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The Blessing of Church Unity

Psalm 133

Text: Psalm 133

Welcome and Introduction

📖 Scripture: Psalm 120; Psalm 133; Psalm 134

Good morning, Christ Church. Hopefully you can hear me. I don't have my mic on, so I'll be speaking into the microphone. Good morning and welcome to Christ Church. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers here. It's a privilege, it's a delight to be here with you to preach, open God's word and behold wonderful things in God's law. If you're a guest here, my name is Rodney. I serve as one of the pastors here. And this morning we're going to be considering Psalm 133, a very short but very profound psalm as we continue our series in the Psalms of Ascents. Now Psalm 134 is the final psalm in this series, and our brother Jake's going to be preaching from there tonight. So we're now coming to the end of this series and to the end of the Psalms of Ascents. And these psalms are giving voice to the emotions and the hopes and the prayers of pilgrims, of God's people as they set their hope on God and his deliverance, on God's Messiah, on God's city as they head and trek toward Jerusalem. And just as Jewish pilgrims would sing these songs as they approach the earthly Jerusalem, so we the church sing these songs as we continue our pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusalem. Now the Psalms of Ascents began with Psalm 120 where we heard a cry of distress and a lament over the war and the isolation of being separated from Jerusalem. But now we've ascended to the peak of these psalms. We're at the very top, we're at the final two psalms, and we're hearing shouts of rejoicing and peace and blessing over what it means to be near and in and among God's people in God's holy city. So this morning we're going to take a look at the first of these final two Psalms of Ascents as we look at the blessing of God on his people as they arrive and dwell in his chosen city.

Reading of Psalm 133

📖 Scripture: Psalm 133

So let's read the psalm, Psalm 133, and then I'll pray and we'll begin. If you haven't already, please turn to Psalm 133. Read along with me. If you don't have a Bible, you can use the Black Pew Bible in front of you. It's on page 519 of those Bibles. And as always, if you don't have a Bible to call your own, please take that home as a gift from our church to you. Hear now the word of the Lord from Psalm 133. A song of ascents of David. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. This is the word of the Lord.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, most high God, our Lord and Redeemer, we pray to you this morning and ask for hearts receptive to your life-giving word. Open our minds to understand the things you want to say to us this morning. May the truth and the beauty of your word give us strength, joy, correction, reproof, instruction, faith, encouragement, and life. Build your church, we pray, through your preached word, and help us all appreciate and maintain the unity which your Son bled and died for. We pray and ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Introduction: The Dual Nature of Family and the Value of Unity

📖 Scripture: James 1:17; Psalm 133

Can the same thing that brings you great pain also bring you great joy? Well, if you've lived any life at all, you would probably say yes to this. There are many, many things in life that have the potential to either be an incredible source of joy and satisfaction or also an incredible and profound source of pain and hardship. Think of your body, for instance. Some of the greatest pleasures are experienced through your body, but also some of the greatest pains. Or think of a job. Your job might be a source of great joy or a source of great stress and pain. Or think of something as simple as food. I love good food. But sometimes really good food, if it's spoiled or expired, can lead to over 24 hours of poisoning and sickness and hospitalization, as my wife can attest, from spoiled whipped cream. And yet perhaps one of the things in life that is most prone to cause both the deepest wounds and the deepest pleasures is the joy of family. Our family and the relationships in our family can cause us to experience some of the greatest and deepest joys possible in this life. And yet many of us know that some of the deepest wounds and sorrows we've ever experienced have also come from family. Family gone wrong. Whether it's through an absent or abusive parent, or a broken marriage, or a verbal fight with a sibling that leaves permanent scars. But not only from family gone wrong, but also from family gone. The father or mother that was never there. The spouse or the parent or the child taken away by death. Family gone. Family gone wrong. There's not much more that can compare with the pain that comes from these two things. Many people in our society would elevate family as the highest good of life. For many, it's the coveted bonds of having a family that truly makes someone rich in this world. And yet it's not simply having a family, but having a family which dwells together in unity. It's the blessing of being with your family and living in harmony with your family. For many, nothing can compare with this. But as Christians, we know from James 1.17 that every good and perfect gift descends from the Father of lights, comes from our God, the God of all blessing. We know that our relationship with Jesus Christ is the most valuable thing in this world and that nothing compares with the joy of knowing Him and being in relationship with Him. But Jesus doesn't simply call us to a relationship with Him that doesn't also immediately involve our relationship with His people, with His body. The eternal blessing of our salvation in Christ cannot be separated from the eternal blessing of our relationship with the family of God. The people who show us Christ, our brothers and our sisters and our fathers and our mothers in the faith. This family and dwelling in unity with this family, this is one of the most exquisite and profound joys possible that the Lord freely gives to His people. And yet, church family gone wrong and church family gone can also lead to some of the greatest pains in life. But the absence of a thing often reveals its value. The potential for pain in church, in the church community, is so great precisely because the potential for joy and blessing is so great. The pain of church family gone wrong or church family gone only reveals how valuable, how good, and how pleasant it is when the family of God truly dwells together in unity. So this morning I want us to better appreciate the blessing of church unity from Psalm 133. The main point of this psalm and this sermon is this. Strive to appreciate the blessing of church unity. Again, the main thing I want us as a church to take away from Psalm 133 is this. Strive to appreciate the blessing of church unity. For those taking notes, the sermon will have three basic points. Three ways that we can strive to appreciate church unity. First, joyfully treasure church unity. Second, honor church unity as a sacred gift. And third, protect church unity. Again, that's joyfully treasure church unity, honor church unity as a sacred gift, and protect the unity of the church. These three points grounded in Psalm 133 will help us strive to appreciate the unity that Christ died to establish in our midst.

