WE ARE UNITED
"There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."
Ephesians 4:4-6
Ephesians 4:4-6
Message begins at approx the 35 min mark
I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians 4. We are returning once again to verses 4-6 and will be wrapping up this little mini-series we’ve been doing on the nature of the church.
In the opening of this chapter we were called to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. And we have been seeing that part of a worthy walk is the ability to walk together. We’ve been talking about church unity and how godly character will translate into church unity.
What kind of characteristics will define a worthy walk and foster church unity? Those were laid out for us in verse 2. They were humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance.
To press home the importance of those traits, Paul has been talking about our oneness. We’ve seen that we are one body and that we have one hope. Today we will tackle the rest of the unifying traits in verses 4-6.
"There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."
Let's pray...
__________________________________________
Whenever I do pre-marital counseling I have a certain order in which I tackle the subjects. I always start with what the book of Genesis says about marriage. In that first session I emphasize the fact that Scripture says that the couple will “become one flesh.” And I will often say that this couple needs to realize that this concept must govern their lives.
You see, once you get married, things tend to change. Satan will be working double time to attack your relationship. He wants nothing else than to take down your marriage. And couples sometimes find that there are a lot of problems that they didn’t have prior to being married. And the couple has to recognize this: They are one. They are united.
At times they may feel alienated from each other. There may be times when they may want to not speak to one another and maybe go their separate ways. But this reality needs to hold weight with them: They are one. They must work to nurture the relationship, they must settle their problems, they must be self sacrificial in their life because there is a radical union that characterizes their relationship.
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been seeing much of the same sort of thing here in regards to our fellowship as believers. We’ve been talking about the radical oneness that belongs to us as God’s church. And this oneness should impact how we go about interacting with one another. Because of this union we have, it should infiltrate our daily interactions.
So far we’ve seen that we are one body and we have one hope. This morning I want to look at the other points which Paul makes in verses 4-6. And we can do so under 3 headings. We can think of it like this: We as a church should be united because of the God that we worship, because of the faith that we hold, and because of the baptism that we have received.
Throughout our study of Ephesians we’ve noted that there have been various points where Paul has mentioned each of the three persons of the Trinity. This is just another example of how he likes to slip it in here and there. You’ll notice that the passage mentions the fact that there is one Spirit (v4), one Lord (v5 i.e. Jesus), and one God and Father of all (v6). So Paul is emphasizing the God we worship and how his nature should affect our unity.
I. The God we Worship
Of course, we believe in one God. Christianity is a strictly monotheistic religion. But, as Paul has emphasized repeatedly, this one God exists in three equal and eternal persons. Paul puts the emphasis on the fact that there is one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father of all.
What is he doing here? He’s emphasizing that we have unity. We are united because we all believe in one Spirit. There is not one Spirit for you and a different Spirit for me. There is not one Jesus that saves you and another Jesus that saves me. The same Spirit that lives in you is the same Spirit that is in me. The same Jesus that died and rose to give you hope is the same Jesus who died and rose to give me hope.
This is what I love about our church when we recite one of the historic Creeds of the faith. When we stand and recite the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed, there’s something about that that unites us to the broader church. It unites us to the church all around the world and the church that has existed all through history.
Every time I say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,” I think about how many other people in different parts of the world have said those words. I get chills to think that these are the same words that were recited by Christian people in the 8th century and earlier.
When we recite those creeds we are signifying our unity with the historic, world-wide church of God. We are all confessing that this is our God. This is our Savior. This is the Spirit who is actively working among us now.
Now, granted, there can be a lot of diversity that still exists in the church. There are different views on certain aspects of theology. When it comes to the way the Spirit works, I am going to have some views that are rather different from my Pentecostal friends. When it comes to God’s decrees and how they work out, I’m going to have some variance with my Arminian brothers and sisters. My Lutheran friends have some different views as to what Jesus in his present ascended state at the right hand of the Father is like.
But you will understand that all of us still recognize the same Spirit, the same Son, and the same Spirit. We might have some differences here and there, but when it comes to the nature of God and who it is we worship, there is most definitely common ground. We all stand together there.
