July 12, 2026 | The Unity Of The Spirit

Many years ago, I read a book called Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard.

Talked about how we have been reconciled with the Father.

We can change the way that we act toward one another.

Jesus can change messed up people, sinful sinners, and our character and Christ-likeness on a daily basis.

But he puts his finger on the main issue that we have in relationships.

And he says this almost all the evil that human beings commit against one another can be summed up by the terms assault and withdrawal.

Most of the main issues we have with people is assault and withdrawal.

I mean, assaulting others is when we bring them harm and not good.

Through murder, adultery, stealing, lying, slandering, seducing, berating, oppressing, deceiving, fits of rage and anger in a variety of other ways.

We attack other people or they attack us.

Assaulting.

Withdrawing is another form of evil because it communicates to them that we don't care, we don't and they don't matter.

It's an absence of love, a cold heart toward them, a general shutting down, a shutting off of the other person.

So here's the idea: assault is I will hurt you.

Withdrawing is you don't matter enough for me to even bother.

You can think about kids with their parents saying, I hate you, and then running to their room for several hours.

And some of your kids have done that for months.

And some of your kids have done that for years.

You see this assaulting and withdrawing in marriage.

You see the bickering and fighting and then the withdrawing into a silent treatment.

You've seen this assault and withdrawal.

This is nothing new to you.

You know this is a way that conflicts are in a variety of your relationships.

And then you take all that, you throw everybody into one church, and what happens?

A lot of assaulting and withdrawing.

That's where conflict happens within a church.

Tom Raynor wrote this book.

He's a researcher.

He wrote about the an autopsy of a deceased church.

When he went around talking to churches that have failed and closed and did an autopsy on them, and he found that a lot of the issues were assaulting and withdrawing.

Things like fighting over preferences, nursing grudges, freezing one another out.

We think that churches closed because they have forces that come against them externally.

No.

Churches closed for internal issues that look a lot like assault and withdrawal.

Now you know this is not the way things are supposed to be within the body of Christ.

This you know this is not the way that believers are supposed to act toward one another.

We're called to serve one another in love.

If we've truly been reconciled to the Father, it will show up in your relationships with other people.

Let's look at it this morning, Ephesians 4.

Go ahead and turn to Ephesians 4 if you haven't already.

What we have is the first three chapters talking about how we've been reconciled to the Father.

We've been redeemed, the Holy Spirit is in us.

We have this new community of Jews and Gentiles together.

And now we come to Ephesians 4 of Live It Out.

I just want to tell you, my Christian life, I don't know about yours, my Christian life would be so much easier if I didn't have to deal with other people.

Willn't you don't you agree?

Oh my goodness.

Put me on an island by myself.

But we got to live with other people and love other people.

So what does that look like?

Well, let's look at it, Ephesians 4, starting with verse 1.

Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called.

If you've been called in the sense that you've been saved, the Holy Spirit is living in you, you are now to walk in a manner worthy.

Now, that idea of worthy is the idea of scales.

Okay, get this.

If you've been saved, you want to live a life that is in line with being saved.

You don't want to be out of whack, right?

You can just think of someone who's a worthy opponent, all right?

Or someone who's worthy of their wages.

You keep the scales intact.

But if we're not loving other people, if we're not serving other people, then the scales get out of whack.

We're not living in line, being worthy of our calling.

So let's get very specific.

And we're going to get so specific today, it may be a little uncomfortable, but let's get very specific on how we are to love and serve one another that's worthy of the calling to which we've been called.

All right.

Let's do it.

Look at verse two.

With all humility and gentleness with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love.

Okay, let's take it one by one.

Let's start with humility.

Anybody humble in here?

You don't want to myth that, right?

But we're called to be humble.

Show humility toward one another, which means that I pull back from my preferences and to serve you.

I consider you better than myself.

I I put you first.

And now you you know this, and you think about humility, you're like, well, what about my desires?

Where does my preferences come into play?

And one time I was getting kind of frustrated with life and with people that I got alone with the Lord and, like, you know, Lord, people are just getting in the way of the way I want to live.

I have desires and preferences.

And so I made a mental list of a top 10 of things that I want.

And it was during a period of time where I wasn't sleeping very well, and I was thinking, Lord, I prefer my children not to get up in the middle of the night.

A preference, a desire.

I desired a church to do what I want it to do, a preference, a desire.

And so we can list the things that we want to happen, we wish would happen, and if they do not happen, it's okay.

