Unity of the Spirit

 Greetings to  you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Ephesians 4:1-3 says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,  With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;  Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” 

     A church can be filled with all kinds of people with no two being alike.  We have rich and poor, southerner and northerners, republicans and democrats, black and white, citizens and foreigners and any other kind of believer that you might think of.  As a result, one often gets different opinions on how things should be done in a local church.  Quite often, disputes arise in church business meetings when different factions clash over this or that item in the church.   I remember one time an elder stood up and began with, “Brethren, we got a problem.”  The pastor and I  suddenly developed a cold chill as to what was wrong.  It turned out that someone had donated an open bag of dried beans to the food pantry and we breathed a sigh of relief.

     The opening three chapters of Ephesians lists many of the blessings that we have as a result of being in Christ.  Our spiritual bank account is filled with heavenly treasures and so we come to chapter four where we now learn that because of all of these wonderful blessings, we should take a look at how we are living out our Christian life.  Of all the attributes of the church, one of the most difficult to maintain is the unity of the Spirit.  Different factions can soon exist as it had apparently taken place at Ephesus.  Paul spent four months debating in the synagogue  over things pertaining to the Christian life.  We also know that there were many Gentiles in the area who had been worshiping the goddess Diana of the Ephesians.  The two groups, Jew and Gentile, were now coming together to meet as the Body of Christ in Ephesus and apparently was lacking in the unity of the spirit and they were evidently lacking peace in the assembly of believers/  In heaven,  there is only going to be one group and not 400 different groups, with the Lutherans over here, the presbyterians over there, the methodist in this part and the baptist in that part and so on.  As Paul goes on, he emphasizes that there is only One Body and that is the Body of Christ.  In 1978 Montgomery County, where we are now, had about forty different churches of which, twenty were preaching the gospel, but had left this church or that church over some minor issue and sometimes a major doctrinal difference.  I know Baptists who are saved as well as Methodists, Catholics , Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, and so on.  The criteria for salvation is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Paul told the Philippian Jailor.    The plea of the Apostle Paul is just as needed today as it was almost 2000 years ago.  Praise God today for the One Body of Christ.