I. Joyfully Treasure Church Unity

📖 Scripture: Psalm 133:1; 2 Samuel 5; Psalm 133:2–3; Psalm 23; Luke 7:46; Exodus 19:6 (possible)

So let's consider the first point. Joyfully treasure church unity. Now before we look at this first verse again, I want us to remember that the one people of God have worshipped God in two covenantal orders. The old covenant, which we see in the Old Testament, and the new covenant, which we see in the New Testament. The old covenant was always intended to point forward to the new covenant. The most basic example is how the Passover lamb, right, that was slain in Egypt for the Israelites, always was meant to point forward to Jesus point forward to Jesus Christ, the true Passover lamb, slain for our sins. So we're connected with our old covenant ancestors through the Lord Jesus Christ. They looked forward to him in the types and the shadows and the sacrifices of the old covenant, and we look upward and back to him in the scriptures and in the sacraments. This means that even though we as God's people live in the era of the new covenant, we can always benefit from the writings of the old covenant when we see how they point forward to the new. So as we go through this psalm, we're going to first see how it applied to the Israelites in the old covenant in order to see how it points forward to the church in the new covenant. The church is not a fundamentally different institution than God's people in the Old Testament. Now in order to fully treasure the unity of the church, with this in mind, what we just talked about in mind, in order to fully treasure and joyfully treasure church unity, we have to understand what church unity actually is. What is the church unity that we need to treasure and rejoice in? Well, look at verse 1 with me. Let's explore what David says unity was like for God's people in the old covenant. Read with me verse 1. A song of ascents of David. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. So the first word of the psalm is behold, look. And what are we called to behold? We're called to look at how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. But what does it mean for brothers to dwell in unity? What type of unity are we looking at here? What type of unity is so good and pleasant? Well, there are at least three things that describe this unity. It's familial, it's embodied, and it's loving. So first, this unity is familial, meaning it has to do with a family. We see this with the word brothers in verse 1. Throughout the Bible, this term for brothers is actually used in Hebrew to describe general relatives or kinsmen. It's a broad term and speaks of the family aspect of unity here. It's unity between siblings, between family members, and ultimately between fellow Israelites. And so David is rejoicing in the unity of a family, but not just any family, but the family of God, the family of Israel. Now, again, I've been saying that saying David says this. I'm getting that from the superscript. So you see each psalm in the Bible often has a superscript right above the psalm. That's not something that we put there. That was actually in the inspired text. And so we know that the Holy Spirit inspired this text and inspired that word, that phrase of David, so we can know, okay, there's probably a Davidic context to the psalm. David, more than anyone, would have understood the value of unity among God's people, given the circumstances of his enthronement as king of Israel. After King Saul was killed, David became king of the tribe of Judah, but the rest of Israel was rejecting him for Saul's son, Ish-bosheth. And so Israel had a long civil war, right? The northern tribes were not immediately reconciled to David after Saul died. But when Ish-bosheth died and the civil war ended, finally, the northern tribes finally came to David at Hebron in 2 Samuel 5 and called him their own flesh and bone. They reconciled with him so that David finally ruled over all the 12 tribes in harmony, united as one. But the unity of Israel was not simply found in their genetics, but in their covenantal participation. It was found in the fact that they were all covenant members and covenant with Yahweh, the same God and the same Lord, through circumcision and through the law. So David is celebrating a unity that exists between fellow covenant members. Anyone who wanted to join this family of Israel could do so if they would enter into covenant with Yahweh. And so this family identity is a family of fellow worshipers of the one true God. To worship the same God is to be in the same family. So second, this unity is not only familial, but it's embodied. It's not simply an abstract thing. David's not simply celebrating a status of unity, but an embodied reality. He's speaking of how good and how pleasant it is when Israelites actually dwell together, especially in Jerusalem during the festivals where pilgrims from all over Israel would come together and sing this psalm and worship and feasting. The phrase for dwell together in the text, it actually refers to physical proximity. It's a commonly used phrase to describe eating together or living in the same land with one another. So this unity is a face-to-face embodied unity, not an abstract one. And lastly, this unity is loving. It's not enough for the Israelites to be together if it's a pain to be together. They're living together as one in unity. That