Our Unity in Christ

In the late 1800s in Mayfield County, Kentucky, there was a small Baptist church that only had two deacons, and these two deacons hated each other. They opposed each other on everything. They talked about everything that the church decided to do. They were, you know, it heads with each other. They were just against each other on everything. One Sunday, one of those deacons put a peg on the back wall of the church building, little one room type church building, but a little peg on the back of the wall for the pastor to hang his hat. And the other deacon was incensed that he had not been consulted about this new building edition. And they got into a fight about that and it spread into the church and the church began to choose sides and the church actually ended up splitting over that little peg in the back of the wall, the back of the church. The church that pulled out and the group that pulled out and started a new church actually named their new church, anti-peg Baptist church. True story. Now, if you can just imagine that kind of division and disunity in a church, thankfully we have never seen that kind of disunity here and I pray that we never will. Don't anybody go start an anti-peg Baptist church. I want to talk to you this morning about unity. In Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 through 22, that's what Paul talks about, the whole concept of unity. If you'll find your place in Ephesians 2, we're going to talk about the body of Christ, our unity in Christ this morning. What I want to remind you is that the book of Ephesians, as we have already seen, really falls quite clearly into two separate sections. The first three chapters are all about doctrine. The second three chapters, chapters four through six are all about practice, the practical outliving of our Christian faith and our life. The first three chapters have to do with our wealth in Christ. Last three chapters are walk in this world. First three chapters have to do with our position in Christ. Last three chapters are practice of our Christian faith in this world. Now in the first three chapters, and actually we've just gone through chapter 2, verse 10 so far, but in that time period already, in that space of this epistle, we have seen that Paul emphasizes two truths about our unity in Christ. The first thing, as he says, we are in Christ. Five times, he's already used that expression, just that through chapter 2, verse 10, five times he's used the expression in Christ. Now that has to do with our relationship to the Father, with our relationship to God, and it has to do with what's called justification. So justification is a good Bible word that means we are declared righteous. When you trust Christ as your Savior, God takes care of some legal work in heaven. And the legal work is, all of your sin is taken off the record books. And Christ's righteousness is placed on the record book of heaven under your name. And so when God looks at you, He sees you as being righteous, not because of who you are or what you've done, but because you are in Christ. So you're in Christ. The second truth that Paul states in those first couple of chapters that has to do with our position is that we are in the heavenlies. Three times, he's used that expression. We are in the heavenlies or in heavenly places. That has to do with your relationship to Satan and sin. Because you are in Christ, God sees you as seated with Him in heavenly places. Number one tells us that that means Christ has power and authority over all other powers, including Satan's power. And that because you are in the heavenlies with Him, you have that same power to defeat sin in your life. So you're in Christ, you're in the heavenlies. Now the third truth that Paul deals with in this first three chapters that has to do with our position is that we are in the body. We are in the body of Christ. And that's the truth that he introduces in these verses. Because we're going to look at this morning and he carries this whole concept all the way through chapter three. So it's an important concept in this book. He spends a lot of time on it. And because we are in Christ, we have a relationship with the Father because we are in the heavenlies, we have power over Satan and sin because we are in the body, we have a unified relationship with other believers. That's the real focus of the truth of being in the body of Christ. Now let me just say this is kind of a byline here. And Paul talks about the body or the church in the book of Ephesians. He's talking about not specifically the local church, but he's talking about what we call the universal church. And that is the body of Christ in the sense that everybody who's been saved since the day of Pentecost, up till today and will be up until the time Jesus returns to take us home to heaven. Everybody who's been saved since the day of Pentecost is in the body of Christ, is in this universal church. Now that's the way Paul uses the term in the book of Ephesians. Does the same in the book of Colossians as well. But everything he says about unity and oneness in that larger body of Christ is also true of local churches because local churches are visible earthly expressions of that larger body, of that larger church, if you will. Really, the body of Christ is composed of all who know Christ, but we gather in local churches like this to express our identity as the body of Christ. So what Paul says about the unity of the body, we're going to apply this morning to the local church and it applies very well. I think Paul intended that as well. So let's begin with what Paul says in verses 11 and 12 where he describes the absence of unity, the absence of unity. And the key word here is the word remember. He uses the word twice. Once in verse 11, once in verse 12. What he's talking about, so I want you to think back to the time before you were saved. Remember what it was like before you were saved. Two things you ought to remember that really explain this absence of unity. The first one is you need to remember the Jew and Gentile hostility. Look at verse 11. Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who called themselves the circumcision that done in the body by the hands of men. Let me just stop right there before Paul completes his thought in verse 12. He's asking them to remember what it was like before they were in the body of Christ, before they were in the church, before they were saved, what it was like to have this Jew Gentile hostility. The Jews hated the Gentiles. And as it's described here in this verse, they actually had a name for them. You uncircumcised people. Now they had other names for them too. One of them which is described in Philippians 3 was they called the Gentiles dogs. I mean these were not very good relationships between Jews and Gentiles. Because of the racial differences, there was hostility between those two groups. And Paul is saying remember that's the way it was before you were in the body of Christ before you were saved. The implication is it ought not to be that way after we're in the body of Christ. There ought not to be any racial, ethnic distinctions in the body of Christ. Remember back that's the way it was before you were saved in the body of Christ. There is no Jew and Gentile distinction. By the way that's not the only racial prejudice that existed in New Testament times. It wasn't just Jew hating Gentile, Jews hated Samaritans. Samaritans hated Jews. Greeks hated the Romans and the Romans hated the barbarians, anybody else in the world. So there was a lot of racial tension and prejudice in New Testament times. And Paul is just saying when you're in Christ, all that's gone. All that's gone. So let's bring it up to today. You have any racial prejudice? If you do as a believer in Jesus Christ, that's a sin. And it needs to be dealt with as sin. In Jesus Christ there are no whites and blacks, Asians, Jews, Hispanics. There are no racial distinctions. In Christ we are one in Him. And that's why Paul says in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 11 here talking about in the new man in Christ, here there is no Greek or Jew. That was the big racial distinction in that day. He goes on to mention some others. Circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, sithian. Now sithian was even a step beyond barbarian. Sithians were people that came from what we know today as southern Russia. And even people in the Roman Empire thought of them as just animals. You know, they are the far out worst kind of people in the world. These sithians, Paul says there's no such distinction in the body of Christ. And then he goes on to say no slave or free, but Christ is all and in all. There should be no racial, ethnic distinctions in the body of Christ. That's what you remember about your pre-Christ days, Paul says. There's none of that in the body of Christ. But Paul also says, what do you remember second thing? Not only remember Jew Gentile hostility, want you to remember the condition of the lost. He goes on in verse 12 to talk about the Gentiles and their condition before they were placed in the body of Christ. Verse 12, he mentions five things, look at it quickly, five things that describe the Gentiles before they got saved. Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ. In other words, they did not have the hope of the Messiah like the Jewish people did in the Old Testament. The New Testament word Christ is the same as the word Messiah. And so they did not have that Jewish hope. They were separate from Christ. Secondly, he says they were excluded from citizenship in Israel. You know, God had a special plan for his people, Israel, a special relationship with that nation in the Old Testament. And the Gentiles were in a sense excluded from that. Now, God intended that his people Israel reach out and be a light to the Gentiles and take the gospel to them. That's what the book of Jonah teaches us for one thing. But God always intended his people reach out to the Gentiles and be a light to them that they might be saved. God never intended to exclude the Gentiles completely, but he had a special relationship with his people Israel, that the Gentiles did not have. And that's what he's talking about here. Third thing he says about the Gentiles is they were foreigners to the covenants of the promise. Because God had a special relationship with Israel, he had made some promises to them, some covenants with them. That he would promise them a land, he would promise them that they would have someone on David's throne, he would promise them a Messiah would come. Lots of promises that the Gentiles were kind of on the outs with. They weren't a part of that. Four thing he says about them is you were without hope, without hope, no hope for the future. Gentile religions offered no hope beyond the grave. There was nothing to look forward to after death. But then he goes on to say the fifth thing is you were without God in the world. Well, they had their idols, they had their religious ceremonies, they had all kinds of things they worshiped, but because they did not know the true God, they were without any God. And by the way, my friends, some of these very things are true of the condition of lost people today. The first one without Christ, the fourth one without hope, the fifth one without God. Those three are true of any person today who has never come to Jesus Christ as his Savior. If you've never bowed the knee in the heart to Jesus