 the title of our sermon this evening, the unity of the church, Ephesians chapter 4 verses 1 through 16. Considering this subject, John Owen, discussing the causes of schisms and divisions in the church, has said this, the principal cause of our divisions and schisms is no other than the ignorance or misapprehension that is among Christians of the true nature of that evangelical unity which they ought to follow after with the ways and means whereby it may be attained and preserved. And those are the words of Owen, but in other words, what Owen is saying is that we don't know what biblical unity is and we don't know how to achieve it or how to maintain it. And we find this to be true everywhere we look, everywhere in evangelicalism today that we look. We find this statement of John Owen to be true. For example, it is a tragedy that there ever arose or that there remains today something that could be defined within American evangelicalism as the black church. Nowhere, nowhere in the New Testament do we find race or ethnicity an acceptable basis on which to divide or an acceptable basis on which to enjoy unity together. It's simply not a basis for our unity and it's certainly no basis on which to divide. Someone might point past the melanin count to culture. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find cultural similarities or cultural commonality an acceptable basis on which to divide nor do we find cultural similarities or cultural commonalities an acceptable basis on which to enjoy unity together. It's simply not a basis on which we are to divide nor is it a basis on which we are to be unified. In fact, the New Testament clearly, frequently labors to render those distinctions utterly meaningless in terms of the gospel. Now notice the Bible acknowledges distinctions. Jews request to sign. Greeks seek after wisdom. Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. The Bible acknowledges distinctions. But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block to the Greeks foolishness. But to those who are the called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. That's the basis on which we are to be unified. Be careful where you ground your unity. Be careful that your unity is not found in those meaningless things that the Bible disavows. There are countless ways in which we are distinct from one another. There is a staggering diversity. You look around the room tonight and see that very clearly, right? Circumstance, preference, history, experience, giftedness, blessedness, skill, personality, character, looks, ethnicity, gender, age, wealth, opportunity. But for Christians, for Christians, there is a single redemptive basis on which we are to build and treasure and preserve and labor to maintain and sustain among us unity. Paul says, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. That's our unity, amen. Turn with me to Galatians chapter three. Galatians chapter three. Let me give you an example of this. From the experience of the early church. Galatians chapter three. In Galatians chapter three, the unity of the early church is under assault. Judaizers have crept into the churches spreading false doctrine and attempting to build up and reestablish divisive walls that have been torn down in the gospel. They're attempting to build unity on a false basis. The word Judaizers comes from the Greek word eudaidzo, which comes from one place in the New Testament, Galatians chapter two, verse 14, where Paul rebukes Peter publicly for compelling the Gentiles to eudaidzo, to live as Jews. Judaizers taught that for Christian to be fully and truly right with God, more than mere faith was necessary. Gentiles would have to come through the veil of the law, so to speak, to get to Jesus Christ. They must be circumcised and keep the law. Essentially, they had to live as Jews under the law. Now this exposed a very, very dangerous heresy that was spreading throughout the early church, so dangerous in fact, that even Peter was swept up in the error. The error was essentially an attack on the nature of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, and it has tremendous implications for the unity of the church. What is to be the basis for our unity? Is it religious ritual? Is it religious tradition? You must submit yourself to the Mosaic law under the Old Covenant. Is it ethnic? The Jews would have said, we have Abraham as our father, or will it be a spiritual unity for those who receive the promise of the Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ, those justified by faith alone in Christ alone? Well, the Galatians were being persuaded by this heresy of the Judaizers. So Paul asks in Galatians chapter three, verse two, considering that they're being swept up in this error, Paul asks them, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Was the gift of the Spirit, the promised Spirit given to you by the hearing of faith or by the works of the law? Obviously through faith. I just give it to them through faith. Do you think that you need to become Jewish by obeying the law to be right with God then? No. Verse six, just as Abraham believed God faith and it was accounted to him for righteousness, therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. That would have been a radical scandalous scathing statement, right? They would have lost their lunch if they'd heard Paul say that. You'd have been robbing the Jews of the very heritage they took pride in, right? They would have been, they would have thought it to be casting their pearls before swine to let anyone be reconciled to God without coming through the veil of the law, becoming Jewish, essentially. But Abraham justified by faith before circumcision becomes the father of the faithful, Jews and Gentiles alike through faith. Now Paul further