Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Images of Unity”. This whole quarterly has immersed us deeper and deeper into the ills of disunity and the benefits or unity. Yet all of us are unique, one-of-a-kind. And we unique one-of-a-kind Christians are called to be in unity… to be “one”. Seems to be a dichotomy. We are all diverse, different. Yet called to be “one”. Wednesday’s lesson states a truth, “As the world around us becomes more and more fragmented, the church must demonstrate that unity in diversity is attainable. God’s people can demonstrate the healing and reconciling power of the gospel”.
Sin causes the disunity. Disunity so pervasive and intense that “the earth is filled with violence” (Genesis 6:13). Filled with violence because sinners are “filled with violence within” (Ezekiel 28:16). The predominance of sin (self) and our drive for self is the cause of the violence within and the disunity without. So how do we create this unity in the midst of such diversity? There is only one way. And that way is God’s way. Our human sinful way is ineffectual. Our way does not work at all. So let’s look at our way versus God’s way.
Each of us individuals move through life choosing our own path. Our own individual path. As we learn and grow (hopefully) we start forming our own world-view and our own idea of how things should be. It is true that Christ is “the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world” (John 1:9). Yet most do not recognize His voice. They silence His convicting voice, they will not study the “Written Word” in order to know the “Living Word”, or they follow a voice that has no validation from Scripture. Most want things their own way and consider things in the light of their own desires. They follow a “voice” that validates those desires. So when we sinful, self-centered human beings strive for unity, it invariably means that “I am right, you are wrong and you must adopt my understanding of things in order for there to be unity”. For us sinners, unity means convincing you I am right and thereby winning you to my side. But this is not God’s way of achieving unity. He has an altogether different method and means. He does not stand imperious and implacable, demanding that we sinners come to Him. He comes to us. And this underscores the difference.
In Ephesians we read, “having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1: 9-10). In Christ we see precisely God’s method of creating unity. BY COMING TO US AS ONE OF US IN THE PERSON OF HIS SON! BY IDENTIFYING HIMSELF WITH US, HIS SINFUL, SELFISH CHILDREN! This is the key that has eluded us all. We thought that others needed to come to me and my understanding. Instead, each Christian should so enter into the feelings and desires of his fellow believers as to be of one mind with them. This is what our God, our Father did in the person of His Son. He comes as one of us, identifies Himself with us, and even takes us and our sin into Himself and allows it to kill Him. All this so that we will become “one” with Him. He takes the initiative and becomes “one” with us so we can reciprocate and become “one” with Him. This is the secret to unity in diversity. We need to so love our brothers and sisters that we desire to know them and understand them. To identify ourselves with them. And when our brothers and sisters also take this initiative to know us and understand us, then mutual understanding can prevail. Each one of us is diverse, different. Yet when unique individuals come together like this, they develop a common purpose, common hopes, common desires… and there is true harmony. Each of us must take the initiative to know and understand the other… just as our God takes the initiative. If we do not, all is lost and disunity in its most heinous form prevails (criticism, dissension, hatred, strife, war, murder). All from the heart of sinful man. May we all follow our Father’s lead and strive to create unity in our diversity.
With brotherly love, Jim