Stay One
Ephesians 4:1-6
It happens every year in April. Team owners gather at Radio City Music Hall in New York City for the NFL Draft. They hope to select players who will change the future of their teams. They are looking for franchise players; players who will help them win big games and bring fans to their stadiums.
As believers, you and I have been drafted by God. We did not choose him. He chose us. He scouted us for years. It cost him millions to sign us to his team. He knew that in time, with his coaching, we could become franchise players. We could make his team better. We could draw people to the Kingdom Stadium.
In our text, Paul is urging us to live like we have been drafted by God. Listen to what he says: I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received (v. 1). Live like you have been drafted. Live in a way that reflects your million dollar contract. Live like you are the face of franchise, for indeed you are!
There’s an all-pro Christ-follower on the inside of you. Let him or her come out to play. Here’s how I know there is an all-pro Christian on the inside of you. All of us received a signing bonus when we were drafted, a signing bonus at salvation – The Holy Spirit. The Spirit made our heart his address. The Spirit coaches us up from the inside. The Spirit counsels us from the inside. He empowers us from the inside. As I respond to my Signing Bonus, the Holy Spirit, on the inside, I become the franchise player God envisioned when he drafted me. I live like I’ve been drafted!
Here is one of the most important ways in which we live up to being drafted … by making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit… When God drafted us he placed us on the same team by his Spirit. He brought us together as one, with one purpose and one mission. And we are to make every effort to maintain the unity he has created in Christ. But this requires intentional action.
Unity is like a fire – it tends to die out if left unattended (Ephesians, Life Application Study Bible, p. 76.).
We have to be determined to keep the fire alive. We have to make sacrifices to keep the fire alive. We have to leverage all or our creativity and emotional resources to keep the fire alive. This is the way we live worthy of being drafted by God.
This passage reflects why we have to read the Bible and be present when the Bible is being preached. Though all of us in this room want to obey God, I wonder how many of us see ourselves as keepers of unity … as peacemakers … as reconcilers. Even if we do, perhaps, we don’t value it at the same level God does. Yet God says this is one of the highest priorities of every believer. This is a part of your identity … my identity. We are not like others. Other groups are divided by politics, by preferences, and by personalities. Others are divided by individuality, by ethnicity and by sexuality. Not us. We were selected to preserve the unity of God’s team. Our specialty is community not disunity. Our signature is collaboration not isolation. Our skill is gathering people, not scattering them. We are the keepers of the flame.
For in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female for we are all one in Christ (Galatians 3:28).
So how do we stay one? How do we live worthy of the calling we have received?
To Stay One…Envision the Oneness We Already Have (vv. 4-6).
He shares with us seven ways we have already been made one in Christ in verses 4-6.
Verses 4-6
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
The passage teaches us that the hard work of unity has already been done. God has already united us in the most significant and eternal ways. He is not asking us to create unity. He is asking us to hold on to what he has already put in our hands. I may not be able to create unity on my own, but I am good at holding on to something already in my hands.
Look at the seven ways God has already made us one.
God has made us One Body. We have a complex need for one another. Your hand richly depends on the rest of your body to be a hand. It needs the brain to tell it what to do, blood to stay alive, arteries to pump the blood to it, a stomach to send it the necessary nutrients and nerves to feel what it touches. Your hand can’t be a hand without the rest of the body. The same is true of us in Christ. We can’t be who we are without each other.
We have the One Spirit within. There are not two Holy Spirits, just one. The same Spirit is giving us directions. So if we are not increasingly learning how to play together, one or both of us is not listening to the Spirit. If we let the Spirit coach us, one game plan, one heart for each other will increasingly emerge.
We all have the One Hope of heaven. Disunity is informed by the idea that we only have to put up with each other on earth. Not true! We have to live together forever; we can’t get rid of each other when we die. Unity is the refusal to take conflict on earth to heaven with us.
We have the One Lord, Jesus Christ. Oneness grows as we follow our One Leader. Jesus died so we could be on the same team. We show our appreciation by preserving the unity for which he gave his life.
We have One Faith. We have one moral code, one vision of life we are following. Honoring our code makes unity automatic.
We have One Baptism. We made the same commitment to follow Jesus in baptism. We agreed to die to our past and embrace a new loving, servant approach to life. To be united we just have to keep our promise to Jesus at baptism.
We have One God who is also Our Father. He is over all, and working through all and is present in all circumstances. We’re in the same family. Unity comes from us acting like siblings!
In the most meaningful, eternal ways we are already one. God has already done the heavy lifting. All we have to do is hold on to what God has placed in our hands.
Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin had every reason as teammates to be friends, but they were not. Incognito harassed and bullied Martin. He called him a racial slur in a voicemail played by every media outlet in the country. He threatened to kill him and his family. Incognito claimed all of this was just locker room talk. It is the way the guys talk to one another in the NFL. Apparently, Martin didn’t get the memo. Martin left his lucrative job citing emotional issues and fearing for his life. Though we don’t know all the details, it appears as if Martin has some culpability as well. He was far too passive in dealing with Incognito’s threatening behavior. As a teammate, it appears, he should have expressed how troubling Incognito’s threats were to him. These two men had many more reasons to get along than to have a toxic relationship. Consider all the reasons they had to be friends.
