Ephesians 4:4-6 - The Ground of Unity

Todaywe're looking at Ephesians 4:4-6. Yesterday we talked about the grace of unityin verses 1-3. This is a unity in the church among the members that aredisplayed in our humility, our gentleness, our longsuffering, our bearing withone another, and which we continually endeavor to keep so that the world aroundus sees our love for one another, and most of all, the great love of God forthe world through Christ and His cross. Butmy friend, we are not to compromise our foundational beliefs to experience thisunity. There are so many churches and people today that attempt to uniteChristians in a way that is not biblical. They say things like, "We're notreally interested in doctrine, but in love. Let's just love one another. Let'sset aside what we believe just love one another." My friend, that'scompromise. We cannot compromise the essentials of the faith, the foundationsof the faith. Pauldid not discuss spiritual unity in the first three chapters; he waited until hehad laid the doctrinal foundation. While not all Christians agree on some minormatters of Christian doctrine, they all do agree on the foundation truths ofthe faith. Unity built on anything other than Bible truth is standing on a veryshaky foundation. Now in verses 4-6, Paul names at least seven basic spiritualrealities that unite all true Christians. Didyou notice one word that got repeated over again? “One..”. Why? Paulis making it really clear there is a foundation, a ground for our unity. Thereis a ground for our faith that we must realize we cannot compromise. So, inessentials we have unity. In non-essentials we have liberty. But in all of ourbeliefs we have charity. We can still have truth in love. Even when we disagreeon a foundational doctrinal truth with someone else, we can still love themhopefully they can still love us.  Butwe cannot compromise the foundations of our faith which basically is JesusChrist was born of a virgin. Jesus lived a sinless life. Jesus died a vicariousdeath, a substitutionary death on the cross of Calvary. He was buried. He roseagain physically on the third day. And He ever lives to make intercession forus. There's only one way of salvation that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Churchmembership doesn't save you. Works does not save you. Just getting baptized andgetting wet doesn't save you. Only faith in Christ, believing, putting yourhope and trust in His salvation through the cross through His resurrectionpower is what saves us from the guilt and penalty of our sin. These are thefoundational truths. They cannot be compromised.  Inverse 4, Paul points out that there is “one body. Paul is speaking aboutthe one body of Christ in which every believer is a member. We find this in 1Corinthians 12:13: Ofcourse, this is the body of Christ, which is His church. Romans 6:3 teaches us that we should know: “we were baptized into the bodyof Christ”. This means that we were placed into Jesus Christ at the momentof our salvation! We are in one body in Christ. This is a spiritual realitythat we need to contemplate, think about, meditate on, believe with all of ourheart. Interestingly,every Tuesday morning at 8:30, at a local church here in Sneads Ferry NC, Imeet with a group of pastors from various denominations. For a fact, we do notagree on every specific area of church practices and beliefs when it comes tocertain ideas about tongues, about predestination, the particulars on the returnof Christ, music or whatever. But I assure you, that we all agree on theessentials of the foundation of faith. These men love one another. They prayfor one another. They love the people of God. They love the community we livein, and missions. In the four years I’ve been praying with them we are seeingand experiencing God do phenomenal things in our community because we arepraying in one accord. Despite the different names and denominations we are “onein Christ”.