And this is something that should allow us to disagree amiably. We should be able to temper our theological discussions and show some of that forbearance that we spoke of in previous messages.
I mention this because there may be a time when some of you are pulled away from our church here. You may be called to move to another part of the county and you may have to find another church. And there may not be a church that fits your particular brand. It may be that the only solidly evangelical church that is within range of your home is a Missouri Lutheran church or a Pentecostal church.
For some of you, you might think that the Missouri Lutheran church is a little too stuffy. Some of you might that a Pentecostal church is a little too flamboyant for your taste. And so you might be tempted to just not go to worship on a given Sunday.
But I hope that what is said here will put things in better perspective for you. I hope that the fact that this God is present in that church. The fact that this God is recognized by these other believers will (hopefully) motivate you to do your best to commune with them.
Yes, you may have to hold your nose at certain things. You might have to grit your teeth at times and show some tolerance. But hopefully you can be thankful that there is at least one church in your area where God is worshiped.
I think there are too many people (too many Christian people) who put more emphasis on their particulars, rather than on the primary things. And that leads them to break fellowship. It becomes an occasion for schism.
But let us remember that God is God. And if someone worships this God, we should hold their fellowship as a sacred bond.
The second thing that Paul mentions, as the occasion of our unity, is the faith we hold.
II. The Faith we Hold
There in verse 5 he says, “[There is] one Lord [and] one faith.”
Now, we could speak of faith in the sense in which we already have. There is one faith in that there is one body of truth that we confess as Christians. In other words, we sometimes talk about faith in terms of doctrine. We can talk about “the faith,” or “the faith that Christians hold.” And so we could repeat what we said about the creeds & such.
But I think that Paul’s words here might be better understood as “the act of believing.” This is what we have in common. All of us who are Christians are actively trusting in Christ and believing in the Christian God.
In other words, this has to do with the nature of saving faith. Saving faith, it has been said, consists of three things: 1) knowledge - there are certain things you must believe to be a Christian. 2) Assent - you have not only to know those doctrines, but you have to recognize them to be true. 3) Trust - there must be a giving of oneself over to these things; one must put your faith in Christ and truly receive it as your own.
Perhaps you know the age old illustrations of this. If you are drowning, someone will throw you a life preserver. Now you can know about life preserves (you can have a knowledge of them), but that will not save you from drowning. You can look at that life preserving and say, “Yes, that does have the capacity to save me. But even there, if you assent to the truth, you still might drown. You must do something more. You must actually put your trust in it and grab hold of the life preserver. It is only when you do that that you will be safe.
Then there is the story of the professional tight rope walker. He once had a rope strung from one building to another. He took a wheelbarrow and loaded it with 160 lbs of material. He then carted the wheelbarrow over to the other side and back. He walked forward and backwards. He mesmerized the onlookers with his ability. And then he asked a journalist if he believed he could do it again. And the journalist said, “Yes, I just saw you do it.” And he said, “Do you really believe that I can?” and the journalist said, “Absolutely.” So the tightrope walker said, “Well then, why don’t you get into the wheelbarrow?”
That’s taking the faith of the journalist to another level, isn’t it?
But that’s the kind of faith that I think Paul is talking about. All of us who are true Christians exercise real and living faith in Christ. We’ve all put our trust in him in such a way that we have given our lives over to him. And since this is true of each of us, we should recognize that we should work together to help one another and not be working against one another.
Perhaps you have heard the story of the voyage of Captain Ernest Shackleton and his crew. They were men who set out in 1914 with the goal of crossing Antarctica. Before they could reach land their ship became caught in the ice. They spent a year on board the ship, waiting for the ice to break. But it did just the opposite. It began to crush the ship as it pinched the hull of the ship tighter and tighter. They ended up abandoning the vessel and tried to make their way by foot, but they found it was impossible. In 7 days they only had made it 7 miles. They ended up making camp right there on the ice. Once the ice broke, they were able to begin a new adventure across the freezing, wild sea that threatened to swallow them.
I must spare other details of the harrowing story. But the long and short of it is that after nearly 2 years the crew finally made it to safety and to their homes. All 27 men made it home safely.
