According to the Scriptures, one of the great blessings God desires to pour out on his people is the enjoyment of unity as we live out our faith in a sin-scarred world which is marked by strife all around us. The Psalmist says it this way in Psalm 133:

"How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore."

The church works best and enjoys its greatest strength and stability when all of its parts are working together in unity and working toward the lofty goal of attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Of course, that dream for unity which was conceived in the mind of God has always proven elusive for his people because we not only live in a world marred by sin, but we also struggle against sin and selfishness in our own lives. So, Paul wrote to Ephesus to admonish and encourage those Christians because tensions among them were threatening their peace, and he didn't want them to miss out on the great blessings which God pours out on his people when they live together in unity.

One of the things I love best about our heritage in the American Restoration Movement is that it grew out of a desire for something better than the divided Christendom which robbed believers of the blessings they could enjoy if only God's dream for the unity of his people would become a reality. Men like Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone longed for a Christianity free from the strife and sectarianism which plagued the denominational world of their day, free from the tyranny of opinions and man-made creeds which they believed fragmented the Body of Christ and created barriers to Christian fellowship. Their dream was given eloquent expression in Thomas Campbell's Declaration and Address, where he wrote, "The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one." He later wrote, "Division among the Christians is a horrid evil, fraught with many evils. It is antichristian, as it destroys the visible unity of the body of Christ; as if he were divided against himself, excluding and excommunicating a part of himself. It is antiscriptural, as being strictly prohibited by his sovereign authority; a direct violation of his express command. It is antinatural, as it excites Christians to condemn, to hate, and to oppose one another. . . In a word, it is productive of confusion and of every evil work."

With that passion burning in their hearts, the Campbells sought to unite Christians from all the sects in a fellowship with the Bible as their only creed, where they would be known as Christians only, or, as Alexander Campbell preferred, as disciples of the one Lord Jesus Christ. After a few years, the Campbells found a kindred spirit in Barton Stone, and representatives from their two groups met in Lexington, Kentucky over the weekend of January 1, 1832. There were many differences between them, but they recognized that the beliefs they held in common were far greater than those differences. So, the two groups joined together, becoming one fellowship. Barton Stone would later call that meeting and the unity which was forged there the most noble achievement of his life.

Sadly, the joy of that moment would not endure. Almost from the beginning, there was the unavoidable tension between their desire for unity and their insistence that unity could only be achieved by restoring the faith and practice of the New Testament church, especially in matters of worship and church organization. How could they work for unity without compromising the truth? How could they insist on sound doctrine without sacrificing their desire for unity? Those tensions were never adequately resolved, and with troublesome issues like the Missionary Society and the use of instruments in worship already threatening the peace, the sectional strife which was brought on by the Civil War drove a wedge in their fellowship which would eventually lead to a division resulting in two groups, Churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ. This century has seen major battles and divisions over premillenialism, over Sunday Schools, over congregational support of schools and colleges, children's homes and Herald of Truth, and over congregational cooperation. Smaller skirmishes have been fought over issues too numerous to mention, and with all that, we haven't even begun to address our history of isolation and estrangement from others who claim a Christian faith. Of course, our isolation from the larger religious world is not surprising when you consider that we've got all we can say grace over right now just to see if we are going to be able to keep ourselves together. As one writer has said, our fellowship is not in danger of another division; we are in danger of shattering. In practice, we are a long way from the dream of Barton Stone and the Campbells to unite Christians from all the sects.

Some folks would say, "So be it. Our emphasis on truth won out over our desire for unity, and we can't turn back now without compromising the truth." Now, I'm not for compromising truth, but we must not ignore the plea for unity because not only will we deprive ourselves of the blessings God attaches to the unity of his children, but we will also diminish our witness before unbelievers who desperately need the unity-committed church. I really appreciate the theme that Bill Young and the Lectureship committee have set for this program. "The Church: Who Needs It?" sounds almost irreverent to me, but that is the question many people in our communities are asking today.