phrase is meant to describe harmony, harmony describing unity between different pieces. Think of the beauty of harmony when it comes to music. You have different notes. They're different notes, but when listened to together, it's beautiful. The beauty of living in harmony is not the eradication of differences between people, but people from different circumstances, different tribes coming together to worship the same God as one in love. Hatred, division, these things, hatred divides, but love unites. Love binds everything together in perfect harmony. So this dwelling together as one is the opposite of dwelling together in strife and war. It's a peaceful fellowship rather than an unpleasant divisive one. So this unity that God's people are called to joyfully treasure in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is familial, it's embodied, it's loving. But it's not simply a call for the Old Covenant people of God. It is a call for the New Covenant people of God. In the New Covenant, we see even more clearly that members in the family of God are not ultimately united by their own blood, but by the blood of another, the blood of their Savior, Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus unites them into one eternal people by reconciling all of them to one God and then therefore to one another through his death and resurrection. We're going to look at this more in the second point, but for now it's enough to remember that God's people are united on the basis of their covenant membership in Christ. We're a family who have been born through the same Holy Spirit to become children of the same Heavenly Father through the same, in union with the same Christ. The word for church in the New Testament literally means assembly, describing when different people assemble in the same place. So church unity is embodied. It's a family unity that involves dwelling together as we are right now, gathered in one place. It involves breaking bread together and fellowshipping with one another face to face in love as one family, bound by the bond of the Spirit, the bond of peace in the Spirit of Christ. So this familial embodied unity is unity of love. It's loving, it's harmonious. This is what we mean then by church unity. This unity, however, is a blessing. It's a blessing for the universal church at the end of history, but even now it's a blessing given to the local church as a specific congregation of people who come together to live with one another in harmony. We do have bonds of fellowship that cannot be broken with other Christians around the world, but local churches are local assemblies that gather in particular, that covenant with one another to serve and care for one another because of what Christ has done for them. And so it's a good thing for this to happen. It's a pleasant thing for this to happen. It's a blessing. It's good, meaning it's valuable so that we ought to treasure it. And it's pleasant, meaning it's delightful so that we ought to rejoice in it. David brings out how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity by using two metaphors in verses 2 and 3. So now that we've understood what church unity is, let's look at these metaphors to understand why it's good and pleasant. And again, this is poetry. This is a song. So it's not something to simply analyze. Just step back and adore the beauty of what God's done. All right? Now, when we look at these two metaphors, in verse 2, he compares this familial embodied loving unity to precious oil. And in verse 3, he compares it to the dew of Hermon. So let's look at these two pictures in the song. Look again at verses 2 and 3. It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. Now, we're going to look more at this in our second point. But for now, notice that this oil is described as precious. It's precious oil. It's not common. It's pricey. It's expensive. It's an expensive array of the best spices and ointments, which leads to a delightful and pleasing smell. So even before we get to the image of Aaron, which we're going to get to, we have this imagery of precious oil, which evokes a sense of refreshment and value and joy for the Israelites who would be reading this song. This is because it was actually very common, if one had the means, to honor your special guest by anointing their head with oil at dinner parties or at a special occasion. This would refresh them with its scent. It would cause their face to shine. It would symbolize the value of this guest to the host. We see this in Psalm 23, where the Lord anoints our head with oil before preparing a precious feast for us in luscious pastures. We also see it in Luke 7.46, where Jesus actually points out that one of the Pharisees that invited him to his home didn't anoint his head with oil. And so if unity is like precious oil on the head, then it's something worth treasuring and delighting in. We won't fully appreciate unity as we ought until we understand how precious it is and take joy in its refreshing, pleasant, sweet, and delightful blessing. We see this also in verse 3, when David compares it to the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. Now, Hermon was the highest mountain peak in the Israeli landscape. It received far more moisture than the surrounding lowlands and even Mount Zion in the south. So in the summer, it would be shielded from the harshness of the