Christ Church Memphis
Christ Church Memphis
The Prodigal Church #2: Unity in Christ | Josh Landen
What happens when our loyalties to people, politics, or preferences start to overshadow our allegiance to Christ? This message explores Paul’s urgent plea for unity and what it means for the modern church.
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Paul's letter to the Corinthian church warns against divisions rooted in loyalty to leaders or ideologies instead of Christ. Despite being spiritually gifted, the church lacked unity because they lost sight of their shared identity in Jesus. True unity comes not from agreement alone but from being rooted in Christ, who alone holds the church together. The call remains: let Christ—not preferences, pride, or personality—be the foundation of our faith and fellowship.
[0:18] Today's scripture reading is going to come from 1 Corinthians 1, verses 10-17. 1 Corinthians 1, verses 10-17. I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you may be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollo, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. This is the word of God for the people of God.
[1:43] Thanks be to God. Hello there, and welcome to worship. My name is Josh Landon, and I'm the executive pastor here, and we are so glad to have you with us today. Pastor Paul is taking care of a conference on missions in Houston. He sends his greetings to you. He will be back in the pulpit, Lord willing, next week for us. We had the option where he could write a letter to the church, and I could just stand up here and read it, and we would call it the letter to the church at Memphis, First Memphians, if you will. But he said, no, let's just continue on with a regular series. We are in this series on 1 Corinthians for the foreseeable future. We're going to take a while, and we're going to camp out here for a bit to see how that book might be instructive for us as we go into the future that Christ has for us. I want to encourage you, as we do this, to go back and read both about the founding of the Corinthian church. You can find that in Acts 18. And read the entirety of the book. Know where we're going so that week by week, the entirety of the book of 1 Corinthians, so that week by week, you may understand kind of how that little piece fits into the bigger puzzle. The title in Scripture today is from 1 Corinthians 1, 10 through 17. The Prodigal Church is the overall title for this series, and today it's Unity in Christ, a subtitle might be for us, How Not to Destroy the Church.
[3:10] I was walking through the staff parking lot recently, and I saw a license plate that looked like this. Anybody have a license plate on the front of your car along those lines?
[3:20] Now, this is not the one that I found, but I chose this one as an homage both to you as largely Tennesseans and to the senior pastor in his absence, being an Alabama fan. This family that has this plate on the front of their car is obviously fans of Alabama, the Crimson Tide, and the Volunteers. They recognize that their house is divided, but divided how? Well, divided loyalties Who they're rooting for Who they're rooting against Who they want to win Who's best Who they want to be first And who's most important to them, You'll recall that Abraham Lincoln used this same phrase to talk about the United States being a house divided against itself as we approach the brink of the Civil War, as a young nation prepared to split based on different desires for the future, different understandings of the reasons that we were joined together in the first place. But of course, it didn't start with Lincoln, right? It comes from Christ himself in Matthew 12, when there were some people who accused him of being double-minded, double-hearted, if you will, of doing good works empowered by Satan.
[4:39] He gives a warning, by the way, Christ does at the end of that passage. He goes on to say that if we are not with him, then we are, in fact, against him. And this is the same problem that was creeping up at that church in Corinth. This is a new church that had been founded just a few years prior.
[5:00] And believe it or not, back then, people in church would argue. Back then, people would fight over little things in church. They'd get wrong ideas, they'd get mad, and the church would suffer because of it. The problems of the world were creeping into the church. I've heard an illustration of the church being a boat, and the world is the water, and the boat is meant to keep the water out, and when it comes in, then you've got a problem. It's successful when it keeps the water out But it comes in and then you gotta respond to it, Paul's letter to this church in Corinth is to correct them, is to guide them back into, good and right and proper teachings, to redirect them in its ways, and to get back to what's most important, to what's primary, to the gospel. And after the introduction that we did last week, he straight away immediately goes into one of these first problems and what his goal is. He He says, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree that there be no divisions among you, but you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it's been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.
[6:28] He laments this lack of agreement among them, that there are divisions, literally that they're being torn apart is what that word means, ripped. Into different pieces. Now, churches sometimes have these silly divisions. Sometimes we argue about the temperature of the room. Sometimes we argue about the decorations we put up at Christmas. Sometimes we argue about how strong the coffee should be in the fellowship hall. One church even got into an argument over whether a plot of land that it had should be used for a children's playground or to expand the cemetery.
[7:10] But division is much greater than these silly secondary issues in Corinth. They're not united in their minds and in their hearts, and they are disunited. They're divided to such a degree that they are quarreling, and they're now separating from each other. The problems of the world coming into the church.
