What Are We Doing Here?

Transcript

This morning we are going to be talking about the church, this wonderful, strange, mysterious thing. As we get started, would you please take a moment to pray with me, and we’ll ask for the Lord to help us. Father, we thank you for the church. What a wonderful place. What a wonderful people that you, in your infinite kindness and wisdom, called us to be a part of this particular church. Father, as we survey from your word what this means, and what this means for us, we pray God that you would, by the help of your Holy Spirit, illuminate the text. I pray God that by the help of your Holy Spirit, you would encourage us this morning, and at the same time, would you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, correct us where we need it. Would your word serve as sandpaper to rub off the hard edges of our hearts, and make us soft.

us soft. We ask you this morning for this help, because you alone are our only hope, and so we are dependent. Meet us here this morning, we pray, in Christ’s name, amen. I want to start with a question. When someone asks, do you go to church, do you ever think about what they mean when they ask that question? Do you ever think to yourself, what do they mean when they say church? Well, let me ask you this, what do you mean when you respond back to them, yes, I go to church. What about the questions that come after that? Questions like, what kind of church do you go to? What types of programs does your church offer? What’s the style of worship at your church? Is the preaching old school, or is it more culturally relevant? What is the vision of your church? Are there opportunities in your church for community involvement and outreach?

What is the specific age or demographic that your church typically caters to? Or would non-Christians feel like they belong at your church? Although these questions aren’t inherently wrong questions to ask, and in many ways can offer a bit of clarity, the very nature of these questions can reveal a very narrow and uninformed view of what the church actually is and what the church is supposed to do. Very premise of the question, do you go to church, implies that the church is primarily a location or a place that one goes to. Now, I understand that most people really don’t mean that when they say that, but at a basic level, it does tend to communicate something about the church as being perceived as kind of a place. It’s not altogether different from people who say, I go to the gym. It might be a member of a gym, but they typically tend to identify the gym as a place that they

The Church as People

go to. But you see, friends, there’s a fundamental difference between the statement, I go to Trinity Church of Portland, over and against the statement, I am a member of Trinity Church of Portland. And that’s an important distinction to be made because the church is not a place, but a people. Though we get here, we are not defined by where we gather. So some seven years ago, we met just off of Hawthorne Boulevard in a chapel on campus of Western Seminary. Now we gather here at this location, but we are still the same church. We could leave this wonderful building. God was gracious to grant us, we could meet in a high school gym, could meet in a bunch of homes, but we would still be the church. And in the same way, the church is not a place, it’s also not a program or an event.

So those kinds of questions that orbit around those might offer, you know, better insight as to the peripheral things about our church, but fail to express fully and fundamentally what the church actually is and what we’re supposed to do. If we think of the church as merely a building or a place, then we will begin to associate more with where we are located as a church and with what kind of building we meet in rather than meeting the unique needs of the people who are located in that particular church or building, which might impact negatively the way we do our life together once we step outside of this building and do life together. And if we think of the church as merely an event that happens on Sunday morning, we’ll begin to prioritize our excitement for the church based on our personal and subjective preferences.

We’ll only start to get excited about the things that keep our attention or keep us satisfied—either style of music or the style of teaching, or maybe even the person who is preaching or even the style of lead rather than giving up for the sake of the whole of the church. And in some cases, you might even consider leaving that church if we go through a series of uneventful experiences. If you think about the church as merely a set of programs that you’re personally passionate about, then we will begin to see the church as merely a subset of, you know, social clubs that cater to our own personal interest. And our engagement with the church would be more defined by what we might get out of the church versus what we bring to it concerning the people, the family. The church is not primarily a place to go or an event to be attended or a set of programs

to participate in. The church is a people, a very particular people who have been placed together with a very specific purpose. And my aim this morning is to help us better understand who those particular people are, how they are together, and for what reason. And to do that, we’re going to take a very high-level look at Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 19, and Ephesians chapter 3, verses 8 through 10. Okay? Now, that’s a whole lot of text, and we’re not going to go through that the way we normally would, which is line by line. We’re just going to kind of do this 30,000 feet, okay? But before we dive into that text, it might be helpful for me to first begin by defining the term church, okay? The word church comes from the Greek word ekklesia. Many of you, if you’ve been around the church long enough, you might have heard us talk

about this word ecclesiology, which is the study of the church. So that word ecclesiology comes from this word ekklesia. This word historically was not necessarily seen as a spiritual or sacred word, the way we might understand the word church today. Someone says the word church, even if you’re an irreligious person, you tend to think about that in terms of religious or sacred. The word ecclesia was a secular word originally, which could be translated called out ones. This word was mostly referenced in a political gathering of citizens, but the word had more emphasis on the gathering of the citizens than it did the political framework of the citizens, okay? So the word might be better defined as an assembly of people with a particular cause. So in the New Testament, when we see this word ekklesia, it’s making reference to a gathering of people or an assembly of people.

