lawsuits in secular courts trying to dispossess the other side from the church property, basically kick them out and then keep the property for themselves. And they disregarded, of course, the biblical injunction not to take biblical matters or church matters to secular courts. Nonetheless, they did. And Dwight Pentecost wrote that in the court proceedings, as they both gave their arguments, it was eventually discovered as they tracked back this conflict to find out that the conflict had actually begun at a church-wide dinner.

And at that dinner, an older, well-known member of the church was given a smaller slice of ham than the person next to him. And that started it all. Now, it's one thing to show patience toward people with a bad attitude.

That's why he's tying up the loophole. Show patience toward people in a spirit of love. And he gets back to the question, what's good for the body? What's good for the church?

What's good for unity? Do we care enough to be slighted? Do we care enough to be overlooked? Will we keep our power under control or will we use it to hurt and provoke and respond in anything but love?

Okay, if you're like me, after just going through a couple of these ingredients, you're probably thinking, I got some homework to do, right? I got some stuff I need to address and maybe I ought to really give it some diligence and work harder at it. And I think Paul would agree. In fact, that's what he says next.

Verse 3, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Being diligent, literally making every effort. And by the way, that word has the nuance of hurrying.

And I kind of like that, don't you? I like to hurry to my own detriment. Make haste.

Don't miss that light, don't miss the elevator. Tackle. He's using that same idea. With urgency and haste and speed, tackle this issue. Don't miss the fact, by the way here, that nowhere does Paul tell us that we're the ones creating unity.

Would you look again? Don't miss that. He doesn't say we create the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We don't create unity.

We can't. The Spirit of God creates it. We are just supposed to energetically and passionately and diligently preserve what he has created. Let's work hard at what the Spirit of God has created.

You can translate it. Make haste to guard it. Make haste to maintain it. Make haste to keep it. So to belong to the local church is to make up your mind that you're really not as important as other people.

That's part of it. You're not as important as other people. You're effectively following the commands of the apostle, and we're promising each other that we'll be the kind of person to protect and preserve and promote the unity of the body. Instead of being quick to divide, quick to gossip, quick to take sides, we'll be quick and eager to hasten toward resolution. So if somebody involves you and the controversy, they just invited somebody who's going to make haste to resolve it.

That's a challenging and convicting thought, isn't it? When was the last time someone involved you in conflict? How did you respond? Did you contribute to driving in the wedge of conflict even further?

Or did you make haste to try to help resolve the conflict? Well, Steven has more to share regarding how believers are to get along. However, we're going to stop here for today because we're out of time. This is Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Steven Davey. We'll actually bring you the conclusion to this lesson on Monday, twice a month, on the first and third Friday of each month, we take a break from our normal Bible teaching to answer questions that come in from listeners.

We'll be doing that tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow's question and answer session, we have a special phone number that you can use to call in and record your question. Our Bible question line is 910-808-9384. If you call that number, you can record your question so that Steven can answer it on a future broadcast.

That number once again is 910-808-9384. Before we end our time today, I want to tell you that God is using this current teaching series that Steven is in to bless Christians and churches all over the country and world. This series explores God's design for the church and is called Upon This Rock. We've had pastors, elders, and deacons call and order the CD set because they want to listen to it and take people from their church through it as well. If you'd like this series, you'll find it on our website, wisdomonline.org.

Again, it's called Upon This Rock. You can also call us and we can help you over the phone. Our office number is 866-48-BIBLE. Numerically, that's 866-482-4253. And of course, please join us tomorrow for more wisdom for the hearts.