What is Christian Unity
Auto Transcript from the sermon What is Christian Unity by Joshua Lewis.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's an honor to be here.
Yeah, I started a YouTube channel called Remnant Radio back in 2017.
We are a Protestant-based theology program.
And when I say Protestant-based, it means I just interview everyone under that kind of banner of Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal, Charismatic.
We just interview everybody and we talk about theology.
That's kind of been my bread and butter.
It's actually what causes me to be bi-vocational.
That's my labor that I do so I can plant a church because the church that we just planted is quite small and doesn't take care of salaries in any way.
So I enjoy doing the podcast.
We reach about a million viewers a month.
And if you're interested in learning about history, theology, and the gifts of the spirit, Remnant Radio is a great platform for that.
On Mondays, we talk to scholars, pastors, teachers from those different traditions.
And on Wednesdays, we often cover charismatic gifts.
I am a continuationist, which means I believe in the gifts of the spirit that they have continued and they have not ceased.
And when I say that I believe in these gifts, we practice these gifts.
So like in my own local church, if we have people who have words, we give prophecy.
Typically within the confines of people who've been trained, we don't have an open mic where people get to go up and prophecy.
I'm talking about people who've been vetted and tested within the community, get up and exercise the gifts of prophecy.
We pray for the sick.
We believe in those things.
But because we believe in those things, you will often find that we are, and I hate to use this word, policing our own movement.
Sometimes things get crazy in the charismatic movement.
I don't know if you've noticed that.
But part of what we do on the channel is we go, hey, this is what the biblical grounds is for these beliefs.
And you're kind of outside in crazy town, somewhere far, far away.
So we police our own movement.
We call the cessationist to repent and believe the scriptures that say that these things have clearly continued or active in the church.
So that's something you're interested in.
If you're interested about learning history, theology, gifts of the spirit, go check out Remnant Radio.
And like as mentioned, I am the pastor of a small church in Ada, Oklahoma called King's Fellowship Church.
We are a rather liturgical charismatic church, which is an odd thing to say.
We do the Lord's Prayer.
We do the Nicene Creed.
We do communion every single Sunday.
We do prayers of confession, prayers of thanksgiving.
We gather together around those kinds of traditional, traditional things that we've done in Protestant circles for the past 2000 years.
And we're continuing in that rich tradition.
Let's dive into our text today.
We're gonna be in Ephesians chapter three.
So if you would open to the book of Ephesians in chapter three, I'll give you a bit of a heads up of what Ephesians is all about.
The book of Ephesians is written to the church at Ephesus.
Paul is in prison.
He is writing at best on the top level of the prison.
At worst, he's at the bottom of the prison.
If he's at the bottom of the prison, well, it's grosser.
Let's just leave it there.
Anyway, so Paul is writing this letter to the church of Ephesus, and he is writing some spectacular prayers and spectacular theology to the church of Ephesus.
Paul is dirty, grimy, in some level, in an unclean state.
Let's just say that.
And as Paul is writing this letter, he is telling the church who they are in Christ.
He's telling the church who he is in Christ, how he is seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus, how Christ has freed us and set us at liberty.
And here he is in a prison, writing these kinds of things to the great position that God has elevated us to when he's definitely underground in some kind of prison.
It's a dark place, and he's writing this letter, encouraging the church of Ephesus that God has done these tremendous and spectacular things.
As the apostle Paul dives into the letter, he wants to remind the church of Ephesus that it was because of the love of God that we've been saved.
It's not by any of our works, but it's by grace through faith.
In chapter one, verse five, he says, "'In love he predestined us.
'" In chapter two, he goes out of his way to talk about how Jew and Gentile had been reconciled into Christ Jesus.
He says that by abolishing the law and its commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself a new man in the place of the two, making peace, and that might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
He then goes on in chapter three, verse six, to say, "'This mystery is that the Gentiles "'are fellow heirs and members of the same body "'and partakers of the promise of Christ Jesus "'through the gospel.
'" So we are at peace with God.
He has reconciled us, both the Jew and Greek, into one new man, and as we are reconciled into one new man through the gospel of Jesus Christ, Gentiles have been able to come in and partake of the promise of the household of God.
And it's in this context that he begins this prayer in Ephesians chapter three, and we're gonna be in verses 14 through 19, or 14 through 20, depending on how I wanna do it.