If you are my age or older, you can remember when the United States could legitimately be called a Christian nation. Most adults attended church and claimed a Christian faith. In that environment, our emphasis on the marks of the church and the things which distinguished us from the larger denominational world sometimes served us well because for many people the question was "which church?" We don't live in that world any longer. We live in what Chuck Colson has appropriately called a "Post Christian age." Now, the question is "why church?" As skeptical, unbelieving people and even honest seekers look out on the chaos and confusion of what appears to be a hopelessly divided Christianity, it is little wonder that many of them turn their backs to the church and say, "Who needs it?"

People do need the church; they need the unity-committed church. On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus prayed for his disciples in these words recorded in John 17: My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message (that includes us), that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

People need the unity-committed church for the very simple reason that without it a lot of them will never come to know Jesus, and they will be lost for all eternity. Jesus loves those people, and I have every confidence that he is going to raise up a unity-committed church. The question is whether we will be his partners in that undertaking or whether he will have to do it without us. Our recent history with regard to unity has been discouraging, but I believe that if we can reclaim some of the better parts of our heritage, if we can recapture the dream which motivated the early leaders of our fellowship, we may be able to preach and to live the kind of unity that will draw people to faith in Jesus Christ. It won't be easy. To become a unity-committed church will require the humility to rethink some things which have been very important to us. I don't presume to have all the answers because we will still have to deal with the inevitable tension between our desire for unity and our commitment to truth, but tonight I do want to offer as suggestions for you to consider four things I believe we must do if we are going to be a unity-committed church.

First, we are going to have to rediscover a passion for the biblical doctrine of the unity of all believers. One of the great strengths of our fellowship is our commitment to the integrity and authority of God's Word. We have historically, and with good reason, placed great emphasis on matters of doctrinal purity and correctness, but at times that emphasis has been costly. In the name of doctrinal purity, we have endured those major divisions I mentioned a few moments ago. Today, in the name of doctrinal purity, we are facing tensions over different styles of a cappella music in worship, whether we may sing or have readings while we share in the Lord's Supper, and the role of women in the public assemblies of the church, to name but a few. Perhaps the most volatile issue for our generation is hermeneutics--the model of interpretation we use to study God's word.

Fortunately, it is far beyond the scope of this lecture to deal with those particular issues. But my question is this: in our quest for doctrinal purity, where is our passion for the biblical doctrine of Christian unity? All of those other issues I have mentioned may be important, but not one of them rests on as solid a biblical foundation as the doctrine of the unity of all believers.

Jesus could have prayed for any number of things on the night that he was betrayed, but he chose to pray for the unity of those who would believe in his name so that the world might also come to believe in him. The unity of the growing church is a special concern in the Book of Acts, especially at the Jerusalem conference recorded in Acts 15. Paul's passion for the unity of believers is emphasized in several of his letters-- to the Romans where, in chapter 14, unity is based on our common commitment to the Lordship of Christ; to the Corinthians where in chapter 12 he emphasizes our dependence on each other in his beautiful image of the body of Christ; and to the Ephesians where he says in chapter 4, "There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to one hope when you were called--one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father over all and through all and in all." The preservation of this unity is so important to him that no less than 23 times in his letters, Paul warns against those in the church whose lives are characterized by strife, dissension, selfish ambition, partisanship, and divisiveness. Those things, he says in Galatians chapter 5, are works of the flesh. They are directly opposed to the things which God would produce in our lives by his Spirit, and Paul says that those who live that way will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The centrality of this biblical teaching on unity was not lost on the early leaders in our fellowship. Writing in the Gospel Advocate in 1880, David Lipscomb said, "There is no sin more frequently and persistently condemned and warned against as fatally evil in its results by both Christ and the Holy Spirit than that of dividing a church of God." Somewhere along the way, many of us forgot those words. In a 1974 article entitled "How Sound Are You?", eighty-four issues are listed which the editor had identified as a basis for determining fellowship among Churches of Christ. Not one of those issues figures as prominently in the New Testament as the unity of believers. In fact, the majority of them aren't mentioned in the Scriptures at all, but those issues are the kinds of things which have most often divided us.