[7:36] Take a look at this survey that you see here in front of you. This is a graph from a Gallup survey from just last fall. It says 80% of Americans say that we are divided on the most important issues. 18% think that Americans are united. We're divided, and if you look at it, we're growing further apart. That gap is widening. Now, this survey doesn't even tell us what the most important values are. The respondents could determine that for themselves whatever they determined was most important, but almost everybody four out of five of us recognize that there's division that little inversion that you see there on the left side of the graph that's after 9-11 for the first couple of years before we got into the war in iraq in the 2004 election but this division of the world affects us. We divide over politics and economics and social and cultural issues. In the world, we make character judgments on people based on the car that they drive.
[8:47] Oh, I have a hybrid. I have an electric vehicle. Was it this kind or is it that kind? We make judgments based on what social media apps that they might use We make judgments based on their position on current events Or maybe what celebrities that they're most interested in.
[9:10] These are divided loyalties, and it creeps into the church. Widely speaking, you see this same idea, but just to a slightly lesser degree, within churches. A couple years ago, Barna did a survey, and they asked Christians, believers, where they experience unity in their lives. These are people within the church, and this is what they said. 61% of the people said, within their home. you would hope so that's kind of sad in itself that 40 percent of christian homes feel divided somehow the next line is at 48 just under half they feel unity with their friends and then that third line is at 35 percent that's a church only a third of believers feel like there is unity within their congregation, within their body.
[10:13] Even here. The problems of the church, are the problems of the world. These things that we talk about back then, about people being divided, we still find here today. Now, the rest of the book of 1 Corinthians is going to go on and talk about ways that we're divided in any number of ways. There are five or six big ones But here, it's about different personalities, In verses 12 and 13, Paul says What I mean is that each one of you says I follow Paul Or I follow Apollos Or I follow Cephas Or I follow Christ I'll see you next week. Is Christ divided?
[11:04] Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?
[11:12] Now, Paul was the founder of this church. He was the one who went and planted it there. Apollos, we read in Acts, is from Egypt. He's from Alexandria. He was an eloquent speaker, the Bible said, but he had an incomplete understanding of what the gospel was until he had been corrected by Aquila and Priscilla. Cephas, of course, is Peter, the leader of the original apostles, and Christ is Christ. It's curious that Christ is mentioned there, and you might think, why is it doing that? Well, it may be that those people were holding themselves up and higher and above the others and excluding them. It seems like they all thought that they were better than others. They all focused on the wrong thing, and so they splintered among themselves. How we divide so easily over whatever little tribe or affiliation that we attach to ourselves. Maybe it's about our favorite preacher or teacher, or maybe it's about our church or our denomination. Now, those things are rightly honored and respected. Preferences are fine, and having favorites or fondness is okay. But when the preferences turn into partitions And when fondness begins to fragment, When these little biases lead to breakup And our desires become dissent.
[12:40] We've divided the body of Christ in unholy ways through this disordering. So Paul says, I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that none may say that you were baptized in my name. He rebukes them, and I would too. Let me tell you, folks, don't put your trust in me. I have or I will certainly disappoint you. And any preacher that stands in this pulpit would say the same thing.
[13:13] I don't save anybody. Paul doesn't save anybody, St. Paul. He reminds them, you're not baptized in my name. I didn't go to the cross for you. I didn't raise from the dead for you. He rejects those, Paul does, who would claim him. See, the church is Christ's bride, The church is Christ's body Through the waters of baptism we enter into this As a new family, What God did and does and will do for us In our new start and new life in Christ Through the waters of baptism Is give us a new way of living To leave behind our old and sinful pasts and ways. It sounds like this ark. You see in front of you a mosaic. The early church fathers read Noah and the ark and understood this story as a type of Christ, foreshadowing the Lord and his church, this refuge from sin and inevitable destruction that it brings.
[14:35] The church is successful when it keeps the problems of the world, the water, out of the boat. It's a different way of being, distinct and different from what you once were. At the end of this passage, Paul writes, For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. He's not repudiating baptism here. But they seem to be using the name of their baptizers as credentials, as their badge. Well, I was baptized by Paul. Well, I was baptized by Apollos. Cephas is the one who baptized me. Baptism is good and fine, and it is necessary for the church. Christ told us to do it, and we will. But they were using it for boasting. for dividing, for focusing on others that they could claim superiority over. These aren't factions, and these aren't really parties. It seemed like it was to an individual person they were doing this, people lifting themselves up, pride over their baptizer or their discipler, which turned into division.
