Unity In Christ

4-29-2009

In 2003, I had the honor to coach one of the greatest 16 year old baseball teams ever assembled. They won the Mickey Mantle World Series that year going undefeated in the tournament. Every one of those players earned college scholarships, and many of them are playing pro baseball at this point. I have a picture of that team in my home office. They are on a knee, heads bowed, giving thanks to their Lord and Savior immediately after defeating California in the championship game. It was my job to teach them, yet they taught me a ton. One of the greatest quotes I’ve ever heard was a quote they taught me. “United we stand, divided we fall, all for one, one for all, Patriots!” Immediately after every game they would circle up pray, and then “break it off” by saying the quote above as a team. These boys were 16 years old at the time and they came from all over the state of Texas, and most every one of them had only one thing in common when they first met that May of 2003, a love for the game of baseball. By the end of the season they were a band of brothers in more ways than one.

Christ is the commonality every one of us has the opportunity to have in common. Put another way, we have unity in Christ. Ephesians 2:14-16 says, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” Through the death of Christ, he stopped the resentment between the Jews and the Gentiles, and we should follow this example with the growing number of groups in the world today. God never intended churches to compete with each other to save souls. Believers in Christ are the church, not the physical buildings constructed by man. We the church are called to be one in Christ and to love each other as Christ loves us. These versus clearly point out the importance of throwing out the old laws and traditions that separate us from the love of Christ, as it favored the Jews and excluded the Gentiles. Christ has destroyed these barriers and has instructed us how to live by his laws.

All of us have the opportunity to bring people together in unity or to cause fraction and resentment. Let’s do as Christ did and work in unity. As the leader of your house, make sure everyone is on the same page. If you are in a group of any type, make sure to keep accept people for who they are even though you may not agree with everything they say. Find the good in people. It’s easy to find the bad, as we are all sinners, and we are all a work in progress. Remember, “United we stand, divided we fall, all for one, one for all!”

Application:
1. Read Ephesians 2:11-22
2. What areas of your life need unity? How can you learn from the message of Christ?