Christ and said, I know I'm a sinner. And I can't get the heaven on my own, I need what Jesus did for me on the cross when he died there to pay for my sins. If you've never done that, you are first of all without Christ. Secondly, you're without any hope. You have no hope beyond the grave. Because the only way you can be in heaven someday is through Jesus Christ. Thirdly, you are without God. Now you may not believe that because you see, we're taught today in our culture that there are lots of roads to God. And really no matter what you call Him, it's the same God. We're all going to the same place, aren't we? The Bible says, no, that is not true. Jesus Himself said, he that is without the Son is without the Father. If you do not know the Son, you do not know the Father. If you don't know Christ, you don't know God. It doesn't matter what kind of religion you may observe and worship, but you do not have God if you don't have Christ as your Savior. And so you need to make sure that you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. The condition of the lost is without Christ, you're without hope, and you're without God as well. Paul wants us to remember that. By the way, it helps in the unity of the body if we remember that all of us came from that same place. Doesn't matter what nationality, race, whatever you're from, doesn't matter about your background or who you are, we all. We all, at one point. Remember, we all were without Christ, without hope, and without God. We were all in the same place, and we need Jesus Christ. And once we come to Christ, we are all one in the body of Christ. There's unity, but Paul wants us to remember the absence of unity. Secondly, Paul wants to show us, in this passage on unity of the body, he wants to show us the means of unity. In other words, how does this unity in the body of Christ come about? How does it take place? In verse 13, he gives us the secret, the key. Verse 13 says, but now, see he's changing gears here. Remember the absence of unity, but now, verse 13, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. It is through Christ Jesus, and through His blood shed on the cross, through His death on the cross, that we have been brought near to Him. Gentiles are now one in one body with Jew in the body of Christ, and we are in this place of unity, this body, this church, because of what Jesus Christ did for us. Now, Paul goes on in the next few verses to say, three things Jesus did, or three things Jesus makes possible that makes this unity real. The first, he says in verse 14, is that Christ is our peace. You see it there in verse 14, for He Himself is our peace. He is our peace. The only peace you will ever have is found in Jesus Christ. Think about it. The only way you can have peace with God is through Jesus Christ. If you don't know Christ, you are apart from God, you're an enemy of God. There's hostility there. The only way you can be brought into a relationship with God is through Christ. So He is our peace with God. Secondly, the only way you can have the peace of God that the New Testament talks about is through Christ. As you focus your life on Him, and not on your circumstances, not on the things that worry you and cause you to fret day and a day out. If you focus on Him, and with thanksgiving, lift up your requests to Him, focusing on Him, you can have the peace of God that guards your heart and mind against all worry. The Bible says, Philippians 4. So He is our peace. But we can also have peace with one another through Jesus Christ. Peace in the church, peace in the body of Christ, peace in the world will only come through Jesus Christ. And I know we all want to see peace in the hot spots of the world. We all want to see peace come about, and we all pray for that, and that's good. We should. But realistically speaking, there will be no ultimate lasting peace across the world until Jesus Christ comes back and straightens up this mess that we're in. And sets up His own kingdom, which is a kingdom of peace. So He is our peace. But that's not all Paul says. Paul says not only is He our peace, He makes peace. Or He made peace. Look if you will, in verse 14, He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one, that's Jew and Gentile, made them one now, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of two, once again bringing Jew and Gentile together into one new person, one new man, the body of Christ. And notice, it says in the end of verse 15, thus making peace. And in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which He put to death their hostility. Now three times in those three verses He talks about Jesus making one man, making one body, bringing them together into one. Jesus made peace. And did He do it? Well first of all there in verse 14 and 15 He talks about He did it by abolishing the wall, the barrier, the wall of hostility that was between Jew and Gentile, and He says that's the law. Now whenever Jewish reader or member of the church at Ephesus would read this, he would think first of all literally of a wall. When he read what Paul said here that He made peace by destroying the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility Jews would automatically think of Herod's temple. They would think of the temple where there was a literal wall between Jew and Gentile. You see in Herod's temple there was a court of the Gentiles. It was an outer court where Gentiles could come in on the temple grounds and pray to the God of heaven. But there was a wall between that court of the Gentiles and the real inner court of the temple where the priests carried out their ceremonies and had animal sacrifices and sprinkled the blood on the altar and all the rest. The Gentiles could not go beyond that wall. There was a literal wall there. And this wall had plaques that had inscriptions on it. These inscriptions talked about Gentiles not being able to come beyond that wall. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us about those inscriptions and archaeological expeditions on the temple mount in 1871 and again in 1934 found some of those tablets, those inscriptions. One of them, there have been two of them found. One of them is in a museum in Istanbul, one of them is in a Rockefeller museum in Jerusalem. And here's what they said. Notice this inscription on the wall in the temple that separated Gentile from Jew, here's what it said. No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the sanctuary and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death. I mean, they were serious about this. If a Gentile tried to go beyond that wall through the doors into the temple proper, he could be killed. And there were many warnings along that wall to that effect. So whenever the readers would read what Paul said immediately, they would think wall of hostility, barrier, yeah, that, boy, we remember that in the temple between Jew and Gentile. But Paul was not talking about a literal wall here. He was talking about the law. He says it in verse 15, he was talking about the law. He abolished the law with its regulations and all of that. He abolished that at the cross. That was the barrier between Jew and Gentile. Now be careful here. Some of the Old Testament law, the law of Moses, reflects the character of God and has never been set aside. Anything that reflects the moral character of God, like some of the Ten Commandments, thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal. You know, those things obviously it's not like, okay, that's open game now. You can do any of those things. No, those commandments that reflect the moral character of God have never been set aside. It is the things that were distinctive to the nation of Israel that separated them from Gentiles, like the food laws, their religious ceremonies, the special religious days they observed and so forth. All of those things have been abolished. The uniquely Jewish aspect of the law of Moses that formulated their daily life, all that's been abolished by the death of Christ. And so he's taken away that barrier. But notice, verse 16 says, not only has he taken the way of the law, he has also reconciled them to God through the cross by which he put the death of his hostility. I think it may be easier if we can picture this, okay. Notice on your screen, the first picture on the left, yeah. On the left is a picture with a line, horizontal line, two dots, one on each end, one of those dots on the left represents Jew, the other on the right represents Gentile. The line in the middle represents the wall, the barrier between the two, which was the law. And you see, those two are separated, cannot reach each other, cannot be together, cannot be in unity because of that wall. Well, the first thing the Bible says Jesus did is he took away the wall. So that middle picture there is now Jew and Gentile with no wall in between. And you might think, well, they're just able to turn around face each other and become one now, right? No, look at the third picture. The third picture is that he has reconciled them both to God. And that's what that picture represents. The top dot being God himself. And Jew and Gentile on either end are brought into one how by coming horizontally across each other with handshakes and goodwill toward man. No, they are now one in God. They've been brought together in Christ. And Paul's whole point is this, that the only unity this world can ever truly have is in Christ. And the church ought to be the model of that unity to the world. There ought to be no racial distinctions, ethnic distinctions, cultural distinctions, financial social differences between us, educational differences, whatever. There should be no differences in the body of Christ. We are one. And the model of unity to this world is in the church. What Paul's talking about, because people can only become one as they are reconciled in Christ, as they are placed in the body of Christ. Now Christ made peace, and that's how he did it. He abolished the law, reconciled us to God. But not only is Christ is Christ our peace, not only did he make peace, verse 17 says, he preached peace. Look at verse 17. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. Those who were far away with the Gentiles, those who were near were the Jews. He preached peace to both. Verse 18, for through him we both have access to the Father by one spirit. Now Paul uses an interesting word here for preach. It's not the normal word for preach. Greek word, peruso, which means to announce, to proclaim. It's a different word. It's uongalizamai, which means to give the good news. It's a different word, not often used in the New Testament for preach. But it's the idea of sharing good news with someone. And what Jesus did is he came and gave us the good news that now both Jew and Gentile have the very same access to the Father through the Holy Spirit. And that's because we're in the body of Christ, you see. Because we're saved. Because you are in Christ, you have the same access to God, anybody else in this world who is in Christ has. That's good news. So Jesus is our peace. He made peace. He preached peace. Paul's whole point that is in the local church. This is it. In the local church, God has brought us together through the cross. All distinctions, enmity, prejudices are done away with in Christ. And if we allow them to resurface, we're committing sin against the body of Christ and against the work Jesus did on the cross. Now many of you know that I was just a few