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When I was growing up I learned how to play the trumpet. As part of learning how to play, I was part of brass bands and various music groups, with Saturday mornings as rehearsal time. Whilst my friends were playing sports or watching Saturday morning TV, I was becoming more "cultured," as I like to tell myself.
I really did enjoy that time, especially when we came to perform little concerts — I got to dress up in a tuxedo and pretend I was James Bond. It was really good to be able to play together and produce a nice sound. But that was at the end of a long stretch of rehearsals.
When we'd start learning a piece of music, it was absolute chaos. Different sections and instruments didn't know what we were playing — wrong tempo, wrong pace, wrong volume, wrong notes. The percussion section, as always, were in an alternate reality, just going for it. I felt sorry for the conductor, who was slightly eccentric — which I think you needed to be to volunteer your Saturday mornings to teach a brass band of teenagers.```
But he lovingly, gently, and patiently worked with us, and over time we started to practice, learn, and play together, producing a wonderful sound. There was diversity — different sections, different instruments, different parts to play. But when we came together in unity, something beautiful and attractive was produced, and we fulfilled the function for which we were together.
This is the picture Paul is painting in Ephesians 4 of the church. The church is not meant to be made up of people who look identical. Look around — in all our campuses there are people of different backgrounds, cultures, races, nationalities, economic backgrounds, and experiences. Yet we're called to come together as one through Jesus — the ultimate conductor who holds us all together.```
When we come together and celebrate our diversity, love our diversity, but also come together in unity, something beautiful and powerful happens. It's attractive to the world and we fulfil the purpose for which we were created.
This is so important because we live in a world that seems increasingly divided — so much division, war, fraction, tension. We're almost pressured into tribes, tribalism, and polarization. But the church is called to live radically differently. We are called to unity in diversity. It really is possible through Jesus.
This is central to what it means to be all in as a follower of Jesus — not simply to attend the same church, but to be one body, one family. That's why Paul starts Ephesians 4, the chapter about practical Christian living, not by talking about roles, responsibilities, or gifts, but about unity. Unity is not a side issue in the kingdom of God — it's central to us as a people, and to the world.
Today I want to look at why unity is important, why it matters, and why we are to fight for it.
Paul begins this passage:
"Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace."
In telling us what to do, Paul is also reminding us what already is true. He says keep the unity, not create unity. That's important — because God has already created unity for us through what Jesus did on the cross.
Remember, Ephesians chapters 1–3 are all about what God has already done: we're already adopted, already forgiven, already accepted, already set free. We're sons and daughters of God through what Christ has done for us. The ground at the foot of the cross is equal — none of us have earned our place in this family. We've all been saved through God's grace.
So when Paul turns the corner to Ephesians 4 and says "therefore, this is now what you do," he's reminding us again of what God has already done. In the middle of these chapters, Paul says:
"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility."
Jesus didn't come just to forgive individuals — he came to create a family. He came not just to better our relationships, but to destroy the barriers that exist between us. Doesn't the world need to know this? Hostility and division can be destroyed through what Jesus did on the cross.
Unity matters because it cost Jesus his life. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has paved the way for us to have peace with God and peace with one another. This is why it's so precious — it was bought with the blood of Jesus Christ.
Paul says this is what, through Christ, we've been saved from — disunity, division, disorder, and hostility. Then he says what we've been saved for: unity. He paints a wonderful picture of the foundation of our unity:
"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 of all, who is over all and through all and in all."
We live in a world that loves to focus on what divides us — how we're different from each other. But Paul speaks about what unites us. He uses the word "one" seven times. The number seven is important in Scripture — it means perfection or completion. We can have perfect and complete unity through God.
Let's dwell on what these "ones" mean:
What unites us, church, is so much greater than what divides us. Our unity is not based on personality, skill, experience, charisma, politics, preferences, or nationality. It's built upon one Lord, one Father, one Spirit — Paul is talking about the Trinity. The very nature of God is diversity in unity.