Because what is more important than getting our way, serving one another with humility, putting them first.

Did you know God is more interested in you serving others than with you getting your way?

God is more interested in the way you treat others in humility than everything working out just the way you want it in life.

That's more important.

So we have this humility, and what's interesting that God humbled himself, took on the form of the serpent, all the way to the cross, right?

So each each little thing we talk about today, we can say Jesus humbled himself to save you.

Now you in turn humble yourselves to serve others.

Look at the second one.

The second with all humility and gentleness, that's another characteristic that that Jesus shows towards us.

He has been gentle with us.

He's gentle and lowly, humble in heart.

We we cast our cares on him.

And and this is this is a way that he's treated us, and now we're to treat others the same way.

And you may say, yeah, but you know what?

People are difficult.

And and you want me to be gentle with them?

What they need is this is just me to get in their face and to pounce on them?

Yeah, that's exactly the way Jesus does with you, right?

He gets in your face and then he pounces on you.

No, you're to show the gentleness to others that Jesus has shown to you.

My wife does something very interesting because she cares about the way human beings interact with one another.

Okay, I mean, I don't know if you you have a wife like this, but this is the way things usually go.

I'm not kidding.

I don't I don't even know if she knows she does this.

She's not here today, so I can talk about her.

Let's say I go to the doctor and I go to a new doctor, or I go to a new dentist, I get home, and she says, How did I go to the doctor?

I said, It went just fine.

And she says this.

She asks the question always, Were they nice?

Okay, let's just say I go to McDonald's and I'm and I'm getting an order inside, and I come out to the car and I say, Oh, I'm sorry that took so long.

I was they got the order wrong.

I didn't do this, and she'll say, Oh, I'm glad you're here.

Were they nice?

I can go get the car fixed at the auto mechanic, and I can come home and say, Man, that was so expensive.

The car was just busted up, and boy, they that was so expensive.

And she would ask, That's great, it's great.

Were they nice?

I don't know if they were nice or not.

I'm there just for a simple transaction.

I don't care about their reaction.

And yet, that's really the point, right?

I think my wife may be saying, Were you nice?

It's more than just the transaction, it's also our reaction.

And all relationships from the simple McDonald's run all the way to the church, where we want to be gentle.

Now, I don't know if you notice this, but look at verse two again.

It says, with all, it'd be great to circle that word, it says, with all humility and gentleness.

The NIV says, completely humble and gentle, which means these should be the all-consuming characteristics of your life where you are humble and gentle.

Humble and gentle.

Will that describe your life?

Oh, you gotta admit, that's that's really hard.

It is really hard.

One of the things that's a bummer about being a pastor is that for whatever reason, if there is personal conflict or interpersonal conflict within the church, people feel like they just need to tell me.

I do not know why.

But I somehow it makes it up to me like I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that.

But people have, yes, even in our church, have personal conflicts with one another.

It can be over silly things, it can be over big things.

And I just want to make a new rule here this morning.

If you have conflict with someone else in this church, then you go to your corner, they go to their corner, and just stay away from each other.

That's probably not the best thing, right?

But here's what it looks like in my house, right?

I have two kids living at home right now, and they they they they're always on electronics.

I'm such a terrible parent, but they are on their uh their phones, they're on their iPad, PS5, VR, and I just get so frustrated.

I say, you guys do something.

Go outside, play with each other, get off electronics.

And so they get off electronics and they start playing each other and they start arguing, they start fighting, and they're getting loud, and I get so frustrated.

I go out there, I'll say, get back on electronics, just get back on it.

I don't care.

You go here, you go there.

Now, of course, I don't I don't mean that, and I don't mean it for you.

I really want to not deal with conflict, and I want you to not to deal with it either.

But when we do, don't go to your corners with all humility and all gentleness, interact with one another in a very humble and gentle way.

He keeps compounding the words here.

If you look at verse two again, he says, with all humility and gentleness, with patience.

Patience.

That's a characteristic worthy of the calling of the body of Christ.

You are to exhibit patience with people who aggravate you.

Sometimes you'll be trying to help and encourage one someone and they keep doing the same thing over and over again.

I mean, I d does it is it hard for you to have patience with someone you're trying to help that keeps doing the same dumb thing over and over and over again.

Yeah.

But guess who does that with you?

The Lord.

He is very patient with you.

And the patience he exhibits to you when you keep doing the same dumb thing over and over and over again, he wants you to exhibit that same patience toward others.