[15:54] So the question is, whose influence or whose wisdom do you follow? This is why Paul rejects those who say they follow him. They idolize leaders over Jesus as being ultimate. They had identified themselves by something or by someone other than the one who saved them. To them, what became more important was the person who had done the baptism, than the person who had done the saving in the first place. To them, other identities became more important than their Christian identity.
[16:35] This image right here might be a better example to show of Christ leading us. Having come through the waters, Christ's followers are gathered by him and with him at the head of the ship. When the church gathers around and is defined by its relationship to Christ first, Then it's released to carry out the mission that he gave to her The arrows and flames and distress of the world are trying to infiltrate the church to pierce it, And we weaken the body when we allow it in, When we put Christ second to something else, to anything else we begin to divide what christ calls us to is to find ourselves in him because he is the great single unifying factor across all time and space he holds all the creation together it tells us and we disparage him when we say that we're his and yet hold to other allegiances first.
[17:41] But when we are His, when we do put Him first, then we can be united. And that's why a believer on the other side of the world who doesn't look like you or speak like you or live a life like you is actually closer to you than your next-door non-believing neighbor who otherwise is just like you.
[18:03] It's because the single most important thing in the world, salvation through a new life in Christ, is something that we share with that person on the other side of the world.
[18:15] Recognizing that Christ is Lord and Savior. This is the message all through Scripture. Find yourself in Christ and then unite as the church to go out and do the things that he's told us to do. In Philippians, Paul says this, so if there's 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 full, being in full accord and of one mind. And in 2 Corinthians, finally, brothers, rejoice, aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, and live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Notice the flow here. It goes from restoration, which is reconciliation with Christ, with God, and with each other, and to comfort, and to loving people, as he told us to do, then there is agreement, then there is unity, and finally, peacefulness. When there is unity, the quarrels subside, and we'll have God's presence among us. This is a holistic salvation. This is a wholeness we uncover when we find ourselves with our brothers.
[19:36] Now, you might be saying, well, Josh, is there any sort of individuality in this unity? Do we lose it? No, God gave you a personality, and he wants you to use your personality to carry out his mission.
[19:50] The preacher, Chuck Twindoll, distinguishes unity from everything else like this. He says, union has an affiliation with others, but no common bond that makes them one heart. Uniformity has everyone looking and thinking alike. Unanimity is complete agreement across the board Unity, however, refers to a oneness of heart And a similarity of purpose, So we're not really seeking just to be united for united's sake, We're not just seeking agreement on things Or a lack of individuality But there's a line between preference and division, And when preferences go on the attack, when we begin to identify ourselves by anything other than Christ, or when we identify and define other people by something less than Christ, when we have allegiances to individuals or to ideas other than the gospel that replace our allegiance to Christ and His gospel and its offer for new life, It's offered for holiness in the name and in the power of the Holy Spirit Found through the church Then we're being divisive, Then we've set up a new idol And that idolatry can look any number of ways It doesn't have to be just a person Another personality It doesn't have to be just a person.
[21:19] It might be family. It might be our job or our work. It might be our children. It might be the idea of leisure or location or our own comfort. These things become bad when they become ultimate. Only you can know that for yourself. You might be thinking to yourself, well, the church isn't doing what I want in this area. Maybe I'll just leave, or maybe I'll subvert its work.
[21:49] This isn't about contrary doctrine. Paul says so clearly in other places in the New Testament. Paul will tell us that when there is errant teaching, when there are wayward brothers, we're to correct the teaching, we're to restore them if it's possible. But he warns in Romans, he says, I appeal to you, brothers, Watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught. Avoid them. Earlier in Corinthians, when he says divisions, the word that he uses is schismata, from which we get the word schism, of course. It's the same word that John uses in chapter 7 and 9 and 10 When various groups were arguing about who Jesus was About his significance, They couldn't square the idea that he might be the Messiah, That they didn't expect With the signs and the wonders that they saw in front of them, So these Pharisees are arguing is he the anointed of God or is he just another man an imposter yet to be exposed.
[23:11] They were denying who he was, disclaiming Christ, as a possibility of being their Lord and Savior when we deny who Christ is when we deny who he was we're being double-minded, about what he's done for us, what he's capable of doing. But when we have unity in Christ, we experience blessing. David writes that in Psalm 133, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. Now, Corinth, like our world, was diverse. It was a multicultural city. I've read it in more than one place, comparing it to Las Vegas. It was a crossroads of military movement and of commerce There were a lot of sailors that came in and out of there Because of where it was situated In the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea.