And to be more specific, it’s an assembly of God’s people. So when we stitch all of that together, the word ekklesia or church could literally be translated, God’s called out ones from the world assembled together. The church as an assembly, let’s you think of the church of an institution established by humans to somehow kind of control the population, which is a very popular view among our culture today. But Jesus himself says in Matthew 16, 18, I will build my church and the gates of hell prevail against it. So Jesus is the designer and the architect of church. And we see this language of the church all throughout the New Testament, making reference to God’s people gathering together. But this word and concept isn’t only referenced in the New Testament. In fact, the Hebrew Bible, when translated into Greek, which is Septuagint, references this word ekklesia some 65 times, and the vast majority of those passages are referencing

the assembly of Israel when God’s chosen people who were set apart, called out from the rest of the world, were gathered together. So, for example, Deuteronomy 9, 10, And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. That’s that word ekklesia. So Moses was to down the commandments that the Lord with his own finger wrote down and showed them to God’s people the day when God’s people gathered together, when they were assembled together. So the idea of being called out and gathered together on a reoccurring basis isn’t exclusive to the New Testament. It’s always been God’s paradigm for his people to be assembled together, experience his presence. So friends, the church is a particular people put together for a specific purpose.

Particular People

And to help us along, I’ll be breaking our text into these three categories using that paradigm particular people placed together specific purpose. The reason I’ll be using Ephesians chapters two and three is because I think it perfectly stitches together. This concept gives us a biblical picture of what the church is and what the church does. And so let’s begin with the particular people in Ephesians chapter two, verses one through 10. We see that the people who make up the church are particular to those who have embraced the gospel. So let’s read in verse one and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature

children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God being mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus again. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Amen. What a wonderful portion of scripture. Friends, this was us all day long.

Paul begins this section, which identifies the particular people who make up the church first reminding us that at one point we were dead in our sins. We used to be identified with the world. Living a life of disobedience, following our passions and desires, doing whatever we wanted to do, serving ourselves, serving our own personal interest, estimating what is right in our own eyes. And in so doing, storing up wrath on ourselves. Like children of the devil, like every other person on the planet living in this reckless pursuit of self. But this pursuit was not leading us to the life we thought it would lead us to. A life of ultimate fulfillment, satisfaction and safety. Instead, we were living a life crash course of death and judgment. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. And friends were drowning in our sins, slowly dying because of sin.

The text tells us that we were spiritually dead. This friends is what we mean when we say total depravity. And it’s not that we were as bad as we could possibly be, or complete hedonistic savages with no moral framework whatsoever. No, that’s not what total depravity means. What it means is that we were unable to please God spiritually. Unable to pursue him. Totally unable to live like him. But in our total inability, seeing us in our hopeless state, in our utter and complete deadness, God in his rich mercy and in his great love, made us alive. Paul is saying who were once dead have been made alive. And God did it. He does because no matter how much we wanted to, no matter how much we tried to, we could not save ourselves. We needed to be rescued from death. We needed to be brought from death to life.

Dead people don’t make choices. Dead people don’t choose to follow us. So God did all the work for us. This is Paul says, it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. You didn’t do anything. You contributed nothing and yet you received everything. This is God’s gift to you. Therefore, you have nothing to boast about. Your only boast should be in Christ Jesus. Even your faith is a gift from God. God gave you faith. You didn’t somehow muster up faith on your own. So not only did God save you and gift you with faith, but friends, he remade you, set you apart from what once lived for and completely identified with. He called you out of it. He brought you into himself and he made you holy and he calls you to walk in that holiness and he calls you by the Holy Spirit to walk in holiness.

