1. "Do we have enough in common to keep us together? Take our congregation, for instance. We have all normal personal differences existing in a congregation of hundreds of people: age, background, socioeconomic differences, interests."

2. "Do you want to be recognized as an influencer? Denounce someone. Denounce something. Say something controversial."

3. "Now here comes the apparently puny, much maligned and dismissed local church. Put in the full view of all the public, how will churches respond to all of this? Have these circumstances built a gallows for our hanging by our divisions? Or have they built a stage in order to display the manifold wisdom of God?"

4. "Humility is a kind of spiritual superpower. It makes all kinds of other spiritual graces and virtues available to you. It makes you able to grow and change and relate more constructively with others."

5. "Perhaps the first step on the trail to biblical humility is for you to have this simple thought that you could ever be the source of division in a church. Is that just beyond the galaxy of your imagining? Did you ever think that when you disagreed with that brother or sister that you could be wrong?"

6. "Gentleness is what humility looks like when it's talking to others. It fits with being submitted to God. Gentleness is what we need when others really are wrong and we know they're wrong. But that's when we need gentleness. That's when we especially need to be gentle."

7. "There is no impatience without pride."

8. "You could try to find a church where members have fewer faults. But my guess is as long as you're going to be joining that church, it'll be roughly similar to this one."

9. "Even the right truths wrongly held cause division."

10. "Our lives, the way we walk and talk, not just as individuals, but together as a church, are a little picture for others of what God is like."

Observation Questions

1. In Ephesians 4:1, how does Paul describe himself, and what does he urge the Ephesian Christians to do?

2. According to Ephesians 4:2, what four virtues or attitudes does Paul call believers to practice in their relationships with one another?

3. In Ephesians 4:3, what are believers instructed to be "eager" to do, and what phrase describes the bond that holds this unity together?

4. What seven "ones" does Paul list in Ephesians 4:4-6 to describe what believers share in common?

5. In Ephesians 4:6, how does Paul describe the relationship of "one God and Father" to all things, using the three phrases "over all," "through all," and "in all"?

6. According to Ephesians 4:4, what three realities related to the church's shared experience does Paul mention together in a single verse?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why do you think Paul begins his practical exhortation in verse 1 by identifying himself as "a prisoner for the Lord," and how might this shape how the Ephesians receive his instructions about unity?

2. How does the list of seven "ones" in verses 4-6 serve as the theological foundation for the practical virtues Paul commands in verses 2-3? What would it imply if believers acted as though there were multiple bodies, spirits, or lords?

3. The sermon emphasized that humility is the "foundational virtue" for unity. How do the other virtues listed in verse 2—gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love—depend on or flow from humility?

4. Paul says believers should be eager to "maintain" the unity of the Spirit rather than "create" it. What is the significance of this distinction, and what does it teach us about the source and nature of Christian unity?

5. How does the climactic description of God in verse 6—as Father "over all and through all and in all"—connect to Jesus' prayer in John 17:21 that His followers would be one as He and the Father are one?

Application Questions

1. The sermon noted that impatience always involves pride. Think of a recent situation where you were impatient with a fellow believer. What prideful assumption about yourself or the other person might have been at work, and how could humility change your response next time?

2. Paul calls believers to "bear with one another in love," which means continuing to love even when someone has offended you. Is there a specific person in your church or small group whom you find difficult to bear with? What concrete step could you take this week to extend forbearance toward them?

3. The sermon warned that an overly prescriptive approach—requiring agreement on matters beyond the gospel—can cause unnecessary division. Are there secondary opinions or preferences you hold that you have allowed to create distance between you and other believers? How might you distinguish between essential and non-essential matters in your relationships?

4. According to the sermon, our lives together as a church are like "samples" of God for others, displaying His character. In what specific area of your church's common life—worship, fellowship, service, or conflict resolution—do you think your congregation most needs to grow in order to better reflect the unity of the Trinity?

5. The sermon encouraged believers to pray through the church membership directory as a practical way to maintain unity. What would it look like for you to commit to praying regularly for specific members of your church this week, especially those you do not know well or with whom you have experienced tension?

Additional Bible Reading

1. John 17:20-26 — Jesus prays for the unity of all believers so that the world may know the Father sent Him, directly connecting Christian unity to the church's witness.

2. 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 — Paul expands on the "one body" imagery, explaining how diverse members with different gifts are united by the same Spirit and depend on one another.

3. Colossians 3:12-17 — Paul gives a parallel list of virtues believers are to "put on," including compassion, humility, meekness, patience, and forgiveness, with love binding them together.