weather, and it would still be moist and refreshing and cool. The elevation made it a place of unusual fertility, even during the harsh days of summer. And so the dew of Hermon is a refreshing and life-giving dew. It is good, it's valuable, and it's pleasant. The idea of this dew falling on the lower mountain peaks of Zion symbolizes the life and refreshment it would give to these mountains comparable to the abundant life on Mount Hermon. So again, these pictures that we're looking at were meant by David to spur on our imagination, to spur on the imagination of the Israelites to help them see and grasp how precious and life-giving their unity really was. It's good because it's precious and valuable. Without it, Israel could not fulfill its mission to reveal the glory of God to the nations as a holy priesthood. And it's pleasant because it truly brings joy and delight. David didn't need to convince people that this unity was pleasant. He simply wanted them to give attention to the fact that it was pleasant, to think about that fact. In the same way, God's people in the New Covenant, us, the church, ought to joyfully treasure the unity of the church by prizing it as valuable and rejoicing in its refreshing and life-giving impact. But how do we practically do this? It's one thing to say, oh, I prize the unity of the church, but how can we do this in practice? Well, a few things. One, we should treasure church unity by simply thinking about it, thinking about it, letting the unity of the church actually impact the decisions we make as we think through our decisions. When something's important to us, we give attention to it. So when we treasure church unity, we will ask ourselves questions like, how will this decision increase or decrease unity in the church? How will it promote or impact the unity of the church? How will my words and actions make it easier for our church to dwell together in harmony and peace? What are things I can actively do to further promote the unity of the church? Will this particular action or comment or text message or email promote division or will it promote unity in the church? Asking ourselves practical questions like this help us prioritize and value the familial embodied loving unity of our congregation. But secondly, not just thinking about it, but delighting in it, right? Delighting in the unity that God has given us in Christ. As we delight in these things, we are seeking to enjoy the refreshing impact of church unity. And the way we enjoy it is by engaging in it, engaging in activity that is unifying. So for instance, the most crucial way we can do this is by gathering together for fellowship and worship on Sunday mornings. These gatherings are the bedrock of our fellowship and worship, of our unity as a church. We are literally dwelling together in unity, in love on Sunday morning. It's a gathering where we see each other face to face, where we joyfully sing to and with one another about the glory of our Lord and the truths of scripture, where we hear the word of God together and we pray together and we take the Lord's supper together as one body. This glorious, loving, embodied gathering of the local church is the closest thing on earth to the final gathering of God's people at the end of the age, when all of God's people will one day dwell together forever in a glorified unity, a glorified harmony that will be unimaginably sweet and good and joyful. Additionally, we can seek to attend and engage in other things like our evening worship services, where we come together as a church, like we'll be coming together tonight. These services are the only time where we regularly pray together with one another. We pray for one another as one body. It's really an encouraging and a refreshing thing to hear the voices of our brothers and sisters praying for the same things that we all value in the kingdom of heaven. It's a time where we can come together regularly, the only time actually, where we can come together regularly as a church and hear testimonies of God's grace in the lives of other members in the church. In addition to these gatherings, we can also seek to be faithful in attending the members' meetings. Our members' meetings are the time where we gather to do business together as a church, to conduct the business of God's kingdom together, the sacred task of voting in members, enacting church discipline, electing deacons and elders to their respective places in the church. There's so many opportunities, community groups. These groups are contexts for developing deep relationships with members you'd otherwise not really get to know. I could go on and on about different ways that we can actually engage in church unity. But again, if we're going to treasure it and value it and delight in it, then we have to actually seek to pursue these things. And we joyfully pursue these things in church unity, not simply because we're supposed to. I'm not simply saying we're supposed to be united, so be united. That's not how it works. There's a promise attached to it. There's a promise that in church unity we find life and refreshment and strength that we might not even have known that we needed if we had not engaged in that unity. God desires to bless his people, and much of the blessing that God has for us is found in the context of gathering with his people for worship, for edification, for fellowship.