First Peter two, nine and tens.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy

— 1 Peter 2

(ESV)

. Praise be to God. And why does God make us a new people and call us to walk in holiness? So that our life might now be a reflection of his holiness and his handiwork. So that our lives might proclaim his excellencies. Friends, the church is made up of those particular people, those who are no longer identified with the war, but identified with Christ to no longer act like the world look like the world. But act like the God who rescued us and live for the God who rescued us.

We are now a holy people who walk in the light. Now to be sure, this doesn’t mean perfectly or without sin. But it means we are a people who feel our sin acutely are quick to confess and repent of it and put it to death. And so do you understand the implications here? It means that the church is not a gathering of Christians and non-Christians. Church is not an assembly of saved and unsaved people. Church is a collection and a community of Christians, those who have been called out of the world and holy. And listen, if you’re here this morning and you’re not Christian, we are so thankful that you’re here. We’re excited that you’re here. You’re welcome to be here. But you have yet to belong to the church. You are welcome to in with curiosity and wonder. But you do not yet belong to this particular people.

This assembly is marked by those who have turned from sins and trusted in Jesus. And here is the good news. You can move from a spectator to a saint if you trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness. You can belong by trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. Do you want to be a part of this community? You need to be Christian before you can belong. And you can do that this morning. Talk with anyone in this building. The people in this building have been saved by Jesus. And they are willing and eager to talk to you about what it means to be saved and brought into this particular people. Okay? The people who belong to this church are people who have personally embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ, have been made holy by the handiwork of God himself, who have been made for good works.

In other words, we’ve been remade to live for God, to live for one another and to live for another world. And one of the ways that you can know that you’re saved, that you are indeed an authentic Christian is if you desire to be holy, set apart or called out from the world. If you desire to live for God, for another and for a world. Listen, if you love your sin so much that you are unwilling to turn from it, then principally your sin is your God. And that’s a serious problem. If you love this world more than you love this church, then friend, you are standing in a very dangerous place. If you do not love the people in this church, then you might need to do some self-examining to see if you are in fact a Christian. One of the basic ways to experience the blessed assurance of salvation is if you love God

and love his church. The church is made up of a particular people who’ve been called out of this world, saved by grace, who long to please him with holy living and with good works and love deeply the people of God. Again, not perfectly, but characteristically. God has taken these particular people out of the world and he has placed them together providentially. Part of the gospel’s work in our life is moving us not only from being spiritually dead, but spiritually alive, but also moving us positionally and spiritually into this strange thing, the church. In the entryway, the entrance into this strange thing called the church comes through saving faith in Jesus Christ. So you cannot be a member of the church, the spiritual community, if you do not possess the one who supernaturally places you into that community. So the gospel not only saves us as individuals, but then God takes those out of the world

Placed Together

and places them into this new community where he unites us corporately as the church. God’s work of salvation in its simplest form is God saving people and placing them into the church. That’s it. Acts 2 47 says, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. What number were they being added to? The church. God was saved people day and picking them up and putting them in the church. First Corinthians 12 27. Now you are the body of Christ. That’s one. And individually, you are members of that body of Christ, the church. Friends, this is important to hear in our radical individualistic culture. This me and Jesus world that we live in, where the vast majority of professing Christians say things like, yeah, I love you, but I hate church. Yeah, I have a relationship with Jesus, but I don’t have anything to do with those people.

Call themselves the church. Friends, listen, I know that the church is. That it’s flawed, has a lot of defects. The reason why the church is imperfect, because it’s filled with imperfect people like me. We make church imperfect, flawed and sinful. But just because it’s imperfect doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t identify with it. Listen, God laid his life down for who? Church. His bride. Brothers and sisters, the Bible knows nothing of a who is not part of each church. When you are saved. When you are genuinely saved, you are placed into the church. Now the church we are placed in, it has two expressions. A universal and a local expression. In other words, the universal church encompasses all believers, time, history, space. If you are a Christian, then you are a part of the universal church, right? So we have all these other churches in Portland, love Jesus.