Brothers and sisters, it is past time for us to recognize that our passion for issues and our willingness to reject each other over them are not virtues. They are not a sign of "soundness." Rather, they are evidence that we are too often controlled by the flesh and not by the Holy Spirit of God. It is time for us to come before the Father in brokenness and repentance and, after the model of Jesus, to pray that God will give us hearts, that he will give us a passion for unity. In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul says it this way, "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Unity is not something we create; it is the gift of God to all of us who are born again into his family, and we are to guard it zealously. Sometimes we will fail, but let our failures come only after our most sincere efforts have been exhausted. And let our failures be marked not with folded arms and recriminations, but with the sweat of hard work and the tears of sorrow. People need the unity-committed church-- may God give us a passion for that unity.

It won't be easy to reclaim our heritage as a unity-committed church because what do you do with all the issues which continue to be sources of tension among us? That brings us to my second suggestion. If we are going to be a unity-committed church, we must learn to allow for some diversity in belief and practice among congregations and individual believers. Again, our early leaders recognized this necessity, and though this slogan didn't originate with them, they repeated it frequently as our movement grew: In faith, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things, charity. If we are going to put a similar attitude into practice, we are going to have to be more discerning than we have been in distinguishing between those essentials that are central to having saving faith in Jesus Christ and matters of opinion which are secondary or peripheral to it.

Issues will always be with us because of our noble desire to understand and follow God's word in everything we do, but those issues do not all have to be tests of fellowship. Those issues which are central to the faith are presented clearly and without ambiguity in the Scriptures. We and our religious neighbors who respect the authority of Scripture do not debate matters such as the full humanity and the full deity of Jesus Christ, the sufficiency of his atoning work on the cross, his bodily resurrection from the dead, and our obligations to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. Those matters, which are at the very heart of the gospel message, have not divided us. We have divided over our opinions of what the Bible says and our opinions concerning the silence of Scripture. If we can't learn to allow for diversity of opinion, we don't have any hope for unity. As long as we who are sinful, uninspired readers attempt to interpret words inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, we will inevitably arrive at differing conclusions. Trying to enforce lock-step conformity on every issue is not an effort toward unity; it is an attempt to establish uniformity, and there is a vast difference between the two. Uniformity allows no room for personal opinion because the slightest deviation destroys it. The Bible nowhere commands or envisions such uniformity. Instead, it calls those with differing opinions to be united in a common identity and a common hope in the Lord.

Our model for unity which allows for diversity is found in Romans chapters 14-15 where the context has to do with differing opinions over what were serious doctrinal matters to Paul's readers. We won't take time tonight to read it, but Paul's advice is pretty simple. He says, "Accept the one whose faith is weak without passing judgement on disputable matters. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? Each one should be convinced in his own mind, but whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Accept one another, just as Christ has accepted you, in order to bring praise to God." There's the key. Accept one another, just as Christ has accepted you, with all your weakness and failings and even your error.

I believe we will more readily allow for diversity of practice and opinion if each of us will simply acknowledge that our own doctrinal positions and opinions are, necessarily and inevitably, a mixture of truth and error. The only alternative to that admission is to claim that we have perfectly understood and perfectly obeyed every teaching in this great book, and I know of no one among us who would be willing to make such an arrogant claim.

I have no doubt whatsoever that I currently embrace some wrong opinions and conclusions concerning what the Bible teaches. I do the best I can. I approach the Word with all the integrity I can muster, but my understanding is limited by my own ignorance and sinfulness and my lifelong immersion in a Western culture which is, in many ways, so foreign to the world of the Bible. My thinking is not always clear. My motives are not always pure, so I have to assume that I am wrong about some things. The problem is, I don't know what they are! If I knew what they were, I would change them, so I wouldn't be in error anymore--at least on those particular points. Paul says that on this side of heaven our knowledge is always going to be partial, so I don't suspect that I'll ever have all of it figured out. But here's the really amazing part. My blindness to error only extends to myself. Fortunately, I am able to see your error quite clearly. How do I do that? By comparing your opinions and conclusions with my own! Now, if I can look in the mirror every day without noticing the huge beam sticking out from my eye, what in the world makes me think I am qualified to render judgments concerning the little speck in your eye? The truth is, I am not qualified to do that. You aren't either.

