JESUS CHRIST—THE BASIS FOR UNITY
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on June 6, 2021 under 2021 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; June 6, 2021 from 1 Corinthians 1:1-3
Theme: Jesus Christ—as He is presented to us in the Bible—is the basis for our unity as believers.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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We come this morning to the table of the Lord. It’s an ordinance from our Lord that we refer to as ‘communion’. And that name implies the idea of our unity together as believers. In that ordinance, we remember that we share a common faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—and celebrate our redemption together in Him.
This is a good morning, then, for us to think about our unity in Jesus—our ‘communion’ together in Him. And for that reason, I ask that we turn to the first few words of the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.
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The subject of unity was an important and relevant one to the Corinthian church. It was a church that had become badly divided. If we were to look ahead through what Paul wrote in this letter, we’d see that he dealt with how the church had been breaking up into factions over particular teachers. Some were saying that they were ‘of Paul’. Others were saying that they were ‘of Peter’. Others still were saying that they were ‘of Apollos’. And some were saying that they were ‘of Christ’ … as if in distinction from Paul, Peter, and Apollos.
But that wasn’t the only area of division. As we read on further in his letter, we see that they were also divided over areas of sexual conduct, and over personal lawsuits, and over beliefs about marriage, and over whether or not it was permissible to eat certain foods, and over the roles of men and women in church, and over speaking in tongues and prophesying, and over end-times issues. They were even divided over the Lord’s Supper itself! These conflicts all sound uncomfortably familiar; don’t they? They sound almost exactly like the things that divide churches and Christians today. It was as if their disunity over the basic issue of who they considered themselves to be ‘of’ led to disunity in almost every other area of church life.
The apostle Paul sought to bring unity to this church family. He wanted them to be like-minded with each other; and to, with one mind and one mouth, glorify God the Father through Jesus His Son. And so, the way in which he began this particular letter was strategic. He wrote:
Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,
To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:1-3).
Jesus is mentioned four times in these three verses of introduction. From the very beginning, Jesus Christ was put at the center of Paul’s appeal to the Corinthian church. And this is teaching us a very important lesson, dear brothers and sisters. Jesus Christ—as He is presented to us in the Bible—is the basis for our fundamental unity as believers.
If we take our eyes off Him, focus on our differences, and try to bring about unity between ourselves in any other way than through Him, we will not only fail to have true unity, but will inevitably experience more division and increasing disunity. But so long as we keep Him at the center—so long as we individually deny ourselves and our own personal agendas, take up His cross as the instrument of death to ‘self’, and follow Him; believing on Him as He is presented to us in the Scriptures, obeying His commands, and following the clear teaching that was handed down to us by His apostles—then we will, as a church, enjoy blessed unity together at the deepest level. There will, of course, be some differences between us; but those differences will largely cease to matter in the light of Jesus’ unifying love. We will, instead, be praising God together with one mouth and one mind—giving glory to Jesus in this world.
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Now; before we look at what Paul’s introduction says to us about the wonderful blessing of unity in Christ, it’s important that we make certain things very clear.
First of all, it’s important that we stress that we are to be united around the person Jesus Christ—but not in whatever way that we may conceive Jesus to be. There are lots of churches and denominations and sects that say they honor Jesus Christ. But on closer examination, we’d find that the Jesus they claim for themselves is not the Jesus of the Bible. They may quote many of His words, and they may try to conform to His profound philosophy. But when it comes to Jesus Himself, they have rejected the things He and the apostles and the prophets of Scripture have testified concerning who He is. They instead proclaim a Jesus of human imagination—a Jesus that is different from the Jesus we find in the Bible—a Jesus who is a mere human teacher that they have made out to conform to their cultural values or social priorities or man-made spiritualities and beliefs. And we cannot be united by faith in any other Jesus than the true Jesus—the Jesus that is presented to us in the Bible—the sinless Son of God in human flesh.
One of the apostles—John—wrote these words of warning in his second letter:
For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son (2 John 7-9).
So; true Christian unity is based on the only Jesus that there is—the Jesus of the Bible.
And a second thing we need to make clear is that we can only be united around Jesus by holding faithfully to the commandments and teachings of Jesus as they have been passed on to us and expressed by His apostles. Many have claimed to be united around what they say is the core teaching of Jesus; but they reject the teaching of those who were His appointed messengers. They say that many of the things the Bible claims about Jesus were not from Him at all, but were instead developed later on by those who said that they were His followers—or even that His true teaching was spoiled by the apostles. But we cannot be united around Jesus if we also reject the teaching of those who He Himself clearly commissioned and said were His authorized witnesses.
It was, again, the apostle John who made this clear to us when he wrote;
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full (1 John 1:1-4).
The Holy Spirit was sent to empower Jesus’ apostles—to guide them and teach them—so that the things that they wrote to us about living for Jesus were God-breathed, and were protected, and were preserved for us in the New Testament, and were guaranteed to be the truth. We cannot be united together around Jesus unless we also embrace all of the things that those authorized witnesses—the apostles—taught us.