I mention this because they all had faith of sorts. They all had to believe in their captain, trust his wisdom, and put their faith in his efforts to bring them through. That was the uniting thing that kept them on task. Granted, some of these men were driven to the point of madness. You can imagine how grueling this had to be physically, let alone mentally. You can probably think that there were times of hopelessness, thoughts of mutiny, and a desire to abandon the whole endeavor.
What was it that kept these men together? How was it that were they able to work together and succeed in the midst of these conditions? It was because they had one faith that united them.
This is illustrative of what the church should be like. We all have one faith. There is one Savior who we trust. We all believe that he will bring us through death and sin. We believe that God’s wrath will be averted and the perils of this world will be overcome because of his work as our Redeemer. As a result, we ought to be working together, to encourage one another and maintain our course.
Let us not think that this faith is anything less than what bonded Shackleton's crew. If anything, it is a greater faith and our ordeal is much more demanding. And thus, in the midst of our trials and this ordeal we call life, we must take heart and we must strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
The last item Paul mentions is our baptism. There is one God that we worship, one faith that we hold, and one baptism we have received.
III. The Baptism we have Received
Now, this is a fun one to think about because we have different takes on baptism within this congregation. And there may be some who have been baptized more than once. And then you can throw in all the different ways to be baptized: Sprinkling, dunking, pouring.
One might wonder if this is really something that Paul should have mentioned as something that unifies.
But we can say that there is one baptism, because every Christian gets baptized. It might happen in different ways, but this is a rite that all God’s people undergo. Therefore we can say that there is one baptism because it is common to all of us.
Baptism is, of course, the mark which signifies our initiation into the church. To put it another way, baptism is the mark that distinguishes us as those who belong to God and to his church. And that is why it should be a symbol that enhances our unity.
Now, just understand how common a thing this is to have symbols that mark our identification with each other. When my best friend from high school went off to the Marines, he came back a different guy. One of the things that was immediately noticeable was his new tattoo. He and his military buddies had left base one night on leave and they all went and got tattoos. They all got the same tattoo.
And he did weird things now like say, “Oorah!” and “Semper fi.” He was just different.
You know why he did that? Because he was different. He had new friends and a new life. The marines had changed him. And that tattoo and that new lingo was a way of identifying himself with his new posse.
Similarly, you can think of the Old Testament and that funny passage about how a slave would have an awl put through his ear. In the OT you might sell yourself into slavery because you had become unable to provide for yourself and for your family. You may have become destitute and your ability to survive might be in danger. So one of the provisions was that you could become an indentured servant. You could pledge to serve someone and his family and you would become part of his household. He would provide food and other basic necessities for you and maybe help you get on your feet.
At the end of the 7 years, you were allowed to go free. The OT made that provision; you could not be forced to stay after the 7th year. But there are some people who might want to stay with their master. They might find that their situation is better under his master’s care and leaving that household might not be in their best interest. If that happened, you were supposed to go and put you head on a doorpost and you were to have your ear pierced with an awl.
That mark on your ear then becomes a testimony of your belonging. It was a sign to everyone that these were your people. You belonged to them and your identity was wrapped up in this household. Through this little ceremony and through this mark in your head you were now telling the world “I’ve left my former way of life; I am no longer identified with those former things. I now am a part of this new group of people and I am devoting myself to them.”
That’s essentially what it means to be baptized. Baptism shows your identity. You belong to God. You have become a part of his people. You are now incorporated into that society and your identity is to be found in those who also have this mark.
That’s what Paul is talking about. That’s what he means by this whole idea of there being one baptism.
Now, again, you understand what this means practically. It means that through thick and thin, you are devoted to this people. You understand that there are some legit things that can and should happen within the bounds of the church.
I mentioned my buddy who went off to the marines. That guy had some stories. He told me about some of his training. He was required to get into a ring and box some of his fellow marines. And my friend was no stud muffin. He was rather puny. He took a lot of punches and got beat up. He said that was one of the worst things that he had to do. He had to get in a ring and throw punches with his fellow friends and soldiers.
But you know what? Despite the hardship--despite the pain, despite the blows he took, he always recognized that the fellow who got in the ring with him was a fellow marine. Many of them had that same tattoo on their shoulder.
