Unity Sermon
The following sermon I preached at 1st Presbyterian Church on March 17,2024. Technology failed us and live streaming failed us. I thought it good for all to read so I have posted it in its entirety here.
Good morning, my brothers & sisters in Christ. Today’s scripture is all about the unity of believers. We
will need God’s help to understand and put into practice what we find in these short verses. Please join
me in a time of prayer for our understanding of the truth of the Gospel:
Heavenly
Father, we come to you this morning broken, hurting people. We admit we have
deep divisions in a church you meant to be united. Forgive us for having a
mindset of division rather than one of unity. Open your word to us today so we
may hear and obey your call to be united in Christ. Amen.
Unity. That is the theme of Jesus’
prayer in these verses from John, which we just heard this morning. In it, Jesus
declared that He wanted all His followers united in their struggle to follow
Him. It sounds easy enough, but it has proved notoriously difficult for the
people of God to pull off. According to one survey of the state of religion
conducted in the United States, there are over 2,000 Christian denominations in
the United States alone. The most recent example of a significant church split
occurred in the United Methodist Church. Over 7,600 churches left that
denomination between 2019 and 2023. That’s one-quarter of the denomination
gone. Most have gone to a new denomination, The Global Methodist Church. To put
that into perspective, there are approximately 8,700 congregations in our
denomination, the PC(USA). This split creates a new denomination with almost as
many member congregations as the PC(USA).
Any
way you slice it, our display of unity needs to be more robust on an
institutional level. But is Jesus speaking of institutional unity or doctrinal
or practical unity in these verses? Does it matter? First, unity is a
reflection of God’s person. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear O Israel: The Lord our
God, the Lord is one.” The Jewish religion has a few factions but is not nearly
as fractured as Christianity. Our God is one God, and there is no other. This
fact is stressed throughout the scripture. In just the New Testament, seven
verses explicitly state the oneness of God. Including the verses read this
morning. The other scriptures are Mark 12:29,32 John 1:1, 17:11, Galatians
3:20, and 1 John 5:7. Let us consider whether institutional unity or unity of
belief and practice is intended in these verses this morning.
Let
us unpack the verses from John 17, which we examine this morning.
In
verse 20, Jesus is praying for those who believe in Him based on the witness of
scripture read and preached. This includes all who have been followers through
the ages up to this moment, and Jesus is still praying for us today. God’s firm
desire is that we become one with Him just as we were at the beginning of
creation. The problem of our sin notwithstanding, through Jesus Christ, through
the power of the Holy Spirit, we can learn to live in that unity again. God has
been working throughout history, as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures and the
New Testament writings, to bring harmony between God and humankind. Therefore,
we can trust God to be with us through our struggle for unity in the church.
Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Father are united in love, one God in three
persons. Our God is mighty to save, heal, rescue, and restore the world we have
broken through our sins. Let us realize that our institutional divisions do not
necessarily mean doctrinal or practical divisions.
John
records Jesus' desire that we be unified in Him in verse 21. Just as the Holy
Trinity is one, so should we be one. One reason the world is walking away from
the church in America and throughout the Western world is our disunity. We
often appear as just another particular interest group promoting our agenda. We
seldom can give a coherent answer when the world asks why we take the positions
we do on cultural and social issues. Jesus promises that the world will see and
respond positively if we are unified in him and can explain our positions positively.
The majority of the church leaves the task of explanation to the “experts”
called apologists and does not engage in the controversial topics of the day.
Yet Peter says in his letter that we are always ready to defend our hope in
Jesus, but we must do it with gentleness and respect. People view apologetic
discussions as a waste of time. “No one was ever saved through argument,” they
claim. The world needs more of Jesus' power and grace to be displayed today
than ever in human history. Today, let us not despise the value of apologetics.
Most churches do not do apologetics well, if at all. Help us to realize that
apologetics done in the spirit of gentleness and respect can reach lost souls
for Christ and build up the church for which Jesus gave His life.
Verse
22 is crucial because it speaks of God giving His glory to the original
disciples and the rest of the believing community through them. “Glory commonly refers to the manifestation of God’s
character or person. Jesus has mediated the glory of God personally to his
first followers and through them to us who believe on account of their message.
And he has done all of this that they may
be one as we are one.”[1](emphasis
in the original) God will not stop until unity among believers is a settled
fact.