If you would, rise with me as we read the word together.
This is part of my tradition.
I'm sorry I got everyone comfortable.
If you can, would you stand with me and we'll read together from Ephesians chapter three, verses 14 through 19.
The apostle Paul says, "'For this reason I bow my knee before the Father, "'from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, "'that according to the riches of his glory, "'he may grant you to be strengthened "'by his spirit in your inner being, "'that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, "'that being rooted and grounded in love, "'you may have strength to comprehend together "'with all the saints what is the breadth and length "'and height and depth of the love of God, "'that you may know the love of God "'that surpasses knowledge, "'that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
'" This is God's word today and this is what we're gonna be talking about.
You guys may be seated.
We are gonna be talking about this prayer that the apostle Paul is giving to the church of Ephesus.
And it's important that we take note of this prayer because it's actually this prayer that seems to be echoed in the book of Revelation.
If you don't remember in Revelation, Paul writes, not Paul, John writes to the church of Ephesus and he says, "'You've left your first love.
'" And here, Paul is acknowledging, he's recognizing, this is a very important thing, that they be rooted and grounded in love.
This entire prayer has to do with love.
It is the unity of the church.
It's a knowledge of love and it's an experience of love.
Now, unity in the church, for sure, has an aspect of love to it because he says when he starts off the letter, "'I bow my knee before the Father, "'from whom every family in heaven are under his name, "'that you, being rooted and grounded in love,' right?
"'Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
'" If you have faith in Jesus, you are rooted in love because you have a love for God and God has a love for you, but this is what's really, really important.
This is really important because sometimes we will read this passage and we'll say, "'We'll be rooted and grounded in our love for him,' "'it's not that.
'" We're actually rooted and grounded from his love for us.
If you think of the apostles on that great day where Christ dies on the cross and all of the disciples are scattered, there are three people at the foot of the cross, mama, some girl he cast demons out of, and his best friend, John, right?
All the other disciples left, "'Peter, Jesus, I love you, "'I'm never gonna betray you, "'I'm gonna slice some guy's ear off "'when it comes to fighting words.
"'I got your back, Jesus, "'I'm gonna be there to the bitter and nasty end.
"'I love you, I'm not going anywhere.
'" But when persecution arose, they all scattered, but the one who stayed didn't have a revelation of how much he loved Jesus, he had a revelation of how much Jesus loved him.
So here in Ephesus, Paul is writing to the Ephesian community and he's saying, I want you to be rooted and grounded in the love that God has for you.
He wants you to understand and comprehend the love that God has poured out in our hearts by which we cry out, Abba, Father.
It's his love, it's his love for us.
It's the same love they talked about in Ephesians 1, where he says, he predestined you according to his great love.
He wants us to be rooted and grounded in love.
It is the foundation for all Christian unity.
It's the foundation of all Christian unity.
Think about a brand new believer who comes to Christian faith.
Are they unified to us with their perfect Christian ethic?
Well, no, they just came to faith.
Their ethic is still growing and developing.
They don't still yet know what is right or what is wrong.
It's gonna require a law of gospel distinction.
It's gonna require a reformation and knowledge of what the good commands of God's law entails for us to be rightly walking in a Christian ethic.
Right, well, what about doctrine?
Are we unified in Christian doctrine?
Again, when a new believer comes to faith, are they perfectly developed in their soteriology or their eschatology or their pneumatology?
No, they don't know things about end times or the work of the spirit or how they came to saving faith.
They just know that they have.
They're rooted in this one thing, this one thing that we all have in common.
It's the love of God, that I am loved by him.
He bought me.
He purchased me with his blood.
That is the common denominator.
It is the underlying principle that unifies all Christian believers into one community.
The word community, think of it as common unity.
What do we all have in common?
And if we have something in common, we can unify around this one thing we have in common.
This common unity, this community is founded and grounded in the love of God.
And again, not love for God, the love of God, the love that he has for us.
We know he loves us.
I don't know anything about, you know, sometimes the three persons of the Trinity, that he is God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one being of the Father.
I can't quote all of the Trinitarian doctrines, but what I do know is that Jesus loved me and he purchased me and he called me out of sin and I'm different.
That's the common denominator.
Now, some people would want a deeper, maybe a more profound definition of Christian unity, but I do believe this is the foundation of all Christian unity.