explains in verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, so that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that we, now Paul is a Jew, he's talking about himself and the Gentiles that we, Jews and Gentiles alike, might receive the promise of the spirit through faith. A scandalous statement. The Gentiles would inherit the promise through faith. This would be the ground and foundation of new covenant unity. Do you see? This is what will unify the church. This is what will unify Jews and Gentiles into the gospel. It's faith in Jesus Christ. Now this became the very issue that concerned the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15. You can turn there with me. Acts chapter 15. In Acts 15, by this point, the Samaritans had heard the word of the gospel and the Samaritans believed in Acts chapter 8. Cornelius, a Gentile in his household believed, received the spirit in Acts chapter 10. It was scandalous that Peter ate there in their house. And then the Gentiles were saved in Antioch when the Jews refused the gospel in Acts chapter 13. And then listen to the account from Acts chapter 15, verse 6. Now the apostles and the elders came together to consider this matter. When there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So then verse 8. God who knows the heart acknowledged them, the Gentiles, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us Jews. Do you see? Verse 9. And made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith, not by works of the law. Now therefore, verse 10, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? No flesh will be justified by the law. Do you see? Their fathers couldn't bear it. Neither could they bear it. Why would you do this to the Gentiles? Verse 22. But the Scripture has confined all Jew and Gentile alike under sin. That's going to be Romans chapter 2 here very soon. So that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe, Jew and Gentile alike. But before faith came, verse 23, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. So in the midst of explaining the redemptive basis for both Jews and Gentiles in the church, which is the promised Spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ, Paul makes a glorious statement about our unity. This is in Galatians chapter 3. Look at verse 26. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. All sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. That's a unifying basis, isn't it? Whether male or female, whether male or female, you all have the rights and privileges and blessings of sonship in the household of God. Heirs of God, all of you, joint heirs with Christ. Verse 27. We pass back to Galatians chapter 3. Verse 27. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Everyone who is in union with Jesus Christ through faith have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ. They have put on Christ. And look at verse 28. Because, verse 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. What is Paul saying? Right? How do we summarize this? There is to be no division on the basis of ethnicity. There is to be no division based upon religious heritage or religious tradition. There is to be no division based upon social or economic status, right? Slave or free. There is to be no division based upon gender, gender roles or gender norms. Jew and Gentile. Barbarians, Scythians, slave or free, right? Barbarians and Greeks, wise and unwise. In Christ, Jew and Gentile are one in Christ Jesus. Slave and free. Rich and poor. Aristocrat or gutter rat. Boss or employee. Slave or master. Ruling class or working class. Even to the most basic societal level of distinction, that between a man and a woman, we are one in Christ Jesus. The ground is a level at the cross. Well, see, I told you women could be pastors then. Don't be stupid. Don't come to the word of the living God with your agenda and act like a two-year-old, right? That's what you're doing when you when you do that. No. No, the ground is level at the cross. There is complete unity amongst the people of God. There is no division in the body of Christ because there is only one way of salvation. That one way of salvation is freely offered to all without distinction. And that is salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. That begins, all of that begins, doesn't it, with an equal acknowledgement that we are all equally condemned under the curse of the law. All from the least of us to the greatest of us. All deserving of death and torment under the penalty of the law. All headed to hell as sinners under the condemnation, under the curse of the law. But in Christ Jesus, in Jesus Christ by faith, given the promise of the Spirit, all sons of God, rich, poor, black, white, every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, all heirs of life, male, female, young, old, all with eternal riches laid up for them in heaven, all looking to glory. That is unity. You see unity in the Lord Jesus Christ. John Owen's assessment of this very fact. I'm talking about Owen a little bit tonight. Listen to what Owen says. God favored the people of Israel with the rituals of religion, which were designed merely as aids and means to attain and to preserve true religion. But they converted them to another purpose. You see what the Jews have done? And like the heathens, they regarded them as meritorious performances and expected God's acceptance for the very religious acts which they exercised. And in order to make up as it were sufficient quantity of merit, they made additions to those services which God had appointed, as though to multiply acts of this kind was to render their salvation more certain. The very same evil crept early into the Christian church and still continues to exist. It still continued to exist. In