I want you to sit with something for a second. Ephesians 4:4-6 says it plain: "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." (NKJV)
There is a lot of "same" going on in that passage. Same Spirit. Same God. Same salvation through the same Jesus Christ, the same blood. If that is all true, and it is, then unity should actually be pretty simple for us.
So then why do we fight? Why is there division in the church, in relationships, in families full of believers who all claim the same Lord? I started asking that question out loud one Sunday and the answer came pretty fast: it is not a spirit problem. Our spirits are already in unity.
We all have the same Holy Spirit living on the inside of us. If the Holy Spirit is in all of us, then our spirits do not fight each other.
The problem is something else is getting in the way. That something is our soul. Our mind, our will, our emotions. And yes, your mind will absolutely talk you out of unity if you let it. Your feelings will fracture relationships that your spirit would never fracture.
This is not a deep spiritual crisis every time it happens; it is a soul issue. And the good news about a soul issue is that you can do something about it.
I am going to tell on myself here because the Lord told me to. I have spent years being led by my frustrations. I get frustrated with a person or a situation and I let that frustration make my decisions for me. I am no longer talking to them. I am quitting this job. I am done with this.
That is frustration in the driver's seat, and frustration does not come from God. It is carnal. It lives in your soul, and it is not a reliable guide.
Now, can we ever be frustrated with the same things God is frustrated with? Sure. Jesus flipped the tables in the temple. He was frustrated with the Pharisees. He was frustrated when His disciples doubted.
God Himself was repeatedly frustrated with the Israelites, who watched miracle after miracle after miracle and still asked to go back to Egypt. Moses came down the mountain after 40 days with God and found the people worshiping a golden calf. What did God want to do? He wanted to wipe them out. He had every right to.
But here is what got me. Even in God's frustration, He was not led by His frustration. He let Moses intercede. Moses pulled on the mercy of God, and God was merciful to the people of Israel. Later, when David sinned by taking a census, God gave him three options for punishment.
David said, send the angel, because at least I know You will be gracious to me. And because David cried out and trusted God, the destruction only went halfway. God let mercy make His decision. He is so merciful. You would not be here if He were not.
So yes, we are going to get frustrated sometimes. The key is to have the conversation with whoever or whatever we are frustrated with and then let mercy make the call. "Be angry, and do not sin." (Ephesians 4:26, NKJV) That is the standard. Not "never feel anything."
Just do not let the feeling lead you somewhere the spirit would not go.
"But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift... And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." (Ephesians 4:7, 11-12, NKJV)
Notice what that says. The apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers were given to the church for one purpose: to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Not to do the ministry for the saints. To equip them to do it.
That means you have a ministry. Right now, today, not after three more years of Bible school. Every time you come together on a Sunday, every email, every gathering, you are being equipped. And as soon as you leave, you go do some reconciling. That is the whole assignment.
God gave us the ministry of reconciliation, which means bringing people back to God through the good news of Jesus Christ. The debt is paid. The sins are forgiven. We are reconciling people to the one who paid it.
We have made ministry incredibly complicated, and I do not think God intended it to be. Do I have the ministry of singing? The ministry of drumming? The street ministry? The deliverance ministry? We have invented so many categories. The ministry is reconciliation, full stop.
Deliverance is included. Healing is included. All of it falls under that one banner of reconciling people to God. We all carry it, and we are all getting equipped to do it better every single time we gather.
"...till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head, Christ." (Ephesians 4:13-15, NKJV)
That is the destination. Not stagnation. Not just getting saved and staying put. There is a full and complete standard of Christ that we are actually moving toward.
Some people would tell you that you can never get there. That you are just an old sinner saved by grace and you are always going to struggle and that is just the way it is. But the Word says otherwise. You have already been made brand new in Christ.
You are not getting more saved as time goes on; you are coming into the fullness of what you already have. Jesus is coming back for a bride without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27), and that sounds like a bride who has prepared herself, who has grown up, who is measuring up to the full stature of Christ.
How many of you can look back a year and honestly say you are more mature in Christ today than you were then? Now how many of you can say that about last week? God is always interested in taking you from glory to glory, from maturity to maturity.
There is always a next step, and He has given you every ability to take it. The church does not have to stay immature. Believers do not have to stay immature. That is not the trajectory the Word puts us on.
And here is the beautiful thing about that maturity. When you get there, you are no longer tossed around by every new wind of doctrine. You cannot be tricked or deceived as easily.