There is nothing wrong with having opinions. In fact, the only way to avoid them is to put our minds in neutral, quit studying the Word, and let someone else tell us what to believe at every point. Concerning matters which aren't central to the faith, this is what I understand Paul is saying in Romans 14. "Hold your opinions, and hold them with conviction. But don't you dare use them as the standard by which you judge your brother or sister. They already have a judge, so that job is not available to you."

We already have diversity in this fellowship. In fact, diversity has been part of our heritage ever since that meeting in Lexington back in 1832. We can recognize it, embrace it, and ask God, in his infinite wisdom, to use different types of congregations to reach and minister to different types of people, or we can try to deny it, continuing to push for uniformity, insisting that only my opinions and the opinions of those who agree with me are legitimate. When we bind our opinions as matters of fellowship, we are not, as some may claim, being true to our heritage. On the contrary, we would draw the stinging rebuke of Alexander Campbell who wrote these words in the Christian Baptist in June of 1830: "If a man causes divisions and offenses by setting up his own decisions, his private judgment, we must consider him a factionist, and as such he must be excluded--not for his difference of opinion, but because he makes his opinion an idol, and demands homage to it."

Brothers and sisters, we undercut our witness when we preach unity and practice division. A lost and confused world needs the unity-committed church, and we can be that church if we will unite around our common faith in Christ, even as we allow for diversity on disputable matters.

Third, I believe that if we are going to make any sort of a positive contribution toward the unity of all believers, we must learn to reach to our left. Let me explain what I mean. As I use these terms, the "right" represents a more restrictive view of the Scriptures where, for instance, the silence of Scripture is treated as prohibitive, and inferences drawn from Scripture are regarded as binding on all believers. The "left" represents a point of view which sees the Scripture as allowing more freedom for diversity of practice. Now, in saying that we need to reach to our left as we work toward unity, I am not in any way degrading or dismissing those to our right. When I have a genuine passion for unity, I am concerned for both groups. Here is the difference. Most of us already tend to regard those to our right as Christians. We may say they are wound too tightly or, in our less charitable moments, that they are legalists, but we generally do not think they are lost. Of course, that person to my right may consider me lost, but the only thing I can do about that is to continue to regard him as my brother, hoping that, at some point, his understanding of the grace of God and his view of fellowship will be broad enough to include me.

When I say we need to reach to our left, I mean that we need to find ways to engage in meaningful dialogue with those we have traditionally rejected simply because their understanding of Scripture and, therefore, their practices are less restrictive than our own. Now, please notice that I didn't say that we need to move to our left. I am not suggesting that anyone compromise his or her convictions, except for the conviction that the grace and forgiveness of God is able to cover my error and no others. Of course, there will be limits to how far we can reach. There are people in our communities who claim a Christian faith but who have little regard for the authority of Scripture or the Lordship of Christ. It is difficult to discuss unity with those people because we don't even share the most fundamental common ground as a starting point for examining our differences. But that doesn't describe most of our neighbors who are professing Christians, and it doesn't describe any Church of Christ that I am aware of.

The most reasonable place to start reaching to our left for the sake of unity is within our own fellowship. As Doug Foster noted in his book Will the Cycle Be Unbroken?, the battles in our brotherhood aren't between liberals and conservatives. We are all biblical conservatives who are all seeking the will of God as it is revealed both in the written Word and in the Living Word, but we have different approaches to Scripture or different interpretations of troublesome passages. Surely, our common faith in the Risen Lord, our common commitment to the authority of God's Word, and our common hope for an eternity in the presence of the Father are greater than the things which threaten to divide us in this fellowship. Surely, we can stand together on that firm, common ground, loving and accepting those whose understanding of the Scripture, at certain points, is less restrictive than our own. If we will do that, our fellowship, united in truth and in love, will testify to the power of Christ to tear down the walls which would otherwise divide us.