And a third thing we need to remember is that to be united together with Jesus does not mean that—at the same time—we will be united to this world. For us as believers to be at peace with one another through Jesus is not the same thing as being at peace with the world. Some have thought that if we’re truly united to Jesus, then we’ll not only be at peace with each other but also at peace with the world. But Jesus Himself warned that He did not come to bring about peace in this world. Quite the opposite. In Matthew 10:34-39, He said;
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it (Matthew 10:34-39).
It’s certainly true that we should do all that we can to be at peace with all mankind in this world—as much as it’s in our power to do so. But we need to remember that our first allegiance is to Someone that the people of this world crucified. A total devotion to Jesus brings about unity between us; but our unity is not a universal unity. It’s a specific unity between those who have been redeemed from this fallen world by Jesus Christ.
So; it’s important to specify that the unity that we are to enjoy is a unity together with fellow believers in Jesus Christ—the Jesus of the Bible—according to a faithful obedience to the teaching of the whole Scriptures—as people who are called out from this world to be God’s own.
And in that respect, Jesus alone—as He is presented to us in the Bible—is the basis for our unity together.
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Now; that unity is a truly wonderful thing. It is unlike anything that this world can produce. We see this in the way that Paul introduced Himself at the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians.
Look again at how He begins. He introduced himself to them in verse 1 as “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God …” What a remarkable thing to say at the beginning of a letter to a church in disunity! Paul, after all, was formerly a hostile enemy to churches. He sought to destroy the Christian faith. He sought to scatter the churches. He bore official letters from the high priests and leaders of his people that allowed him to break up churches, arrest Christians, and drag them off to trial and execution. But Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and saved him. Jesus completely transformed his life; so that, from then on, he was changed from the church’s greatest enemy to the church’s greatest missionary. Just the fact that Paul himself wrote this letter is a testimony to the unifying power of Jesus Christ. Paul—the former enemy of Christians—was brought into full unity with them by faith in Jesus.
But there’s more. The letter wasn’t from Paul alone. It was also from a man named Sosthenes. This man Sosthenes was well-known to the Corinthians. Acts 18:17 tells us that this man Sosthenes had been the ruler of the synagogue in the city of Corinth. The Jewish people of Corinth had rejected Paul and made it necessary for him to preach in Gentile settings. Many Gentiles were believing on Jesus. And when the unbelieving Jewish people of Corinth rose up to stop Paul’s preaching ministry, they sought to drag Paul before the judges of the city. In the midst of the conflict, the Greek people of the city took this synagogue ruler named Sosthenes and physically beat him in front of the judge. He would have formerly been a part of the effort to stop Paul’s preaching; and then he got caught up and was beaten in the civil conflict over Paul’s gospel. And yet, here he was now writing a letter to the church in Corinth—along with Paul—as “Sosthenes our brother”!
So then; that’s who was writing this letter to bring about unity. It was from two godly men who were from radically different experiences and commitments; but who now were both redeemed and united in Christ. What an amazing picture they give us of unity in Christ!
And notice to whom it was that they were writing. In verse 2, it says, “To the church of God which is at Corinth …” Paul didn’t say that it was his church, or that it was their church. He said that it was God’s church. And this is a principle of our unity in Christ; that …
1. WE ALL ARE GOD’S CHURCH.
I say this with all respect: knowing what I know about Martin Luther, I don’t believe he’d have been very happy at all about there being something called ‘the Lutheran Church’. Nor, knowing what I know about John and Charles Wesley, do I think that they’d have been pleased with the idea of ‘the Wesleyan Church’. I cringe a little whenever I hear of someone speaking of ‘John MacArthur’s church’ or ‘John Piper’s church’ or ‘David Jeremiah’s church’. I’m sure that they would cringe too. Why? Because it’s not their church. It’s God’s church. And it’s that identity—as God’s church; and not anyone else’s—that serves as a basic principle of our unity in Christ. In that respect, Dr. MacArthur’s church, or Dr. Piper’s church, or Dr. Jeremiah’s church—or, for that matter, the Lutheran Church, or the Wesleyan Church—is just as much my church and your church as anyone else’s church. That’s because if it truly is a church of people redeemed by the blood of Jesus, then it’s God’s church; and as the redeemed, we all belong equally to God.
Paul made this point very clear in 1 Corinthians 3:21-23. The Corinthians had been dividing themselves up under different leaders; and Paul told them,
Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours. And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).
That doesn’t mean that we can’t have disagreements about doctrinal matters and denominational distinctions. But what it does mean is that those things don’t divide us from one another in Christ. We are united in our common faith in Him. We share true ‘communion’.
Another way Paul expressed that unity in Christ is by the fact that …
2. WE ALL ARE SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST.
In verse 2, Paul wrote, “to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus …” To be ‘sanctified’ in Jesus simply means that these Corinthian believers were ‘called out’ from the rest of the world, and ‘set apart’ as God’s own—because that’s what it means to be ‘sanctified’. They were no longer their own; but now, they were the property of God through the saving work of Jesus Christ. In fact, the word ‘sanctified’ is put in the perfect tense of the verb; which means that it is a once-for-all-time completed act. We have already been completely ‘sanctified’ in Christ—forever set apart as His—and we’re going to stay set apart as Christ’s own people throughout eternity.
