Work for Unity

God’s purpose of giving His Spirit is to unite us - sinful created beings - with Him - the perfect Creator God.

In this He shows boundless grace and He is calling us to show that same grace in pursuing unity here in our imperfect world

Joh 17:20-23 (ESV)
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

We must…
Work for Unity

-

Read Act 11:25-30

Work for Unity

-

Act 11:25 (ESV) So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,

Work for Unity

Act 11:26 (ESV) and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.

Work for Unity

Act 11:27 (ESV) Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

Work for Unity

Act 11:28 (ESV) And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius).
Act 11:29 (ESV) So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

Work for Unity

Act 11:30 (ESV) And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

=

Work for Unity

Eph 4:1-16 (ESV)
1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Work for Unity

4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Work for Unity

7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

Work for Unity

14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Work for Unity

16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Work for Unity