This morning I had the wonderful pleasure of speaking at Arlington Woods Free Methodist Church. This is the church that hosts the Bikers’ Church services. They have been so amazing with us, allowing us to use their facility every week at no charge! This morning, we had the chance to go and say thank you to the congregation and then host a BBQ for them.
I spoke from John 17. Now, I realize that is a very familiar passage for anyone who has been around the church for long. It’s the prayer of Jesus on the night he is arrested. He spends time praying for himself, his disciples, and then for anyone who will follow him, including us.
I focused on the third part of the prayer — and his desire that we walk in unity.
Do you ever read a passage and find something jumps out at you like never before? The passage might be one that you’ve read hundreds of times, and yet suddenly it’s as if you’re reading it for the first time? It happens to me often, and it’s part of the reason why the Bible is a “living Word.”
Well, it happened today. Just before I left to go to the service, I read over the passage again, but this time, one key phrase jumped out at me. In vese 21, Jesus prays this: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me”
Here’s what hit me: Jesus is equating unity with the trinity. Now, anyone who has tried to explain the trinity knows that we really cannot do it justice. Oh, we may use everyday items (like the egg illustration) to try and explain it, but ultimately, the trinity is one of those doctrines that goes deeper than our finite minds can comprehend. It is a mystery.
In the same way, true unity — the kind of unity that Christ prayed the Church would walk in — is beyond comprehension. It’s not something we can simply define, write a paper (or book) about, and then follow six key steps in order to see it accomplished. Rather, it is a mystery. One that truly only happens through a willingness to let the Spirit direct.
In other words, if we truly want to walk in the type of unity that Jesus prayed we would expeprience, it will require a complete and total (and continual) surrender of ourselves to God. Only he can lead us into that kind of deep, indescribable unity.
Perhaps that is why we fall so short of unity within the Body of Christ. We try so hard to accomplish it in our own strength and ability, when really it is something that only God can do in and through us.
Anyway, it’s something I need to spend more time considering and working through. But I thought I’d throw it out here in case some of you have some ideas about what I’m suggesting.