God is diverse — Father, Son, Spirit — three separate persons, yet perfectly united in love, mission, and purpose. Unity matters because it reflects the very nature of God, and we are created in God's image. We were created for unity.
When we seek to be unified, we experience something of the life and flourishing God intends for us. Scripture says:
How good and pleasing it is when God's people live together in unity — for there the Lord bestows his blessing.
As we live and work in unity, we sit under a commanded blessing, because we're living in accordance with our nature, reflecting God to the world. God is the Father and Lord of all creation, not just the church, and his plan is for the church, in its unity, to reflect him to the world around.
Think of my band days again. Different notes, different parts, but when played in harmony, a beautiful sound was created, and people were attracted to it. That's why we listen to our favourite songs, pay for concerts, download songs, listen to them on repeat — we're drawn to harmony. It moves us, it stirs us.
In other words, the church is God's harmony for the world. As we come together, we create a beautiful sound that becomes attractive, and people are drawn to it and come to know God through it.
Jesus himself prays for us in John 17: "that they may be one... that the world may know that you have sent me." That's the power of our unity — it's a witness to a watching world. When we come together from different backgrounds and cultures, loving and serving each other, worshipping together, people get a glimpse of heaven and see Jesus through our unity.
That is why unity is so important — and why we don't want to be passive about the unity God has purchased for us. We want to be proactive: to do everything we can to maintain it, keep it, and grow in it.
At KingsGate we enjoy a good measure of unity — there's a great culture of unity in this church. I experienced that when I first came here: people speaking well of each other, honouring leaders, no gossip. It was refreshing and wonderful to be part of. That's a gift to be thankful for, to praise God for — and all the more reason to guard it and grow in it.
Paul says: "Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace." Every effort — not just some effort, not just an occasional effort.
This reminds me again of my brass band days and the eccentric conductor. He got so frustrated with us looking down at our sheet music and not paying attention to him that one day he put a light bulb on the edge of his baton. As he conducted, the light would go frantically up and down, forcing us to look up.
The principle: when we were focused on our own thing — our own preferences, getting our own notes right — everything was a mess. But when we looked up and fixed our gaze on him, we came together in unity. This is a picture for us as a church. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own preferences that we lose sight of the bigger picture. We need to lift our gaze and fix it on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
The good news is we don't do this in our own strength — it's the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you and me. We can be filled with his love — the unconditional, everlasting love that led him to the cross — and receive his Spirit empowering us to work together for unity.
As we make every effort to keep this unity, we experience "the bond of peace." Paul has talked elsewhere about the peace we can enjoy within ourselves and peace with God, but here he's talking about relational peace — a supernatural peace amongst ourselves, like a glue that holds us all together.
So practically, how do we do this? I want to highlight things that might rob us of peace, seek to divide us — and if we're aware of them, we can guard against them and grow in unity.
If you've lived for five minutes, you'll have had the opportunity to be offended. Somebody will look over you, say something against you, hurt you intentionally or unintentionally — maybe even cut you up in traffic on the way to church (sorry if that was you this morning — I'm only joking).
The question is not if we get offended, but what we do when the opportunity arises. Remember our motivation: the ground at the foot of the cross is equal. We have all been forgiven; we've all received the love and mercy of God. Therefore we can extend that to others.
C.S. Lewis puts it well:
"I can forgive the inexcusable in others, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in me."
If Jesus has forgiven me, how can I hold unforgiveness towards others? Forgiveness is not easy — it's not a feeling, it's a choice. It doesn't mean what the other person did was okay, and you're not sweeping it under the carpet. Acknowledge the hurt, acknowledge the pain. If necessary, bring trusted people alongside you on the journey — don't always try to do it on your own.```
Through forgiveness, you're saying that what happened to you is not going to define you, not going to take root in your heart. It's often been said that holding bitterness towards somebody is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die — it only causes you hurt. Jesus wants you to be free, to experience the bond of peace.