I would encourage you to think of a orchestra.
An orchestra has got a bunch of different musical instruments within the band.
You're gonna have violins and flutes and trombones and drums and cellos and xylophones.
They're all together.
They can captivate the heart, right?
They can, oh wow, that's so beautiful, individually, but when all played in unison, captivate the very soul, draw us into awe.
If you've heard a great symphony play well, it can in a moment kind of catch you out of your worries, your day to day, the things that you have to do when you get home, when you hear truly beautiful music, you get caught up, you kind of leave the moment as it were.
In the same way, the orchestra, the conductor of that orchestra directs and guides all of the people under this one common unity.
They are unified under what thing?
They're unified under the man conducting.
Now, if one of them decided to go off and to play outside and in rebellion to the dictates of the man orchestrating, right?
The beautiful music would turn into a mess and it would no longer captivate the heart and the soul.
It would undermine all of the musical profession that these individuals have gathered together to do.
In this manner, Paul is praying for unity that our collective love would bubble forth and bubble over and fill our hearts and shake our souls and draw in the lost, how much he loves us.
When we gather together and we begin to express the different loves, oh, he's delivered me from this, he's delivered me from that, oh, what great and merciful our God is.
And we begin to proclaim his great glories, something in us, we're removed from the worries of our days and of our life.
We're caught up out of this into God's glorious beauty.
Unbelievers gather around and they see, look how much they love him.
I'm reminded of the Song of Solomon.
In Song of Solomon, I believe it's chapter five, the woman is waiting for her beloved to come to the door and he comes and he reaches for the door latch, but he doesn't open the door.
So she goes out to the door, opens it, swings forth looking for her beloved and she can't find him.
So she goes out into the byways and the highways, crying out for her beloved, have you seen my beloved?
Well, the watchmen of the city, they beat her and they take her veil, but then she goes to the daughters of Jerusalem, daughters of Jerusalem after being beaten, she's still proclaiming the glory and the beauty of her beloved.
She goes, have you seen my beloved?
And they said, who's your beloved?
Who's your beloved?
Amongst all the other beloveds, like what's so fascinating about your beloved?
Is he better than the Buddha?
Is he better than the Muhammad?
Is he better than the Joseph Smith?
Is he, what's so great about your beloved?
And she says, oh, my beloved, he is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among 10,000s.
His head shines like the sun, his hair is black as ravens.
He has like doves that are bathed in streams of milk.
His cheeks are sweet smelling herbs, his lips are lilies dipped with liquid myrrh.
His body is ivory, his arms are gold set with jewels and his body is ivory set with sapphires, his legs are gold set in basins.
I don't know if you've noticed it's a farmer's tan.
He's got ivory here and then gold here and here.
So anyway, so anyone who works in the field, her beloved has been working.
He's got a farmer's tan, okay?
So her beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among 10,000.
He's altogether beautiful and sweet.
And you know what the daughters of Jerusalem say?
Well, where's your beloved that we may go look for him with you?
Because when someone is so captivated by how good God is, there's no evangelistic tool, an apologetic thing that you need to go into the world with that can trump somehow the knowledge of how much God loves you and your captivated glory of him.
Now, don't get it twisted.
I think when I mentioned earlier that the underlying common denominator of Christian unity is not doctrine and it is not ethics, some would hear me and go, that's not good.
We need Christian ethics.
We need to unify around Christian doctrine.
And I actually agree with you.
I'm just saying that at the entry point of Christianity, what we all have in common is the love of God.
Paul is not trying to suggest that the church of Ephesus should embrace false doctrines.
In fact, he goes out of his way in the book of Galatians to say, do not embrace the Judaizers.
He goes into Colossians and says, hey, do not embrace those proto-Gnostics, those who believe in secret doctrines and secret teachings.
In 2 Timothy 2, verse 18, he says, do not stand for those who say that Christ has already come and there's already a resurrection.
Those full preterists, you keep your eye on those guys.
Do not fellowship with them.
Remove yourself from them.
And in the same way, when I talk about Christian unity, when I talk about this love that roots us, we are not allowed to lock arms with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims and pretend like it's real Christian unity, because it's not.
They can say that they have a love of God and they might have a semblance of godliness by what they choose to abstain from, but they deny the power because they deny the true love of God that is only given through the one person, Christ Jesus.