We’re all part of that church, universal. But God’s design, God’s providential design to be connected and committed to a specific assembly of believers to live out the biblical realities and implications for why he’s placed them together in the first place. Now imagine taking all these sinful, flawed and different people with different perspectives, different beliefs and all into one expression in a local church. When we think about that from a human perspective, that sounds like a whole lot of drama and conflict. What a nightmare. A catastrophe. But in verses 11 through 19, we begin to see how it works, how being placed together into this local expression works. And it begins again with the work God had to do before placing us together. So let’s read Ephesians verses 11 through 19, Ephesians 2. Remember, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by

what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at one time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. So making peace. It might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility, and he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those

who were near. For through him, we both have access in one spirit to the father, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Paul begins this section again by reminding us of who we were and what at one time we were far off from God. And Paul has this repetition of reminding because, friends, part of our life together as a church.

Is remembering. Who you were. Who we once identified with. And who we are now. So much of our experience together is reminding brothers and sisters, you remember who we were. You remember what God did. What a wonderful God we serve. You remember the pit he pulled us out of. Praise be to God. The songs that we sing testify of who we once were, but who we are now.

We were once outsiders, but now we’re insiders. We were once hostile to God and each other, but through Jesus, we have been placed into a family and that is no insignificant thing. And just to help you better understand the significance of God placing a diverse people, but a particular people together, think about the reality of Jews and Gentiles being part of the same community. Historically, Jews and Gentiles. Did not get along. Ever there was no possible way these two groups of people would ever be seen together in the same place at the same time. And the reason why is because of all of their ethnic, religious, social and political differences. OK, imagine just a few years ago at the height of our political and ethnic tensions, covid masks, vaccines. You remember those days? Crazy. Think about the most radical conservative and the most progressive liberal living in

the same house in Portland, Oregon, doing life together, part of the same family. I imagine that would not go well. Now, that image, as divisive as it may seem, still does not give you an adequate picture of the hostility between Jews and Gentiles. They had nothing in common except for their hatred and hostility towards one another that they shared. But God, after saving both Jews and Gentiles, individuals, and the community and Gentiles individually converting both to Christianity, he places them together into this one new community. But in order for us to fully appreciate the beauty of tethering these two groups together, I think it’s important to understand why this was such a big deal to begin with. The first you have to understand the unique privileges God had given the Jews. Romans chapter nine, verses four and five, they are Israelites, meaning Jews, and to them

belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises to them belong the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all blessed forever. Amen. So the Jews were God’s chosen people and from their ethnic line came Jesus, the Messiah. But even though the Jews were entrusted with all of those wonderful privileges like the prophets, the promises and the law, many of the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah. And even in their rejection of Jesus, the son of God, many of the Jews viewed their religious privilege as a way of positioning themselves above every other ethnicity. So Jews in the first century had an excessive amount of ethnic pride because of their perceived proximity to God, his law, the prophets and promises. So in the mind of a first century Jew, there were the Jews, God’s chosen people, and then

there was everyone else. The Gentiles, in fact, that word Gentile means all other nations, which Gentiles, by the way, is us, we are Gentiles. So the Jews, though they were close to God in terms of the prophets, the promises and the law, they were far from God because of their rejection of Jesus. So in one sense, they were near, but they were still very far. And then Paul begins this section here by addressing the Gentiles that in every way at one time were as far as they could possibly be from God, because we didn’t know who God was as Gentiles. We had no religious framework. We had no access to the law or the prophets or the promises. Therefore, we were farther from God than the Jews, relatively speaking. In fact, at the end of verse 12 says something so sobering about the Gentiles. It says that they had no hope.

And we’re without God in the world. And family, this seems so relevant to our world today. We currently live in a world that seems completely hopeless, full of despair and disenchantment. I mean, without God, what kind of hope can this broken world offer? We, like the rest of the world, were without hope and without God in this world. But in first 13, there is this divine interruption says, but now God has all these kinds of but now, but God, they’re wonderful. So you get all this bad news that we were living without hope and without God, but then we get this good news. But God, but now Gentiles who were far from God have been brought near to God by the blood of Jesus. Those who were near to God, relatively speaking, but far have been brought near to God. And this nearness, friends, has a both vertical and horizontal reality.

Not only have we been brought near to God, but we’ve been brought near to each other. We who were once hostile towards God and each other, God has brought us peace and has stripped away the hostility we had towards God and towards each other. Think again about these two groups. Prior to the conversion of both Jews and Gentiles to Christianity, these two groups hated each other. The Jews hated the Gentiles so much that Jews referred to Gentiles as dogs, meaning subhuman, not human. And of course, the Gentiles, they treated the Jews the same way, often referencing them as enemies of the human race. There was a whole lot of beef between these two groups. There was a hatred barrier between them, but the wall of hatred, hostility and contempt that once divided these people because of Christ has been completely removed. And not just removed.