Gossip is not simply talking about somebody else when they're not there — that can be okay. But we all know what gossip is when a conversation becomes disparaging about someone who isn't present. The Bible takes this seriously:
"A gossip separates close friends." (Proverbs 16)
What an awful picture — separating what God seeks to unify, dividing what God seeks to bring together. We've enjoyed a gossip-free culture here at KingsGate, but let's be proactive and guard against it, because gossip requires both a speaker and a listener — it's a two-party thing. Receiving it is as much a part of it as initiating it.
Nicky Gumbel puts it this way: just as receiving stolen goods is as serious a crime in the eyes of the law as theft, so listening to gossip is as damaging as gossiping. If we're called to be our brother or sister's keeper — even if we don't agree with them — we won't speak negatively about them.
A good principle: when talking about somebody who isn't there, ask yourself, would I speak about them this way if they were present?
This isn't about ignoring issues — we will have disagreements, we're human, we live in a fallen world. In fact, Jesus encourages the opposite. In Matthew 18, if you have an issue with somebody, go directly to that person — in love, vulnerability, and wisdom. Go to them, not around them. This is key to walking in forgiveness, avoiding gossip, and lovingly reconciling — receiving and extending the love of God and experiencing the bond of peace. It really is possible because his Spirit is at work within us.
The final thing I want to encourage us to do is this...
The final thing I want to encourage us to do is this: choose curiosity over assumption. This is an interesting one because assumption can cause so many divisions. I've certainly fallen short on this in my own life where I've assumed someone's intent or their motive or even their experience — and I've got it wrong.
If I see somebody wearing a Man City shirt, I can assume all kinds of things about their decision-making and their morality. And I can get it wrong. (Although, in that instance, I got it right — I'm joking!)
But seriously, we can, just by the way somebody speaks, their accent, the way they look, their age — we can humanly jump to an assumption about that individual. This is why, again, last week we heard about how humility is of the utmost importance. It's central to what it means to work out our Christian faith.
Paul puts it this way elsewhere in the New Testament:
"In humility, therefore, value others above yourself."
So in humility, what you're saying about an individual is: I don't know everything about them. I don't know their experience. I don't know what they've been through. I don't know their life story. I don't know what they're thinking, what they're feeling. So therefore I'm not going to assume — I'm going to be curious. I want to get to know that individual.
In the world, we might see a lot of group-think — generalizations where we assume somebody's part of a group because of the way they act, the way they talk, their political affiliation, or whatever it might be. We easily fall into generalization, whereas actually, no — we're called to treat everybody as individuals made in the image of God, to go and get to know them, be curious about their life and their story. When we do this, we cross over so many divides and so many things that can actually cause division between us.
I think one of the great ways to practically do this is often through food. Through food we can become family.
I want to honor my mom and dad, who are part of the Kingsgate Leicester family. I grew up in a Christian home and part of a church, and they would regularly have people over to their home all the time for food — life groups, small groups, different groups of people from the church coming over, Christmas meals together, summer barbecues, international lunches and bring-and-share. People from all different walks of life, all different backgrounds coming.//
To be honest, when I was growing up, I found it quite annoying — who's coming over this week? But now I'm really thankful, because they're part of Kingsgate Leicester and they're continuing to do it as well.
I spoke to my dad earlier this week and asked him who they'd had over in their home over the last few months. He sent me a list: a young family from Nigeria, a student from Dubai, a married couple from Vietnam, a single person from Taiwan, a young adult from Greece — and I'm pretty sure they've had some pie and chips with a few northern English people as well.
It's a wonderful picture, isn't it, of what it means to be truly one family. We have a great culture here, and we're seeking to learn, be curious, and grow — and our advisory council for multi-racial inclusion and integration is a great body that comes together from different people, different campuses, who help us become more curious and grow in humility. I want to honor them for the work they do, which is amazing.//
The reason I want to highlight them is because it speaks to a wider principle which goes even beyond race: we want to be an integrated church — yes, racially, but as we saw in that example with mom and dad, it's people from all different walks of life, socioeconomic backgrounds, experiences, ages, cultures, races, nationalities, all coming together not just to attend church and sit in the same building, but to actually become one family.