Additionally, when I mentioned earlier Christian ethics, that we don't merely unify over Christian ethics, do not think that this Christian unity is somehow impure in the same way that it is not shallow.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, 11, but now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, a reveler, a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one.
So do not be confused.
All believers who are early coming into the faith, they don't have all their doctrine, they don't have all their ethics sorted.
We walk slowly with these people, showing them what the scriptures entail.
However, there are wolves.
There are certainly sheep that don't know what to eat and what not to eat, but there are also wolves hanging out in sheep's clothing.
And they will come and they will say, we can worship one of many gods, we can do whatever we will.
But Paul has gone out of his way here to say you do not unify with the LGBTQ community.
You do not unify with those who slaughter the innocent unborn.
You do not unify with those who proclaim a prosperity gospel and do not embrace the truth of the gospel, the truth of God's word.
You are going to suffer in this life.
And they hated him, they're gonna hate you.
But it's all worth it.
Because the only one who matters, the only one who sits on a throne reigning over the universe, he loves me.
He knows the hairs on my head.
I don't care what this world has to offer.
And I'm rooted and grounded, not in my love for him, not in my Christian doctrine, not in my ethics, because I'm gonna be wrong about doctrine and I'm gonna stumble through my ethics.
But what I am rooted in, what I am grounded in will never change and it's his love for me.
It's never going anywhere.
So Paul prays for unity in the community and that unity in that community to expound and develop us in our love.
In Ephesians chapter three, verses 17 through 19, he says that you want to be rooted and grounded in love so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that being rooted and grounded in love, you may have strength to comprehend together with all the saints, the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of God's love.
Notice our text in verse 18 describes the knowledge of God.
Describes the knowledge of God in breadth and length and height and depth.
These are measurable and comprehensible aspects of God's love.
The different aspects of the scriptures that we can see from our brothers and our sisters deepens and expounds our love.
He tells us that we need to be unified and it's in the covenant community.
It's when you are inside the household of God that you are then able to measure the breadth, the depth, the height, the length of God's love.
You can't do this on your own.
Beloved, I know we live in the West and Western Christianity says, it's just you and your Bible, no creed but the Bible.
Grab your Bible, go around and hide.
Read your Bible, but do it in the confines of community.
Gather with the assembly, gather, do not forsake yourselves.
The assembly, when you gather together, come to church, listen to the proclamation of the word, gather in Bible study, hang out with brothers and sisters in the faith and show each other the love of God that you have seen in the scriptures.
Because it's only in that place that your height and depth and length begin to grow.
And the body of Christ is so much bigger than our church or our denomination.
In fact, if you begin to have a deep, deep profound attraction to the things of God, what will happen is you will begin to see that there is a broad and wide representation in the body of Christ of people who are captivated by the love of God.
In a book written by Gordon T.
Smith called Evangelical Sacramental Pentecostal, he talks about how his church traditions actually cause us to deepen our relationship with God.
He talks about the evangelical movement and how the evangelicals like the Baptist and the Church of Christ and these, even non-denominational churches at times will gather around the gospel and they emphasize the love of God seen in the cross, seen in the crucifixion and they encounter God through the preaching and teaching of the word because it was on the cross that Christ pronounces through the word, it is finished, forensically justified.
You and I are as righteous before God as we will ever be.
Our righteousness here on the earth, it's gonna ebb and flow, we're gonna be sanctified, but you and I are secured in the heavens and the evangelical movement will declare, hey, it is because of the cross, it's because what he said to Telestai, it's finished, it's over, it's done.
And it's because of the crucifixion, we encounter God through the word.
The sacramental community has an entirely different emphasis.
They have been captivated by God's love for them through the incarnation.
Jesus sits on a throne being worshiped day and night by creatures of all sorts.
They're different and wild and crazy and they're worshiping day and night.
Can you imagine you and I going to a third world country today?
No AC, we're getting hot and sticky and we're like, you know, having to deal with problems, no electricity, no wifi.
Your problems pale in comparison to the condescension of God in absolute glory, surrounded by worship, condescending into the womb of a woman.
And the sacramentalists, they see God's condescension, they go, wow, God has made himself flesh.
It's not just the crucifixion where he displays his love.
It was the sacrifice of being God incarnate in eternity past and eternity future, always God of God, light of light, true God of true God, being condensed into the confines of human flesh.