weeks ago in Venezuela for a couple of weeks of teaching in a Bible institute down there. And most of you probably understand that apart from Iran and North Korea, Venezuela is probably pretty high on the list of countries that we're not real friendly with right now. And so I went with a little bit of anxiety and wondering what would happen in the airports and the State Department gives all kinds of warnings about what has happened to some people down there, especially Americans. And so I went with a little bit of that sense of wondering what would happen. But you know what I found? I found in Venezuela groups of believers who love Jesus Christ as much if not more than we do and who are brothers and sisters in Christ. And we just loved one another and we shared the word together and there was, although there was a cultural barrier, a language barrier. I don't speak very good Spanish except for one or two words like C. And that's about it. So there was a language barrier, there were cultural barriers, there were racial barriers. But there was no real barrier because we just loved one another in Christ and everywhere I've ever gone, whether it's Japan or Hungary or Ukraine or Brazil or Venezuela, wherever it is, wherever I've gone I've found people who love Jesus and you can sense that oneness in the body of Christ. It really is there and it overcomes any barrier. You know what? There was no talk in Venezuela with the believers I met of either President Bush or President Chavez. That was not the issue. The issue was Christ and our oneness in him and I'll never forget Antonio Liscano. Antonio is a pastor of one of the churches that our missionaries Tim and Pam have established there. The first church they established, it's a thriving church, had the opportunity to preach in that church on a Sunday night. Antonio Liscano is a man who was trained in the Bible Institute. I was teaching in. He graduated from there and he's pastoring that church now just a dear brother in Christ. And he came to all of the chapel services that those two weeks, he came to every evening, session, three hours, every evening of teaching in the Bible Institute. He was there every night. He was, of course, there the night, I preached in his church. He was there too. And so we just developed a real bond. And by the end of the first week or so, he would come up to me and say, John King, my amigo. And I would say, Antonio Liscano, my friend, and we would embrace and the Lord just developed a real bond between us. In fact, he's invited me to come down and preach in the end of 2007 for their anniversary, the whole week of meetings. I haven't given him an answer on that yet. That may be a bit of a stretch. But we just formed a real bond. And it was because we were both in Christ. I couldn't say much to him that he couldn't understand. He couldn't say much to me that I could understand. But we were one in Christ. That's what Paul's talking about. That unity in Christ overcomes all barriers that we may have otherwise. But Paul goes on to say in verses 19 to 22, this unity needs to be expressed. And the expression of this unity is found in three ways. Look at verse 19, he's given us the theology now of how this unity has come about. It was absent before Christ. It's found in Christ and in his body. And now he says consequently in verse 19, because of this unity in Christ, here's how to look. And it looks like three things. First of all, we have a common citizenship. You see it there in verse 19. We have a common citizenship. So you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people. Jews and Gentiles, and speaking here specifically of the Gentiles, they're no longer foreigners to the people of God. They're no longer aliens, you know, outsiders here residing in this country, but not really citizens. No, no, he says that doesn't happen anymore. He says you are your fellow citizens with God's people. So no matter what national background you come from, if you're in the family of God, we're in the same body. We're in the same family. See, nobody is a foreigner or an alien anymore. We are fellow citizens, which means we have the same goals and purpose to exalt Christ and to make him known to other people, to live more like him. We have the same goals. We have a national agenda in this new nation of ours, the body of Christ. That national agenda is to know him better and to make him known to everybody we possibly can. You see, that's what we're all about in the body of Christ. And so Paul says we have a common citizenship. We have the same home. We're citizens of the same country now, country called heaven. That's where our citizenship is. We're in the body of Christ. You know, I think about this church. We have people in this church from several different countries. We have people here who came from England. We have people here who came from Thailand. We have people here who came from Chile. We have people here who came from Germany. We even have people here who came from Ohio. But no matter... That was more fun in the first service when Jim Naufsinger was sitting right there. No matter what country you come from, no matter where you come from, geographically or politically or whatever, in Christ we're in the same family. We're part of the same kingdom. We're citizens of the same nation of heaven. And we're representing that nation here on this earth. We're one in Christ. We have common citizenship. Secondly, we have a common love. A common love. Notice in verse 19, he says, consequently you're no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household. We're in a family now. We're in a household. And that family is the family of God. You know the church really is a spiritual family. Really is. You remember what Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 5? We won't turn there. It's not on the screen. But Paul told Timothy, Timothy, here's how you need to relate to people in your church of Ephesus. Same church he's writing to. He says, treat older men like your father. Treat older women like your mother. Younger men like your brother. And treat younger women like your sister. The church really is a body and it's a family. It's a family of God. We're brothers and sisters in Christ. We belong to one another. And you know what? In families, when families work like they're supposed to work, and I know there are lots of dysfunctional families, probably all of us are dysfunctional to some extent. But when families work like they're supposed to, families drop any differences when a need or a crisis comes up and they show each other love. And that's the way the church ought to be, too. We're a family. And so when a need comes up, when a crisis comes up, we need to treat each other as family and reach out to one another. And that means two things. It means you need to let us know your hurts and let us know where the needs are so that we can respond. One thing I've learned in 33 years of pastoral ministry, that is I am not omniscient. I don't know everything. And I don't automatically know. Neither does any of the other pastors. When somebody goes into the hospital or when somebody has a need, we don't just know those things. We have to be told. And so let us know when there's a hurt so that we can reach out and get the body of Christ swinging into action to help meet that need. But in those times, we ought to be like a family, dropping everything to reach out and help one another. We have a common citizenship. We have a common love. Thirdly, we have a common work and worship. We want to see, begins to talk about this household as actually being a building where some work is going on in verse 20. He says this household is verse 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. So the foundation of this building project was laid by the apostles and prophets in the New Testament. First century, the apostles and prophets that God sent messages to laid the foundation of this church, of the body of Christ. But notice he also says with Christ Jesus himself as the chief corner stone. You have to understand a little bit about building in the ancient world in Israel in that time to understand what he's talking about here. A chief corner stone was the first stone that was laid on the foundation. It was a corner stone. It was a stone on one of the four corners, but it was usually the largest stone in the building. And it would set the direction and the scope and the sphere, everything of the whole building was set by that corner stone. If you were to go to Israel today and go to the temple mount and if you were to look at the southwest corner of the temple, there's been excavation down there and they dug down to some of the original stones of the temple from Old Testament times, where Herod's temple was built on top of it. And some of those original foundations, the chief corner stone is the size of a railroad box car. It was a huge engineering feat and they simply laid these stones side by side and went on top of another. They did not use any kind of material, mortar or nails or anything to put them, they just laid them out. But that chief corner stone was the key to getting everything else right. Jesus Christ is the chief corner stone of the church. He is the one who is placed first to make sure everything else gets right. And other metaphors, the body, he's the head and so forth. But in the building, he's the chief corner stone. And then notice verse 21, here's where we come in, in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. You see, in him we all have a place where we fit in in the body of Christ, we are a stone fitting in a particular place and I don't have your place and you don't have my place, we all have our own place, we've been fitted in with our own gifts and abilities and things that God wants us to do and we shouldn't be looking down at the stone, little below us and say, boy, I wish I did what they did or up above us. I'd like to do what they do. No, God has placed us in the body where He wants us. And so when we accept that and function as God intended us to, then the whole building is rising up, it's growing to become not just any old building, but notice it's a holy temple in the Lord. In verse 22, and in him, you too are being built up together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. You see, this building that God wants to do, this work He wants to do is a group of people who fit together for the purpose of worship. We are a temple, we are a place where God makes His dwelling. When we gather together, like this, there is a sense in which God inhabits, the Old Testament, the Psalms, says God inhabits the praises of His people. There is a sense in which God is building a work here that He wants to express Himself through. And when we are in unity, He expresses Himself through us. When every stone is being put in the right place and functioning as it should, then we are a place where God can express His glory. Now if it doesn't happen, if unity doesn't happen, then we end up like Corinth. What Paul told Corinth in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 is that they too were a temple, but they messed it up. They messed up the building. He says, 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 16, He says, don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you and all those use are plural. He's talking about the church, not individuals. He says, if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy Him for God's