Ephesians 4 (Part 2)

Ephesians, and we're in the fourth chapter. Ephesians chapter 4, please open your Bibles there. Last week, we covered the first 3 verses of this chapter, and now we're going to be looking at another two verses. We're not going to be going real fast, but that's okay. There's just some really, really good stuff here that I want you to see. Ephesians chapter 4, beginning at verse 4. If you're there, it goes like this, and I'm reading out of the ESV. It says,

Stop there. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. The power and the majesty of your Word is truly amazing, and here we have just two verses of scripture. And I pray that you'd help us to understand what they're telling us. Lord, it is you who are the teacher, and through your Spirit, you enlighten us to see and understand and to apply the Word to our lives. And we pray that you would do that today. We ask that you would guide and direct us in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, amen. What these verses are talking about, and the reason I wanted to talk about them today, is because they're all about what unifies us as believers. And when I say believers, I'm not just talking about, obviously, the people in this room. I'm talking about everybody who calls upon the name of Jesus. We talk a lot today in our culture about what divides us. I mean, have we ever been more of a divided people? In this country, it is difficult. I used to be a real news hound; by that, I mean, I used to listen and watch the news a lot. I got to the point where I didn't want to anymore.

I rarely watched the news. I mean, I pick and choose what little news items I'm going to follow on my computer, but it's gotten very, very hard to watch the news because of the divisions that are going on in our country and the way we treat people we don't like or don't agree with these days. And I fear that some of that has made its way into the body of Christ as it relates to people who have differences of doing things the way we do things. Have you ever gone to a church and realized that... wow, they really do worship differently than we do worship? I've had people even point that out to me who've come from other persuasions or backgrounds. It's like, wow, you guys really sing a lot of songs. And then other people will say, you guys, we used to go twice as long in our worship at our church. And I even had some guys come up and say, how come you guys sit down? Some of you sit down during worship. Man, we never sit down. You know what I'm saying? We're different. We're different about the way we do things. And we tend to highlight those differences. I'm not sure what it is in our human nature that causes us to do that, but it's just we make a big deal of differences. Boy, this church sure is different from the one I went to. I got news for you. This church is way different from the one I was raised in because I was raised in church from the time I was a little boy until the time I didn't want to go to church anymore, which was about age 18, whatever. These 2 verses take what we see as unifying truths of all believers, and Paul lays them out for us. And so what we're going to do today is we're going to look through these verses at the things that unify us. There are seven elements here that unify us as believers. And I want to put them up on the screen, particularly for those of you who take notes, because, this is helpful, I suppose, to you. Seven Truths of the Christian Faith ● One Body ● One Spirit ● One Hope ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God and Father of all I wrote it as Seven Truths of the Christian Faith, but I got to thinking about that later on, and it was too late to change it. What I really wanted to say was, Seven