What humility this God has and how captivated by that love they are.
They're shocked by God's love.
And how do they encounter God?
They encounter God through the sacraments where God comes down and meets with us through bread and wine.
They emphasize the incarnational living of Christ amongst his people.
So the evangelicals through the cross and the spoken word, the sacramentalists through the incarnation and communion and baptism.
But then you have the Pentecostals and the charismatics.
They look to God's ascension, Christ who ascended on high and is seated at the right hand of the father.
It's he who has descended in the lower regions of the earth.
It's he who ascended on high and gave gifts to men, some of the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers.
For the quibbling of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ.
See, it's he who ascended.
The Pentecostals will say, look how great and how mighty and how loving he is to us.
That not only did he come to earth, not only did he die on the cross, but he has ascended and is seated at the right hand of the father and you and I sit in him.
We're seated at the right hand of the father.
And not only do we encounter God through the preaching of the word, through the experience of the sacraments, but we have a right now, a mediated grace at any point in time, power for ministry now.
But these heights, depths, lengths that these different traditions show us, they compound if we will allow them.
If we will surround ourself with Christian unity, we will actually find that those brothers that we think we're in competition with, those sisters that we think that we are at odds with will actually expound our love for God.
And again, I hope you heard me.
I am not talking about a shallow theological doctrine where we just allow anything.
What I'm talking about is true Christian brothers and sisters that we disagree on tertiary issues.
When we begin to embrace them, to hear them, to hear how much God loves them, our hearts will begin to change and to be captivated.
The breadth, the length, the depth, the height of God's love will be expanded in our heart and in our mind.
But this isn't only merely theological.
I don't mean to toot a horn because I mean, I was not a pure child by any stretch of the imagination, but I mean, I got married as a virgin.
I've never done drugs a day in my life.
I've never, I've never, like I didn't defile myself crazy with the things of Satan, as John might say.
But that being said, when a brother or sister comes in and their story is different than mine, I have a knowledge now of God's love.
Look, I was, I don't, if you wanna, if you wanna grow in your love of God and how much God loves you, if you wanna grow in that knowledge, you should go to Teen Challenge.
Those guys can worship.
Those guys will sit up on the mic and talk about how God delivered them, how God set them free, how God changed them, how God used a praying mama for the last three years to pull them out of the depths of hell and into Christ's most merciful hands.
So this is both a doctrinal love that can be expounded by the body of Christ, but it's also an emotional kind of love.
It's a deepened kind of love of look what he's done for me.
Look how great and vast the love of God that even while we were yet sinners, deeply defiled the things of the world.
And I wanna be very clear, I need to take a step back.
When I said, when I said that I had not touched the deep things of Satan, do not for a moment think I was not more defiled than those that I just mentioned.
My heart is wicked and sinful.
I am the chief of sinners.
I don't want to for a second say, you know, I didn't do these things.
I'm just saying by worldly standards, people would look at me and go, oh, wow, you're pretty good.
My heart was deeply wicked and rebellious.
I wanna be very clear.
I don't mean to put myself up on any kind of pedestal because that would be foolish and set you up for a great fall and tumble in the kingdom.
I only mean to say that there are things that I had not personally been delivered of that others have that show us how great God's love is for us.
You know, I'm not a football guy.
I'm just not, I don't care for football.
I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and they are fanatics.
I suppose if I decided to start watching football in Texas, there would be a few things that would happen first, right?
The first thing that would happen is, you know, I'd probably start watching the game at home, right?
And then if I really developed a love for the game, I'd start going to watch parties with my buddies and we'd start, you know, gathering together.
We'd watch the game together.
We'd, you know, eat popcorn, wings, that kind of thing.
We would gather around a television and we'd all talk and chat.
And some of the rules, you know, I learned rules when I was a kid.
And, you know, NFL changes a lot of rules.
So it would take me some time to kind of acclimate myself to some of the new rules that were being added.
You know, we'd talk through them.
After about a year of that, I would start remembering the players' names on the field.
Okay, well, that's this guy, that's that guy.
It's not just the Cowboys anymore.
It's not just a receiver anymore.
I know the names of the quarterbacks.
I know the names of the receivers, right?
Like I know the names of the running backs.
I start to learn something about those individuals.
And if we're in a communal context, you know what's gonna happen after we start watching football for a few years?
Fantasy football league.