Despite the conflict and the rigor of the whole ordeal, they knew they could not let that fight define them. They were still marines and they knew that they couldn’t let those boxing matches be the thing that defined them.
I say this because the church is a place where you will find yourself experiencing conflict. The church may even be a place where you can take some blows and it may feel like a boxing match at times.
I do not want to make it sound like the church is a great retreat where you have this paradisaical experience. There can be times when you experience pain. You can find that you go through some hardship and find that there are brothers and sisters who are hard to get along with.
But you have to remember that, in the end, you both bear the same mark. You’ve both been baptized into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And you must therefore be humble and patient, gentle and forbearing. You must strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace to the best of your efforts.
Conclusion:
Some of you might remember “the Miracle on Ice.” It was one of the greatest Olympic upsets of all time, when the USA hockey team beat Russia. Team USA was the underdog, being made up of a bunch of cocky college athletes. They went head to head with the Soviet team who had taken the gold metal for for four consecutive Olympic competitions. How could the team for the USA, which was created just weeks before the Olympics were to begin, stand a chance.
Head coach Herb Brooks new that it would take a particular change of mindset. The 2004 movie based on the events showed it well.
After another lackluster performance in a pre-Olympic game, Brooks put the team on the ice to undergo a punishment of grueling conditioning. Down and back they skated. Players were already exhausted from their completion, but Brooks mercilessly blew the whistle again and again, sending them on sprints.
Just when they were on the brink, team captain, Mike Eruzione, shouted out to the coach. In response, Coach Brooks asks, “Who do you play for?” The Captain replies, “I play for…the United States of America!”
No longer were they individuals who played for their own glory at different colleges. The jersey they wore had become a unifying banner. At that point they were one team, with one goal, and one heart.
We, the church of Jesus Christ, must see ourselves in the same light. Who are we? We are people who recognize one Spirit, One Lord, One God and Father of all. We have one faith, one baptism. And therefore we must set aside petty differences. We must not allow trifles to rise to levels that make us combative. We must not let jealousies or irritations be cause for any sort of alienation.
We must understand that there are greater realities that define us. And these uniting facts call us to be winsome; to be gracious. These things must filter down to practical acts of unity.
In the opening of this chapter we were called to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. And we have been seeing that part of a worthy walk is the ability to walk together. We’ve been talking about church unity and how godly character will translate into church unity.
What kind of characteristics will define a worthy walk and foster church unity? Those were laid out for us in verse 2. They were humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance.
To press home the importance of those traits, Paul has been talking about our oneness. We’ve seen that we are one body and that we have one hope. Today we will tackle the rest of the unifying traits in verses 4-6.
"There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."
Let's pray...
__________________________________________
Whenever I do pre-marital counseling I have a certain order in which I tackle the subjects. I always start with what the book of Genesis says about marriage. In that first session I emphasize the fact that Scripture says that the couple will “become one flesh.” And I will often say that this couple needs to realize that this concept must govern their lives.
You see, once you get married, things tend to change. Satan will be working double time to attack your relationship. He wants nothing else than to take down your marriage. And couples sometimes find that there are a lot of problems that they didn’t have prior to being married. And the couple has to recognize this: They are one. They are united.
At times they may feel alienated from each other. There may be times when they may want to not speak to one another and maybe go their separate ways. But this reality needs to hold weight with them: They are one. They must work to nurture the relationship, they must settle their problems, they must be self sacrificial in their life because there is a radical union that characterizes their relationship.
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been seeing much of the same sort of thing here in regards to our fellowship as believers. We’ve been talking about the radical oneness that belongs to us as God’s church. And this oneness should impact how we go about interacting with one another. Because of this union we have, it should infiltrate our daily interactions.
So far we’ve seen that we are one body and we have one hope. This morning I want to look at the other points which Paul makes in verses 4-6. And we can do so under 3 headings. We can think of it like this: We as a church should be united because of the God that we worship, because of the faith that we hold, and because of the baptism that we have received.