Truths that Unify. These are seven truths that unify believers, all true believers, and Paul lists them in these two verses. He says there's, One Body, One Spirit, One Hope, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, and One God and Father of all. And I think if Paul took the time to mention these things to us as unifying elements of who we are as believers, it behooves us to go through these things and talk about just exactly why and how they unify us. And we'll do these fairly rapidly, but we're going to begin with the first one, which is highlighted on your notes here on the screen: Seven Truths of the Christian Faith ● One Body ● One Spirit ● One Hope ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God and Father of all The fact that there is only One Body. And when we talk about a body in biblical terminology, we're talking about the church, essentially, essentially, we're talking about the church. Although I do have to tell you that there's— we’re talking about the body of Christ okay. But can I tell you that there is a difference between the body of Christ and the church. Because there's a big difference. The fact of the matter is, the church—the larger description of the church—actually includes believers and nonbelievers. There's always people coming into the church and they really believe they're part of the church, and they may or may not know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. I've talked to people who've come here for a period of time. I remember one particular family. They've since moved away, but this guy came to church for seven years before he got saved and came pretty regularly with his wife. His wife was a believer, but he was not yet a believer. And they came consistently for seven years until he finally bowed the knee and accepted Jesus. Now, but he was part of the church during that seven years, but he was not part of the body of Christ, because that's the difference, you see. The church is an amalgamation of people who may or may not believe. But the body of Christ is defined as those who have recognized their need of a Savior, who have turned from their old life, and who have come to Jesus and embraced Him as that Savior, and they're now trusting Him for the forgiveness of sins. Okay? That's the body of Christ. But that may or may not be the entire church. See, like I said, I was raised in church. And I remember, I was raised in a particular persuasion… of church that really didn't focus much on the gospel. In fact, I don't really ever remember anyone telling me, here's how you can be saved. It just wasn't part of what we did. And the minister got up every week and gave a very social-oriented message. And we learned some basic Bible stories in Sunday school, but it was never really connected to the gospel. And I grew up really never understanding the gospel message until I actually heard it for the first time as a teenager. How many of you remember Campus Crusade for Christ? They used to go around to schools. I'm talking back in the 70s, back just after Noah got off the ark. And I remember going to a high school nearby and I heard the gospel message given, and for the first time in my life, I was like, I get it. Jesus died for me, and I need to receive him as my Savior. First time. And again, I was in church my whole life up to that point, and I know there were a lot of other people who were in church, but just the message of Christ just went right over their heads. So, the body is what Paul is talking about here, and he's saying there is only one body. And again, he's referring to the body of Christ, meaning born-again believers. And what's cool about the fact that we are part of the body of Christ... Is that regardless of our differences, and we have lots of them, we are one body. And I mean, it doesn't matter what race, what skin color, what nationality, what culture, what language, or whatever else people divide themselves by Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever. When we come to Jesus Christ and trust Him for forgiveness, we are members of the one body of Christ. And you know what? There are other churches meeting in this town right here, right now, and around this area, and around the state or states, and around the country, and around the world. And all those people who are meeting, who have come to know Christ as their Savior, are part of the same body as you. We're one body because there is only one body, and that's the point that Paul is making here. Now let's make no mistake about it, the denominational differences that we have embraced over the last 2,000 years have done nothing but to encourage the

--- unity of the body, really. In fact, we have focused on our differences, haven't we? But here's what's important about that. When Jesus comes back, and He's coming back, when He returns, all of those man-made distinctions are going to cease to exist. And that includes Calvary Chapel. Doesn't matter where you come from or what denominational flavor maybe you were raised with, or what church you're in today. Those will cease to exist when Jesus returns, and He is simply coming back for His body. And that doesn't matter what roof you're under or what name you call yourself by in terms of your affiliation or whatever. He's coming for those who are trusting in Him, who've put their faith in Him, who believe in Him, that He is the Savior, and they are part of the body. And the implications of that is that we belong to one another as a body. The apostle Paul in some of his other letters talked about the body, and he likened it to a human body. And he said that Jesus is the head of the body, and you and I are the rest of the body. And just like your heart belongs to your lungs, that belongs to your hands, that belongs to your feet, we all belong to one another because we're part of one body. There's only one body. (Ephesians 4:15-16) It's what unifies us. We've been made into the body of Christ. And we belong to one another. Okay? This is hard for us to get through our heads, but we belong to one another. And if we really think about it, it really changes the way we see one another. The second truth that we're going to highlight here on our list is, Seven Truths of the Christian Faith ● One Body ● One Spirit ● One Hope ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God and Father of all