Look at the end of verse 2.

It says, showing tolerance for one another in love.

Now, I want you to make me very clear here.

This expression is more than just putting up with one another.

If you're just putting up with someone else, you are going to get kind of resentful, kind of bitter over time.

Well, you're just putting up with their issues, their annoying habits.

And if you're just tolerating them, you will find resentment growing.

And I will find as I'm getting older, uh, maybe this is your reality too.

My tolerance for people's issues and antics and habits, I'm getting less and less tolerant.

How about you?

Because just tolerating people is that's not that's not the big picture, it's not just a passive thing.

Because look at the verse again.

It says showing tolerance for one another.

Here it is.

In love.

So it's not just putting out with people, it's loving people.

It's not just listening to people tell you the same story over and over again, but it's asking to hear another one.

It's tolerating people in love, which is very active.

Now, what we have in the rest of the verses here is pretty amazing because it's going to be talking about something I want to call like the seven ones, where he's gonna list one several times on how we are to be unified.

Look at verse three.

Being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

So here we go.

There's one body, one spirit, just you were called to one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who's over all and through all and in all.

We have these ones.

We are to be one, united as a body of Christ.

And we're not to here to um preserve or create this unity of the spirit that's already been created for us.

We are to be aggressive and maintaining this unity that we already have in Christ.

Now, get this.

Most of the conflicts that happen within churches are conflicts because people can't distinguish issues that are of ultimate purpose from issues that are just sort of important.

So I'm gonna throw it to you this way, and after today, there'll be no more conflicts in our church.

We are not talking about a unity at all cost where people compromise on essential beliefs and practices.

I'm gonna talk to you about something called closed-handed issues and open-handed issues.

And I want you to know that this church stands on a phrase that we use over and over again: in essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things love.

Here's what this means.

We will not compromise on issues that are essential, which we have in what we call the closed hand.

We will not debate these, we will not form a committee about this, we will not let go of the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

We will not let go of Jesus Christ being the only way to heaven.

We hold on with a close hand that there is a real heaven and a real hell.

We believe the Bible is the word of God, not up for debate.

We believe marriage is between one man and one woman.

We're not going to discuss that.

Form a committee about it.

These are all closed-handed issues that within the body of Christ, we will fight you over these and we will die for these.

All right?

Okay.

So far, so good.

These are closed-handed issues.

But then we have open-handed issues where we need to have unity, even though we can disagree.

Does it mean open-handed?

Doesn't mean these are not important issues.

But these are not things we're gonna fight and die over.

Here are some of the examples.

Styles of music.

Should we do liturgy?

Should we say the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer every Sunday?

How many times should we do communion?

Eschatology.

Eschatology is important.

We have a specific eschatological position here at our church.

You don't even know what I'm talking about, that's okay.

But different churches can disagree, and we'll start unity and community with them.

Modes, baptism, right?

We believe in immersion.

Some believe you can baptize babies.

We're not going to never talk to those again, but open-handed issue.

Sign gifts, charismatic gifts, speaking in tongues, not speaking in tongues, open-handed.

Calvinism, Armenianism, open-handed.

Doesn't think these doesn't mean these things are not important, but these are open-handed.

You know, you get what I'm saying.

Most of the conflict that happens in the church is not over these issues.

And it's over these issues.

Because people treat these open-handed issues like they're these issues, and when you treat open-handed issues like these issues, boom.

You're arguing over things that yes are important, but you're treating them as ultimate and you're destroying unity.

All of us have preferences, just admit it.

But we don't want to divide over those preferences, even though they may be important.

And that's where the seven ones come into play here.

Look at them again.

One body.

It's the body of Christ, the church.

One spirit, the Holy Spirit, one hope.

We're gonna live forever with Jesus, one Lord, that is Jesus.

So we have the Holy Spirit, we have Jesus, one faith, one baptism.

Get to be talking about, you know, literal baptism.

We're gonna be talking about baptized into Christ, one God and Father of all, who's over all and through all and in all.

It's it's amazing.

We have we have the Spirit, we have Jesus, we have the Father, we have the Trinity.

And what he's getting at here is get caught up in the Trinity, the unity of the Trinity, and show that same unity among yourselves.

That oneness that we have as the body of Christ should make us deal with one another in patience, humility, gentleness, tolerating one another in love, and it should make me bend over backwards to serve you, and you to bend over backwards to serve me.

Now, I want to tell you a true story.