The
final verse of our text for today spells out the fullness of the unity that God
desires for us. This verse declares that in the same way, the Father loves the
Son; he loves us and desires us to be one with each other and one with Him. In
this verse, Jesus declares that the Father and the Son love the people who have
believed in them with the same intensity of love that the Trinity has for one
another. This is a miracle and a promise no Christian should take lightly.
Those of us who follow our Savior, Jesus, are loved by the Father in the same
way that the Father loves the Son. Indeed, we are made into adoptive children
of God, and we enjoy all the rights and privileges of adoptive children. Jesus
spells out that the Triune God loves those who believe with the fullness of the
love the members of the Trinity have for one another. Let us now focus on why
Christians often fail to be filled with this love and learn to overcome the
obstacles the flesh, the world, and the devil throw in our way to disrupt unity.
What is the reason we Christians
find it so hard to be united around our God? The main reason for our alienation
from God is given to us in Genesis chapter 3. This chapter, which we all know
as the fall story, contains the seed from which all division and alienation
come. Humankind rebelled against the one commandment God had set for them and
has been hiding from God ever since. Genesis 3:8 explains, “And they heard the
sound of the LORD GOD walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man
and his wife hid from the presence of the LORD GOD among the garden's trees.” We
have been hiding from God, attempting to conceal our sins ever since.
Once
we had become alienated from our creator, it was a short step to becoming
alienated from each other. Genesis 4:7-9 explains Cain and Abel’s story—the
tragic story of the first murder. In the 21st century in America
alone, we run a body count in the dozens if not hundreds of murders on any
typical weekend across the country. Brother killing brother often for no
discernable reason. And still, we ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” We in the
Christian church rarely actually murder those who disagree with us on issues of
doctrine and policy; we just run away and hide from each other.
We
must ask, what are God’s purposes for wanting unity within His body and church?
First,
God wants to bring together all people. God did not create humankind with
various racial groups. We are all one race. The human race. When we look at
others, we are to see another human being created in the image of God. No
matter how banged up and damaged we or they are. It is sad, but it is still
true that the most segregated time in American life is Sunday mornings. We
divide by race, language, ethnicity, and so on. What a beautiful witness to the
world if we could all worship together on Sunday mornings.
Second,
God wants to unite all people under His rule. God’s word is full of
exhortations for the whole world to be united under His authority. The book of
Revelation and elsewhere declares that one day, all the nations of the earth
and all the peoples therein will worship God in the new Jerusalem. We have this
promise and can count on the Lord to bring it to fruition. As the Psalmist
declares in Psalm 72:8-11, “May [God] have dominion from sea to sea, and from
the River to the ends of the earth! May desert tribes bow down before him, and
his enemies lick the dust! May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands
render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! May all the
kings fall down before him; all nations serve him!”
Jesus
especially desires unity within His church. The above-listed examples are just
some of the things that explain why God desires all believers to be of one
accord when it comes to following Him. One issue the church needs to deal with
is the lack of seriousness some within her ranks treat being a disciple of
Jesus. To be a disciple of Jesus might be better understood as being an
apprentice of Jesus. An apprentice enters training in a trade to learn from those
who are experts at that trade. So, it was with the rabbis and their disciples.
The goal of our training, per Jesus, is to become like Him in every respect
(except deity). Jesus himself declares that a disciple will be like the teacher
when fully trained.
For
Jesus, discipleship is not about getting you into heaven than; it is about getting
heaven into you. As C S Lewis wrote, each day, we are turning into an immortal
horror or an eternal, everlasting splendor. (The Weight of Glory) The greatness
of Christ is not that He became like us but about us becoming like Him. Giving
our life in service of Christ is less of a transaction and more about
transformation. As we become better and better disciples of Jesus, we make it
easier for others to see and believe that becoming a Christ follower makes a
real difference in a person’s life. And the more likely they are to take the
first step of discipleship.
The
big question for us as a 21st-century church is how we display unity when we
are clearly divided on so many issues. First, we must realize that it took two
thousand years to get this divided, and trying to accomplish absolute unity
overnight is impossible without a miracle of God. Putting toothpaste back in
the tube is impossible, so putting the church back together will be very
challenging. However, we have one thing going for us: the all-conquering love
of God. That love that unites us across all lines of division we may draw for
ourselves.