4. Philippians 2:1-11 — Paul calls believers to humility and unity by pointing to Christ's example of self-emptying and obedience, showing humility as the path to harmony.

5. Romans 5:1-5 — Paul describes how believers have peace with God through Christ and rejoice in the hope of glory, reinforcing the "one hope" that belongs to our calling.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Historical Introduction: Pastor Joseph Parker's Meeting with Abraham Lincoln

II. The Question of Christian Unity in a Divided World

III. Our United Worship: One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God (Ephesians 4:5-6)

IV. Our United Church: One Body, One Spirit, One Hope (Ephesians 4:4)

V. Our United Life: Humility, Gentleness, Patience, and Forbearance (Ephesians 4:2-3)

VI. Our United Calling: Walking Worthy of Our Calling (Ephesians 4:1)

VII. Closing Exhortation: Maintaining Unity Through Faithful Obedience

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Caleb Morrell's research has been uncovering some stories of our congregation's early pastors.

Our second pastor, Joseph Parker, born in 1805, was 74 years old when he came to us from another church here in DC. He came to help. He was that kind of man. Throughout his long life, this native Vermonter gave himself for the good of his fellow man, especially of Christ's church. One extraordinary example of this was during the Civil War.

Before our church was even started, Parker was pastoring a church in Boston, and one of his members, Mr. Smith, was being court-martialed for defrauding financially, cheating the U.S. Navy. Parker, his pastor at the time up in Boston, was not a man to leave injustice unaddressed. Convinced his church member was innocent, Parker came to Washington to see the president. As far as I know, this conversation with Abraham Lincoln in the middle of 1864 has never been published. It comes from Parker's unpublished handwritten memoirs written in 1881 while he was serving our church.

Because of its interest, I repeat the conversation as fully as Parker recounted it. In the summer I came to Washington to get the place and the tribunal in the Smith case changed.

I asked the President first to order a civil process in place of the court-martial, which had been organized. I told the circumstances of Smith's revealing frauds in which some of the officials in the Navy Department were implicated, and that this prosecution was for the purpose of revenge and not for the ends of justice. Oh, said he, everybody's friend is honest. I can't order the case to a jury trial when the Secretary of the Navy has ordered a court-martial. And by that say to the country that one of my ministers is incompetent or unjust.

I can depose Mr. Wells, Secretary of the Navy, remove him from office, but not interfere with his administration.

Said I, Mr. President, it is said this court is organized to convict. You have enabled an excellent U.S. Commissioner in the person of Richard H. Dana. He tried the case. Will you not advise the Secretary? No, he said, I can't legislate or determine methods.

I can administer, execute, or annul the decisions of the court. Let your friend be tried by the method proposed. I will review the case in person. Justice shall be done to Mr. Smith. I have practiced law for 27 years, and if there is a false witness or perversion of right in the case, I know I can find it.

I don't care if the devil tries the case, I can find his tracks. Come to Me after the court is through with its work. Your friend shall have justice done him. Parker. Now, Mr. President, one point more.

The Constitution of the U.S. requires that citizens charged with crime shall be tried in the neighborhood of their residence among the persons who know their reputation and manner of life from whom witnesses may be summoned. This trial is ordered in Philadelphia and he's to be kept on board an old warship under the heated deck in the hot days of August. It will kill him, sir. And I fear this is the intention of those who brought this suit and arranged for the trial. Will you arrange for the Secretary to change the venue to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, Massachusetts, where the frauds were said to have been committed?

Lincoln. It's all wrong, but I can't give the orders. I've spoken to Mr. Wells about the matter. I can do no more. Parker.

What shall I do, Mr. President? These men will be on the way to Philadelphia in three hours. May I send a telegram to them saying, trial will be in Charlestown.

Yes, said he. So I went probably with as good speed as any man ever went from the White House to the telegraph office. I take the time to share that with you because of the historical interest and because of the connection with our congregation. If you studied Lincoln, you know the unique challenges he faced in keeping our nation united. The mere knowledge that he had won the election in November 1860 started a procession of state legislatures voting to leave the Union and withdraw from it.

How could the unity of our nation be preserved? Did we have enough in common to keep us together?

Now, that's the question that I want to put to you this morning about churches today. Do we have enough in common to keep us together? Take our congregation, for instance. We have all normal personal differences existing in a congregation of hundreds of people: age, background, socioeconomic differences, interests.

On top of that are racial tensions which have existed historically, and now even how that is acknowledged becomes its own separate ground for difference and division. Add to that a heightened partisanship occurring at a time when narrowcasting public media and ironically named social media too often really anti-social, personal media, have rewarded conflict and the airing of grievances with larger audiences and more prominent platforms. Do you want to be recognized as an influencer? Denounce someone. Denounce something.