They were both football players.
On the same team.
Had the same coach.
Both were offensive linemen.
Both played on the same side of the line.
Both were starters.
Both wanted to win.
Both are big dudes.
Both were millionaires.
Yet somewhere along the way one or both of them forgot they played for the same team and began to treat the other like a New England Patriot. They forgot the enemy was in another city. They forgot enemy is on another team.
Similarly, we have many more reasons to honor one another than to dishonor one another.
We have the same owner!
The same Father cheering us on from the press box.
The same Savior who scouted us and forgave us.
The same Spirit within.
The same playbook.
The same purpose.
We are going to same place when life is over … God’s Disney World!
Yes, we do have an enemy. He is as bully. But the enemy is always on the other team.
To stay one we have to envision the oneness we already have!
To Stay One … Embrace the Oneness We Could Have (vv. 2-3).
Two chickens tied at the legs and thrown over a clothesline may be united, but they do not have functional unity. There are five character qualities that make the level of unity we already have real in our daily interactions. Paul shares them in verse 2-3.
Verses 2-3
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
The more we own these values socially, the less we will be given to disunity.
Humility. Paul says be completely humble. To be humble means to make yourself small. When we make ourselves small, we don’t take ourselves too seriously; people don’t need a rule book to get to know us. We are relationally low-maintenance. Humility allows unity to blossom.
Gentleness. Be completely gentle Paul says. Gentleness means to be considerate of others. It means be caring and kind, realizing the people are far more fragile then they appear. Gentleness is the opposite of being rude or pushy. It fosters richer oneness.
Patience. We are to be patient. The word means to not overreact to people’s humanity. To not seek revenge when wronged. To not heat up like a microwave when someone does something we don’t like. Proverbs 19:11 says: A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is glory to overlook an offence. Patience gives people room to grow.
Love. We should bear with one another in love. He is talking about unconditional affection. It’s refusing to quickly redefine a relationship, remaining loyal to imperfect people the way God does for us. There are times to unfriend people, but this should be the last resort not the first response. Love preserves unity.
Peace. Paul says we are to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. He is calling us to make a radical commitment to peace - to value unity over individuality, to value the collective over the personal. This is counter-cultural. Our American philosophy teaches us to constantly value how we differ from the group. The word for bond was often used to refer a ligament that keeps two bones together. This is a good illustration of what Paul is trying to telling us. In times of conflict don’t cut the ligament that keeps the body parts together. The word also was used to refer to chains that held a prisoner hostage. In times of friction, don’t break the chains that keep you connected to other believers. See yourself as a prisoner of peace! As far as it depends on us we are to live at peace with everyone.
Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking I can’t do all of that. If that is what you are thinking, let me say congratulations! You know who you are. You can’t do it. I can’t do it. We certainly can’t do it consistently from a place of heart. But the Spirit of God can do it through us. The Bible is not a book that tells us what we can do. It’s a book about what God can do through us.
Each of the qualities mentioned, except humility, are said by Paul to be the fruit of the Spirit. Humility is certainly inferred, however.
Galatian 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
The power to stay one comes from the Spirit of God. Spirit-empowered Christianity changes the way we relate to people. A new way of relating to others is evidence that the Spirit is at work on the inside.
To stay one we have to envision the unity we already have. We are already a team in the most profound, eternal ways. The hard work has been done by our God.
To stay one we have to embrace the unity we could have. We can’t do it alone, but with the help of the Holy Spirit we can increasingly display the character qualities that promote unity.
One of the more strikingly beautiful birds in the entire world is the St. Lucia Parrot. The striking turquoise, lime green and red parrot had been taken for granted. By 1977, only 100 of the birds existed. All on the tiny Caribbean island of St. Lucia. One biologist predicted the bird would be extinct by the year 2000. That’s when Paul Butler, a 21 year old with no authority, money or real influence took on the challenge of saving the bird. He worked to convince the residents of St. Lucia that they were the kind of people who protected their own. He convinced them that parrot was on one of them. The parrot was their parrot, one of the great treasures of the island. He bought T-Shirts, convinced musicians to write songs about parrots, hosted puppet shoes, he even convinced preachers to preach sermons about the stewardship of nature using the parrot as an example. He made every effort to save the parrot. His main theme was one of identity: We are the kind of people who take care of our own. It worked! The population of the St. Lucia Parrot has grown to 600 since Butler started the campaign (Adapted from Mud and the Masterpiece by John Burke, p. 44).
We live in a world where unity is almost extinct, even among churches. Yet unity is one of the treasures of life on God’s Island!
And we are the not the kind of people who would let unity become extinct!
We are not those who will let what God treasures die in our generation.
We are the kind of people who take care of our own.
We are the keepers of the flame!
So together let us make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. As we do such, we become the face God’s franchise. We live like the first-round draft picks we really are!