Given
Jesus' prayer for unity from John’s gospel, which we heard read this morning,
we know His will for the church is to be unified. So, we must learn Jesus’ way
of love. We must learn to love each other even when we disagree vehemently on specific
topics. We cannot let minor things divide us anymore. The color of the
carpeting is what it is, and we will all have to live with that while exploring
areas we agree on and moving forward with those issues to bring the kingdom of
heaven about here on earth.
We
need to be aware that the church has always had its controversies. Even in the
book of Acts, the church had to devise creative solutions to real problems and
issues. From the feeding of the Greek widows to Paul and Barnabas disputing John
Mark’s usefulness in ministry, problems arose, solutions were found, and peace
was kept. Paul’s letters, especially the correspondence with the Corinthian and
Galatian churches, speak to many diverse issues that 1st-century churches dealt
with. Indeed, God will grant us enough wisdom to see our way through current
controversies.
What
to do about the reformation? As I write these words, the noon prayer bells are
ringing at the local Roman Catholic church, and I pause to pray a simple
prayer. Getting over this hurdle will be significantly more complex than
repairing relations within Protestantism. The rupture has deepened over the
centuries, and each has become defensive about their faith's “distinctive”
facets. Healing the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox positions will also be
a trying problem in search of a creative solution. Let alone bringing the Roman
Catholic church back to unanimity around specific doctrinal issues. Healing the
rift between various Orthodox positions, say the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox
Churches, also represents a significant hurdle to unity.
The
bad news on unity looks daunting from a purely human point of view. Without
God’s help, this situation would indeed be impossible to heal. The good news is
that we have the promise of God’s help. The Holy Spirit stands ready to help us
address these issues and many more that we do not have time or space to mention
in this short message.
I
suppose this sermon has made some of you worry or despair about ever finding
unity. Set your mind at ease with this thought. Just as God the Father loves
God the Son, He also loves us, His precious creation. None of our division and
sin has surprised Him in the least. He loves us despite our faults and
failures. He created this universe to create peace within the church and,
through the church, bring healing and peace to all humankind. He longs to see
us love one another as He has loved us. He wants us to be extensions of His
love for this lost and lonely world. So be of good cheer. God loves you. He
died for us on the cross to prove it.
Even
without institutional unity within the church, we must recognize that Christ’s
death and resurrection unite us. All who name Jesus and declare Him Lord over
their lives already have the seed of gospel unity planted within them. We must
nurture and care for that seed to grow into full bloom as we live with our
brothers and sisters in the worldwide church.
The
first churches were not part of any denomination or group. Each city had its
autonomous church, and some towns even had more than one church. Yet they were
all united by their faith and belief in Jesus as the risen Lord and Savoir. Following
the reformation in the 1,500 and 1,600s, we find divided churches—some churches
following Luther, some Calvin, some Zwingli, and some remaining loyal to the
Roman Catholic or Orthodox church. As time passed, these primary divisions
further divided God’s people. Until, now we have over 2,000 separate Christian denominations
today; however, as divided as we are at a purely human level, we must recognize
that if a church names the name of Christ as Lord, sits under the preaching of
the gospel, and takes part in the sacraments, we are united spiritually in the
body and blood of our Savior. That unity should be taken seriously because what
Satan and his minions fear more than anything else is that the churches that
name the name of Christ will set aside their petty divisions and act as a
unified force in the world. I believe when that happens, the gates of hell will
fall with a mighty crash. And I do believe that that day will come. God
willing, sooner rather than later.
Our
scripture lesson this morning calls us to such unity. The church must heed the
call and reject the divisions that the devil has planted in believers' minds
and hearts. Jesus longs for His church to be one body dedicated to one purpose:
bringing the kingdom alive in this world. As we pray each Sunday in the Lord’s
prayer, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” Let us leave this place
today, united in the mission to make disciples and grow the kingdom on earth.
Let
us pray:
Heavenly
Father, through your son Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, you have set in
motion your plan for unity in the church and the world. Please help us to do
what we can so that the world can be full of your shalom and peace. Grant us minds,
hearts, and hands willing to do your work of reconciliation between all people,
beginning with your church here on earth. Amen.
[1]
D. A. Carson, The Gospel
according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary
(Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans,
1991), 569.
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