Say something controversial. And in case that wasn't enough, let's add a new virus. Quickly spreading around the world, which combines differences over attitudes to medicine and health, the media, thoughts about the appropriate role of government, to be dealt with altogether and quickly, publicly, repeatedly, and with much shared ignorance.

Now here comes the apparently puny, much maligned and dismissed local church.

Put in the full view of all the public, how will churches respond to all of this? Have these circumstances built a gallows for our hanging by our divisions?

Or have they built a stage in order to display the manifold wisdom of God?

What is enough for us to have in common? How can we stay together? What do we have in common? This is the question Paul begins the second half of Ephesians addressing. We've spent the year so far in the first half of Ephesians addressing the high doctrines of and regeneration, the mystery of the one new race, the one new man of Christian which supersedes all our other distinctives.

Now in chapter 4, Paul turns to the working out of what this means in our daily lives. In this second half of the letter, he'll deal with our personal lives, our work lives, our families and more. But he begins with the church because he knows that for the Christian all other spheres of life are shaped by this one. This is the sphere of life which determines and directs the others. So let's open our Bibles now to Ephesians chapter 4, the first six verses.

You'll find that on page 977 in the Bibles provided. Notice what Paul says we have in common.

Ephesians 4, beginning at verse 1. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There's 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.

I want us to look at this passage and see what Paul says about our united worship, our united church, our united life. And our united calling together. Worship, church, life, calling. And see if we really do have enough in common to stay united, to stay together. Before we do that, let me just summarize briefly and explain how I understand these verses.

So, for you inveterate note-takers, this is not the first point. I am just going to summarize for just a moment the whole thing. And then I'll let you know just between you and me when that first point starts so your notes won't be off. Now I'm just not beginning the first point. I'm summarizing.

All right, look at the list of traits there in verse two. That's what always draws the attention in this passage. Walking with all humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love. Brothers and sisters, I think that's the expression of verse three is the unity of the Spirit. That they're to maintain in the bond of peace.

So verse 2 is the expression of verse 3. It's what verse 3 looks like. So verses 4, 5, and 6 are a kind of explanatory and reinforcing expansion of the implication of verse 3 is the unity of the Spirit. So the beginning of verse 4, you could read that since there is... Since there is one body, one Spirit...

There would be like... Since there is a shared body, a shared Spirit, a shared hope in our shared calling, etc.

So one is functioning like same or shared. That's Paul's point there. What this means then is that when the Ephesian Christians act without humility, when they act without gentleness and without patience, without forbearing with one another in love, they're acting as if there were different bodies, as if there were different spirits, different different callings, different hopes, different lords, different faiths, different baptisms, ultimately different gods. Which is such a terrible idea that Paul pushes this, you can see in verse 6, to the obvious absurdity. Really, well, this whole list, a whole list of things in 4, 5, and 6, but then that's why he finishes, I think, with that flourish at the end of verse 6, just staring into the uniqueness of God's sovereignty and omnipresence You know, the absurdity of saying there's more than one of these.

There is only one God like this. So this passage is the explanation of how the Ephesian Christians are to walk worthily, as Paul says in verse 1. Their unity expresses the unity and uniqueness of God.

So again, my simple question: what do we have in common? Paul's really addressed this some in the first three chapters. In chapter 1 we read of the Father's plan to unite all things in Christ. In chapter 2 with the work of the Son bringing Jews and Gentiles together in Christ Jesus. Christ even identifies Himself in 2:14 as He Himself is our peace, which Paul talked about more in chapter 3.

But now, coming to chapter 4, What do we have in common? Well, we'll look through the passage to find Paul's answer and see if it's enough for us. First, first, number one, let's consider our united worship, our united worship. Look again at verses 5 and 6: One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all and in all.

Here in these verses we see a number of core theological truths packed in, perhaps a reference back to what Paul has been teaching in the first three chapters. He mentions there in verse 5, one Lord. That is, he says, we have the same Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now you know about a third of the people on the globe claim, in some sense, to be worshiping Jesus Christ as Lord, to be following Jesus Christ, whether they are Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic or Protestant. In the United States, it's more like three out of four people make this claim, according to polls and surveys. Of course, when Paul was writing this letter, there could have been more than a few thousand people scattered around the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. In Ephesus, those intending to follow Christ would have been a small group amid the larger communities of Jews, and a much larger population of worshipers of Artemis of Ephesus and other deities of classic Greek mythology. The Ephesian church's shared recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord would distinguish them from most of their neighbors and likely even members of their own families.

