Unity
I was challenged in class today to make the first sermon that I ever give to church about unity. Unity is a huge deal in scripture, especially first Corinthians, but it appears to be much easier said then done. I can preach a sermon on unity and on how we need to have, and probably everyone would agree with me, but the question that would be left in the air is how exactly to have unity. Possible solutions that have been suggested for this problem are:
1) Realize that we really don't have problems. - This phrase is usually given as the easy out. It is desperate attempt at unity that falls short because in reality it is denial. Everyone knows that we should be unified, and that is easy to say until a real problem arises in the church over two conflicting doctrines or other issues. Therefore if these issues and problems are ignored and people pretend that they are not their the divisions are only worsened. To say that we can have unity by pretending that we have no conflicts in the church will ultimately lead to many more conflicts and divisions that are still not addressed.
2) Send those who do not believe like us away, there is another church for them. - In America we have a lot of churches. In a fifteen mile radius from downtown Dallas, there are over 3200 churches. Because of this we have a formula in place for when we disagree and have divisions, we simply go to another church. This doesn't solve any problems, but instead if the problems are out of sight then they are out of mind. Now I am not saying that there is no good reasons to have denominations, but what I am saying is that we see ourselves as having way to much freedom to switch churches whenever we feel like we are not "unified"with the body (and really most of the time what we mean is that we don't feel comfortable with the church). Since when is it permissible to leave your family and go to another family simply because it feels more comfortable there. However, this has been made easy, not only because of the average church goers view of church, but also because many times it is suggested by those in charge that if you do not believe like, there is another church for you.
These previous two solutions I clearly don't agree with, here is what I do agree with though.
3) Realize that we will disagree. The key to unity in my opinion is realizing that there are problems in the church and that at times we will have conflict. However, we don't have to panic over this conflict. If we continue to split churches over issues, then what we will end up with is exactly what we have, a lot of churches that think differently about different issues and that is what defines their church. So even if one side is much better and more Biblical, everyone still loses when the church splits because the opposing side is going to go make converts and bring them to their church, and so more people will believe their side and the battle is lost. Instead we need to be unified on the fact that we a Christians if we adhere to the core of the gospel based on the person and works of Christ.
On a side note though, acknowledging that we all have differences and will disagree only works if there are no super-Christians. If someone in the church is seen as a "super-Christian" then the crowd wants to follow everything that the "super-Christian" says. However, if we recognize that we are all sinners, and that none of us has it all together then it is possible for us to start working together as a unified church. A church cannot be unified if we start seeing some people as better Christians than us and some as worse. It's like judging the maturity of a two year old, no matter how mature they are they're still only two. The measure for maturity in the church is perfection in light of the works of Christ, and according to that standard we all (in a unified manner) fall flat on our faces.
So this is a call to unity, but unity can only be achieved among a bunch of sinners when we realize that no one is better than anyone else and that we will disagree on issues.