temple as sacred and you plural together are that temple. And then He says, don't deceive yourselves. If anybody think He's wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that He may become wise. And He goes on to say, so then, because of this, so then, no more boasting about men. All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollist or Seifas, or the world or life or death of the present or the future, all are yours and you are of Christ and Christ is of God. What he was saying to the church in Corinth is you've messed up the unity of the body, that's the whole theme of the first four chapters, because some of them were following Apollist and some of them Peter and some of them Paul and He said, wait a second, no more of this Paul, Peter, Apollist deal. We are all just servants of Christ. Everything is in Christ and Christ is in, He's the focus and if a church is to have unity, Christ is God to be the focus, not individuals. Not any individual. Christ has got to be the focus. That's why the church at Corinth messed it up. That's why He says to the Ephesians, make sure that you realize you're just stones in the building for the purposes that God glorify Himself through you. Now I want to make this very practical in closing. And in closing means only got twenty minutes left. No, I'm just teasing. We really are near. I want to make it very practical. What does this whole thing of unity mean? He's talked about the theology of it, described when it was absent, how it came about through Christ and His death and what it means, how it's expressed in the church. But what does it mean for us? Unity in the body of Christ means that we have to do away with an us, them mentality or an us-them terminology. It's not us and them, it's we, the body of Christ. That's unity. You know, in the body of Christ, in the church, there are no rich and poor. There are no educated and uneducated people in the body of Christ. There are no privileged and unprivileged. There are no people of high social standing and people of lower social standing. God doesn't recognize any of those distinctions. There are no union, non-union. There are no Democrats and Republicans in the body of Christ. Who that's hard for some of you to take, I know. But there are no distinctions that are made by man. There are no distinctions like that in the body of Christ. We are one in hymn. So we have to do away with any terminology or mindset which reinforces distinctions. So the us-them idea, that can't have any place in the body of Christ. We can't think of it as us and them in the terms that we're the contemporary service. We don't know about those traditional service people. Those people stuck in the past and singing the hymns and all that, those traditional service people. No, no, no, my friend. It is not an us-them mentality. There are two different styles of worship, but both services which glorify God and focus on Christ and they're both Johnston Chapel. It's not an us-them mentality. We can't afford that kind of mentality here at Johnston Chapel. It's not us-them when it comes to classes. It's not my class and your class. No, no. It's Johnston Chapel's classes meeting together for the glory of God. There's no competition between them. Should be. No competition at all. It is not an us-them mentality when it comes to long-term people and new people in the church. Now people who are new in the church can learn the culture and history of the church from people who have been here a long time and need to be humble to do that. But people who have been here a long time also need to be humble enough to say, some of these new folks have gifts and abilities that we desperately need and they have things we can learn. We need to humble ourselves to learn from them too. Why? Because we are one. It's not an us-them mentality. We got to get away from the idea that, well, us old-timers, we really are the church. These new people, they're kind of on the French. No, we are the church. Old and new. We are the church. There's no us-them mentality when it comes to other parts of the body of Christ, when it comes to young and old. It's not, oh, those young people or those young families. They don't do that. No, no. It's us. It's we. It's not us-them. And young couples shouldn't say things about the old people either. We're all one body in Christ. There's no distinction between old and young in the body of Christ. Teenagers in this church are not the future of this church. They're the present of this church. Get away from calling them the future. They're part of us now. They're part of what we're trying to do now, not way off in the future somewhere. So us, them mentality, has to go. It's not our ministry and their ministry. You know, we're in a situation where we have a lot of different ministries, limited facilities. We use the same rooms for different things. And sometimes you walk into a room, all those cubby people or all those, all those school class, all those, whatever. No, no. It's not us and them. It's we together. Ministering to serve this community and one another in the body of Christ. It's got to be unity. And that goes for the pastors as well. We have to model that. There can be no I-me terminology either. I cringe sometimes when I hear senior pastors say that my church, that my church, we do this. It's not my church. This is not my church. It's Christ's church. I have the privilege of being one of the shepherds here under God with a responsibility. And I thank God for that privilege, but it's not my church. The class this evening is not my 501 class. Chapel A Institute is not my chapel A Institute. It's the church's ministry. It doesn't matter who leads it, it's the church's ministry. And it's not Jim Knopf Singer's