When Paul says here one faith, that is, Paul says the same way of salvation, whether this means the objective content of their faith, like our church has a statement of faith, or our believing of it, like the fact that we believe our profession of faith, our own profession of faith. Paul is pointing to these Ephesian Christians seeing the same way of salvation. Now in the centuries since Paul wrote this letter, many who have called themselves the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ have in fact embraced a different faith than Jesus Himself and His apostles taught. This is where we would be different from the Roman Catholic Church. That church and its council considered what we believe and rejected it.

You heard Josh Coover earlier vow that he believed the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Well, the Roman Catholic Church would say that they actually have that role. And that the Bible cannot be properly understood apart from their teaching. The hymns that we've already sung today have spoken of our sinfulness and our hopelessness too completely and of Christ's work too finally to allow for Rome's teaching of cooperating with the sacraments of the church. The grace of God that we rely on alone for salvation only by faith has been a doctrine condemned by Rome.

So when we read this one faith here, we see it stretching far beyond this local church, and for that matter far beyond Baptist churches, but not to everyone who calls himself a Christian.

This one faith is talking about the saving believing of the promises of God held out to us in His Word, that we are saved by faith in Christ and not by our works. So, friend, if you are here today burdened with the fact that you have sinned against God and you want forgiveness for your sins, the way you gain that forgiveness is not by cooperating with this local church, though hopefully we would do you good, but it's by trusting only in Christ, trusting what God has done in Christ. We would love to teach you more about that, to show you what that would mean in your own life. If you want to know more about that, please talk to me or any of the other folks at the doors on the way out. But who understands and agrees with us in the gospel that has been preached here for the last century and a half are many people.

Certainly not everyone who calls himself Christian, but on the other hand, many, many people from many congregations other than this church and churches of many denominations and over many centuries. We would all share this one faith. Let's go on to the one baptism. Paul here says that these Ephesians have obeyed the same sign given by Christ to be performed on all those who repented of their sins and confessed their faith in Him. Baptism was the sign that they had all, as it were, come through into the church.

There weren't other ceremonies that symbolized their entrance. There is one door that we all come through, the watery sign of saving faith. Now it should be said that those who confess Christ as Lord who hold this same faith, still among this group of Christians there are differences over baptism, and so there are. But among those Christians who trust in Christ alone for our salvation, these differences may sort us out into our separate congregations on Sunday morning. But we look at these others denominations and see that despite some differences over baptism, we have the same Lord and the same faith.

And even our differences about how we should obey Jesus in baptism are about the timing of baptism, not its significance. No Protestant church teaches that we are lost without baptism, but that baptism is a sign of saving faith. Whether it is administered after that faith has been personally professed, as we think that Jesus clearly taught and early Christians practiced, or they think it is to be administered to the children of Christians with prayers that they too will come to personally profess faith in Christ in the future. That would be what our brothers and sisters in denominations like Methodists and Presbyterians and Anglicans pray and practice. Now, happily as a church, we have had Presbyterians like Ligon Duncan and Anglicans like Peter Jensen, an archbishop, preaching here, powerfully expounding the Scriptures, clearly seeing and teaching the same gospel faith and the same significance, even of baptism, as a testimony of saving faith, even if we do not agree exactly in what our practice of it should look like.

So thank God for the unity we have with those brothers and sisters.

In verse 6, Paul turns to the great unity that we have in sharing one God. Paul says that we Christians have the same ultimate allegiance, the same God. Now such a statement would not be taken for granted at the time when Paul makes that, in a place where heritage and civic pride and even the economy itself was based on polytheism, the belief in many gods. But Paul reminds these Christians that they recognize and worship the only true God. He has created all that is, and this God is that which most unifies all that is.

He alone stands in the relation to everything as Creator. As Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians, There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things. And for whom we exist. Even more to the point here, this one true God stands in the same relation to all Christians, Jewish or Gentile, as the one who has given His grace and peace to all Christians. The one who we read back in chapter 2 verse 5 has made us alive together in Christ.

He is the one whose wisdom is made manifest in the church. This is the God who is over Jewish and Gentile believers alike. He alone is sovereign, who is through Jewish and Gentile believers alike. He alone is eminent and pervading and controlling and sustaining. Who is in Jewish and Gentile believers alike.

He alone is the indwelling Spirit of God. God dwells in His people by His Spirit. So taken together then, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, we have a worship which unites us. Even when other forces would pull us apart, political partisan differences can compete with doctrinal agreement, especially on Capitol Hill. But we've reviewed just last year in a topical series, the Statement of Faith, that we all as members of this church have agreed with.

