Unity- A Dirty Word

Unity A Dirty Word

Introduction

A recent Facebook interaction had me stop and consider something that I think deserves a look and a discussion, especially among Independent Baptists. It is something that we find in the Bible yet seems to be an issue that is overlooked or sometimes outright ignored by the majority of believers. So, buckle up and lets get to work looking at the place unity has in the believers life and what the Bible has to say about unity.

Unity: the state of being united or joined as a whole. the state of forming a complete and pleasing whole, especially in an artistic context: a thing forming a complex whole.

So, starting off with that definition lets now delve into what the Bible has to say about it and the truth it holds. Let’s start in Ephesians 4:3 “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” So, with this verse alone we see we are to be united and strive to keep that! It also gives us a scary truth as well. We can NOT be in unity with the Spirit! It is something we must work to not only have but to keep. The Spirit should draw us together to be and walk in unity together. If one has the Spirit, we should be able to walk together. That doesn’t mean we all agree on everything 100% but when it comes to Bible doctrine, we should be able to walk together in the Spirit.

Let us look at another verse. Psalm 133:1 “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” So, we see here the joy and blessing that comes from walking together in unity with our brethren. It is not only good for us, but it is pleasant as well and will help our spirit and walk. Again, though there is a danger. Like the last verse we see that it is possible for brethren to NOT be walking in unity. Unity as we see from these two verses already is a great thing and something we are to work and strive for but there is a danger in not having unity and a spirit of peace which we will get to a little later.  A point to make here that we will see though this is that unity is to be had with the brethren. We will not have or be able to have unity with those that are not believers. Our fellow believers though we should always be striving to walk in unity with.

Part 1: Our Example Jesus Christ

          So, at the very start let us look at our ultimate example and what He has to say and show us about unity. There can be no greater example for us to follow then what is shown to us by the example of Jesus Christ.  John 17:21 “That they all may be as one: as though, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Wow! So, we see Jesus saying we need to have the same unity Christ had with the Father! I think it is safe to say this is greatly lacking in our Christian lives and in our churches today! Notice also we are to be an example and witness to the world through our unity. If we can’t have unity with other believers, we cannot be a proper witness to the world according to the words of Christ himself. I think we need to take a minute and let that thought and truth really sink in. I sadly think many of us are far from this example and could be why we do not see souls getting saved and coming to Christ.

John 17:22 “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; That they may be one, even as we are one:” Here again we see Christ and the Father are our example in unity. We are to be on the same level of unity as they are! We are to have this unity with all believers! Yet to often we have believers in the same church that cant get along or believers in the same town who cant have unity either. My fellow born again believers we are going to spend ETERNITY together! We should be getting along down here in preparation for getting along and having unity in heaven. Now that doesn’t mean we will always agree with what one says or one does maybe, but it does mean we should be able to get along and at the very least be cordial with each other. I could probably find something I disagree with with any other believer but that is not the focus we are to have. Unless they are going directly against the Bible we should get along. Those that do go against the Bible we will look at towards the end of the study.

Let us look at one more truth the Lord spoke himself before we move onto our next example. Matthew 12:25 “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:” Here once again we see if there is division there will be failure and destruction. Could it be this is why we see so many churches and believers falling to the wayside? Jesus himself spoke it so we know it is true. It leaves one to wonder what price we are, and the world is paying for our own lack of unity with each other. A sobering thought.

“And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” Luke 9:49-50. So, I was trying to decide if I wanted to add this set of verses here or not. Well, I decided they need to be added to give us a reminder of something.  Here we see one of the Apostles come to Jesus saying they saw a man doing work in Jesus’ name and they made him stop because the man was not following them at the time. Notice how Jesus replies. He does not praise John, nor does he condemn the man who had been doing the good work. No! In fact, John gets taught a little bit of a lesson here that I think most Christians and churches today need to be reminded of. Jesus tells John to let the man keep working! He tells him that just because someone isn’t doing it the exact same way or with the exact same group of people that if they are truly doing the work of God and spreading the Gospel they are to be praised and seen as a fellow soldier and laborer. Mind blowing when we take the words that Jesus spoke and compare them to many Christians today. Just because someone doesn’t do something the exact same way as us does not mean they are wrong or should be hounded and forced to stop. We are to be united in doing the work of Christ and spreading the Gospel of salvation! To often we cause division by being its our way or highway and instead of working together or realizing there might be more than one way to do something (heresy to say I know) that is the attitude that Jesus promoted. Jesus shows us that if someone is truly doing the work that God calls them to do they are to be encouraged to do so even if they may not be a part of our church. Jesus promoted unity between believers. Do not let your own pride or arrogance ruin not only your testimony but the ability to get the Gospel to those around us. We need all the help getting the Gospel out that we can get.

