by Francis Chan
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 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. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 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.”
John 17:20–23
Jesus prayed that the unity of His followers would be equal to the oneness of the Father and Son! He wants you and me to be one just as the Father and Son are united. Have you ever considered pursuing this type of unity with your church?
Do you even believe this is possible?
Let me keep going with this. Jesus’ prayer was not that we would just get along and avoid church splits. His prayer was that we would become “perfectly one.” He prayed this because our oneness was designed to be the way to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus said the purpose of our unity was “so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them.”
For some of us, that prayer doesn’t make sense. How could our unity result in the world’s belief? How could seeing us love one another make someone believe that Jesus truly came from heaven? It feels like saying two plus two equals a thousand. Just remember that Scripture is filled with impossible equations. Marching around a city seven times doesn’t seem as if it would result in its walls collapsing, but then it happened (Josh. 6). Church unity doesn’t seem as if it would result in people getting saved, but it actually did happen (Acts 2:44–47).
They were united and the result was people being saved. Acts describes the extent of their unity like this:
“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”
Acts 4:32–35
I don’t know about you, but that passage always moves me. The Church looks so beautiful, so attractive. It is that kind of love that makes our message believable. Scripture is clear: there is a real connection between our unity and the believability of our message. If we are serious about winning the lost, we must be serious about pursuing unity.
“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.”
Philippians 1:27–28
If you skipped past the verses above, please go back and read them. Then read them again. Notice the promise at the end: our fearless unity is “a clear sign to [those who oppose Christians] of their destruction”! We are living in a time when very few people believe in the wrath of God. Even the evilest people we know have no fear of a literal judgment day. Have you ever tried to convince someone of their future destruction? It’s not a simple task. Yet Scripture tells us that our fearless unity will convince them.
When are we going to take these promises seriously and spend our energy seeking unity? Not just the kind of unity where we avoid arguments with one another, but the kind where we truly live together as a family. Where we meet one another’s needs and care for one another regardless of the time or effort required. Unity doesn’t come easily. Think of everything it takes for a family to stay together—all the acts of service it requires, all the forgiveness and grace that must be constantly extended, all the times when one person’s desires have to be lovingly laid aside for the desires of others. It’s easy to talk about unity, but it requires a kind of mutual commitment that is all but absent from our churches. If we’re going to see this become a reality, we need to count the cost and decide whether we will commit. I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m an introvert who is happy with a few close friends. Obedience often grates against our natural desires, but if we obey only when it feels natural, then Jesus is not truly Lord of our lives. What often results from obedience, however, is unexpected blessing. Now that I am starting to experience true unity with my brothers and sisters, I don’t want to ever live without it.
Pushing the Church to live as a family is not some gimmick, some flavor of “church” that would be fun to try; it’s commanded. And it’s offered. Crafting the Church into a truly united and supernaturally loving family is the very thing God is wanting to do. Do we believe God is capable? Do we trust that His design for His Church is what will be most effective?
We have come up with countless strategies to reach the lost when God promises that unity is the method that will work. Think about that: God gave us instructions on how to reach the world, yet we abandon the one set of instructions He gave us even as we scramble to create classes and programs and events that promote everything but the strategy God gave us!
HAVE WE GIVEN UP?
When you read about the unity of the early church, does it make you jealous? Something in you wishes you were born two thousand years ago so you could be a part of a group like this. You can get depressed by the dual realization that this is the very thing you’ve always wanted and you’re not going to find this in the typical American church today.
It’s sad that our churches look nothing like this. It’s devastating that we don’t believe it is possible.
What I see today is many people choosing to opt out of the Church. Claiming a continued love for Jesus, they have decided that the Church only gets in their way. It’s a sad time when those who want to be close to Jesus have given up on the Church.
There is this terrifying verse in 1 Timothy where Paul talked about two men who rejected the faith. Paul said that he had handed them over to Satan, by which he meant that he’d put them outside the Church (1:20). Basically, these men were actively opposing the works of God, so rather than pretending everything was fine, Paul removed them from the safety and blessings of the fellowship of believers. He was hoping that the misery of being separated from the Church would lead them to repent. Are you catching the weight of this? Paul equated removal from the Church with being handed over to Satan! It is crazy to me that we live in a time when people are voluntarily doing this to themselves! No church has placed them outside the fellowship; instead, they’ve handed themselves over to Satan!