choir. It's not Jim Simmons jail ministry. It's not Kevin Shire's youth ministry. It's not Judd Dixon's college ministry. It's Johnston Chapel's ministry, all of the above. And thank God for these gifted men who served to lead those ministries. The focus is not on us calling attention to ourselves like the Corinthian church did and gaining a following for ourselves. If we're doing that, then we are sending against this church. The whole focus is on Christ. Should be on Christ. This is his church. These are his ministries. And we're trying to get people to follow him. Look to him, not us. So there can't be any us, them mindset. There can't be any I, me mindset either to have unity in the body of Christ. Some of you remember one of the most famous catches in World Series history. Happened in 1954. I remember it well. Two years old. I was an early baseball fan. No. But some of you will remember the catch that Willie Mays made in center field in World Series and polo grounds. It's still played on replays today. We'll never be forgotten. It's one of the best catches ever been made. The picture that day was Don Little. Don Little's only claimed a fame is that he threw the pitch that ended up in Willie Mays catch. What had happened is the New York Giants were playing the Cleveland Indians and manager Leo DeRocher of the New York Giants wanted Don Little to come in and pitch to one batter. One Cleveland batter. Vic Works. He came out and will go to someone else in the next batter. And Little came in and he pitched to Vic Works and worked hit a towering drive to center field 460 feet in any other ballpark it would have been a home run but not in the polo grounds. The old polo grounds the outfield went for miles. And if you've seen the highlight you remember what happened. At the crack of the bat Willie Mays playing center field turned his back on home plate and started in a dead sprint toward the fence in center field. Just running, not even looking where the ball was running, just running a dead sprint. Looked back over his shoulder just in time to reach out his glove and catch the ball coming over his shoulder. One of the most amazing catches ever made. What you may not know is that Marv Grissom was the next pitcher to come in after Don Little and his Don Little left the mound. He looked at Marv Grissom and he said, I got my man. He didn't do much. He threw the pitch. He ended up in a 460 foot home run in any other ballpark. Willie Mays bailed him out but he said, I got my man and he walked off. It's all about teamwork isn't it? It's not about Don Little getting his man and he knew that. He was making a joke. Willie Mays is the one who made that play. It's not about who does what in this church. It's about Christ getting the glory and the honor. That's what it's about. Some of you will go back maybe not quite as far and you'll remember Neil Armstrong on July 20th, 1969. Remember the moon walk of the first man on the moon and when he stepped out onto the moon remember those famous words. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind and everybody was applauding Neil Armstrong. Great astronaut, great man. First man on the moon and Neil Armstrong knew better than anybody else. It was 218,000 people working over a period of years that made that historic moment possible. It was not Neil Armstrong's moment. He was the one that was on TV, yes, but there were lots of people behind the scenes. Nobody knew their names. If they hadn't done their job Neil Armstrong wouldn't have been walking on the moon. The church is like that. There are lots of Don Little's unknowns that do their part and there's some Willie Mays that get some recognition. There are lots of Neil Armstrong's and get in the public eye but there are a whole lots of engineers behind the scenes, people that work and pray and serve to make possible the work of the body of Christ. And we're in this together. There are no heroes. There are no primadanas. There are no people that should be looking for attention. All the praise and attention should go to Jesus Christ. He is the head. He is the chief cornerstone. We are simply living stones placed in the body where God wants us and we're all in it together. So unity in a church, if it's to be successful, must do away with us and them, terminology. We are not a collection of independent ministries using the same facility. We are Johnston Chapel, ministering in a lot of different ways, but we're all one. And we're not a group of people, some seeking limelight. No, there's not. We're not that. We're all about Jesus Christ or should be. That's the kind of unity that will make this church successful in God's eyes. Regardless of how big it is or how small it is, it'll be successful in God's eyes. If we are seeking to humble ourselves under His plan and purpose for us and seeking His glory, let's do that. Would you pray with me? Father, I thank you for Paul's teaching on unity. We are all in one body and in that body there are no distinctions and there are no people who are the chief cornerstone. We thank you, Father, that you have raised up a work here in this church as you have in many other churches that proclaim your name. We thank you for that and we pray, Father, that in the ministry of this church you would help all of us to find our places living stones in that structure and to serve you well, but always built on the chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ. Help us to reflect Him and to glorify Him, to draw the attention to Him. We pray, Father, that you would bring glory to yourself through this ministry. May it be yours, really, in a very practical way. May it be yours. Help us to work together for your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.