Unity in the Church

 April 24, 2024

Wednesday

All churches have problems. They can be financial, missional, biblical, physical or moral. The lack of a consensus in these areas will tear a church apart. Factions are often created that declare a superior knowledge or righteousness. Those espousing their view often do not see the bigger picture. The church should have unity before it has those who are doing what is right at the expense of others. Some of these people may be experts in their fields but they are immature in Christ since they treat the church like it is something to be manipulated to establish their way. It is clear in the New Testament that unity was something the early church strived for. That unity gave them the ability to turn the world upside down. The church today can't hardly be said to shake the world.

Immature Christians make their decisions on their feelings without regard to the Spirit. They know what they like and look for reasons to support what they like. If they like a certain type of music, they will claim that the people are singing that music. They think that worship comes from the lips. The Bible says it comes from the heart. Many people will never sing because their heart is never worshiping. Many people will sing their favorite songs without worship. Whether people are singing or not cannot be the only means of measuring worship. 

Immature Christians will divide the church by their own demographic. Them is always defined as those who are not in their group. Thus, the church is black or white, rich or poor, contemporary or liturgical, young or old, etc. Again, unity is destroyed when us and they are part of the church description.

Immature Christians are always okay with lax leadership. It is when there is an expectation of living like Christ that the immature Christians start finding faults with the church. The church becomes judgmental according to immature Christians when morality is upheld. They will even claim that the church is unloving when it confronts sin in the church. They love a church which encourages gossip. They love to criticize. They don't care when marriages break up. They don't care to see people actually live for Christ. They are like the Pharisees who pray long prayers for others to hear. Their hearts are not in unity with the church.

Maybe this is why much of the New Testament is written to bring unity in the church. The church started out with immature Christians. They acted like immature Christians. Our problem is that many decades long Christians in an American church are still very immature. The lack of unity proves it.

The answer to this is making sure that each person is growing in their faith. They are making disciples who make disciples. They are being led by the Spirit and with the Spirit's leading they may disagree but not by their own feeling but the Spirit. Of course, the leadership in the church must mature as well. 

Read this passage and meditate on it. See if unity is that important.

Ephesians 4:11–16 (NASB 2020)¹¹ And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ; ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. ¹⁴ As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; ¹⁵ but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is, Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.