There we find a short summary of what the Bible teaches about Jesus Christ, about saving faith in Him, about baptism and about God. We've had no motion to amend our statement of faith to add other things to it. Brothers and sisters, for decades now we've existed on this corner with the idea that agreement on these matters is sufficient for us to covenant together as a church.

In fact, it is this same faith that we share with churches down the centuries and which draws our hearts in prayers and affection and material support to Christians around the world with whom we can be together for the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we rejoice when we hear of any other gospel-preaching church that is prospering, whether that's a Falls Church Anglican or Restoration Church, or Delray Baptist, or Redemption Hill a few blocks away, or Fourth Pres up in Bethesda, or Emmanuel Bible out in Springfield, or Mercy of Christ Fellowship nearby. And that just locally. We know a unity of prayer and love and concern with Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist down in Jacksonville, Florida, and their pastor, H.B. Charles, and Christ Covenant Presbyterian down in Charlotte, and their pastor, Kevin DeYoung.

And so many other churches around this country and around the world, from Dubai to Munich, from London to Sydney, from Rio de Janeiro to Moscow to Shanghai to Lucknow, India. Brothers and sisters, we are united in worship. What do we have in common? Let's also consider number two, our united church. Look again at verse 4.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. Here in verse 4, Paul mentions theological truths that are perhaps closer to our experience as Christians really centering in the local church. Maybe that's why he started his list here. He mentions in verse 4, first, one body. That is, Paul is stressing to these Ephesian Christians that they have been put together by God.

They are part of one body. That means, as Paul argued with the Corinthian Christians, they have the same head. Jesus Christ is the head of all in the church, which is why Paul has called the church Christ's body. Back up in chapter 1. Such unity Christians have been given by God's grace.

Further, we share one spirit. And when he says this, the translations you're looking at are correct to capitalize that. This is not talking about the old family feeling or the old school spirit. It's not talking about an attitude or an approach. Paul is reminding them that they have the same being, literally indwelling them.

The same Spirit who had given them new life is now in them, and they share it. All of them have that same Spirit. This is the one who has revealed the mystery of Christ to us by His Apostles. This is God's Spirit we see up in 2:22 that is building us together into a dwelling place for God. So Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

It's the Spirit who brings about the unity in the body by His indwelling. And since there is only one Spirit, there can be only one body.

This all should remind us that we have a shared calling. That is, we have the same experience of new life. This is not talking about the calling in the sense of a job or a career or a station in life. This is a calling to salvation in Christ. So together the Ephesian Christians are called by the one God's one Spirit to follow His one and only Son, Jesus Christ.

Their calling is a calling to holiness and service. Ultimately, this is the calling to be saved and adopted as sons. And the Christian calling is to one hope, that is, they have a shared hope. Paul mentioned back up in chapter 1 verse 18, the hope to which he has called you. Well, what is that hope?

It is that we're saved, we're adopted, we are with him forever sharing in His presence in His glory. It's the common hope in Christ for God to be glorified and for an eternal inheritance where they share in that glory. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So our hope is that God's grace in Christ is transforming us so that when He appears, we shall be like Him and we shall be with Him forever. I think in all this concern for unity, Paul is echoing the Lord Jesus Christ in John 17, His prayer that final night with His disciples when He prayed, Holy Father, keep them in youn name, which youh have given Me, that they may be one even as We are one.

One even as we are one. So the unity of Christians in the local church was dear to our Savior's heart. Paul sounds like him here. We have a common hope, a common expectation of what God is about, and sharing this common expectation will do much to bring about a unity even today in our local church. So when pressures mount outside the church and cracks appear inside among us, then it's good to review the unity that God has built within the church, one body, one spirit, a shared calling to one hope.

Third question, what do we have in common? Our united worship, our united church, also our united life, our united life. Look at Paul's practical exhortations in verses 2 and 3.

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. It's in these verses that Paul looks at the practical unity of our life together. So brothers and sisters, as Christians in a local church, we have to realize that our unity is both theological, as we've been considering, and practical. Verses 2 and 3 describe how our unity is manifested here in our life together. What it regularly and normally looks like.

We find here the virtues, the fruit that we should see growing among us. First in the list, and probably because it's most important ingredient in our unity, is humility.

This is the accurate lowliness that James writes of when he says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

So for us, humility is not a fictional role that we try to play or look like.

It's taking on board the fact of who we are and what we are. It is having an accurate view of ourselves. As the ancients said, He who knows himself best will esteem himself least. Humility has a kind of calming power in the soul. Chrysostom said that if you're humble, you will not be excessively impressed either with chains or privileges.