II. Honor Church Unity as a Sacred Gift

📖 Scripture: Psalm 133:2–3; Exodus 28:1; Exodus 28:15–29; Exodus 30; Hebrews 4:14; Acts 2:32–33; Ephesians 2:13–18

But secondly, this brings us to our second point, we strive to appreciate our unity by honoring it as a sacred gift. This is our second point for this morning. Honor church unity as a sacred gift. Look again with me at verses 2 and 3. We're going to go a little deeper now. And bear with me because there's a lot of biblical theology here. Verse 2, it is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon which falls on the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. Now these verses will help us honor the sacred blessing of church unity because they help us understand where it comes from. Where does church unity come from? When we see that, we'll honor it as a sacred blessing. And so in these verses, we have seen David compare the unity of God's people to precious oil and life-giving dew. But both of these things have something in common if you look closely at the text. Both the dew, both the oil and the dew, they descend, they fall. Look at verse 1. The precious oil is described as running down on the beard of Aaron and as running down on the collar of his robes. As you know, in Hebrew poetry, repetition is always important. This repetition continues in verse 3 where the dew of Hermon falls down on the mountains of Zion. In the Hebrew, however, the phrase for running down in verse 2 is the same phrase for falls in verse 3. This means that the unity is something that descends upon God's people. It's something that comes down to us. But where does this unity come down from? Where is it from? Well, this is where understanding the reference to Aaron becomes crucial. In verse 2, the precious oil is described as running down from Aaron's head onto his beard and onto his garments or the collar of his robes. And so to understand this imagery, we need to know who Aaron was and what he was wearing. So who was Aaron? What was he wearing? What's going on here? So let's turn with me to Exodus chapter 28. We're going to start at verse 1. Exodus 28, starting at verse 1. Second book in the Bible. Exodus 28, verse 1. Then bring near to you Aaron your brother and his sons with him from among the people of Israel to serve me as priests. Aaron and Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all the skillful whom I have filled with the spirit of skill that they make Aaron's garments to consecrate him for my priesthood. And so here God is giving Moses instructions for the people to make garments for Aaron to consecrate Aaron as a high priest and his sons as priests. So in the rest of the passage, we hear instructions regarding what Aaron's garments would actually look like. So move down to verse 15. Read with me starting there. Verse 15. You shall make a breastpiece of judgment and skilled work. In the style of the ephod you shall make it of gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen you shall make it. It shall be square and doubled, a span its length and a span its breadth. You shall set in it four rows of stones. A row of sardis, topaz and carbuncle shall be the first row. In the second row an emerald, a sapphire and a diamond. In the third row a jacinth, an agate and an amethyst. In the fourth row a barrel, an onyx and a jasper. They shall be set in gold filigree. There shall be twelve stones with their names according to the names of the sons of Israel. They shall be like signets, each engraved with its name for the twelve tribes. And move down to verse 29. So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart when he goes into the holy place to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord. So Aaron the high priest is wearing an elaborate garment with a breastpiece hanging from his neck right above his heart. And on that breastpiece were twelve precious stones and on each stone the name of a tribe of Israel. So God's people, their very names were written on the heart, if you will, of Aaron the high priest on his garment. Now what is this symbolizing? Well, it symbolizes the fact that Aaron as the high priest was the mediator for God's people. Aaron represented God's people to God when he went into the temple and represented God to God's people when he came out. This is what the high priest does as a mediator. He approaches God as the representative of God's people and atones for their sin in the Holy of Holies and he approaches the people as God's representative to mediate his blessing to them. So there's this transaction of the people approaching God in the high priest and then God and his blessing approaching the people in the high priest. A back and forth, a holy exchange. But what does this have to do with oil? Well, earlier in the service we read from Exodus chapter 30 about the precious oil that God called for his people to make. This oil would make anything that touched it holy and set apart to God. It represented life and blessing which is why Aaron was anointed with oil as the high priest. It's because he receives God's blessing of oil so that he can give God's blessing as a mediator to the people. So here's the key point I want to make in Psalm 133. David is using a poetic image where the oil's descent from Aaron's head down to the beard and down to his garments where the stones of the 12 tribes were written on his heart represents God's blessing flowing down from Aaron's head all the way to the people that he represented as the high priest. The people written in stone above his heart. So David is saying that unity is a sacred holy blessing from God himself descending from his very presence to his chosen people. This also explains the picture in verse 3 regarding the dew of Hermon. The life-giving dew of Hermon descending to Mount Zion is a picture of the blessing of life-giving unity descending from heaven to God's people. And so David wanted Israel to see unity as a divine blessing from heaven. It was not something they could conjure up themselves. Rather, it was a precious gift flowing down to them like precious oil from Aaron's head, like life-giving dew from the heavens above. And so what about us? What about the new covenant people? What about the church? Because there is no Aaron. There is no Levitical priesthood. There's no temple for us. No physical temple in Jerusalem for us to worship in. Well, again, the end of Aaron's priesthood and the destruction of the earthly temple made way for the coming of a new and better high priest, a new and heavenly temple in which that high priest would serve. As Hebrews 4.14 says, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the new and the better high priest who atones for our sins and mediates the blessing of God to us as he pours out the Holy Spirit upon us, the very Holy Spirit who anointed him when he ascended to heaven in glory. Turn with me really quick to Acts 2. Acts 2 in the New Testament. We're going to read verses 32-33. Acts 2, starting at verse 32. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. And so Jesus Christ Jesus Christ, when he was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven, received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father in its fullness and its glory, and pours out that same Spirit upon us, his church living on earth. He receives the full blessing of God's Spirit and glory and power. Jesus, the God-man, our great high priest, was blessed by God the Father with the fullness of the Holy Spirit so that he could then pour out that Spirit like precious oil, like life-giving dew onto his church living on earth. This is what we saw at Pentecost. He continues to pour out his Spirit today. Just as Aaron's priesthood pointed to the priesthood of Jesus, so the anointing oil and the dew in Psalm 133 points to the Holy Spirit who anoints Jesus Christ as the head of the church and flows down to his body to unite his body. So this is what I want you to get from all of this. Psalm 133 points us to the truth that unity is a sacred blessing that descends to us from Jesus through the Holy Spirit as a gift. Unity is therefore a sacred gift because it comes from Christ and his Holy Spirit. It is a sacred gift because Jesus died on the cross in order to establish it. He shed his blood in order to establish it, in order to redeem us for unity. The Holy Spirit flows from our covenant head, Jesus Christ, and fills us in order to unite us as one body, one familial, embodied, loving body, the church of the living God. But let's pause here. Just consider what we've looked at. In order to bring unity to the church, there needed to be a death. Jesus died to give us this family. He didn't take the blood of lambs into God's presence. He shed his own blood to reconcile us to God in one body. Turn with me to Ephesians 2. We're going to look at verse 13 and following. Ephesians 2, verse 13. Again, we're thinking about the death of Christ, the significance for our unity. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. And he might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him, we both have access in one spirit to the Father. Brothers and sisters and guests, everyone listening, be in awe at what Christ has done in the gospel. The eternal son of God became a human and walked among us in order to die, in order to face the full unmitigated fury of the wrath of God toward our sin. There are so many differences between all of us in here right now. But the one thing absolutely all of us have in common, believer and unbeliever alike, is that we have all sinned against God. We have all sinned against the one who created the cosmos, the universe, everything. We have violated his laws. And because of that, we all deserve condemnation. The condemnation of eternal punishment, eternal ruin in a place called hell. The one true God is a holy God. And as a just judge, he cannot let sin go unpunished or unseen for what it really is. You may think that your sin has no consequences because you don't see them. But don't be deceived. A day is coming where the Lord God of the universe will hold you to account for everything you've done, everything you've thought, everything you've said. And his strict justice will be enacted on that day. But this strictly holy God is a merciful God. He has made provision for you that you might escape the justice that you deserve, the wrath that you deserve. That provision is in his own son whom he sent to die for you, who stood in the place of millions from all nations. He stood there bearing the wrath of God when he died on the cross. He took and absorbed the full payment, the full penalty for our sins so that we, if we simply would turn away from our sins and cling to him for our life, we might go free. We might be forgiven. We might be established as one family from all tribes and all tongues and all nations, reconciled in one body, confessing this one truth, Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This is the glory of the gospel, that Christ would die for all of us, to unite all of us in one body. This is the gospel, and I urge you, if you've not done so already, to open your eyes and see the beauty of what Christ calls you to by turning from your sins and trusting in Christ and joining the family of God, the family that will never end. It is in the church. If you want to hear more about this, come speak with me. I'll be standing at the tunnel. There'll be men at the entrances. Any of our members, we'd love to share with you the gospel of grace, the gospel of peace, the gospel that establishes a family that will never fail you, forever, a family that will never pass away. So church, this is what we ought to honor as a sacred gift. Our unity is sacred. It's holy. The Lord Jesus spilled his blood for it. He groaned and suffered on the cross that we would live together in unity and love. How could we dishonor such a sacrifice knowing where it came from? As the passage in Ephesians 2 said, Jesus Christ himself is our peace. To violate our peace is to violate the Lord of glory, Christ himself and his precious holy blood. Not only that, but our unity as a church is a supernatural spiritual reality. It is created by the Holy Spirit. So if our unity comes from the Holy Spirit, then it's holy. And so to grieve the Spirit is to violate our unity. We grieve the Spirit of God when we walk in ways that promote division in his church because the Spirit unites us in one body to the Father. So let's strive to appreciate, truly appreciate the unity which Christ died for us to have, which the Spirit has been poured out to create in our midst.