That there is only One Spirit. And again, Paul is referring to the Holy Spirit here. And this is frankly one of the coolest unifying aspects of Paul's list of things here. Because everybody who turns to Jesus, everybody who comes to Him and says, I need you as my Savior, though, well, they receive the Holy Spirit in their lives. And that one Holy Spirit comes into our life, and the implications of that one Holy Spirit coming into all of our lives is incredible. We don't receive a different spirit. We receive One Spirit. Everybody who has come to know Jesus as Savior has received one spirit, the one Holy Spirit. There's only one. One of the coolest implications of that is that there's only, because there's only One Spirit, there's only one truth. Yeah, try that one on for size. Well, and what that means is, the disagreements that we've had about that one truth are man-made; they're not spirit-made. The Spirit is not behind the disagreements and the issues that we have with one another. The Spirit is the one who speaks truth. But we, through various issues, reasons, we take issue with one another, and we are divided in areas of truth, and it could be for many reasons. Could be because somebody just told us at some point in our lives, this is true, and we believed it, or somebody might have mistaught the Word of God. You know, that happens. Somebody will use a verse out of context or in a bad way, and we're led to believe something that isn't true, or just lots of different reasons, and we can begin to camp on stuff that we think, well, this is true, and it's not. We're divided, but those are man-made divisions; they're not spirit-made divisions. There's a wonderful story I like to tell about this; some of you may remember hearing a wonderful Bible teacher from years ago by the name of David Hawking. I don't know if anybody remembers him or not, but I was introduced to him back in the 1980s when I was going to Bible college, and he was on the radio. He was all over the country, and he was teaching through the Book of Romans when I first heard him, and I was just mesmerized because he was a great teacher. Wonderful. I think he's still teaching. I hope. I haven't heard from him in a while, but back in the early 90s, David Hawking had a moral misstep, and so he had to back away from teaching. ---

And during a time when just about nobody would touch David Hawking with a 10-foot pole. Pastor Chuck Smith from the original Calvary Chapel reached out to David and brought him into Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, and began to minister to him toward the idea of restoring his life. And I had an opportunity a number of years ago. When we gathered at a Calvary Chapel pastors' gathering in Southern California to hear David Hawking shortly after all this came down. And he was a very humble, broken man at that time. You have to understand something about David Hawking, he had very, very strong beliefs and he was a very strong, dogmatic kind of a teacher, which was something that attracted people to him. And even though I disagreed with him on some particular aspects, I still realized he was a great teacher. But one of the things he believed and taught very strongly was that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were no longer functional in the church today. And Calvary Chapel comes from a position that is the opposite belief. We believe the gifts of the Spirit are functional in the church today. And David Hawking got up in front of a whole room full of Calvary Chapel pastors, very, very broken man, a very humble man by this time, gone through some very difficult things. And he got up in front of us all and he said, I need to tell you guys something. He said, for years, years and years, I've been teaching with an iron fist that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer functional. And he says, and not long after, pastor Chuck invited me in to restore my life. He says, I went into his office one day, and we sat down and we were talking, and I looked at him across his desk and I said, pastor Chuck, you know that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer active today. And pastor Chuck just smiled in that big grandpa smile that he had, and he said, are you sure about that? And he said, for the first time in my life, I went back and I looked at the word in a way that I'd never looked before. And I said, it's, and like, and here was a very humble man. It's one thing if you and I maybe change our mind on a particular issue. I mean, who are we? David Hawking had a worldwide teaching ministry. For a guy like that to come back and say, oops, I was wrong. That's a big deal. I mean, to come back and to say, I've changed my position on this and I see now from the Word of God that there is really nothing in the scripture that says that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer functional for the church today. That's a big deal. And you know what? He came to that conclusion.

Why is it we disagreed in the first place? Well, you tell me, I don't know, but you know what? There's still only one Spirit and one truth. And He speaks that truth, and every truth that He speaks is going to be corroborated in the Word of God. And that's one of the reasons why we have to be very careful studying through the scriptures and not speak into it with our own bias and our own sort of, well, this is what I think. Who cares what you think? It's what God’s Word says that's important. And that includes, it doesn't matter what I think either. And if it's in the Bible, let's believe it. If it's not in the Bible, let's jettison it. Okay. Let's just stick with the word because that's where we're going to see this truth, that the spirit, the one Spirit is speaking to the body of Christ. Let's look at the third truth that we're highlighting here in our list: Seven Truths of the Christian Faith ● One Body ● One Spirit ● One Hope ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God and Father of all One Hope. What is our hope? What do you hope in? I think you might be surprised to learn that the majority of born-again Christians have their hope pretty firmly rooted in the things of this life. Pretty firmly rooted. Whether they're hoping in the restoration of their marriage relationship, or another relationship, or hoping for a successful career, or hoping for prosperity, or hoping that they will continue to have health, or if they don't have health, that they'll get it back. And there's frankly nothing technically wrong with any of those things, except if that is where our ultimate hope is, there's a problem because those are things that are passing. And here, the apostle Paul had some really sobering things to say about those who put their hope in things that are passing. Let me show it to you on the screen from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 19. It says this:

