Brad Filmer was supposed to be preaching this morning. Unfortunately he had a fall this week and is recovering in his daughter’s home. He wanted us talk about the nature of Christian Unity so I have, for Brad, written a sermon on the unity of the church.

The word church is how in English we talk about the breaking forward of the kingdom of God in this wicked and perishing world. The church is the gathering of the faithful, those who follow Jesus all around the world as their chief, their captain, their king. The church is the gathering of sinners saved by grace through faith and are seeking with God’s help to walk the narrow path. We ought to desire the unity of all Christian people as there is only one Lord before whom our knees must bow, one Kingdom in heaven of which we are citizens, one faith worked in us by the Holy Spirit, one baptism in which we were born again.

Jesus himself, on the night he is handed over to suffering and death, while his apostles eyes droop, and he sweats blood, prays for the unity of the church. In John Chapter 17 our Lord’s prayer in Gethsemane is shared with us. He prays not for the apostles alone. He prays also for those who will believe in him through their message, that all of them may be one. He asks for a unity such that jus as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father we may be one. He prays that this unity might be filled with the presence of God in order that it may hold together. He prays that this unity might be complete in order that the world might know that Jesus is the Son of God and that the church his beloved people. This is the desire and love of Christ our Lord. We ought to as our hearts are renewed come to love and desire the things that God loves and desires. And so we ought to long for the unity of the church.

David the psalmist prays for the unity of Israel. He sings in Psalm 133 about how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity. It is like fine oil pouring down the head running down the beard, even the beard of the high priest whose offerings are acceptable to God. It is like rain, like dew, rolling down the mountains giving life to the land of Israel according to the promises of God.

If you know anything about David’s sons though, you know they were not unified. David’s son Amnon violated his daughter. Absaloam for this killed his brother and raised a rebellion against his father dying in a forest upon a tree. Adonijah killed his brothers when David was old preparing to take the crown for himself. But at David’s behest Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king, the son of Bathsheba. Brethren dwelling together in unity is a blessing from God to be desired with God. Not, while the world turns, a promise to be counted upon. The tribes of Israel were descendants of the sons of Jacob. Yet the unity they kept lasted only for the period of the Judges and the reigns of David and Solomon. Because of Solomon’s sins God punished the land by dividing the kingdom asunder. Division is sent deliberately from God as a punishment for the wickedness of Israel’s leadership. The Kingdom is not again united, not even after the invasions of Assyria and Babylon. Not until the Gospel is preached in Samaria are the tribes united again. And that is an amazing thing we see in James and Revelation, the twelve tribes addressed and seen again as a whole.

In the New Testament we read that division in the church is there even in the Apostles’ day. Judaizers, Philosophers, Gnostics, Nicolodians, the Teachings of Balaam all divide the church. 1 John is written to address a church schism. Divisions seems to be the natural state of a church run by sinners. And yet we must remember the prayers of David and of Jesus. Unity is to be desired even while sin runs its rampant course.

There is of course godly and ungodly ways of seeking unity. At the tower of Babel the nations of the earth were unified building their tower to heaven. They were unified seeking to make a great name for themselves. Shaking their fists at heaven seeking to take it by force. This kind of unity meets the laughter of God’s scorn. He comes down and scatters the tongues and the languages and the understandings of the peoples. He sends division in the face of such a unity.

Where do we begin then? The Apostle John instructs us that unity is found first in friendship. The Apostles were Jesus’s friends. Befriend the Apostles, let us abide in their witness, let us receive from them the Jesus that they knew and saw and touched and loved. Let us not make up some fictional Jesus to fit our fancies. By having fellowship with Apostles through their witness, through the writings of the New Testament. Paul in his introductory letter to the Romans, in Chapter 12 talks about the unity of the members of the body proceeding from three things. Christian Unity is a consequence of the transformation that God works in the saints through the Spirit such that we are conformed to Jesus not to the world. That is to say first God makes us one by his sanctifying work. Second God makes us one through the renewal of our minds. That is to say God makes us one by leading us into the truth. Some Christian divisions are about truth claims and it is worth having earnest and thoughtful discussion with others we think are following the same faith to try and seek the truth together and search out where our disagreements are coming from. That is where the great Christian tradition of debate is a good thing. The third way that God is creating unity in the church according to Romans 12 is specifically the spiritual fruit of humility. We are not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought but share such gifts as God has given us with others humbly for the building up of his body, of his kingdom in earth. Where do we begin? John says begin by spending time in the Apostolic Witness. Paul says let God lead you into humility, truth and holiness – church unity is downstream of these things.

Church Unity seems far away for we have in us far less than the fulness of humility, truth and holiness this side of our deaths. We know the witness of the apostles far less than we might. We are now far more divided into denominations and camps within denominations than the tribes were scattered when Jesus came. And yet, we are given this vision of a day when the saints will be gathered together in Christ. We see in Thessalonians and Revelation and elsewhere this glorious harvest. We see a city whose walls are built upon the witness of the apostles upon which are written the names of the tribes of Israel. We see gathered together in the comfort and holiness of God from every tribe and language and people and nation a host like a mighty army, a bride beautiful and prepared for her husband one church. She is redeemed, triumphant, sanctified and glorious.

In this world we ought to work for the unity of the church, desiring it in prayer, seeking it in seeking unity with the apostles, seeking truth, seeking humility, seeking holiness. We ought to be patient thanking God that he is patient with us. And we ought to trust that though we are not promised that unity yet, it is a reward for those who conquer. May we be counted among them by the work of Christ for us and in us. Amen.