It's also the way to unity. Matthew Henry said, the first step towards unity is humility. The more lowly-mindedness, the more like-mindedness. Friends, I hope you've seen this and found this in your own discipleship. Humility is a kind of spiritual superpower.

It makes all kinds of other spiritual graces and virtues available to you. It makes you able to grow and change and relate more constructively with others. Perhaps the first step on the trail to biblical humility is for you to have this simple thought that you could ever be the source of division in a church. Is that just beyond the galaxy of your imagining? Did you ever think that when you disagreed with that brother or sister that you could be wrong?

We might tread a little more carefully if we reflected more on our own limitations.

My vocation in life has meant that I am put in the public sphere and I am again and again, often more than daily, called upon to publicly disagree with this person or evaluate that person. And I'm just always thinking, why do I need to do that?

Why can't someone look at all the same facts that I look at and have a different conclusion? Obviously, I think I'm right or I would adopt their position. But friends, we have to realize none of us here have omniscience. We have the Bible. We believe the Bible is true.

We work out from Scripture. But we're not the final judge of anyone. Paul mentions then, gentleness. Well, that's to be meek like Jesus who we read of in 1 Peter 2 when He was reviled, He did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

Friend, gentleness is what humility looks like when it's talking to others.

It fits with being submitted to God. Gentleness is what we need when others really are wrong and we know they're wrong.

But that's when we need gentleness. That's when we especially need to be gentle. What about you? Have you noticed God working a mildness, a quiet self-restraint in your heart that you know you've not always had? Praise God for that.

Thank Him for that. Notice that work of His Spirit. Did you find your taste for gossip declining and your care for the weak growing? Well, friend, that might be the Holy Spirit making you more gentle like Jesus. Praise God for that work.

That's His work in us, changing us to be more like Christ. Next, we have patience. Well, this is being longsuffering. It's the opposite of being short-tempered. It's like what James exhorts us to, My beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

It's the virtue some of you are excising probably right about now. Continuing to see humility as the basic ingredient of these virtues, this is patience's humility stretched out over time. This is what we need when our initial attempts to do something aren't successful.

I wonder if you're forming a good prayer list for yourself out of all this. Are you seeing things that you could be praying for in yourself? Are you patient? Can you be injured or insulted without retaliating?

How about on social media?

How about at church among the members here? When I feel impatient, a not unknown response in my own heart. I try to be self-aware enough to confront my own pride in the situation. There is no impatience without pride. I know that impatience makes it very hard for us to fulfill our covenant when we vowed to rejoice with each other's happiness.

And with tenderness and sympathy to bear each other's burdens and sorrows. Some degree of patience is required if we're to actively fulfill that part of our pledge to each other because caring takes time. And then we have what really feels like a summary here at the end of verse 2, doesn't it? Bearing with one another in love.

Forbearance is patience continuing on. Paul had just prayed up in chapter 3 verse 17 that they might be rooted and grounded in love. Well, this is the very practical appearance of that love. Paul has told us, too, that God is a God who acts in love toward us. It's interesting.

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, Concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, and then he rehearses some things that they had been doing to show this love. I guess that wasn't true for the Christians in Ephesus, because Paul writes to them about it. He writes to them about forbearing love. Friends, it's not always obvious how we're to love others. That's why we pray for God to teach us how we can best love others.

To forbear with love is to love them even if they've offended you and they've acted with... instead, you respond then with real affection and desire for their good. This is the kind of love we need when other people sin against us. So how are you doing in making allowances for the faults of fellow members here? You could try to find a church where members have fewer faults.

But my guess is as long as you're going to be joining that church, it'll be roughly similar to this one. Are you bearing with others in their weaknesses, even in their failings? I remember standing at the back door once and a man came up to me and praised my preaching and told me he wanted to join our church. And as a pastor, you're trained to be immediately cautious about quick boosts of confidence thrown your way. And so I said, well, let's talk about it for a minute.

And when we began to talk, he told me about another local church where he had been at for years and he started bad mouthing that pastor. Well, I happen to know that pastor. And I said, well, you know, thank you for what you found helpful here, but I happen to know that that man you mentioned is a better pastor than I am. So I suggest you go back there and when you talk to him about it, if you together agree you should be sent over here, then we can talk again. But I think I can't help you, I'm sure, if he hasn't been able to.

Brothers and sisters, I think we need to know what it means to bear with one another in love. We think about forbearing as Paul exhorts us to here at the end of verse 2.

Because forbearing is what we have to do when people fail us. And you realize I'm talking about forbearing, not just for you, I'm talking about for the person sitting next to you. They might have to do some forbearing with you. You're not the only one who forbears around here.