Throughout our study of Ephesians we’ve noted that there have been various points where Paul has mentioned each of the three persons of the Trinity. This is just another example of how he likes to slip it in here and there. You’ll notice that the passage mentions the fact that there is one Spirit (v4), one Lord (v5 i.e. Jesus), and one God and Father of all (v6). So Paul is emphasizing the God we worship and how his nature should affect our unity.
I. The God we Worship
Of course, we believe in one God. Christianity is a strictly monotheistic religion. But, as Paul has emphasized repeatedly, this one God exists in three equal and eternal persons. Paul puts the emphasis on the fact that there is one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father of all.
What is he doing here? He’s emphasizing that we have unity. We are united because we all believe in one Spirit. There is not one Spirit for you and a different Spirit for me. There is not one Jesus that saves you and another Jesus that saves me. The same Spirit that lives in you is the same Spirit that is in me. The same Jesus that died and rose to give you hope is the same Jesus who died and rose to give me hope.
This is what I love about our church when we recite one of the historic Creeds of the faith. When we stand and recite the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed, there’s something about that that unites us to the broader church. It unites us to the church all around the world and the church that has existed all through history.
Every time I say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,” I think about how many other people in different parts of the world have said those words. I get chills to think that these are the same words that were recited by Christian people in the 8th century and earlier.
When we recite those creeds we are signifying our unity with the historic, world-wide church of God. We are all confessing that this is our God. This is our Savior. This is the Spirit who is actively working among us now.
Now, granted, there can be a lot of diversity that still exists in the church. There are different views on certain aspects of theology. When it comes to the way the Spirit works, I am going to have some views that are rather different from my Pentecostal friends. When it comes to God’s decrees and how they work out, I’m going to have some variance with my Arminian brothers and sisters. My Lutheran friends have some different views as to what Jesus in his present ascended state at the right hand of the Father is like.
But you will understand that all of us still recognize the same Spirit, the same Son, and the same Spirit. We might have some differences here and there, but when it comes to the nature of God and who it is we worship, there is most definitely common ground. We all stand together there.
And this is something that should allow us to disagree amiably. We should be able to temper our theological discussions and show some of that forbearance that we spoke of in previous messages.
I mention this because there may be a time when some of you are pulled away from our church here. You may be called to move to another part of the county and you may have to find another church. And there may not be a church that fits your particular brand. It may be that the only solidly evangelical church that is within range of your home is a Missouri Lutheran church or a Pentecostal church.
For some of you, you might think that the Missouri Lutheran church is a little too stuffy. Some of you might that a Pentecostal church is a little too flamboyant for your taste. And so you might be tempted to just not go to worship on a given Sunday.
But I hope that what is said here will put things in better perspective for you. I hope that the fact that this God is present in that church. The fact that this God is recognized by these other believers will (hopefully) motivate you to do your best to commune with them.
Yes, you may have to hold your nose at certain things. You might have to grit your teeth at times and show some tolerance. But hopefully you can be thankful that there is at least one church in your area where God is worshiped.
I think there are too many people (too many Christian people) who put more emphasis on their particulars, rather than on the primary things. And that leads them to break fellowship. It becomes an occasion for schism.
But let us remember that God is God. And if someone worships this God, we should hold their fellowship as a sacred bond.
The second thing that Paul mentions, as the occasion of our unity, is the faith we hold.
II. The Faith we Hold
There in verse 5 he says, “[There is] one Lord [and] one faith.”
Now, we could speak of faith in the sense in which we already have. There is one faith in that there is one body of truth that we confess as Christians. In other words, we sometimes talk about faith in terms of doctrine. We can talk about “the faith,” or “the faith that Christians hold.” And so we could repeat what we said about the creeds & such.
But I think that Paul’s words here might be better understood as “the act of believing.” This is what we have in common. All of us who are Christians are actively trusting in Christ and believing in the Christian God.
In other words, this has to do with the nature of saving faith. Saving faith, it has been said, consists of three things: 1) knowledge - there are certain things you must believe to be a Christian. 2) Assent - you have not only to know those doctrines, but you have to recognize them to be true. 3) Trust - there must be a giving of oneself over to these things; one must put your faith in Christ and truly receive it as your own.