So we're gonna start a fantasy football league, right?
And some of you guys are starting to look at each other because y'all are convicted right now because y'all already know I'm going to be the butt of this joke.
Okay, so you have this fantasy football league, right?
And then, so I'm gonna start remembering their stats and their passing yards and the touchdowns that they're gonna make.
And I'm gonna start remembering all the little things about the players, not just the names, but the context of the players.
And then maybe if I really get sucked into it, I'm gonna start going to games.
I'm gonna start showing up.
And if I'm real radical, I'll start doing these things called tailgate parties, which is just public worship outside of these giant temples.
I mean, there are these parties outside of these stadiums.
Anyway, and you go and you go to the tailgate party and maybe you start painting yourself blue and running up and down the field, screaming and chanting on your team, right?
But you never, I have never, ever seen a person, ever in my life, you can come to me and tell me I'm wrong, but I have never seen a person watching a football game at home going straight to the stadium, painting themselves blue.
It's never happened.
Because you only become radical through community.
It's the only way it happens.
Whether it's a cult group or a religious group, no one is radicalized outside of a community.
It doesn't happen.
And some of us want to grow in our knowledge of God's love for us, but we're not willing to embrace the community.
It's common unity.
It's that kind of love that builds us up into being the radicals, those who are zealous for God's love.
Many of us in the West, again, we think it's a personal, private relationship, but Paul is praying that we would have a knowledge of God's love together with all the saints.
There's a knowledge when we gather together that is comprehendable, breadth, length, depth, height.
I can measure that.
Here's this next verse.
This next verse, he's talking about an encounter with God.
Let's read it together.
May he strengthen to be comprehended with all the saints.
What's the length and depth and height?
That's verse 18, verse 19.
And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Let me ask you, how do you have a knowledge that surpasses knowledge?
Let's read it again, because you might not have missed it.
You might've missed it.
And to know the love of Christ, know the love of Christ, that surpasses knowledge.
Paul, what meaneth this?
How do you have knowledge that surpasses knowledge?
You experience.
So he wants you to be rooted in this God loves me.
He wants you to develop in your intellect of what you know about God's love for you.
Not just to stay in that place of initial salvation, but to grow and expand your knowledge of how much God loves you.
And then he wants you to do something crazy.
He wants you to experience God's love.
He wants you to have a knowledge that surpasses knowledge.
How do you know something that you can't describe?
I understand length and depth and height and width.
You can have prescriptive truths about God that you can describe with human words, but then there's something else that he wants you to experience.
See, you and I need to not just know things about God's love.
We need to know God's love.
You and I need to experience God's love.
It's not that we ever move beyond knowledge.
You and I need to continually being reminded and encouraged of God's love, but there's something more.
There's something deeper.
The spirit roots you in love.
God's love plants you firmly in the church, and the church helps you describe and expand that understanding.
The same point of your relationship with God is no longer merely facts, but a personal experience of him.
There are two different Christian traditions, the East and the West, right?
The Eastern tradition and the Western tradition.
In the East, we have this word, we, I'm not a we, I'm not an Eastern.
I have this word, I'm a Christian though, so I'll say we.
We have this tradition called cataphatic theology.
Oh, sorry, apophatic in the East, cataphatic in the West.
Cataphatic theology, apophatic in the East.
The cataphatic theology you and I are all familiar with, God is truth, God is love, God is light, right?
In apophatic theology, it's the exact opposite.
They say God is not darkness, right?
God is not prejudice, right?
God doesn't murder, because he's the giver of life.
He doesn't murder.
And the reason there is this distinction, you might be thinking to yourself, well, isn't this saying the same thing in a different way?
No, it's actually very, very different.
Because, let's take God as an all-consuming fire as an example, okay?
Fire is created, fire comes into being, fire ceases to be, right?
And I know this is a biblical illustration, God is a consuming fire.
But the East would say, but look, God didn't come into being, and he will never end.
And if he is a consuming fire, then that means God is more fire than fire is fire.
And if you reduce God to the idea of being fire, you embody him into created things rather than acknowledging that he is ineffable, beyond human comprehension in words.
So to say God is light is great, but you don't understand, light has always come into being, and light has always ended.
But God is real light, he is more light than light is light, he is more love than love is love.
So it's easier to define God by what he's not than define him by what he is, because we don't actually have words to describe what he is.