But they were now stitched together, grafted together even into this new community or to state it better, a new humanity. And listen, just so that we don’t get it twisted, it wasn’t that the Gentiles needed to be converted into the Jewish system. No, they both needed to be converted and brought into a new Christian society or community. This is why it says in verse 14 and 15, he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. So making peace. Both the Jews and Gentiles are now one new people, the church, and this one new people has access to the father through one indwelling Holy Spirit. Verse 19, and I love this, it says you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are

fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. In other words, you’re no longer identified as foreigners. But as a family. You often hear the statement that blood is thicker than water, making reference to family relationships, somehow being stronger than your friendships, and that can be true for some. But what is absolutely true for all Christians is that Jesus’s blood forges a bond that is thicker than all other relationships outside of the church, whether their friendships or family, because God has placed us into a new spiritual family of God and that new family has an eternal reality associated with it. Listen, our church family, we will be together forever. Forever in a renovated world with no sin and no conflict with God himself. And it’s in this in-between time that God has provided and established through his cross this necessary supernatural unity between these different but particular people.

And brothers and sisters, this is precisely what God has done for us. A people who once had nothing in common with each other, but now have the most significant thing in common, Christ Jesus himself. And here you begin to see one of God’s wonderful purposes for placing these different but particular people together, the display of supernatural unity. Friends, this is God’s purpose for placing us together as a church to supernaturally showcase the unity of all kinds of people in the church. And the reason God desires to showcase this unity in the church is because it testifies of the supernatural saving power of the gospel. I mean, what else in this world could unify such a different group of strangers and aliens and make them family? Nothing, nothing but the blood of Jesus could break down walls that divided us because of our differences and our obstinate preferences.

Family, just look around. I’m serious, look around you. There is a whole lot of difference in this congregation. And this supernatural unity that God has done here is made clear in Ephesians 3 chapters 8 or verses 8 and 10, where Paul says at one time, Paul references that at one time he was the most expressive and prideful Jew, a former separatist and terrorist. Listen to what he says about this supernatural unity. This supernatural unity, he says to me, though I am the very least of all the saints because he was a separatist and a terrorist, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles, those he previously hated. The unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone, what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the

heavenly places. Brothers and sisters, the primary purpose for the unity of the church is for the mystery of God’s glory to be made known to the world. The glory of the invisible God made visible to a watching world, that’s why God has providentially placed all of us together and why he showcases our unity, because when the world peers in on these people, on the people of God and sees all of our differences, but how our differences are eclipsed by the unity that we share with one another, they will have no choice but to attribute that unity to something that is beyond this world, something that is supernatural. Jesus and his gospel. The one who created and curated the unity of the church with his own blood. The Bible says that they will know us by our love.

Supernatural Unity

That love is most explicitly expressed in the church by our love for God and our love for one another, and the most visible showcasing of that love is in our supernatural unity. Unity. The world in all of its marches for unity, the world in all of its strategies with all of its social campaigns, all of its technological connectedness cannot in any meaningful or lasting way unify people the way the gospel unifies the church. Our unity is so strange, so countercultural that it screams the power of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was thinking about this morning. In terms of my relationship with Pastor Greg. I love Greg. I love you, brother.

I really, really love this man. I have grown to love him. That, humanly speaking, makes no sense. I mean that affectionately. I mean, even down to the kinds of coffee we drink, right, you have to understand that when Greg and I met, I was a rapper and he was a soup salesman. I don’t know if it gets any more different than that. Now, listen, Greg has got to be one of the coolest people I know. But when I met him, I didn’t know that.

If we just met at some random place outside of the church, maybe like an airport, we might exchange some, you know, pleasantries like, hey, enjoy your flight. I like your boots. We have that in common, boots, right? But I wouldn’t be able to appreciate all the wonderful things about Greg. And I think in the same way, Greg wouldn’t really appreciate all the unique and strange things about me. OK, we wouldn’t have a meaningful friendship, but because he’s so special to me, because of Jesus and how he providentially placed us into the same church, I have found in Greg.