Perhaps you know the age old illustrations of this. If you are drowning, someone will throw you a life preserver. Now you can know about life preserves (you can have a knowledge of them), but that will not save you from drowning. You can look at that life preserving and say, “Yes, that does have the capacity to save me. But even there, if you assent to the truth, you still might drown. You must do something more. You must actually put your trust in it and grab hold of the life preserver. It is only when you do that that you will be safe.
Then there is the story of the professional tight rope walker. He once had a rope strung from one building to another. He took a wheelbarrow and loaded it with 160 lbs of material. He then carted the wheelbarrow over to the other side and back. He walked forward and backwards. He mesmerized the onlookers with his ability. And then he asked a journalist if he believed he could do it again. And the journalist said, “Yes, I just saw you do it.” And he said, “Do you really believe that I can?” and the journalist said, “Absolutely.” So the tightrope walker said, “Well then, why don’t you get into the wheelbarrow?”
That’s taking the faith of the journalist to another level, isn’t it?
But that’s the kind of faith that I think Paul is talking about. All of us who are true Christians exercise real and living faith in Christ. We’ve all put our trust in him in such a way that we have given our lives over to him. And since this is true of each of us, we should recognize that we should work together to help one another and not be working against one another.
Perhaps you have heard the story of the voyage of Captain Ernest Shackleton and his crew. They were men who set out in 1914 with the goal of crossing Antarctica. Before they could reach land their ship became caught in the ice. They spent a year on board the ship, waiting for the ice to break. But it did just the opposite. It began to crush the ship as it pinched the hull of the ship tighter and tighter. They ended up abandoning the vessel and tried to make their way by foot, but they found it was impossible. In 7 days they only had made it 7 miles. They ended up making camp right there on the ice. Once the ice broke, they were able to begin a new adventure across the freezing, wild sea that threatened to swallow them.
I must spare other details of the harrowing story. But the long and short of it is that after nearly 2 years the crew finally made it to safety and to their homes. All 27 men made it home safely.
I mention this because they all had faith of sorts. They all had to believe in their captain, trust his wisdom, and put their faith in his efforts to bring them through. That was the uniting thing that kept them on task. Granted, some of these men were driven to the point of madness. You can imagine how grueling this had to be physically, let alone mentally. You can probably think that there were times of hopelessness, thoughts of mutiny, and a desire to abandon the whole endeavor.
What was it that kept these men together? How was it that were they able to work together and succeed in the midst of these conditions? It was because they had one faith that united them.
This is illustrative of what the church should be like. We all have one faith. There is one Savior who we trust. We all believe that he will bring us through death and sin. We believe that God’s wrath will be averted and the perils of this world will be overcome because of his work as our Redeemer. As a result, we ought to be working together, to encourage one another and maintain our course.
Let us not think that this faith is anything less than what bonded Shackleton's crew. If anything, it is a greater faith and our ordeal is much more demanding. And thus, in the midst of our trials and this ordeal we call life, we must take heart and we must strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
The last item Paul mentions is our baptism. There is one God that we worship, one faith that we hold, and one baptism we have received.
III. The Baptism we have Received
Now, this is a fun one to think about because we have different takes on baptism within this congregation. And there may be some who have been baptized more than once. And then you can throw in all the different ways to be baptized: Sprinkling, dunking, pouring.
One might wonder if this is really something that Paul should have mentioned as something that unifies.
But we can say that there is one baptism, because every Christian gets baptized. It might happen in different ways, but this is a rite that all God’s people undergo. Therefore we can say that there is one baptism because it is common to all of us.
Baptism is, of course, the mark which signifies our initiation into the church. To put it another way, baptism is the mark that distinguishes us as those who belong to God and to his church. And that is why it should be a symbol that enhances our unity.
Now, just understand how common a thing this is to have symbols that mark our identification with each other. When my best friend from high school went off to the Marines, he came back a different guy. One of the things that was immediately noticeable was his new tattoo. He and his military buddies had left base one night on leave and they all went and got tattoos. They all got the same tattoo.
And he did weird things now like say, “Oorah!” and “Semper fi.” He was just different.
You know why he did that? Because he was different. He had new friends and a new life. The marines had changed him. And that tattoo and that new lingo was a way of identifying himself with his new posse.
