Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This week's sermon was delivered during ACC's annual congregational meeting.

We are in the middle of a series called One. God’s dream for His church is that His church would be one. Last week, we saw how Jesus passionately prayed for His church to be one. Jesus’ heart beats with unity, and as His followers, our heart must beat with unity as well.

Rupertus Meldenius is famous for this quote. “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity (or love).”

I’ve always loved that quote. That quote should be what fuels the church. When the Bible says that something is essential, we must be unified. No exception. When something is a matter of opinion and not a Scriptural command, we give each other the freedom to disagree. But in all things, essential and non-essential, we live with a spirit of love.

That’s a beautiful picture of the church. But it brings to mind the question, “Ok, so what are the essentials?”

I had a professor in college who taught us that, if you want to find the essentials, you look to this passage from Ephesians 4.

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6, NIV)

These are the essentials. There is one God, who is made up of three persons. This passage talks about one Father, one Lord (Jesus), and one Spirit (the Holy Spirit). Belief in the Trinity is essential. We have one God made up of three persons. It’s an essential where we cannot have disagreement.

There is one hope. The only hope we have is God’s grace. We can’t earn our salvation. No amount of good works can put us in good standing with God. That is an essential.

There is one faith. It is the faith that believes that God sent His Son, born of a virgin. Jesus lived the sinless life that we couldn’t live. He died the death that we should have died. And He rose again to seal our victory over sin, death, and hell. That one faith in Jesus is essential.

There is one baptism. We are baptized into Christ. We die with Him and we rise with Him. It is the moment where we are forgiven of our sin by God’s grace and are clothed with Christ. It is essential.

There is one body, which is a reference to church. Jesus didn’t die for a club or an organization. There are a lot of organizations that do some great charitable work. I’m thankful for them, but Jesus didn’t die for those organizations. He died for His church.

The church is called the body of Christ, and in that body there is a oneness. A unity. That’s why this series is simply called One.

We can disagree on a whole host of issues. We can discuss them in a spirit of love, but we don’t necessarily have to agree.

Where we do have to agree is on the essentials. And there is complete unity in this body on the essentials laid out in Scripture. And I’m very thankful for that.

And today, we have the perfect opportunity to demonstrate our unity in our annual congregational meeting as we support the men that God has called to lead us. We may not always agree with them on the non-essential matters of opinion. There are certainly areas and issues as we talked about last week that we can discuss and even disagree about in love. But one thing that I know without a doubt is that in the matters that are essential to God, we are unified with them. And that unity is a thing of beauty in the eyes of God.

In Psalm 133, God said, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.” (Psalm 133:1, 3b)

Unity is important to God. In fact, He doesn’t just say that it’s important. It’s one of His essentials. God blesses His people when His people are unified. That’s what Psalm 133 tells us. God bestows His blessing when we live together in unity.

It’s actually a very clear line that God draws in the Bible. Division is never blessed by God. Unity on the essentials is always blessed by God.

And that’s really what today is all about. It’s about uniting on the essentials. It’s about putting our differences on non-essentials aside and coming together as one.

When we unite on the things that are most important to God, that’s when God unleashes blessings that we never even saw coming. That’s when we are blessed in our personal lives. That’s when we are blessed in our families. And that’s when we are blessed in our church.

When the church of Jesus comes together as one…when we unite on the truth…when we are one in mission and vision, we are unstoppable.

In Matthew 16, Jesus said, “…I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18, KJV)

When we come together as one, we become this kind of unstoppable force. The kind that Jesus prayed for. The kind of force that will be a pipeline of life to people who are dying.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: church, Ephesians 4, One, unity