III. Protect Church Unity

📖 Scripture: Psalm 133:2; Psalm 133:3; Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9; Genesis 11; Ephesians 4:1–3; Colossians 3; 1 Corinthians 11:26

This will bring us to our final point. As we think about these things, we should protect the unity which Christ has died for. Protect this unity. Let's look at verse 2 in Psalm 133. Because in that verse we see that unity is like precious oil, right? Precious anointing oil on the head of Aaron. So as we've read before in verse 2, this precious anointing oil is anointing Aaron as a priest. But Aaron is the high priest. He's not the only priest. As high priest, he represents God's people, a nation of priests. A royal priesthood. As Pastor Raymond in his sermon last week preached from Exodus 19.6, Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests, all of them. The people of God in the Old Covenant were given the holy, precious oil of unity so that they might steward this harmony like priests as a display of God's holiness to the surrounding nations. Priests were called to steward and protect the holy things of God's temple because God's temple was the unique place on earth where God's special presence dwelt. Look again at the second half of verse 3 in Psalm 133. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. There. Where is there? Zion, Jerusalem, God's people. Eternal life is only found there. God's people in the Old Covenant were holy and set apart as guardians and mediators of the divine blessing of everlasting life. And one of the dimensions of that life was their unity. So likewise, the people of God in the New Covenant, we, the church, are called by, in 1 Peter 2.9, a royal priesthood. We are a nation of priests. As the church, we are guardians and mediators of God's blessing and salvation for the sake of the world. We guard the message of salvation and we guard the display of that salvation. Our living together in unity is a holy, sacred display of God's blessing that's meant to both condemn and attract the world around us. As we reflected on earlier, everyone knows the value of unity, of family. Everyone knows the precious nature of dwelling in harmony and unity with others. It's a blessing that the world strives for. It's a blessing the world's been striving for since the Tower of Babel because unity brings life and blessing and power. Nations have sought after this unity like a coveted prize. Think of our own nation and the very name of our nation. We're seeking to be a united states of America, right? A company of diverse places dwelling together in unity. But we've never lived up to that ideal as a country. We've never lived up to that ideal of unity. Not only the nations though, but biological families, businesses, schools, even sports teams. In all of these contexts, human beings are trying to find a family. They're trying to unite themselves. They're trying to find the refreshing, life-giving power of living as one. It's what everyone deep down knows they were made for, to belong to a family, to belong together. But church, that blessing that everyone wants has been gifted to us. True, everlasting unity has been reserved for the people of God. It cannot be built or manufactured by mankind apart from God. True unity is a gift from God. From above, it's a holy thing given to the church and we're called to protect the display of it, to condemn the counterfeit unity of the world, yes, but also to attract the nations to it. So we must, as a nation of priests, protect the unity of our church, to invite people to come and feast in the beauty and the life of the unity of the church. We must protect it so we can fulfill our mission to be witnesses of God's kingdom. We must protect it so that God isn't blasphemed. It really is a shameful thing for the church, of all things, to be divided, to have factions, for there to be envy and jealousy. That is a shameful thing. It blasphemes the glory of God. We're called to reflect the unity of the one true God, Father, Son, and Spirit, living together for eternity. The triune God creates the church to reflect his own holy unity. We're supposed to be the picture of who God is. And so, we should seek to do that. So to close, let's consider practically what that means for us. What does it look like to protect unity in our church? To see that, we're just going to go to Ephesians 4, so flip over to Ephesians chapter 4. Look with me at verses 1 through 3. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. Paul writes, I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. So here, Paul is calling us as a church to fulfill our calling as one holy people called to reflect the one glory of the triune God, to live up to that calling. And in order to do that, in verse 3, he calls us to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now, it's important to see that he says maintain that unity. We don't create the unity. God created it. The unity we have is not something we can manufacture. It's something that Christ died to give us. We're simply called to maintain it because we are one. We strive to live as one. The word for maintain can also mean guard or keep watch or protect. It's used in the Old Testament to describe what priests do when they guard and protect the holy things of the temple. So how are we to protect the spiritual unity and peace in the church? By walking in the qualities he mentions in verse 2. Walking in humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance. In humility, we count others more significant than ourselves. Humility prevents division since one of the greatest causes of division is pride, arrogance, and selfishness. Every single brother and sister in this congregation is a blood-bought family member, and they ought to feel like it. We should eagerly and humbly seek to make every member feel like our family, serving their interests, counting their sorrows to be our own sorrows, their joys to be our own joys. We protect church unity also when we walk in gentleness. Gentleness is the ability to speak and act in such a way that is careful not to harm or unnecessarily offend someone. Even if and when we need to speak truth to one another and even correct one another, we should be eager to do this with gentleness and avoid letting our own anger or feelings create a sense of harshness in our speech. When you speak with others, either for encouragement or correction, strive to let them know you are on their side. You are their brother, their sister. You love them. Understand their pains. Understand their struggles. Understand their backgrounds. Run away from any comments or action that would unnecessarily bring pain in light of these things. Pain that could even tempt them to avoid you in the future, promoting division. But we also protect unity when we walk in patience and forbearance. We won't do this perfectly with one another. We must patiently bear with the sins and the weaknesses that we all have. Saints, be careful not to promote disunity, not to be unloving in your attempt to point out someone else being unloving. Don't add sin to sin. Meet sin with grace. Meet harshness with gentleness. We're not going to be perfect. We will all sin against one another. We will all speak harshly with one another. We will all do things that might tend toward divisiveness, but we're called to protect our unity. We're called to overlook offenses, to seek out reconciliation, patience, and forbearance. We bear with one another. We are all hard to be around at various points, all of us. So we must bear with one another. Accountability matters, but so does patience, forbearance, and most importantly, forgiveness. Don't hold a record of wrongs against your brother, your sister. But how do we do this? How can we walk in these qualities of patience, forbearance, and forgiveness? By looking to Christ, imitating Christ. Simply do this. Behold Christ in his humility, his patience, and his forbearance toward you. Fall in love with the beauty of Christ's patience and forbearance and love, and then display what you see. Display the Christ that you love. Display the patience that you see in Christ. You can't manufacture this. It is a gift of the Spirit. So look to Christ, and as you look to Christ in faith by the Spirit, you'll be empowered to live out the example of Christ, because this belongs to you. This is the mind that belongs to you in Christ. In Colossians 3, Paul says that above everything, we should put on love. Love binds everything together in perfect harmony. So in summary, put on love. If we all strive to show impartial and earnest love for one another, we will live up to the calling God has given us. And as we do this, we must be watchful of the movements in our own heart, movements in our heart that can lead us to disunity, a little bit of anger, a little bit of jealousy. Snuff it out as soon as you see it. So brothers, sisters, strive to appreciate the blessing of church unity. Strive to joyfully treasure it. Strive to honor it as a sacred gift. Strive to protect it so that our great Savior might be glorified and the nations might see his glory in a dark and divided age.