Similarly, you can think of the Old Testament and that funny passage about how a slave would have an awl put through his ear. In the OT you might sell yourself into slavery because you had become unable to provide for yourself and for your family. You may have become destitute and your ability to survive might be in danger. So one of the provisions was that you could become an indentured servant. You could pledge to serve someone and his family and you would become part of his household. He would provide food and other basic necessities for you and maybe help you get on your feet.
At the end of the 7 years, you were allowed to go free. The OT made that provision; you could not be forced to stay after the 7th year. But there are some people who might want to stay with their master. They might find that their situation is better under his master’s care and leaving that household might not be in their best interest. If that happened, you were supposed to go and put you head on a doorpost and you were to have your ear pierced with an awl.
That mark on your ear then becomes a testimony of your belonging. It was a sign to everyone that these were your people. You belonged to them and your identity was wrapped up in this household. Through this little ceremony and through this mark in your head you were now telling the world “I’ve left my former way of life; I am no longer identified with those former things. I now am a part of this new group of people and I am devoting myself to them.”
That’s essentially what it means to be baptized. Baptism shows your identity. You belong to God. You have become a part of his people. You are now incorporated into that society and your identity is to be found in those who also have this mark.
That’s what Paul is talking about. That’s what he means by this whole idea of there being one baptism.
Now, again, you understand what this means practically. It means that through thick and thin, you are devoted to this people. You understand that there are some legit things that can and should happen within the bounds of the church.
I mentioned my buddy who went off to the marines. That guy had some stories. He told me about some of his training. He was required to get into a ring and box some of his fellow marines. And my friend was no stud muffin. He was rather puny. He took a lot of punches and got beat up. He said that was one of the worst things that he had to do. He had to get in a ring and throw punches with his fellow friends and soldiers.
But you know what? Despite the hardship--despite the pain, despite the blows he took, he always recognized that the fellow who got in the ring with him was a fellow marine. Many of them had that same tattoo on their shoulder.
Despite the conflict and the rigor of the whole ordeal, they knew they could not let that fight define them. They were still marines and they knew that they couldn’t let those boxing matches be the thing that defined them.
I say this because the church is a place where you will find yourself experiencing conflict. The church may even be a place where you can take some blows and it may feel like a boxing match at times.
I do not want to make it sound like the church is a great retreat where you have this paradisaical experience. There can be times when you experience pain. You can find that you go through some hardship and find that there are brothers and sisters who are hard to get along with.
But you have to remember that, in the end, you both bear the same mark. You’ve both been baptized into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And you must therefore be humble and patient, gentle and forbearing. You must strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace to the best of your efforts.
Conclusion:
Some of you might remember “the Miracle on Ice.” It was one of the greatest Olympic upsets of all time, when the USA hockey team beat Russia. Team USA was the underdog, being made up of a bunch of cocky college athletes. They went head to head with the Soviet team who had taken the gold metal for for four consecutive Olympic competitions. How could the team for the USA, which was created just weeks before the Olympics were to begin, stand a chance.
Head coach Herb Brooks new that it would take a particular change of mindset. The 2004 movie based on the events showed it well.
After another lackluster performance in a pre-Olympic game, Brooks put the team on the ice to undergo a punishment of grueling conditioning. Down and back they skated. Players were already exhausted from their completion, but Brooks mercilessly blew the whistle again and again, sending them on sprints.
Just when they were on the brink, team captain, Mike Eruzione, shouted out to the coach. In response, Coach Brooks asks, “Who do you play for?” The Captain replies, “I play for…the United States of America!”
No longer were they individuals who played for their own glory at different colleges. The jersey they wore had become a unifying banner. At that point they were one team, with one goal, and one heart.
We, the church of Jesus Christ, must see ourselves in the same light. Who are we? We are people who recognize one Spirit, One Lord, One God and Father of all. We have one faith, one baptism. And therefore we must set aside petty differences. We must not allow trifles to rise to levels that make us combative. We must not let jealousies or irritations be cause for any sort of alienation.
We must understand that there are greater realities that define us. And these uniting facts call us to be winsome; to be gracious. These things must filter down to practical acts of unity.