The Unity of God's People

The unity of God's people is in the heart of God. God desired that His people be united through right relationships with Him and with one another. This is true both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. God gave us pictures of this unity through two psalms (Ps. 122 and Ps. 133) written by David.

A Picture of Unity

Let us re-consider the first five verses of Psalm 122, which I had expounded as carefully as I could last week, and see how we can picture what God is trying to tell us about this unity.

1. "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord" (Ps.122:1, KJV, emphasis added).

Notice thae phrase "let us". This was a collective decision by God's people to go and worship the Lord together. The psalmist did not say "I will go", but "let us go".

The Church has somewhat over emphasized the individual aspect of the Christian life. We talk about individual relationship with the Lord. And ther are things about which we have to make individual decision - like salvation and water baptism. But these practices lead to a collective life. There are many things in the Christian life we cannot come into as isolated individuals. We either come together in fellowship or we don't come into at all.

2. "Our feet shall stand within they gates, O Jerusalem" (Ps. 122:2, emphasis added).

Once again, it says "our feet". All God's people had decided to set foot on the City of Jerusalem together and went into God's House together. It speaks of Christians going to the Local Church to worship God together.

3. "Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together" (Ps. 122:3).

Jerusalem itself was a picture of close fellowship - with its buildings compacted and almost joined together.

4. "Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord" (Ps. 122:4).

God's people went up to Jerusalem as tribes under their recognized leaders within the tribes. Each tribe knew where they belong. This is the key to unity. When believers know their leaders and then these leaders come together, agreeing with one another, you will have unity.

I think every believer has two options - either be a shepherd or have one. If you aren't one then you need one; if you are one then you need your fellow shepherd.

The picture of this verse is that everybody in his tribe followed his leaders and all came together at a focal point - a place where God had set His Name, the House of the Lord in Jerusalem.

In the New Testament this corresponding focal point is the Name of Jesus.

Jesus said, "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20, NKJV).

We don't meet on the basis of doctrine; we don't meet on the basis of denominational beliefs or experiences - like speaking in tongues or the so-called deceptive "Holy Laughter". We meet because we com together into the Name of Jesus.

5. "For thrones are set there for judgment, the thrones of the house of David" (Ps. 122:5).

Believers are together enthroned with Christ (Eph. 2:5, 6).

The Importance of Christian Unity

Let us consider part of Jesus' High Priestly Prayer:

"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me" (John 17:20, 21).

Here are some comments and statements of truth:

1. The unity of all true believers is the only testimony which can reach the whole world. The visible demonstration of our unity in Him will cause the world both to believe and to know that He is the one which God has sent as the Messiah and Savior of the world.

2. We can be active in mission and evangelism work, but many will not be touched by those activities unless we are sincere in our attitude toward Christian unity.

3. Christian unity begins within the Godhead - between the Father and the Son. Therefore it is not a unity of organization. The Father and the Son are not organized to be one. It is a unity of neither denomination nor Church affliliation. But it is a unity of relationship in the Holys Spirit.

4. The Godhead provides us with a perfect pattern of right relationships. In the Godhead we have three things which are essential - Fatherhood, Headship and Fellowship. We can't have Fellowship in the Biblical sense without the acknowledgement of Fatherhood and Headship.

The Problem of Disuntiy

You cannot talk about Christian unity unless we identify the problem of disunity.

Jesus said, "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand" (Mark 3:24, 25, NKJV).

As long as the Church is divided it cannot stand against the kingdom of Satan. Therefore Satan's supreme objective is to keep the Church divided so that we cannot defeat him.

Furthermore disunity and division amongst us belie the message that we preached. We preached that Gospel solves people's problems by bringing them into right relationship with God and with men, and then we demonstrated the very opposite. I believe the pragmatically minded world is much more disposed to believe what they see in our lives than what they hear in our preaching.

Jesus said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 12:35).

When we love one another we stay united with one another.

The Blessings of Christian Unity

Psalm 133, like Psalm 122, is also a song of ascents of David:

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing - life forevermore" (NKJV, emphasis added).

Here are some comments and statements of truth:

1. The psalmist said "good and pleasant" but he did not say it was easy. In fact is is far from easy.

2. Notice the word "dwell" does not mean coming together for a couple hours on Sunday morning Church service. It also does not mean a coming together for a few days of Camp Meeting. In fact if we do come together in a Camp Meeting we'll begin to experience both some of the blessings and some of the problems. For example, when you are having a quiet time someone else's baby starts to squawk; when you want to use the bathroom someone went in just before you. The fact is, the moment we begin to get close to one another for any length of time things begin to happen.

3. The fact is that churchgoers do know the problem of getting too close to one another. So, in many cases Church meetings become social Sunday morning club meetings. People, mostly come from the same social status, come together to fellowship. But there is no real deep commitment, no deep involvement in other people's lives. They are probably too embarrassed to mention their problems, their hurts and needs. They rather keep it on a nice, dignified and respectable religious level.

4. The psalmist meant living together, sharing our lives together and committed to one another. The fact is, until you see me in my worst and my weakest and you still love me, you don't love me! You have to come to a place where you live with people the way you are and accept other people as they are.

Paul said, "Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God" (Romans 15:7).

I am a Christian not because I am right; I am a Christian because God received me in Christ - right or wrong. And if I am wrong I am not afraid to admit it.

5. The psalmist gave two pictures of unity; the first picture is like oil which speaks of the Holy Spirit. The psalmist pictured the anointing oil "running down" (Ps.133:2).

Notice that unity never flows upward; it always flow downward and it starts at the head. We know from experience in a family that children can't unite a family. But if father and mother are united, that unity will flow down to the children.

It means, in the Local Church level the key to unity is leaders coming together first, and not churchgoers coming together. The whole congregation will not unite unless we unit the leaders (shepherds) first.

6. The other aspect of the truth is, only shepherds that divide sheep - a very embarrassing thought. The disunity of God's people is due to the disunity of leaders. If leaders are united there will be no further problem uniting those who are led.

7. The second picture of unity is like dew which also speaks of the Holy Spirit. There are many vivid pictures of the Holy Spirit in the Scripture. Most of them are rather dramatic in nature - like wind, fire, rain and oil. But dew is not so dramatic. It does not come down in the way that you can hear and feel normally. During the hours of darkness it descends almost imperceptibly and yet it is one of the most gentle, refreshing, and reviving things in nature. In fact, dew is a picture of the Messiah Himself:

"Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power; in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning. You have the dew of Your youth" (Ps. 110:3, NKJV, emphasis added).

I believe God is saying something to us here. He wants us to have Christ-likeness. He is dealing with our character - gentleness and lowliness:

Paul said, "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of Spirit in the Bond of peace" (Eph. 4:1 - 3, emphasis added).

Gentleness is also a part of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23).

8. In the midst of Christian unity "the Lord commanded the blessing" (Ps. 133:3).

It is one thing to seek the Lord's blessing and another thing the Lord commanded (past tense) the blessing. We should give up seeking God's blessing and instead concentrate on obeying Him and we will discover that at the place we obey Him, He has commanded His blessing!

Moses said, "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God; ..." (Deut. 28:1, 2, emphasis added).

If you obey the Lord's voice, His blessings will come upon you and overtake you. That means you can't avoid His blessings because He commanded it! The key to right relationship in God is to hear and obey His voice. We can read the Bible but hearing His voice is quite different. His voice is living and personal. Very often we hear no voice when we read the Bible.

"Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people" (Jer. 7:23).

The basic condition for the Lord being your God is to obey His voice. But you must hear His voice first. You will hear His voice if you are in the right relationship with Him!