You are so rooted in peace on the inside that even when you talk about something you are deeply passionate about, mercy and understanding come out with it.
Because you remember that without the gifts Christ gave you, you would have been tossed around too. Maturity does not produce arrogance. It produces the kind of love that says, "Come on, I know the way. Let's go together."
I love that Jesus has this pattern where the workers who showed up last get paid the same wages as the ones who were there all day (Matthew 20). I do not always like it personally, but it is how He operates. The prodigal comes home and there is a party even though the other son has been there the whole time (Luke 15).
God never puts down the one who has fallen behind. He never says, "Too late, you missed it." Not yet. Not until Jesus comes back. It is never too late to catch up, and when you do, you are welcomed just the same.
I have been having this recurring dream. The details are never exactly the same, but the core elements are always there. I am trying to get on a plane for a big trip, and I do not have my ticket.
The airport is full of people, I am going up to the desk in a panic, and every time the person behind the counter says the same thing: "No big deal. Here's your ticket." Problem solved. So I head toward the gate.
But then another problem. I do not have my luggage. I am about to go on this long trip with no change of clothes, no bag, nothing. In one version of the dream, I was already on the plane and we were trying to take off from a highway, looking for an opening in traffic.
We could not find one, so we exited into this open area, went into a fast circle, and the plane launched straight up vertically. It was actually thrilling. But while we were still on the highway, we passed a bus.
And on that bus was all of our luggage, going the opposite direction. Everyone on the plane was watching their stuff drive away.
Here is where the Lord had me land: that is exactly where we are in the plan of God. We are about to board the plane. We are about to go be with Him forever. And we are distracted by our luggage that we do not get to take with us anyway.
We cannot take a single thing from this world. So why are we so frustrated by it? Why are we so worked up over it? We ought to look around and say, "It is all going to burn up." That is not pessimism. That is freedom.
If you cannot tell by looking at me, I am not a construction guy. I work on a computer, not with nails and hammers. But we have a family of seven, and when you have a family of seven, you need a lot of food.
Beth likes to have an abundance in the pantry, so we decided to build one out into the garage. How hard could it be? Famous last words.
That small project turned into five months of work that is still not completely done. I found myself in the middle of mudding drywall, which I have done before and already know I hate, in a small space with no room to breathe, getting closer and closer to the edge.
You know the edge I am talking about. The point where something is about to get said or thrown. And right at that moment, I heard the Lord say clearly: "Call Pepe." Pepe is a great friend of mine who has done drywall work for me before.
So I called him, explained the disaster, and basically said, "I know it's probably way worse than if you had started it from scratch, but please help." He came with his crew, finished the whole thing in about six to eight hours, and it looked great.
If I had kept going at my pace, Jesus would have come back before I finished. There would have been so much unnecessary frustration.
The whole time I was going through that process, the phrase that kept coming back to me was: this is all going to burn up. That is not a reason to be irresponsible with the things God has given you. It is a reason not to let them consume you.
It is a reason to call Pepe so you can get back to the ministry of reconciliation. I even found myself praying, "Lord, will you at least save the pantry? Can I come back after the marriage supper of the Lamb and see it still standing?" Hold loosely to the things of this life.
When it is time to go, you do not want to be looking for your luggage.
One of our members, Brenda, shared something that stopped me in my tracks. She said that as I was going around the room praying for people and speaking in tongues, she saw a vision. Over the whole congregation was a white cloth, pure white, silky and beautiful.
And as I moved through the room, she saw a gold thread weaving in and out, pulling the body together. "It's not done," the Lord told her. "It's just the beginning." That is exactly where we are. What is happening in this church is not an accident.
The Lord has called this congregation to denominational reconciliation. Not just to be unified within ourselves, but to be the ones who initiate unity across the wider body of Christ. To have the events. To take the steps.
To bring the denominations back together, because the division has to stop. You can go have a conversation with your Baptist brother or sister and not be threatened by the differences in your beliefs. You recognize you are on the same team.
You are not looking for an argument or to prove your theology wins. You are looking to reconcile.
There is going to be opposition in this. Pressing into denominational unity is basically going up against the gates of hell. But here is what we know about the gates of hell: they do not prevail against the church (Matthew 16:18).
Not any one individual, but the church coming together in unity. That is the authority that cannot be stopped. We link arms, we run through those gates, and we rescue the captives. The division ends when we decide together that we are not allowing it anymore.