--- 1 Corinthians 15:19 (ESV)

, If only for this life we have hope in Christ (here's Paul), we are to be pitied more than all men. Isn't that an amazing verse? If your hope is grounded in something related to this life, and what is only going to happen in this life, he says you are to be pitied more than all men. Wow! What is our hope supposed to be in? Well, obviously, it's not something related to the passing-ness, the transitory element, or character of this life. Let me show you where the apostle Paul speaks about our ultimate hope. He says in, Titus 2:13 (ESV)

, “...waiting for our blessed hope (here we go), the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” That is where our hope needs to ultimately be. And here's why. When Jesus comes back, He's going to bring with Him every promise that He ever made. The fulfillment of those promises are coming with Him. And we're going to see the fulfillment of everything God ever declared to you and I as a promise. And that's what our hope is in. That when Jesus returns, He will fulfill for us all of those promises. And that includes our salvation. He's bringing it with Him. We call ourselves saved, but our salvation is actually coming. We are saved by faith today. We are going to find the fulfillment of our salvation when Jesus returns. And so that, and He is our blessed hope. The next truth that we're going to highlight on our list of these seven truths that unify is that there's only one Lord, and this refers, by the way, to the Lord Jesus Christ. When we talk about Lord, we're talking about Jesus, and the basis of our unity as believers is our faith in One Lord.

Seven Truths of the Christian Faith ● One Body ● One Spirit ● One Hope ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God and Father of all And that's why we can never have unity with those who embrace a different Jesus. And there are groups, believe me, who embrace a different Jesus. But that's a problem, you see, because there's only one Lord, that's what Paul says. That's a unifying aspect of those who are believers in Christ. There's only one Lord. Let me show you what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 8:5- 6, on the screen. He wrote, 1 Corinthians 8:5-6 (ESV)

. For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords” (and he’s talking about Principalities and powers there, he says), yet for us there is… one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. What is Paul saying in this passage about the one Lord? Notice he says, “...through whom are all things…” Do you know what that means? That's a fancy way of saying He's the creator. We have one Lord, and He's the creator. And some people get a little bit whacked out about that and they'll say, wait a minute, I thought God created the heavens and the earth. Isn't that what it says in Genesis 1:1? God created, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth? Yeah, that's exactly what it says. How did He create the heavens and the earth? He spoke it. When you speak, what comes out of your mouth? Your words, right? Who is Jesus? The Word of God. The Word goes forth from God the Father, and it is the creative element of the Godhead. Jesus went forth, and he created all things, and that's why this passage says, “...through whom are all things, and through whom we exist.” Our existence is --- literally bound to that one Lord, our one Lord. There's only one. There aren't two, three, ten, or whatever. For us, there's only one Lord. Next on our list, Paul says there is one faith. Seven Truths of the Christian Faith ● One Body ● One Spirit ● One Hope ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God and Father of all And when he talks about one faith, he's talking, he's referring to the things that we hold most dear, the truth, the, if I can use this word, the doctrine, the stuff that we believe with all of our hearts, that's revealed in the Bible, revealed to us through the Holy Spirit and so forth. Listen to how Jude says this in Jude verse 3,

Beloved (he says), although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith (Notice he doesn't call it a faith. It's the faith. There's only one faith, which he says,) that was once for all delivered to the saints. The faith. There's only one faith, and this is where you, again, we have to separate ourselves from people who say, well, there's all kinds of truths, and there's all kinds of ways to reach God, and every religion has a piece of it, and so if you get them all together and stuff, then you can then you can find the real way to God, which is a, yeah really, really dumb thing to say, by the way. The fact of the matter is there's only one faith. There's one truth that is connected to the one faith, and it has been once for all delivered to the saints. It's been given to you and I in the scriptures, confirmed by the Holy Spirit. And you and I are to contend for that faith, which, by the way, means to declare and affirm.