I'd encourage you, if you get the opportunity, have some food with some people you maybe haven't had food with before. Or if you can't even have food, maybe cross over and make conversation with somebody you wouldn't usually go over and speak to — even after the service, in all of our locations, in person.
Maybe this week, make it a goal to say: I'm going to make the first move. I'm going to speak to somebody from a different background, age, culture, or experience than me. Be the first one to go and ask a question. Be curious. Choose curiosity over assumption.
Every time we do, we cross over boundaries and build those bridges. We cross over the dividing lines and push back against the temptation of the world to put us into little tribes. And as we do this, we experience the bonds of peace.
So those are some very practical things I think we can do as we walk together in unity. Let's be a church all in for unity. Let's fight for unity. Let's remind ourselves why it matters, and let's do everything we can to guard it, to strengthen it, to grow in it — and as a result become the church that reflects Jesus to the world. Amen.
Before we take communion, I'd like to go back to that first passage I shared, about what Paul says Jesus has done for us in Ephesians 2. Paul says that Jesus himself is our peace. In order that we can experience peace with one another, we first need to know the peace between us and God.
Maybe for some of us here today, we might be experiencing a lack of peace in our lives — because we don't feel like we have peace with God. We may have never prayed a prayer of inviting Jesus into our lives, or we just feel really distant from him. So before we take communion, I want to give an opportunity to pray a prayer of inviting Jesus into your life, because through his life, death, and resurrection, he has made a way for you to know peace and forgiveness for yourself, and also the peace you can experience with others.
"Lord Jesus, I thank you that you love me. I thank you that you went to the cross for me. Thank you that you died so that I could be set free and forgiven, and that I could know peace within my life with you. Thank you Lord that I can be forgiven. In this moment I say sorry for going my own way, but today I choose to follow you, to trust you. Would you come into my life by your spirit, and may I know deep peace... Lord, thank you that I can have peace with you, and from this day on I'm going to experience a new peace with others as well, in Jesus' name. Amen."
Communion is an opportunity to remember what Jesus has done for us. The night before he went to the cross, he took the bread and broke it and said, "Do this in remembrance of me." He took the wine and said, "This is my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sin."
It's good to remind ourselves what he's done for us, but in a context like this, on a topic like this, it's also good to remind ourselves what he's done for us together, corporately. Paul, talking about communion, says:
"Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all share in the one loaf."
What a wonderful picture that is. In other words, what unites us is far greater than that which can divide us.
Before we take it, let's ask the Holy Spirit to come, and lovingly bring to our attention any areas of offense or unforgiveness, any attitudes or assumptions, any relationships we might need to tend to or people we might need to move towards. Let's believe that God is going to do a deeper work in us as we take this together.
Jesus, we thank you for your body that was broken for us, so that we could be made whole. You experienced separation from the Father so that we could be unified together. As we take this bread, I pray we would be a people who make a fresh commitment to do everything we can to keep the unity of the Spirit, because you gave your life in order for us to experience it.
Jesus, we thank you for your blood. It cleanses us of all unrighteousness, washes away our sin. Through your blood shed for us, enemies can become brothers and sisters. Through your blood shed for us, strangers can become family. Through your blood shed for us, we can experience the bonds of peace.
We thank you that you are our peace. We thank you, Lord, that we are a people who are unified in your name — diverse, yet perfectly unified. We can be unified because this is who you are, reflecting your very nature to the world.
From this day on, we make a fresh commitment to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bonds of peace. From this day on, we will be a church that experiences increasing diversity, but also, within that, increasing unity. May we be a church that reflects you, Jesus, to the world — that people will see us and say, "What is it about them? What is going on here?" — that through our unity, many would come to know you, Jesus. Amen.