Our commitment to unity must begin with each other. Then, we may begin to extend our reach to those outside our fellowship who share that same common ground with us. As we reach toward them, let's do it with an open hand, inviting peaceful dialogue, not with a finger pointed in accusation or a fist clenched in challenge. As we meet, let's seek to understand before we seek to be understood. Yes, we have some important truths to teach them, but, perhaps, they have understood some truths they could teach us, too. We may find that idea threatening, but David Lipscomb understood it well. In the June 1907 Gospel Advocate, he wrote, "The partisan takes it for granted everything his party holds is right, and everything the other party holds is wrong and to be opposed. Hence, the party lines define his faith and teaching. . . A truth lover and seeker always looks into whatever party he comes in contact with and will first look to see what truth the party holds. All parties hold some element of truth. A true lover of truth seeks out and appropriates as his own every truth he finds, no matter who holds or teaches it."

Brothers and sisters, we don't have to live in estrangement and isolation from those who honestly differ with us inside or outside our fellowship. We don't have to agree with them at every point, nor do we have to convince them to agree with us on every issue. All we have to do is look to our left, to those who have felt the sting of our rejection, and everywhere we see one who has surrendered his or her life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we may rejoice that we have discovered a brother or sister, and we may extend to that child of God the same inviting hand of grace and acceptance that we ourselves have received from the Lord Jesus. It won't be easy to do that. It is hard to lay aside the mantle of exclusivity, but I believe it will be worth the effort, if for no other reason, than for the sake of those lost souls who won't ever find Jesus unless they find him through the unity-committed church.

Fourth--and finally--I don't know of anything which will motivate us toward a commitment to unity faster than recognizing who the real enemy is. Paul describes it this way in Ephesians chapter 6: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." I don't know if we are simply too sophisticated to believe in spiritual forces of evil and powers of darkness, or if we are too blinded by the enemy, or what the problem is, but our failure to recognize them and to engage in the struggle against them has somehow deceived us so that some of us seem to believe that our struggle really is against flesh and blood.

When I was preaching in Austin, I occasionally received a newsletter which was published by another local congregation. In one issue, one of the articles asked the provocative question, "Is it ever possible to be preaching the true gospel and still be sinning by preaching it?" I couldn't imagine how such a thing could happen, so I read on, becoming increasingly amazed. The point of the article was that the Pepperdine Bible Lectures were coming up, and no "sound" preacher should consent to being on that program because even if he preached the truth, he would be sinning because his participation would be seen as condoning the error that the writer believed was part and parcel of those Lectures. As I recall, he maintained that it would be like a Union soldier on the American frontier in the 1800's going to speak to a convention of Indians.

Folks, the Pepperdine Lectures and those who participate in them are not the enemy. Traditional churches are not the enemy. Congregations who are more progressive in their approach to worship and ministry are not the enemy. Believers who honestly disagree with me, to my right or to my left, are not the enemy. Editors, stop writing up and writing off your brothers in Christ. Stop finding delight in finding fault. Stop labeling and discrediting your brothers and sisters because they are not the enemy, and every time you attack them as though they were, you unwittingly do the work of the real enemy.

The enemy is Satan. The enemy is the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Our struggle is against the principalities and powers. It is easy to ignore that in America, where life is relatively comfortable, and in the Bible Belt where so many congregations present so many options. In that environment, it is easy to believe that the most important thing in the world is our intramural squabbling over our petty differences which don't have anything to do with the salvation of lost souls. But I am convinced that if God would open our eyes to see those spiritual realities, if we could see that cosmic battlefield where the very souls of men and women are at stake, we would be so terrified that we would reach out and grab a friendly hand wherever we could find one.