Well, but to see that, you'll need to go back to the first one, the humility, so we can see that more about ourselves. Anyway, verse 3, Paul instructs them to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. This is really one of the climaxes of Paul's exhortation here. That word maintain lets us know that this unity is nothing that we create. We didn't create it.

It's given to us by God, as we've already noted when we were thinking about the Spirit's work. Brothers and sisters, we've been given this unity by God, by God putting us His Spirit in all of us, the same Spirit. So we pray to God for wisdom and power to keep this unity in the sense of acting and living consistently with it. We're not talking about some merely external unity, but an internal spiritual one. It's called the unity of the Spirit because it has been produced by the Holy Spirit.

We see that we naturally work against it. Wrong division often comes from pride. Friends, you and I need to work to demolish disunity. We should search out sources of disunity and remove them. For example, an overly prescriptive statement of faith can cause divisions.

I believe more things than are in the Statement of Faith, and all of you do. Well, I could put some of those, I could say, Hey, why don't we add my thoughts about this, this, and this? Because I know I'm right. Into the statement of faith. Well, but then, see, some of you won't agree with me on those things because you're benighted.

So then, what do we do? Do we form different churches? Well, friends, we would have to if we start putting all of this in the statement of faith. The statement of faith of a church is calibrated to have enough that we have the gospel and enough that we have to agree on to have a local church. And no more than that.

More than that begins getting into areas that will simply be divisive where we can disagree and still be in a local church together. For that matter, even the right truths wrongly held cause division. I know some people who I agree with entirely theologically who are not as gracious as they could be and therefore alienate people they don't need to. And in fact, I think some of them know that I probably I'm like that from time to time. Practically, how can we be eager to maintain this unity?

Well, brothers and sisters, you should be looking to do this. Paul says, Make every effort. We are called to be vigilant in preserving and protecting and promoting the unity of this congregation because it's always under threat. I'll tell you practically how you can do that. Come back again at 5:00, pray with us.

In fact, pray through the membership directory. Just grab your membership directory. In fact, if you open your membership directory, you'll even notice right there on page 3, the church covenant. And what's the second clause in the covenant? We will work and pray for the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

It's taken right from Ephesians, chapter 4. Well, the only other matter we need to know here is that last phrase in the bond of peace. Paul had introduced himself as a prisoner for the Lord in verse 1. So Christians, he's saying, are prisoners. We're bound together in the peace that Christ has made for all His people.

Peace is very much what Christ came to bring. We saw that back in chapter 2. That peace has bound us together as believers. It's kind of like, you know, good news, you're saved. More news, so is He.

You didn't choose it all, but God in His mercy saves whom He will. And we don't look askance at that because it's included us. There's something then of our united life. So what do we have in common, united worship, united church, united life? One more thing, our united calling.

Number four, look up in verse 1. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. So verse 1 is really the verse from which you can see the rest of Ephesians. So when Paul says, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy, he's looking ahead to all the topics that he's going to be turning to about love and unity in the church and at home, all the things we're going to be considering, Lord willing, the rest of this year. And then he finishes saying, Worthy of the calling to which you've been called, there he's turning around and looking back to the first three chapters where he's just explained our great calling in Christ.

Well, here we find Paul's exhortation that he began with, but I hope are considering all these other verses first, then we'll make this instruction clearer. Paul is giving us the motive here of living in a way that is worthy of the one true God. Let's take just a minute and appreciate this first before we close. First, we know that Paul is a prisoner for the Lord. Why does he mention this?

Well, he's mentioned it already if you look back at chapter 3, verse 1. He's mentioned in verse 13 of chapter 3. Whether in jail or at large, Paul is captivated by Christ. Paul serves Christ. Without saying it, he's presenting his example of laying down his own rights out of a desire to love others.

It's his concern for God's glory and their good which drives all of Paul's travels and causes him to be in situations where he's exposed to hostile crowds and threats and even beatings and imprisonments. Anyway, this is the one who is writing to them. And what does this prisoner do? He urges them to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. Walking is simply an image for living.

It's a common image Paul uses throughout Ephesians. Well friends, your walking is not a private matter. Christians are called to walk worthy of the calling, and this calling is the salvation that we're called to. That's what Paul has been explaining to them throughout this letter. So, fellow church members, you've all been called to follow the same Messiah, King Jesus.

And if we're all called to follow the same King, we're all going to be going in the same way. Without such walking, there is no unity. It's very interesting. In Matthew, chapter 7, Jesus taught that some people would call Him Lord, Lord, who wouldn't really do what he said. So he told us in the gospel, in his own teaching, Matthew 7, that there would be Christians who aren't really Christians.