Real love, unity, and blessing were supposed to be found in the Church. Many are having a hard time finding that, so they’re setting off on their own. Jesus said that the world would see the supernatural unity and love we share in the Church and believe in Him through that. But we’re not experiencing it. We’ve given up on it. We no longer believe it is possible.
What if we took God’s description of the Church as a family seriously? What would happen if a group of people sought Jesus fervently, loved one another sacrificially, and then shared the gospel boldly?
Sadly, there are a lot of people in our churches who aren’t interested in living out loving family like this. I’m going to say something that might be hard to hear: What if we let them leave? I know that goes against all the wisdom of modern church-growth strategies, but it’s exactly the kind of thing Jesus would do. While we design strategies to slowly ease people into Christian commitment and grow attendance at our services, Jesus called people to count the cost from the very start (Luke 14:25–35). He didn’t expect His followers to be perfect, but He did demand that they be committed (Luke 9:57–62). The people who leave your church because they’re turned off by the level of relational commitment will find another church that can pr
ovide what they’re looking for. You can’t shape the life of your church around who might leave if things start to feel too much like the New Testament.
Jesus didn’t sugarcoat anything, but He did promise that His Spirit can bind us together in a way we’ve never experienced. Maybe we’ve just been so distracted by our efforts to make our church services exciting that we’ve hardly noticed the people the Spirit wants to unite us with.
What if we followed God’s design for the Church and in doing so allowed the Church to be pruned down to only those who wanted to obey His command to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12)? We might actually find that a pruned tree would bear more fruit (v. 2). We might discover that the branches that weren’t bearing fruit were actually sucking all the life out of the tree.
Don’t forget that there are times when God doesn’t just want us to let them leave; He wants us to ask them to. There is a difficult reality to face, which is that there are going to be people who try to take advantage of churches that are committed to love. In order to love one another like family, we will need to have grace and forgiveness. However, sometimes the most loving thing to do for people is not to enable them in their sin but to follow the aforementioned example of Paul in 1 Timothy, who separated people from the Church. It was for the good of the Church as well as the individuals who were removed. Biblical unity is achieved not by overlooking sin but through firm pruning, which can lead to repentance. Unconditional love doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. It takes tremendous love to risk rejection for the hope of loving a sinner to repentance.
BE ENCOURAGED
For years I honestly didn’t have faith that it was even possible for a church to possess the love and unity I saw in Scripture. People kept telling me this couldn’t happen in America. I would see examples of this in places like China, but church leaders would tell me it worked there only because people already lived communally and because they were experiencing persecution that forced them to bond. There was always a part of me that doubted those voices, but it was only a few years ago that I mustered up the courage to try. It was harder than I expected, but it’s also been more rewarding than I could have dreamed. This can happen wherever you are too. Holy Spirit love and unity are not confined to persecuted countries.
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SERVANTS
How would you respond if Jesus took off your shoes right now and began to wash your feet? Try to envision this.
I wouldn’t be able to hold it together. I picture myself crying uncontrollably. I think I would feel so unworthy and uncomfortable but also secure and honored. I can barely imagine standing in the same room as Jesus. My mind doesn’t have a compartment that fits the thought of my Creator and Judge washing my feet. It feels impossible.
At the core of our faith lies this belief that almighty God humbled Himself to serve us and die for us. At the root of our calling is a command to imitate Him by serving one another. After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus commanded them to wash one another’s feet (John 13:14). Yet on any given Sunday, what percentage of “Christians” show up eager to serve others?
“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:28
It’s no secret that most people who attend church services come as consumers rather than servants. We see the foolishness in this, but it feels as if we have resigned ourselves to it. We have learned to accept it as though there’s nothing we can do about it. People put money in the offering basket, which pays for the staff salaries, so the staff should do their jobs and minister to the people. It sounds like a fair and efficient system, and it works pretty well in some places. It’s not what God wanted, but it works.