Owen's day, it still continues to exist in our day. The accumulation of ceremonies is of itself a sufficient proof that salvation by faith was in great measure lost sight of. We want no other evidence. It is what has ever been done whenever the light of truth has become dim and obscure. And we see the same evil in the present day. Outward privileges, outward acts of worship are in effect too often substituted for that grace which changes the heart and for that living faith which unites us to the Savior, which works by love and overcomes the world. These things, these trappings and ceremonies and all this other stuff becomes the basis for a perceived unity, which is a counterfeit unity, which is a sham unity. The very disposition to overvalue external privileges and the mere performances of religious duties is an unequivocal evidence that salvation by faith is not understood or very imperfectly understood and not really embraced. What you get today really are professing churches packed to the gills with weeds and share no basis for unity. The unity that they enjoy is superficial at best. Fake sham counterfeit doesn't last. This is not the basis for unity in the Lord's church. We begin with faith alone in Christ alone, the nature of true conversion. What is the nature of our unity? Go back with me to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. What is the nature of that unity? We were referred now to the text read earlier in your hearing. Ephesians chapter 4, look at verse 1. Paul says, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all loneliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now notice first with me, the unity that we have in the gospel is a spiritual unity. It's a spiritual unity. So essential to our Christian unity is the work of the Spirit of God that Paul calls it the unity of the Spirit. Do you see the connection there? Verse 4, there is one body and one Spirit just as you were called in one hope of your calling. There is one body and one Spirit by which that body lives and thrives and preaches and grows and matures and rejoices and loves and hopes and serves. Do you see? One Spirit that animates that body. Ours is a spiritual unity. It's the same Spirit who was in Jesus Christ. You think about that and that's an amazing thought. Jesus Christ lived his life here in his earthly ministry in the power of the Spirit. The same Spirit in Jesus Christ supplying, strengthening, directing, working in power to bring about the obedience of faith in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. We, in having that self-same Spirit given to us as a gift of God by his grace, we have become partakers of the divine nature. And as we have become one with him, his Spirit at work in us, so we have become one with his body by the self-same Spirit. And we're all indwelt with one Spirit. The members of the body may have diverse backgrounds. They're obviously diverse shapes and sizes among us, diverse gifts, diverse personalities, diverse circumstances, yet our unity consists in the fact that we are one body and that by his Spirit. First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 12, for as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free. Do you see where our unity, in which our unity consists, right? The nature of that unity all have been made to drink into one Spirit. Our unity is a spiritual unity. Notice second, the unity which we must endeavor to maintain in the gospel is a unity of faith. Look at verse five, it's a unity of faith. Verse five, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all, right? This is a unity of faith. Belief in and profession of the same content of divine truth. One first, that is belief in and profession of the same exacting and express adherence to essential doctrines and duties. Those things which are essential, we are to be entirely and completely unified on. We are to have no divisions on those things. Had a guy that came to the church years ago and was among us a fairly short time when he and I were in a conversation in the foyer and realized that he didn't believe in the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ, multiple place in the Bible where if you do not believe in the Trinity and in particular in his case, the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus says, you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sin. That's a direct statement that that belief in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is a salvific doctrine. So as soon as you express that I do not believe in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't believe that he was God and flesh, then you are not a Christian. It matters what we believe, what we profess. It matters what we believe, what we profess. Those, there is no room for division in those essential doctrines. There is a content of our faith that you must believe to be a Christian. And if you don't believe those things, you're not a Christian. But secondly, it respects mutual forbearance and love, respecting all else where every man must be fully persuaded in his own mind. In other words, there are those beliefs and doctrines about which we must become fully persuaded in our own mind. And how do we work through those things together in unity with patience and with forbearance and with love? Neither the nature of man who is fallen, sinful, fallible, nor the means of revelation, which is words in this divine book, allow for a perfect unity to be attained. We need to learn how to live and love with our disagreements, right? On this side of eternity, because of the nature of man and the means of revelation, we're not going to enjoy a perfect unity on this side of heaven. We need to learn how to live with our disagreements. The necessity is that we need to hold our