We can get close, but it's easier to tell what he's not.
And in the East, how do you encounter, how do you describe the ineffable?
You don't describe it, you encounter it.
You embody it, you embrace God.
God is truth, but God's truth is more truth than human truth is truth.
We've never encountered, we've encountered human truth quite a bit.
And to use human words to describe God's truth is to reduce God and reduce his actual beauty and his truthfulness.
There is an illustration that I will use, and there's of the little kids, so I'll make it as PG as I can, okay?
There is a kind of beauty that is truly beautiful that requires modesty, okay?
True beauty requires modesty.
There's a different kind of beauty.
It's the kind of beauty where you stretch material and you like paint it on individuals, right?
That's not beautiful because it leaves nothing to the imagination, right?
And I think sometimes in the West, what we want to do is we want to describe God's beauty and remove all forms of mystery.
I don't think God's interested in that.
I think God, he is in this unapproachable light.
I think that you and I need glorified bodies to even really encounter the kind of love that God wants to give us.
Because every time I see God in the Bible revealing himself to someone, it's like a flash bang grenade went off.
There's so much light and sound that they're completely incoherent.
They fall to the ground.
They can't take in all the senses, whether it's Isaiah in the throne room, I fell down as a dead man.
Whether it's John, I fell down as a dead man.
Ezekiel, I fell down as a dead man.
Peter, James, and John on top of the mountain of transfiguration, God takes his human off and lets his God shine.
They fall out on the ground.
They're trying to listen to what Moses and Elijah is saying, but they kind of pass out.
It's a wild story.
Because the glory of God is so beautiful and splendid and glorious that we couldn't even stand in his midst.
And this is what God is inviting us into.
Not just a cerebral knowledge of him that we couldn't even begin to scratch the surface at.
He wants you to grow in your cerebral knowledge of him.
But he wants you to be deepened with your encounter of him.
This is not in my notes, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
As you know, I do better when I'm not behind my notes.
Psalm 27.
Okay.
So one thing I've asked of the Lord, this one thing I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to acquire in his temple.
He wants to gaze on the beauty of the Lord.
He doesn't want you to know facts about God.
He wants to, I wanna see him.
I wanna encounter him.
I wanna gaze at the beauty of the Lord.
Hear, O Lord, I will cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me.
You have said, seek my face.
And my heart says to you, Lord, your face, I will seek.
I'm seeking your face.
Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servants away in anger.
O you who have been my help, cast me not off.
Forsake me not, O my God of my salvation.
Verse 13 and 14.
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage.
Wait for the Lord.
David is saying, I just want one thing.
I've got all the power and the gold and the wealth, and I have this kingdom, and I'm defeating giants and defeating enemies, and God's glory is manifesting in the earth.
And I just have this kind of expectation that the kingdom is gonna be ushered in.
Like I'm this righteous king.
Like I got it all.
I've got all of this great stuff.
We're worshiping God in this tabernacle.
I mean, we are getting it.
But I just want one thing.
I just want to see his face.
I want to encounter his beauty.
And what does he say?
He says he expects to see the Lord in the land of the living.
David, and I don't know if this will be offensive or not, but what Hebrews says is an inferior covenant.
When he still has a veil, he's not even the high priest.
He still has a veil.
He can't get into the holy place, but he expects he's gonna see the glory of the Lord in the land of the living.
How much should you and I, in a greater covenant where the flesh of Christ has been ripped and the veil has been torn asunder, you and I should expect to encounter and experience God's love in the land of the living.
Not in one day future off.
Not one day far, far away.
Not I fly away, oh glory, I get caught up during the raptures and babies are playing harps with diapers on.
Not that day far, far in the future.
In the land of the living.
And if David could expect to see God, to encounter him in the land of the living, how much should you and I expect that?
There's clearly limitations to the theologians of the East and the West.
However, we can all agree that God is truly uncomprehendable.
God cannot be truly and exhaustively described, though we can know things about him, we can't fully describe those things because God is truly infinite.
So how can we know God in this way?
We must experience him.
Great Puritan writer by the name of John Owen said this, "'We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement as at his unspeakable love.
'" We are never nearer to Christ than when we find ourselves lost in holy amazement at his unspeakable love.
What kind of experience is this?
Again, verse 19, "'And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
'" Do you remember in Ephesians in chapter one, it talks about Christ, "'In Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead.