“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Philippians 2:1–8
God wants you to resemble His Son, especially when you gather with your church family. Do you show up to gatherings looking to serve? As some of you read that question, you feel burdened—like a weight was just placed on you. You already live a busy life, and you want the church gathering to be a place of rest, where you can be fed. If you think that sitting back and letting the church staff feed you will bring you the most fulfillment, you are so wrong. God promised that those who give will be most blessed (Acts 20:35). Takers are the most miserable people on earth. It is our inability to take our eyes off ourselves and put them onto others that destroys us. This is what Jesus saves us from. This is what the Holy Spirit wants to do in us. The most humble people are typically the happiest.
Imagine gathering with a group of people who were trying to outserve one another. Have you ever been in a room filled with humble people who count others more significant than themselves? It’s anything but burdensome. When servants gather together, everyone is built up. No one hates consumerism more than God, because that mentality keeps the church from having the vibrancy He intended. Don’t give up on the dream. The church doesn’t have to remain a group of needy people complaining that they haven’t been fed well enough. It really can become a group of servants who thrive in serving.
EXPERIENCING GOD
Paul explained to the church in Corinth that every person in their congregation was given a supernatural ability to bless others in the church. He even called these abilities “manifestation[s] of the Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:7; 14:12). Does that image stir any excitement in you? To see God Himself move through a human body! Some of us have seen demons possess bodies and speak through them; others have seen Hollywood depictions of this. We read of it in Scripture. We can imagine a demon having complete control of someone, to make him or her speak and move according to its pleasure.
Why is it that most of us have a clearer picture of demon possession than manifestations of the Holy Spirit? Most of us would say we believe in demon possession, but do we really believe the Spirit could work through us to an even greater extent? Our gatherings were meant to look otherworldly! We would be terrified for days if we saw a demon-possessed woman, so shouldn’t a Spirit-filled woman be equally startling and memorable? We need to expect more! Wouldn’t you be thrilled about the next church gathering if you knew that the Holy Spirit was going to literally manifest through someone? Everyone?
We have become too easily satisfied. We are content if a person leaves pleased. God wants them awed. I’m not suggesting that we try to make our services bizarre by bringing in deadly snakes. Nor am I saying that we try to hype ourselves into some sort of emotional frenzy that lacks any God-birthed substance. I am saying that we have settled for the natural and our choices give little evidence that we believe in the Holy Spirit. For that reason, we end up with gatherings that are very explainable and at times feel mechanical and even obligatory.
Paul wanted all believers showing up with a confidence that God wanted to move through them, possessing them and manifesting Himself through them to build up those who gathered. Do you approach gatherings with that expectation? If you are content to receive from others, you will miss out on the thrill of having the Spirit manifest Himself through you. This will cause you to be dissatisfied and the Church to suffer. Your gift is needed.
Traditionally, the Church values people the same way the world does. We look for great leaders, strong communicators, and talented artists. We value their gifts and put them on disp
lay. Just like the world, we overlook so many who don’t initially appear to have much to offer. Do our actions show that we expect supernatural contributions from every member of the body? We would never dream of looking God in the face and telling Him we thought one of His children was worthless. But we don’t have to say it with our lips if our actions scream it.
My fellow elders and I repented after studying 1 Corinthians 12–14 a couple of years ago. We realized that there were many in our congregation we didn’t expect much of. We began praying for them by name and approaching them individually to encourage them. We decided to find the most overlooked in our congregation to remind them of biblical truth and tell them how badly we needed them. After all, in the context of 1 Corinthians, didn’t Paul explain that it was through the overlooked that God chose to display His power (1:26–27)? How would we act if we believed that? Are we not overvaluing the rich, beautiful, and talented just as the world does? So many people often slip in and out of services without much notice. For some reason, the millionaires, CEOs, and famous are always noticed. Does that tell us anything?
THE TASK OF GIFTED LEADERS
We have to stop viewing church leaders as people who minister to us. God clearly explained their role. It was not to coddle you but to equip you. Think personal trainer, not massage therapist.
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”
Ephesians 4:11–12
Our Father thinks all His children are extremely gifted. God is convinced He did an amazing job in creating each of them and supernaturally empowering them. His desire is to see all His kids serve to their full potential. He placed church leaders on the earth to ensure this would happen. Few people understand this to be the role of their church leaders, and the leaders themselves often don’t understand their role. Leaders have become like personal trainers who lift the weights for their clients. They run on the treadmill while their trainees sit and marvel. Then we wonder why we the people aren’t developing.