We declare that faith, and we affirm that faith as the one faith. You put your faith in something else, your faith is going to be full of holes. You put your faith in God, and it's a sure thing. And in His word so forth. Next, Paul writes about, on our list: Seven Truths of the Christian Faith ● One Body ● One Spirit ● One Hope ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God and Father of all One Baptism. Now this one might confuse some people since we read in the New Testament about various baptisms. You start off the gospel messages and you hear that John the Baptist is out baptizing people. We learn later that's a baptism of repentance. (Matthew 3:1-6) And then we have Christian baptism. Jesus tells His disciples to go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:18-20) And then we find out in the Book of Acts that we're talking about, there's another baptism called the baptism of the Spirit. Jesus tells His disciples, hang around here in Jerusalem because, very soon, you're going to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and receive power. (Acts 1:4-5) And you know what? I read through some of my commentaries, I found out there have been volumes written about which baptism Paul was talking about. And I mean, it's really boring. The fact of the matter is, Paul saw baptism as baptism because the word baptism means immersion. It means to be immersed, in other words, to be dunked or to be enveloped by something. Okay, that's one of the reasons why we, when we baptize people, we lower them back into the water because that's what the word baptism means. But baptism, please understand, is just a picture. Baptism doesn't save you as just a picture can't save you. It's a picture of something that already happened. You were immersed into Jesus and whether you were immersed into Him for

--- identification with Him and salvation. Or whether you were immersed into His Spirit for the empowering of the Spirit and the work that we are called to do, it doesn't matter. It's just baptism. It's being immersed into Jesus. There's just one. Ultimately, we talk about these different modes of baptism for the sake of understanding what the Bible says, but being immersed into Jesus is being immersed into Jesus. Because immersed means to be enveloped. Okay? So, when we're baptizing people, we picture that being enveloped, that process, by lowering them into the water, and when they're fully in the water that's a picture of what has already taken place. That they've been enveloped by Jesus, immersed into Jesus, and they make this declaration of faith by being baptized, but it's just one baptism, you know? Paul talks about it here because you see, baptism isn't something we do. Baptism is something He does to us. We are immersed into Christ through the Spirit. That's how you get baptized. Just like circumcision in the Old Testament was a picture of cutting away the flesh, baptism is a picture of being immersed into Jesus, right? Let me show you a passage from 1 Corinthians 12 that kind of lines this out a little bit. Paul writes,

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free— and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. How did you get baptized? Was it something you did? No, not according to Paul. He says you were baptized by the Spirit. You were baptized by one Spirit into one body when you came to know Jesus Christ as your Savior. We make a big fuss about me being baptized. I was baptized, I baptized, or the pastor baptized me or whoever. No, that's just a picture of something that's already been done in the spirit, okay. Finally, on our list of things, Paul talks about the fact, and these are the unifying truths of the faith.

Seven Truths of the Christian Faith ● One Body ● One Spirit ● One Hope ● One Lord ● One Faith ● One Baptism ● One God and Father of all He says we have One God and Father of all, One God and Father of all. Now, would you look again with me at verse 5 here and look at this verse? Because this is important. He says, “...one Lord, one faith, one baptism..” Oh, actually, that's verse 6, I'm sorry: “...one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Stop there. Who is all? You know what he's talking about? Who is all? All is the church. It's not everybody. It's the church. Do you guys understand if we're going to say that God is in all, and it means everything and everybody, then we've got a very weird doctrine going on, where God is like in chairs and trees and walls, and believe me, there are people who believe that sort of nonsense. What Paul is saying is, God is in—he says three things—over all, He's over all of our lives, sovereignly over all of our lives, He is through all, in other words, He's working through all believers, and thirdly, He is in all believers, dynamically living in them through the indwelling presence of the Spirit. You've got to understand, Paul's talking about the church here. He's talking about the body of Christ. He's talking about what unifies us as believers. But let's go back to this first idea, there is one God. There is one God. Do you believe that? There is one God. Now, what are the implications of that? Well, the implications of that is that there's no other gods. Oh man, I tell you, I've seen people do calisthenics to just get around that idea that there's one God. But you know what? The Bible says there's one God. Let me show you a passage from Isaiah, one of my favorite passages to prove this point. ---

--- Isaiah 43:10 (NIV)

