"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. [Jhn 17:20-23 ESV]
First, let us start with what is of vital importance. The basis of our unity is is found in the work and person of Jesus. Because man has been born into a sinful, fallen world and we have willfully chosen to walk in sin. We are hopelessly separate from God on our own. Jesus, eternally the Son of God, left the glory of Heaven to live as man to show an example of Godly living. He then, a sinless man, laid His life down willingly to redeem fallen man from His sinful state. He was buried and on the 3rd day, He rose from the dead and ascended to His Father. He then sent His Holy Spirit to lead us into relationship with Him. He left His written word to reaffirm all the work He has done on our behalf. His Holy Spirit and the written word are calling men to repent and to live with Jesus as the Lord of their lives. Jesus is the only way to the Father and to life. He has brought salvation to mankind through His finished work on the cross. We can now walk in right relationship with God and be part of His eternal family.
Like many of you, I have read the Scriptures through many times. Each time, I see something that I had missed before or a different passage stood out. Every time we read the Bible, if we are listening to God, it brings a new revelation. Just like for Israel in the wilderness, God brings the manna we need for the moment. Over the years, we tend to build a theological system from this manna. We believe everything in that system was truth from God. It mostly is. We have read authors and listened to sermons that confirm it. Eventually we wind up in a Church that affirms what we have learned. This is all good and right. God would have us hold fast to the truth that He shows us by the Spirit, in His word.
This does not pose a problem until we start limiting what we accept as truth our understanding, to what we have believed, or what our Churches or favorite ministries have taught. We need to guard the truth we have been given and it is right to do so. Where we are breaking down is when we start badmouthing everyone that is not in lockstep with our understanding of truth. How do we protect what we know to be true without bashing people that understand things differently?
We need to go back to the second paragraph. We must always ask if we have agreement in these fundamental truths. If we agree on these truths, we need to receive one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We may have disagreement. We may understand things differently. That is okay. There are countless reasons why this is true. God has shown different people different aspects of Himself because they have different calls, live among different people and have different ways of thinking. This does not mean we can call them heretics or wolves. There are real heretics and wolves in the world. Paul gave us several good ways to identify them starting with who they understand Jesus to be.1 Cor 12 is a good starting place to understand the variety of ways we understand things. Vs 3 tells us that "nobody can proclaim Jesus is Lord except by the power of the Spirit" or that "Jesus is accursed while speaking by the Spirit." I encourage you to dig into this chapter and pray about it.
The world is suffering. It is trapped in a hopeless situation and people everywhere are fearful. Every single aspect of life seems to be spinning out of control right now. As the Church of Jesus, we are called to bring His truth and love to hurting people, to proclaim hope to hopeless situations and to proclaim the Gospel into the darkness. Jesus said that His word wouldn't return void. Unfortunately, we have been destroying our witness by openly bickering over nuances of the faith, over secondary issues. If it isn't in the second paragraph, it is a secondary issue. We are called to love one another and to live in harmony, not to bicker over our secondary issues.
We must stop name calling. It is vitally important to the future generations that we start discussing our differences and look for areas of agreement so we can work together. We must lay down our right to be right and learn to communicate in healthy ways. We are the hope Jesus left in the world. We are the ones He called to evangelize and to make disciples. Our disagreements with one another are causing that to come to a screeching halt in some places and are keeping us from coordinating our efforts and allowing them to multiply their effectiveness. When we encourage and affirm the ministry of others, God will promote and prosper what He calls us to. When continually rebuke those who He calls to something different, we hinder what He wants to do through us.
We can learn from Paul. He was the foremost of apostles. He could have held himself up and renounced everyone that was not just like him. He did call out some that were perverting the Gospel for different reasons but he also affirmed the ministry of others that he may not have agreed with. He called himself nothing but a servant and refused to call Apollos anything less than himself. He pointed out that they were both merely servants and that Jesus was the one that was brining men to salvation. When he called out people, it was for clearly heretical teaching, that corrupted the Gospel and limited men's access to it.
In Isaiah 58, we see people trying to manipulate God and one another so they can be seen as right. To them, the most important thing is to be recognized and lauded for their rightness. God rejects them but He goes on to show who He will not reject. He even says He will cause people to come to them and see the light in them. It is those that love others and sacrifice themselves to meet the needs around them. They have come to God in humility and allowed Him to use them as He desires. God promotes and prospers the work of those that are surrendered and their right to be right is submitted to the love of God and man. He makes them the centerpiece of what He is doing. They become the example to follow.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. [1Jo 4:7-12 ESV]
It is okay to have differences. It is okay to discuss our differences. It is not okay to attack those in the body we do not understand because they have a differing viewpoint. The world is calling out for hope and the Church is the one called to deliver that hope. Paul said to the Corinthians that he determined to know nothing among them except for Jesus and Him crucified. He certainly had a lot more to teach and say but he limited himself to what they needed, what was of primary importance and that was enough. He did not condemn Apollos for his teaching or focus. He just avoided arguing over differences or telling everyone why he was the superior apostle. It is time for us to lay aside our differences over secondary issues and focus on the simple truth of the Gospel.
God is bigger than me or you. His truth is bigger than our understanding. It is time for us to stop trying to build our kingdoms with our intellect and knowledge and to start recognizing that others have a part of the picture that we may not even understand. The kingdom belongs to God. he has revealed enough of His truth to me that I can follow Him fully but He has not revealed everything to me that you may need to follow Him as He is leading you. The Kingdom and its King are multifaceted. We are limited in our understanding. Let's ask Holy Spirit to reveal God in people and then ask Him how we can bless what He is doing in and through them. Unity is in Jesus but some of the hard work of walking it out falls on us.
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