I'm not making this up.

This is something that has happened.

It was a pretty cool story, perhaps you know about it.

It happened in Massachusetts.

Uh, it's about this uh little girl.

This little girl was born deaf.

And as she grew up, she started running around the neighborhood, this little toddler, and the neighbors were like, She can't hear us.

How do we interact with her?

We can't talk to her.

And so 20 of them, and this is not making this up, 20 of them, it eventually grew to 40.

20 of them, what they did, they hired an instructor to come to their house and teach them sign language so they can communicate with this little girl.

Bending over backwards to learn sign language as much as they can, to show love and to communicate with this little girl.

Can you imagine the how much that meant for the family, to the parents?

And I don't know who's believers in there or not believers.

I mean, they don't they probably don't have the one body, one spirit, one father of us all.

They none of that.

But we do.

And I think we are to bend over backwards to serve one another.

And to love one another, and that takes time, that takes effort, that takes Holy Spirit power.

And so I leave you with this assault and withdrawal.

And I just want to say up front, some of you may be in a relationship right now where that assaulting against you, and I know some of you, it's crossed the line years ago.

That that person may be dead who did that to you, but you're still healing from that.

And but some of you may be in that relationship right now where that assaulting is really just cross the line.

Maybe the authorities didn't get involved.

Come talk to the pastors or the elders.

We're not just saying, well, just put up with that.

Yeah, they're beating you, just put up with that.

No, we're not saying that at all.

But for most of us, it doesn't cross the line like that.

It is that daily grind of a salting withdrawal that others have done to us, and we need to respond with love and gentleness and patience.

But there are some of you, you're dishing it out.

That's all you know.

That's the way your parents raise you.

They have these fits of rage.

Everybody goes to their corners, they don't talk to each other for a few days, and that's the that's the pattern you have all the way into your retirement years.

It's probably a good idea to deal with that, don't you think?

It's probably a good idea to say, you know what?

This pattern I have of resolve and withdrawal, that's that's not Christ-like.

That's not what Jesus wants.

And start to deal with that and deal with it in the community.

And there may be instances where you need to ask other people to forgive you.

Pick up that phone.

See, I was really convicted in church today.

I have this pattern in my life, I've been doing this to you.

I'm so sorry.

Will you forgive me?

I believe if there are some of you in here that if you humble yourselves and come before someone else in repentance, you will see a fractured relationship restored.

Even a relationship that hasn't worked out for you in years.

And I just I and you may miss may seem unrelated, but I just want to tell you something.

I want to tell you this.

God is in the business of restoring relationships that have been broken.

I just want to give you some hope that in my own life, it's it's way too complicated to explain, and it may be a little bit out of context here, but I I have seven kids, and there's there's there's one son who I haven't seen in four years.

And it can be very it can be complicated to explain.

He is being cared for in a mental health place, and by God's providence and orchestration and sovereignty, I we'll see.

I'm supposed to see him Tuesday for the first time in four years.

I'm just telling you that because you may think that relationships are over for whatever reason, maybe not.

Maybe God's got a plan and it involves you being humble, gentle, admitting you're wrong, and ask for forgiveness and see what happens.

Because that is the way that God treats you.

I think a good way to end here is to pray for those relationships.

If you want to pray with me, let's let's go ahead and go to the Lord in prayer.

I mean, some of us need to just uh, Lord, we need to we need to repent.

We're like, wow, we have this pattern in our life of just going off on people and then just shutting people out, shutting down.

That's just what we do.

Lord, break that cycle in our life by saying that's not the way that you treat us.

You're patient with us, you're gentle with us.

You show much, so much humility toward us, you tolerate us in love.

You don't just put up with us, you you work good for us.

So, Lord, help us to let you change our heart, renovate our heart through the gospel, through Jesus, so that we can love others in the same way.

And I Lord, I just pray for the the person in here who has a relationship that is just tanked over the years, and whether they need to figure out who's at fault or not at fault, may they just humble themselves.

Humble themselves and approach the other person with gentleness, with patience, and it may seem impossible, it may seem like this is not gonna work.

Give them boldness, give them strength, not to let this conviction they feel now pass by three o'clock today and be gone.

May they act quickly on this conviction, even now, even they're just texting someone.

I mean, just act as fast as they can to reach out to someone where there's this fracture relationship that seems impossible.

But Lord, you take impossible situations and you make them possible because you did it with us.

Thank you, Jesus.

In your name we pray, amen.