'" In Christ is the fullness.
And he says that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
He's talking about Christ living in your hearts in faith.
Yeah, he's praying at the beginning of the prayer that Christ would dwell in you, but he's saying he wants Christ to be formed in you.
He wants the love of God to be so developed that you're so in personal relationship with Jesus.
It's one of the most powerful Trinitarian prayers in all of the Bible.
He prays to the Father by the power of the spirit that Christ would be formed in us, that we have a true encounter with God.
Let me turn this back to the beginning of the sermon about unity.
Is it possible, is it possible that you and I are preventing ourselves from encountering the love of God?
Is it possible that you and I are robbing each other of this glorious encounter because of our unwillingness to strive for unity and the bond of peace?
As far as I'm aware of, there are two works that you and I are called to do.
One is to strive in belief.
As I read the book of Hebrews, strive to enter his rest.
And what does that striving look like?
It looks like faith, trusting Jesus, because things are going to get rough.
You're gonna get persecuted.
As things arise, don't be like your fathers as they were in the wilderness who fell in their disobedience, but strive, keep believing, trust him no matter what.
Keep believing Jesus.
And what's the other thing we're supposed to strive to do?
Strive for the bond of peace.
So here Paul is saying in the first three chapters of Ephesians, look who he is, look how great he is, look how wonderful he is, look how marvelous he is, look how he has died for us and that while you were sinners, he did this, and he's seated in the heavenly places, he's ruler over principalities and powers and authorities.
He is king, he reigns supreme, he is glorious.
Look how awesome he is.
And because of this, because of who he is and what he's done and the wall of hostility that he has completely destroyed before Jew and Gentile, one new man, because of this great thing that he's done, I'm gonna pray for you.
I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna pray that you would unify because the only way, because by the way, chapter four, five and six, what is it about?
It's about doing.
It's because of what he is that you are supposed to do.
So here in Ephesians, he just wants to pray because you will never be able to do if you don't understand what he's done.
If you have an understanding and a revelation of what he's done for you, that he has saved your soul in love and he's rooted you into a family.
You didn't do that.
Any more than you came popping out of your mom and you had brothers and sisters, you didn't create the brothers and sisters you're sitting next to.
You came popping out of the Holy Spirit into the church of God.
Man, you guys picked a wrong spot, man.
I'm spitting everywhere.
Man, I feel like I've seen like 13 dribbles going that way.
I just feel so bad.
I'm glad I'm far up here.
It'll probably fall before it gets to him.
Get pedo baptized.
I'm sorry, I'm just a bad joke.
Okay.
We are born into that community.
So here's the thing, it's been done for you.
You don't have to do anything, but what you're commanded to do is to strive.
Strive to stay in what he has purchased for you.
Strive and believe because he has bought you.
Keep believing he loves you.
Keep believing they're your family and you ought to put up with them in a way that you're not willing to put up with anyone else.
I don't know about you, but next week I'm gonna go hang out with family and I'm gonna keep my mouth shut around my family in a way that I wouldn't around most people.
Am I right?
I'm gonna keep the peace with my family in a way that I just, I'm not gonna put up with your political beliefs.
I'm gonna tell you that's stupid in any other situation, but because you're my family, I'm gonna put up with you.
I'm gonna strive for you.
And Paul is telling the church, strive to stay in that love, strive to stay in that unity.
Because if you continue to strive and wait and believe on what he's done, there is this natural thing of an encounter that's coming our way.
Amen?
Let's pray.
Can I have the worship team come?
Sorry, I should have given you guys a cue like five minutes ago.
Father, we ask in the name of Jesus that you would pour out your spirit as Paul prays in the beginning of Ephesians, that you would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Christ Jesus, that we would know the hope of our calling, that our hearts would be enlightened, that we could see Christ, that we would know you, we would know your love for us.
It would be deepened in our knowledge of that love, that we would grow in our knowledge of that love.
And God, I just ask that we would strive for unity amongst our brothers, not the non-brothers, but the real brothers and sisters, that we would strive at all costs to unify and not rob one another of a true knowledge, of a true glory, of a true encounter.
God, I ask that the peace and the love of the saints would abound more and more.
God, expound my ability to love your people and expound our ability to know your love for us.
And we ask these things in Jesus' precious name, amen.
Thank you.