My move to Boulder has taught me something about that. If you don't know about Boulder, the people in Denver will tell you, "To get to Boulder, drive toward reality and take a hard left." Christianity is but a tiny minority in that culture which embraces every form of religion you can imagine. We probably have more people who worship the earth than who worship the Creator. You may have seen the statistics showing that on any given Sunday in this country, about 40% of the adults will attend some church. In Boulder, the number is 7%. One of the things which has kept me from being discouraged by the almost total lack of interest in the gospel in this community where I live and preach has been my participation in a group called the Boulder Ministerial Fellowship which is made up completely of Bible-believing, Evangelical ministers.

Shortly after I moved to town, another preacher called and asked me to meet him at the Ministerial Fellowship's weekly prayer meeting. Ours is the only Church of Christ in Boulder, so I accepted the chance to meet these colleagues in ministry, though I had some anxiety about how we would deal with our many differences.

I needn't have worried. Those 15 or 20 men didn't come together to debate; they came together each week to get to the serious business of prayer, and without even brief introductions around the room, they got right to it. They prayed for the mayor and the city council and the local law enforcement officials. They prayed that the Lord would raise up godly teachers in the public schools and that he would capture the hearts of many at that temple of secular humanism we affectionately call the University of Colorado. They prayed that God would break the strongholds of darkness which hang like a terrible shroud over our city, and they prayed fervently for each other, that God would protect them from the evil one and that he would make their witness strong for him as they try to do his kingdom work in our community. Occasionally, someone would interrupt to make a request for someone in crisis, and the group would take that person before the Lord. As I sat there, a silent observer for the better part of an hour, I found a lump forming in my throat while I listened to these men from so many different fellowships unite with one voice before the Lord for the sake of each other and for the sake of the lost in Boulder. Finally, I interrupted and told them who I was and which church I was from. I told them about some struggles we were facing in our congregation, and asked for their prayers. Nothing in my experience could have prepared me for what happened next. For the next ten minutes, all they did was pray for me and our congregation. They prayed that God would give me a powerful ministry and that our church would be an effective witness for the sake of the kingdom. Many words were said by a Baptist, a Presbyterian, someone from a Reformed church, the preacher at a community church, another from a Charismatic fellowship, but I will never forget the prayer of a man I later learned preaches for the Assembly of God in Boulder. He only knows how to pray at full throttle, and he said in a loud voice, "God, I thank you for this brother, and I pray that you will bless his family and his ministry. Thank you for the Churches of Christ and their commitment to your Word. I pray that you will give them a powerful ministry in this community and that they will reach many souls for Jesus Christ." As I listened to the voices of all those men, whom many of us have regarded as enemies, flooding me and flooding us with their prayers, great tears of release began to roll down my cheeks as I received that anointing with the precious oil of unity. Yes, we still have our differences, and some are more significant than others. But in those prayer meetings, we recognize that our common commitment to the Lordship of Christ and our common goal that his kingdom would come in Boulder even as it is in heaven is greater than those things which divide us, so we unite with one voice to engage the battle against the enemy. Boulder is too big and the strongholds are too great for any one of us to do all the work. We need each other, and my guess is that the enemy is sufficiently involved where you live that you could use some help, too. If we will simply recognize who the real enemy is, perhaps that will be motivation enough for us to stop biting and devouring each other before we destroy each other, as Paul warns us so strongly in Galatians chapter 5.

The testimony of Scripture is clear: People need the unity-committed church because without it many of them will never be released from their slavery under the powers of darkness by coming to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The question remains: will we be willing to do the hard work of change and repentance which is necessary for us to become that church? The better parts of our heritage suggest that we can. My prayer tonight is that by the power of his Spirit, God will move within us that we might reclaim our heritage with its passion to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. As Barton Stone wrote so long ago, "Let unity be our Polar star." O, Father, please, forgive us where we have casually disregarded our Lord's prayer for the unity of his body, the church. Please, help us to live at peace with one another, so that we may enjoy the blessings you desire to pour out on us, and, even more, so that the world might come to believe in our Lord Jesus. In his name, I pray. Amen.