The most profound brother, friend and pastor. What’s crazy is that it’s all because of Jesus, we now have all of these things in common and more in common with Greg today than I ever thought I would be. And that’s because in the unity that God has established between Greg and I, we have grown to learn from each other. We have shared our opinions and our differences and our problems with open hands, believing the best in each other. Because Greg and I have worked really hard to cultivate the beauty of our unity. And that is something, friends, that the world wishes they could do. But can never accomplish. Because it’s only something that God can do. This is why, brothers and sisters, God calls us to fight for the unity that we have in that church, in this church. The unity that was purchased by his own blood.

This is why God gives so many warnings in his word about causing disunity or sowing discord among the church. Against gossiping and slandering brothers and sisters in the church, because those things ultimately fracture our unity. It seeks to undo sinfully what God has done supernaturally for the church. It breaks God’s intended image and purpose for the church’s unity. I mean, God cares so much about the church’s unity that he says in Titus 310, for as a person or persons who stir up division, that means disunity after warning him or her once and then twice have nothing to do with them. In other words, you are to take that person or persons who are actively working against the supernatural unity of the church and remove them from the church so as to prevent the unity of the church from getting broken.

Friends, that’s how serious God takes it. He gave his life to purchase the unity of the church. So we should be very careful with how we curate and keep the unity that he purchased. We should give our everything to preserve this unity because God gave everything for it. And listen, let me be clear. God’s design for our church is not to become some culturally homogenistic congregation or to become uniform or build something that is built on sameness or preference. No, that’s not it. It is to display the supernatural unity through our differences. And when we do that, well, this points people to the power of God and his gospel. So, friends, let me ask you this morning. What kind of community are you seeking here? What are you trying to cultivate in this community? What are you aiming to shape? What is it that connects you to the people in this church?

What is your desired outcome as a member of this church? Are you connected to this church simply because of similar life experiences, maybe a shared political indifference? Are you part of this church because there’s people in this church that are your age or in your specific season of life? In other words, are you connected with this church community because of sameness of preference? Are you seeking to be unified by the style of worship or the style of teaching? What I’m trying to ask you, friend, is are you aiming to create a community experience in this church that would exist if Jesus did not? If you are, you are missing the whole point of church. Anyone can build a church on superficial sameness. But when they do that, they miss the point. If you are not trying to find common ground and ways to build up the unity of the church, you are failing.

And that common ground, friends, is Christ and his gospel. And if you’re trying to build the church on anything else, you are standing in opposition to God’s purposes for the church. Now, listen, having shared interests and similar preferences, those are good things. I’m not saying to not have those things. I’m saying to not build a church on those things because that’s not why God has placed us together. Brothers and sisters, he’s placed us, joined us together in this specific church to worship and glorify God through the display of supernatural unity. Showcasing the beauty of those who were once hostile and divided, but have now been brought near by the blood of Jesus. And this needs to shape the way you see yourself in this church. This is how you ought to see your life in this church. As a unity shaper. So then, how might we express our unity as a church?

I’ll just give you some practical ways that we do it here. Through our worship. Exercise unity in our worship. In the singing of songs of praise and adoration. Through shared encouragement of the scriptures. Speaking the word to one another. Agreeing as we hear the word preached to one another. Taking the words that we hear and we share and pushing it into our life. Confessing our sins to one another. Particularly those sins that have sought to fracture the unity of the church. Declaring to one another who we once were and who we are now. Reminding each other of the unique benefits that we share because of a benevolent benefactor. Friends, if you don’t know this. One of the reasons we gather together and turn on the house lights. And not black out the sanctuary like a lot of churches tend to do. Is because we want you to see one another.

We want you to look around and observe the different people in this group. And see how God has supernaturally united us. You know friends, there are times when you might think I look weird. But when we’re singing, I actually turn around and I look at you. I watch the way you are singing to one another. Because it helps me to remember what God has done in his unifying of this church. And I would encourage you to do the same. If you feel comfortable. Right? At least a few times. Just look at what God has done. One of the reasons why we turn the music down. Is so that you guys can hear each other singing songs. So that you can participate in one voice. Declaring praise and adoration to the God we came to worship. Right? So you should sing together beautifully. Even if you can’t sing on key.

