November 23 2025

Sunday November 23

The Ground of Unity

Ephesians 4:4-6

4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Today we're looking at Ephesians 4:4-6. Yesterday we talked about the grace of unity in verses 1-3. This is a unity in the church among the members that are displayed in our humility, our gentleness, our longsuffering, our bearing with one another, and which we continually endeavor to keep so that the world around us sees our love for one another, and most of all, the great love of God for the world through Christ and His cross.

But my friend, we are not to compromise our foundational beliefs to experience this unity. There are so many churches and people today that attempt to unite Christians in a way that is not biblical. They say things like, "We're not really interested in doctrine, but in love. Let's just love one another. Let's set aside what we believe just love one another." My friend, that's compromise. We cannot compromise the essentials of the faith, the foundations of the faith.

For years we had this little saying in our church:

·         In essential beliefs we have unity.  (Ephesians 4:4-6)

·         In non-essential beliefs we have liberty.  (Romans 14:1, 4, 12, 22)

·         In all our beliefs we show charity.  (1 Corinthians 13:2)

Paul did not discuss spiritual unity in the first three chapters; he waited until he had laid the doctrinal foundation. While not all Christians agree on some minor matters of Christian doctrine, they all do agree on the foundation truths of the faith. Unity built on anything other than Bible truth is standing on a very shaky foundation. Now in verses 4-6, Paul names at least seven basic spiritual realities that unite all true Christians: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”

Did you notice one word that got repeated over again? “One..”. Why? Paul is making it really clear there is a foundation, a ground for our unity. There is a ground for our faith that we must realize we cannot compromise. So, in essentials we have unity. In non-essentials we have liberty. But in all of our beliefs we have charity. We can still have truth in love. Even when we disagree on a foundational doctrinal truth with someone else, we can still love them hopefully they can still love us.

But we cannot compromise the foundations of our faith which basically is Jesus Christ was born of a virgin. Jesus lived a sinless life. Jesus died a vicarious death, a substitutionary death on the cross of Calvary. He was buried. He rose again physically on the third day. And He ever lives to make intercession for us. There's only one way of salvation that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Church membership doesn't save you. Works does not save you. Just getting baptized and getting wet doesn't save you. Only faith in Christ, believing, putting your hope and trust in His salvation through the cross through His resurrection power is what saves us from the guilt and penalty of our sin. These are the foundational truths. They cannot be compromised.

In verse 4, Paul points out that there is “one body. Paul is speaking about the one body of Christ in which every believer is a member. We find this in 1 Corinthians 12:13: “For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body…”. Of course, this is the body of Christ, which is His church. In Colossians 1:18, it's very clearly stated that: “Jesus is the head of the body, the church”. Romans 6:3 teaches us that we should know: “we were baptized into the body of Christ”. This means that we were placed into Jesus Christ at the moment of our salvation! We are in one body in Christ. This is a spiritual reality that we need to contemplate, think about, meditate on, believe with all of our heart.

Interestingly, every Tuesday morning at 8:30, at a local church here in Sneads Ferry NC, I meet with a group of pastors from various denominations. For a fact, we do not agree on every specific area of church practices and beliefs when it comes to certain ideas about tongues, about predestination, the particulars on the return of Christ, music or whatever. But I assure you, that we all agree on the essentials of the foundation of faith. These men love one another. They pray for one another. They love the people of God. They love the community we live in, and missions. In the four years I’ve been praying with them we are seeing and experiencing God do phenomenal things in our community because we are praying in one accord. Despite the different names and denominations we are “one in Christ”.

God bless!