So we know that. We get that from Jesus' teaching. For instance, our life together in the church that tends to expose the hypocrites that care more for other things than following Jesus. So there are a lot of people who will walk along with the crowd following Jesus so long as it has other things they want like or agree with. But when other things come up that they feel very strongly about, then you see which way they're going to go.

Will this be enough? What they agree on about Jesus, or do they need additional agreements?

Notice that our lives are said to be worthy in the sense of being patterned after and reflecting something of the character of the great God described in verse 6. You know, one of you recently shared with me that there was a difference between your being the granddaughter of a godly man and relatives of yours who had that grandfather's brother who was not godly. And you could see the differences cascading down the generations. Well, I know what it's like growing up in a small town. My family mattered.

The fact that they knew who my mom or dad were. I remember one time walking on the street and a guy came up to me and asked me if I was so-and-so's great grandson. You know, when your family's been in a place, a small place, a long time, the family name matters. What that name is brings certain assumptions about what I'm going to be like and how I am reflects on that name. Well, friends, that's what Paul is saying here about Christians.

If we're to walk in a manner worthy of our calling, That means we are to walk in a manner that reflects the character of the one we claim to fear and to follow, to love and to serve. In that sense, our lives are like the samples at Costco or Whole Foods. You know, when you're walking along and someone says, Hey, you want to try this? And let's say you try it. Friends, we're samples of God for other people.

Our lives, the way we walk and talk, the way we walk and talk, not just as individuals, but together as a church, are a little picture for others of what God is like. That's why Jesus would pray that they may all be one, just as yous, Father, are in me and I in you. They may also be in us, because the unity in the Trinity is reflected in our unity together in a local church. The church remember is how God will show His manifold wisdom. Friends, there is stuff in here for us to meditate on all day long.

The question for you is, do you see enough here to unite you with these other brothers and sisters?

Just for a moment, I want us to return to 19th century Washington. Joseph Parker's long pastorate was up in Boston. He was from 1835 to 1855, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Cambridge, Massachusetts. After the Civil War, he was working, based in D.C., to set up free schools to educate freed men and women across the South. He meets everyone that he recounts in this memoir from Robert E. Lee a few days after the surrender, to the famous preacher John Jasper, to Ulysses S. Grant's parents.

It seems like he's the Forrest Gump of the 19th century. Well, in 1870, against his wishes, the 65-year-old Parker is elected pastor of Calvary Baptist Church here in the district. This is ten years before he comes to us. He's 65, he's a little tired, he's done, But he hears this church has elected him, and when he hears how divided the congregation is, he actually decides he needs to do it for the sake of the congregation because they're divided.

Well, in his memoir, he recounts his conversation with one who was busy in sowing seeds of discord. I requested him to stop one evening after the meeting. When alone, I said, Brother M, I am aware that you diligently used all your influence to prevent my becoming pastor of the Calvary Church. I don't blame you for it. I think nonetheless of you.

But I am now the pastor and you are exerting your influence still against me, spending your time in the large Bible class which you have to produce division in the church and destroy my influence. That must cease. You can't repeat that effort again. No, not once more. I will not permit it.

He was thoroughly mad. Don't threaten me, said he. Come to that, we'll see who's the best man. I replied quietly, I am not threatening you. You make yourself a schismatic by making as far as your able division.

You know what the apostle has directed in regard to such members. They're to be put out of the church. This we shall certainly do if you continue your practice. You've been a pastor. You know that while I was a candidate you had the right to use all proper means to prevent my election.

But when elected, you were bound to acquiesce in the action of the Church. And when I had accepted the place to which I had been elected, you were bound to cooperate with me or leave the Church. So I repeat very distinctly and decidedly: if you expect to remain a member of this Church, you can't repeat, not once more, the effort which you have been making. Not once. He softened, his eyes moistened, and he said, I want to remain in the church.

I see that what I did while the church was considering your call is not proper now that you're pastor. That is all, said I. I'm not unkind or severe. You can be happy and useful. I shall respect and love you if you do as you ought. Here I should say that for five years that's the rest of Parker's time there that brother most faithfully fulfilled his duties to the church and was most deferential and considerate toward me.

Brothers and sisters, we share the same worship, the same church, the same life, the same calling. So be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank youk for the calling that yout have given us in Christ. We thank youk for the promise of deliverance from all of our burdens and sorrows. We thank youk for calling us together here in this place with these people. We pray that you would pour out your Spirit on us to help us to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. And we pray this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.