God speaking here, “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD (Yahweh), “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.” (Look what He goes on to say) Before me, no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.” That's pretty conclusive, isn't it? The God of the universe says, before me, no god was formed, and there will be no gods formed after me. You know what that means? It means He's it. But you see, this is where we have to diverge from other groups that believe in the multiplicity of gods, such as the Mormons who believe in a multiplicity of gods. I once actually showed that verse to some Mormon missionaries who came to my home and I said, who's talking here? Who is it who said, “...there are no gods before me, nor will there be after me.” He said, well, that's the God of this world, do you get the deal? See, they believe that there are gods over every world. There are all kinds of new worlds constantly being created, and they, the Mormons, will be gods. If they are married and die in good faith with the church, they will become gods, and they will populate these new worlds, and they will be the god of that world. Well, I'm sorry, that's calisthenics. The Bible knows nothing of that. The point is, God, who is God over all, says, “Before me there were no gods, nor will there be any after me.” There is one God, and that is something that we hold as a unifying truth. Do you understand? Do you understand why we can't be unified with those who disagree with that particular element? This is a unifying truth. And that doesn't mean that we dislike these people. I've got lovely Mormon neighbors, who I talk to and enjoy their company. But I'm sorry, I can't be unified in Christ with them because we differ on this particular area. As much as I love and appreciate these people, I have to say, no, there's only one God. Ever. Ever!

And you know what's interesting about this, and I didn't even put this on here, but the very next statement, right after verse 10, God says this, “And apart from me, there is no savior.” Apart from me, and who's speaking? YAHWEH, Lord.

(Isaiah 43:11) You know what's interesting about that? There were a bunch of angels who appeared to a group of shepherds at one point, who said to them, behold, in the city of David is born unto you a Savior. The angels declared the birth of the one true God in the person of Jesus Christ, His Son. And that's one of the most powerful proof texts that Jesus is God in human flesh. (Luke 2:11) Because God said, “Apart from me, there is no savior.” If you believe in some weird, wacky sort of a... idea of a multiplicity of gods, or Jesus is a god, you've got a problem with the Bible, because there is only one God. Now, what does Paul go on to say? He goes on to say that we believe in one God, Father of all. Again, who is all? The church. But you might say, well, pastor Paul, can't we say that God is everybody's Father? No, we can't say that because the Bible doesn't allow us to say it. Although people like to say it, we're all God's children. We are not all God's children. Who are God's children? Those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ. They are made God's children. Do you understand that when you were born, you were the child of your parents? But you are not God's child until you came to faith in Jesus Christ. Let me prove it to you from the scripture, John chapter 1. Let me show you this, verses 12 and 13.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – (And then he describes that birth process by which we become God's children. We are born, he says,) children born not of natural descent, (meaning from human parentage) nor (not) of human decision (hey, honey, let's have a baby) or a husband's will, (But look at the last few words) but born of God. Listen, to be a child of God, you must be born of God. And that is the second birth that we refer to as being born again. That's what makes you a child of God. You aren't born a child of God until you are born again, okay? ---

--- When Paul says, this is a unifying element of the body of Christ, that God is our Father, he's the Father of all of us. The implications of that is, we have the same Father. Isn't that a trip? I mean, we know, most, a lot of us know each other in this room and it might not seem really weird to say, we have the same father, but to imagine going to another country, people who don't even speak the same language, but yet who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, and your culture is incredibly different from theirs, they eat different food that you wouldn't even want to talk about and yet you have the same father. It's really amazing. The implications of that are if you have the same father, you're part of the same family. You are of the same family. How amazing is that? He is the Father of all, and that is the unifying element of our understanding of there being one God who is Father of all believers. Wow. If all these people are in my family, if we have the same dad, spiritually speaking, how should I be treating these people? Well, he actually already covered that in the first three verses which we covered last week, but I'll just remind you of them so you're right here in your Bible, right? Let's just read the first three verses. Here's how we're supposed to treat people who are in the family. You ready? Verse 1:

That's how we treat one another in the body of Christ. There it is. He laid it out for us. Why? Because we're one as He is one. He has made us one. These are the unifying elements that Paul lays out that connects all true believers. And it's pretty amazing, isn't it? Now we just need to get around to living it out. ---