[24:14] There were a lot of travelers coming in and out from all over the Roman world. There were a lot of demands on time and attention and money and resources and allegiances. There were people there, different races and ethnicities, different social classes, different wealth levels, different ages. Just like there are for us in our city. that's why our goal is to be a multicultural church to be a multi-generational church and we've got work to do to get there because these divisions that exist outside are difficult to unite but they are able to be united under christ because christ offers us that unity, it's not just this idea that oh we're in this together i'm okay you're okay but it's this identity that we've all been saved and we're all being restored and prepared and equipped and made perfect and completed and made holy to go out and do his work.
[25:22] Our discipleship pastor Grant Caldwell and I were bouncing around some ideas this week. And Grant said, this clear call of unity breeds mission. That we're here to preach the gospel, Just like Paul said, first and foremost, we've been in a series of series on our mission and our vision and our core values over the last year.
[25:48] Those are meant to prepare us to do what Christ told us to do, to carry out our mission here at church. And we find in our unity in Christ and ownership of that mission and vision. That likewise holds us together So this is a call to action We're not together Just to define our own mission To do what we want individually But to discern it together Which we've done.
[26:18] Within the light of Christ, and then follow where he leads. A.W. Tozer says it this way. He says, Has it ever occurred to you that a hundred pianos, all tuned to the same fork, are automatically tuned to each other? They're of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become unity conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. When we are tuned in to Christ, then we are tuned in to each other as well. Now, there might still be, there will be disagreements along the way. We're only human, but then we respond to those in a Christ-honoring way, and the body emerges stronger than it was before.
[27:17] Put it another way, if we aim at unity, if that's our goal, we'll zoom right past Christ and not paying him attention. But if we aim at Christ, unity comes alongside automatically. We can't manufacture it. We can't orchestrate it out of our own efforts and trying. It comes by aligning our own individual hearts with Christ first, and then collectively we're united together.
[27:49] I want to leave you with this image. This is not original to me. This is familiar among preachers. I've been able to go to California a few times in my life and to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I always like to go there and see my favorite trees, the Sequoia dendron giganteum the gigantic sequoia.
[28:13] These trees are 100 feet around. They're 30 feet across, almost 300 feet tall. They're the largest living single organisms on Earth. Even the short ones are 500 years old. They weather thousands of years of forest fires and snowstorms, and they still stand tall. Now, many have been cut down from their historic numbers. It's pretty rare that one on public land falls that you can actually see, but there's a few of them. The last one that fell down on public land was in 2017, and it looks like this. You can look at the root system when it happens, which is curious and unexpected. The roots Of these gigantic trees, Weighing millions of pounds Stack 250 feet in the air The roots only go down, About 6 or 10 or maybe 12 feet at most.
[29:21] They grow in groves, you see. If you've seen these trees that have fallen, you'll see that the roots spread out. And the reason that they grow in groves, and the reason that they're able to stand up and withstand the fires and the winds and the storms, is because these roots are interconnected. They grow inwardly together, and they hold each other up.
[29:50] You see, we're not called To seek unity on its own We've tried that And it failed, What we're called to do Is to unite in Christ First And allow him to make us United Is he divided? No Of course not He was divided on the cross so that we wouldn't have to be. He was punished on the cross so that we wouldn't have to be. He was killed on the cross so that we would have life. This offer is for anyone. You see, it's for everyone. It's inclusive because anybody can have it, but it's exclusive because it has to come through Christ. But when we accept it, then we are freed for unity here. We're free to drop all these other things that we are hanging on to, all these other identities.
[30:54] See, like those trees, we are bound together. Our rooting, our foundation, this interconnectedness is found through our common Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Without that, everything else falls apart.
[31:10] Without that, the separation and the division that we received and that we experienced from the fall will reign in our lives, Where we're separated from God and separated from each other, But the gospel for us today is this Christ offers us a unity that redeems, that rebukes these worldly divisions and disputes As we respond to his call on our lives, when paul was up here last week he talked about spiritual amnesia forgetting who we are and whose we are forgetting what christ has done for us being tempted to bring the world in here friends my call for us today surrender those things to christ surrender yourself to christ and be free from this temptation to puff yourself up to demand your own way to put others down, Find who you are in Christ Unite with us And join in the mission that is given to us To glorify God And make disciples among all people Let's pray.
[32:20] Heavenly Father, so often, so many of us.
[32:26] Have let aspects of our old life come into our life in you. Lord, help us to surrender, not our personalities, Lord. Help us to surrender our preferences, our demands on our own way. Help us, Lord, to yield to what you would do in our lives to transform us and exchange our old life for yours. Help us, Lord, to bind our hearts to yours so that together we may go forward, into a life of holy and joyful obedience for your call on our lives. It's in the name of your Son that we pray. Amen.