The Bible tells us—in John 17:19—that, while Jesus walked upon this earth, He ‘sanctified’ Himself—that is to say, He set Himself apart unto His Father—so that we also may be sanctified by the truth in Him. And just think of it, dear brothers and sisters. For you to be ‘set apart unto God’ from this world by the work of Jesus, and for me to also be ‘set apart unto God’ from this world by the same work of Jesus, is the basis of a unity that is greater than anything else that this world can know about. The writer of Hebrews puts this for us beautifully in Hebrews 2:10-11;
For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren … (Hebrews 2:10-11).
And in a similar way, Paul goes on to stress another aspect of our unity. In verse 2, he writes to those who are “called to be saints”. The words “to be” are not in the original language of Paul’s letter; so the best way to understand this is that right now, in Christ …
3. WE ALL ARE CALLED SAINTS.
We often think of someone who is a ‘saint’ as someone who is outstandingly spiritual and pious. And in fact, in some traditions of the Christian faith, some have even been officially designated as ‘saints’ because of their remarkable virtue and spiritual accomplishments. But that’s not the Bible’s definition of the idea. If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you are already His. You are already a ‘saint’ in the truest sense—a set-part one; called to live the kind of life of holiness that is in keeping with who you now are.
Think of who it was to whom Paul wrote those words. It was to the Corinthians. And if you know their story, you know that they behaved in anything but a ‘saintly’ manner. But they were nevertheless saints by God’s calling; and the fact that they didn’t always live up to that calling didn’t change what it was that they actually were by God’s calling. In Jesus, we already are saints by God’s gracious calling on our lives. And now that Jesus has died to make us sanctified, we need to continually grow together in that sanctification and behave like the saints that we are.
And what a basis for unity that is! I may disagree with you on some points; and you may disagree with me on some points. But if we are both ‘called saints’, then we are both equally destined for glory—and all of our differences are destined to get wonderfully sorted out. It says in Jude 24-25;
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen (Jude 24-25).
Those words describe the sure and certain destiny of those who are ‘called saints’. And If we all, together, are equally in Christ by God’s sovereign calling, then we are all, together, equally destined for that very same eternal glory. We all are ‘called saints’; and the eternal majesty of Christ is the equally shared outlook of both you and me together. If that’s what our destiny is, then that’s how we ought to be treating each other now! How unifying that is!
Paul went on to speak, in verse 2, to the Corinthians believers as those who are sanctified in the Lord Jesus, ‘called saints’, “with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord …” He wasn’t just speaking of a condition that was true of the Corinthian church only; but one that was true of all Christians, in all churches, in all places, who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ. And here is another aspect of our unity; that …
4. WE ALL ARE SAVED BY JESUS.
We have one common Savior. I am not saved by a different Savior than you are; and you’re not saved by a different Savior than I am. We all—in every place, in any culture or nation—call upon the name of the same Jesus Christ for the same salvation.
Have you ever been in a situation in which someone that you didn’t know—someone perhaps who you only had just met—turned out to be a fellow believer in Jesus? Isn’t it amazing how—without knowing anything more about each other than that—you instantly feel a bond of love with them? Or have you ever been in a foreign country where you found yourself with others who were believers? You may not even have been able to speak each other’s language; and yet, you instantly loved each other. Just the fact that you both have trusted Jesus and love Him makes you bound to each other in deep unity.
Well; just think of how much more true this ought to be for those of us who live in the same culture, speak the same language, go to the same church, and already know each other well. Shouldn’t we love each other in the same way?—only perhaps even more so? This fact—that we are all saved by Jesus—is a fact that is profoundly basic to our unity. When I think of this, I think of what the apostle John wrote in 1 John 4:9-11;
In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we 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 (1 John 4:9-11).
If you have been so loved by God as to be saved by Jesus, and I have also been so loved by God as to be also saved by the same Jesus, then how could there not be deep love between us? How could we ever let any lesser thing stand in the way of that love?
And that leads us to one more way our basic unity in Jesus is expressed; and that’s in the fact that …
5. WE ALL CALL HIM OUR LORD.
At the end of verse 2, Paul wrote of those who, in every place, call upon the name of Jesus our Lord; “both theirs and ours”. That is to say, He is their Lord and He is also our Lord too. That means that the same divine Person is in charge of both.
In Ephesians 4:3, the apostle Paul urged his readers to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We need to endeavor to keep it; but we don’t need to try to create it. It’s already ours; because as Paul went on to write;
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:4-6).
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So then, dear brothers and sisters; as we come to the table of the Lord, let’s truly celebrate it as ‘communion’. Jesus’, by His sacrifice for us, has given us unity. And let’s keep Him ever before us. As we put Him first, we will experience blessed unity together now and forever.
EA