Sing loudly. The rest of us who can sing on key will sing louder for you. But there is something very sweet about singing songs together. Where else does that happen? Where else does a completely diverse and different group of people come together and sing songs together? Raise hands in singing together. In worship. It just doesn’t happen. Okay? This is why friends there is a meerness and a simplicity to our life together. So that we don’t cater to one specific demographic of people who are centered around sameness. Okay? Instead we aim in our worship to put the beauty of our unity on display. For a watching world who is so consumed with tribalism, individualism and cancel culture. I was just sitting on Sam’s deck the other day with a few pastors and a couple members of the church. And I was just saying to myself. Imagine if our church sang songs so loudly that the neighborhood was hearing us sing together.

Living in Unity

You realize what kind of testimony that is to the unity that we share in Jesus Christ? Think about that when we sing songs together. Crush the decibels so that people in the neighborhood are like, what is going on? Okay? We want to be so unified that it becomes an invitation to the mystery of God and his gospel. And that happens when we gather together in a loving family in unity. The unity of the church is not merely a human endeavor made with human hands or a human ingenuity. But a supernatural reality brought about by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. So some things to think about as we do life together in the place that God has providentially placed us. And I mean this as an encouragement and a bit of correction. Are you unintentionally building up walls of hostility that God has given his life to break down?

Some ways that you might be practically doing that and unintentionally maybe. There could be many, but perhaps it could be only engaging with those in the church that look like you and think like you. If you segment people in the church because of sameness, you will be missing out on building supernatural unity. Or maybe only engaging with those in the church that naturally fall into your social circle or aesthetic. And you know what I mean by that. Maybe grouping yourself ethnically to exclude those outside your ethnicity. Because maybe you just feel a bit more comfortable doing that. Or even doing the reverse of that. Isolating yourself from the rest of the community because you feel like a minority in this community. And it feels safe for you to do that. Maybe self-segregating based on season of life. Like you only want to connect with singles?

Or you only want to connect with young families? Or older saints? Folks, you need to be mixing that up. That’s how we put the unity of our church on display. Maybe judging the motives of other members without cause. Do you make it a pattern to slander people under the guise of prayer and inquiry? Maybe taking your political cues and cultural cues and then pushing them on your brothers and sisters? Family, I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but we’re headed to another presidential election. And our city is going to go crazy no matter what the outcome is. It’s unavoidable. And if you don’t fight for the unity of this church, no matter what the outcome is, we will lose the wonderful privilege of putting our unity on display for a divisive and fractured world. We had to work so hard to get through this some four years ago.

Let’s not do that again. Be cautious for how you post on your social media. Think to yourself, man, is this opinion going to help? Or is this going to hurt the unity of the church? And if it’s going to hurt, don’t do it. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it. If we don’t fight to preserve the unity in this church, no matter what the outcome is, the people in our world will look to us and think the power of the gospel was insufficient to carry them through something as insignificant as an election cycle. May that not be the case with us, friends. I’m not telling you that you can’t have a political leaning. You can’t have particular political views. I’m saying don’t impose those political views on the people of God. Stand for something greater. God lords over the policies of our world. So I might encourage you, brothers and sisters, in the end here,

be aggressive in praying for our unity, not just because there’s an election cycle coming up, but because we need to pray for our unity on a regular basis. Be fighting your personal preferences when you engage in this church for the sake of the unity of the other members of this church. Be aggressive at encouraging one another in love to persevere and to preserve the unity of this church so that the glory of the invisible God might be made visible to a watching and divided world. This is why he’s brought us together at Trinity Church of Portland. Let’s let our light shine to a watching and divided world. Amen? Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we, on our own, were dead. But you saved us. And you brought us into the church. And you are using the church to display your glory. I pray, God, that you would help us to take that seriously.

I pray, God, that you would keep us from the various expressions of sin that would seek to harm what you bought with your own blood. I pray, God, that you would, by the Holy Spirit, continue to sanctify your church, knitting us together in the bonds of peace so that we can love each other well, so that we can be effective in our evangelistic efforts, so that when people enter the doors of these churches, they would think to themselves, what else could unify these people outside of the gospel they proclaim, outside of the God they love and serve? God, help us to take it that seriously. May you grow us as a church in maturity and in unity. We beg of you, in Christ’s name. Amen.