unity, endeavor, labor to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace when there is diversity of thought and belief on those things that are not essential, right? Things about which we need to be persuaded in our own mind. So notice third then, our unity, our unity is a spiritual unity. Our unity is a unity of faith. Notice third, it's a unity of working love. It's a unity of working love. Look at verse 11. He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints. Those saints will do the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but rather speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ, from whom the whole body joined in it together by whatever joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does it share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. In other words, we are growing into a unity of the faith and a knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and that is happening when we speak the truth in love. Speak the word of God in love, doing our part by whatever joint supplies by which every part does it share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. So all three aspects of our unity in Christ then are by the Spirit of God through the word of God working in love, right? Our unity is a spiritual unity, it's a unity of faith, and it's a unity of a working love. How then are we to maintain this, right? Paul exhorts us, labor, endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Well, how do we do that? We do it by walking according to the Spirit. The Spirit is essential to our unity. We do that according to the word of God, word of God is our sure and perfect guide, and we do that in service to one another, in love for one another. Brothers and sisters, it's grievous and it is unbiblical for us to presume unity on any other basis. It is grievous and it is unbiblical. It is unbecoming the church of the Lord Jesus Christ for any church to be unified on any other basis. What do fallen, sinful, ignorant men do? They pursue a counterfeit unity, a unity of their own making. They create a vain figment of their own imagination for a perceived unity. Whatever that unity may be, unity around music, unity around culture, unity around shared preferences, shared likes and dislikes, and having then changed the end for which they pursue unity, they have to change the means by which they get there and the means by which they sustain and preserve it. It's by the same shifting sands of those counterfeit means that they hope over time to maintain and build upon it. All those straw houses are destined to fall. Great will be their fall. What will our unity result in? What will our unity, a biblical unity, what will it result in? Listen to this from Revelation chapter 7 verse 9. After these things I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number. Here are the distinctions, right? Of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb closed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice saying, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. I love that picture. All nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues and they're all crying out together the same thing, the same praise, the same worship, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And all the angels, there's another distinction, right? All the angels sit around the throne and the elders, another distinction, the four living creatures, another distinction, they all fell on their faces before the throne and they worshiped God, all of them together saying, amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever, amen. And one of the elders answered saying to me, who are these arrayed in white robes and where do they come from? And I said to him, sir, you know. So he said to me, these are the ones who come out of the great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That's the basis on which we are unified. Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them nor any heat for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And that is the blessed basis of our unity, the other in the church, right? Faith alone, in Christ alone, unity of the spirit, a unity of faith, a unity of working love. This, brothers and sisters, is what we must aspire to, what we must endeavor to preserve among us and thank God for it, amen. All praise, honor and glory be to him who makes us one with himself and one with each other through faith. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we are grateful to you for this salvation to which we've been delivered, this body to which we've been delivered. Very grateful to you, Lord, for the work of your spirit and that in uniting us to Christ through faith, unites us to one another in this communion of the saints. And we are grateful to you, Lord, for that unity that your spirit cultivates has wrought among us and, Lord, desire from the heart to cherish it, to treasure it, to maintain it, to sustain it and preserve it. Help us, Lord, to endeavor, to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Help us, Lord, to love this gift of your grace that you've given us such that we would labor to protect it and to preserve it and to abound in it, to cause it to grow or give us this blessed unity and peace. And we're grateful to you, Lord, that that is not dependent upon our own strength, our own power, our own wisdom, our own might, for it would be a hopeless attainment. But we are grateful to be able to pray to you because it is a work of your spirit and because you are the one who is authored among us. And we ask you, Lord, to please make it abound among us for our good, for your glory. Thank you for this text. Thank you for this subject. It would help us to live for you in this blessed unity we enjoy. In Jesus' name, amen.