Conclusion and Call to the Lord's Supper

📖 Scripture: Psalm 133:3; Psalm 34:8

And finally, remember, we will not do this perfectly. The unity of the church is already and not yet. Here it is but a foretaste. Even now, the harmony and community that you long for cannot be fully satisfied on this side of eternity. Many of us will be hurt. Many of us will be hurt by the church. But when this happens, look forward to the promise of Zion. Look forward to the promise that one day God has commanded the blessing of life to come to fruition. Look forward to that final day, that final assembly where we will all be seated together in glory. I'm going to close with this. My dad called me yesterday. My dad, my grandfather has Alzheimer's, dementia. He can't remember anything. Growing up, my dad worked for my grandfather and I remember my dad constantly being at enmity and odds with my grandfather. They were constantly butting heads. And as my grandfather developed dementia, my dad's heart softened toward my grandfather. And now my dad is ministering to my grandfather. And he called me yesterday to talk about that. And he's like, I just wish he was still here to see the fact that I forgive him, that I love him. And I told him, one day you're going to see that. One day you're going to be seated next to him in the heavenly Jerusalem. You were at odds, but you've been reconciled because the peace that Christ died to establish, it will come to pass. Those Christians who were formerly at odds will sit next, you will sit next to your brother, to your sister who you struggle to love. And you will do so with joy because God has commanded it to be so. And it reflects his glory. And this Lord's Supper, this sacrament of the Lord's Supper, it points to that final day. It points to that final day when we will sit together and feast in the house of Zion. It points to the sacrifice that Christ made for us to establish that unity. He in his own body, in his death, he was killed. He was killed on the tree. He bore the wrath of God. His body was broken apart to bring us together as one. His blood was shed for the forgiveness of our sins so that we might be united in one body to God, reconciled to God and all sin. And as we enjoy this feast, as we enjoy the Lord's Supper, we proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. We proclaim we are one body. This is a holy supper because we are a holy church. And so if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have not repented of your sins and trusted in him, if you have not joined yourself to the family of God, then I would invite you not to necessarily, not to take part in this supper, but to sit and reflect on what it means. But if you have turned from your sins, if you are walking in repentance and faith, if you are a member in good standing of a local church that proclaims the same gospel you've heard preached here today, then come to the table. Come with your brothers and your sisters and taste and see that the Lord is good. In a moment, I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the ushers can come forward. There'll be two lines, one to my left and one to my right. We can come forward and we'll serve you the supper then. But for now, please pray with me.

Closing Prayer

Father in heaven, we are so grateful. We're so grateful for what you've done for us in Christ, that you have established a peace, a unity in your son that cannot be broken. May we honor, appreciate, treasure, and protect the unity that you've given us so that we might proclaim to the nations your blessing. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Transcript processed May 18, 2026