Part 2: The Early Church

          Not only does the Lord himself give us a good example of the importance of unity in the lives of believers, let us also look to the early church as well. Here we will simply focus on the first few chapters of Acts as Paul’s letters will have enough to deserve their own section in this. Here in Acts it is a time of great growth but also great hardship for the church and believers. Think about it, they had seen Christ crucified then rise from the grave in victory, then finally they seem him ascend into heaven. Now they are given the task of reaching the world! A task I will add that we are still to be working on today. Here we see a great sense of unity of the believers here.

Acts 2:1 “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” The key phrase here for this study is “one accord”. Not only were they all together, they also were united. The Holy Ghost would not have been able to move on them had they not been united in one accord. Acts 2:44 is similar “And all that believed were together, and had all things common:”

Acts 2:42 “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Here again they were united in cause and belief. You cannot have fellowship and communion if you are not united with each other! The strength of the early church was not just the doctrine they had and believed in but the fact that they were united behind that doctrine and beliefs.

Acts 4:24 “And when they had heard that, they lifted up their voices to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and al that in them is:” You can not be praying in one accord if you do not have a spirit of unity together! It is also worth noting that if we are not praying in a spirit of unity, it can hinder our very prayers!

One thing is clear from the very early church, they had UNITY! They had a spirit that was knitted together and sought to please the Lord and reach lost souls with the Gospel. The church would not have survived had it not had unity. You can also see if you investigate it that they had prominent men call out those that tried to cause division and trouble in the early church. Some of this we will get into when we look at how to deal with those who seek to cause confusion and contention among believers.

Part 3: What does Paul have to say

          Ephesians 4:3 “endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Paul is going to be one of the biggest ones that we will look at with what he has to say about unity in the church and among believers. It helps that he wrote the majority of the New Testament. So, we start here Paul gets and is pretty clear that unity is something that we have to work for, it is not something that just naturally happens.

“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, That ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you: but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” 1 Corinthians 1:10. Here Paul tells us to be speaking the same thing, that being the gospel, and that there is not to be any type of division among us. You would be hard pressed to find even a Bible preaching church today that didn’t have divisions come up in. Too often people want their own way or get offended and then let bitterness creep in. These things ought not to be so!

“One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Ephesians 4:5. Here is one that sums it all so well. God is united and there is no division in the trinity. Christ is our example so how can we claim to be followers of Christ if we are letting division creep into our lives and our churches? We already saw and talked about what Christ had to say on unity, so we won’t get into that again here. But if we are to be of one faith, how can we do that if we do not have unity? Answer, we can’t!

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” Philippians 2:5 This verse connects back to the words that Jesus himself spoke. We are to be of and have the same mind as Christ. Christ had a mind of and for unity.

Another important passage to hit on is 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. This passage deals with how the believer should not be trying to be united with unbelievers. We are to be separated from them. The only ones we should be having unity with are those who are born again. We are to be separated from the world as Paul makes very clear in this passage.

The last part I will touch on here would be 1 Corinthians 12:11-31. Here when Paul is talking about gifts, he compares the church to a body. Do you know something a body has? Unity. For the body to work well and to function properly there must be unity. We many times can see visible evidence when someone’s body is not operating in unity. They are not able to do the things a normal person can. The church is compared to this as well. If there is no unity in the church, it will not be able to function properly and unless corrected the church will die.  

Paul also goes to great lengths telling us how we are to treat our brethren and walk in love and longsuffering towards other believers. All these are deserving of their own separate studies, but they apply to us walking in unity as well. Needless to say, having and walking in unity can be found all through the Bible and is a cornerstone for a believer to be built upon.

Conclusion

          So, we have taken a small look at what is considered by many to be a “dirty” word. Mostly from the fact that for one reason or another

          So, we have taken a small look at what is considered by many to be a “dirty” word. Mostly from the fact that for one reason or another most people don’t want to walk in unity with others. These reasons can stem from things like bitterness and pride to having the attitude of “well if they don’t do things the way I think they should I am not going to have anything to do with them.” Unless you have solid BIBLE doctrine for something wrong someone is doing you are supposed to, let me correct that, commanded to have and strive for unity. Some closing verses to consider.

“Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:” 1 Peter 3:8

“Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” Philippians2:2

“Can two walked together, except they be agreed?” Amos 3:3

How are you doing fellow Christian? Are you walking as Christ walked? Or are you letting something keep you from walking in unity? Remember, before you can walk in unity with fellow believers you must be walking in unity with your Lord and Savior.