TEXT: Ephesians 4:3

SUBJECT: Bunyan on Christian Unity #1

With God’s favor, tonight we’ll start a new Puritan study called John Bunyan on Christian Unity. You probably know the name, but let me remind you, he’s not the Giant Lumberjack! That’s Paul Bunyan! John was an English preacher and writer who lived from 1628 to 1688.

Many books can be found on his life, but the best one is the one he wrote himself, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. There’s a beauty in his life that will break your heart. Not every famous author lives up to his books: but John Bunyan does—and more!

His best known book is The Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s an English classic that millions read every year without any concern for their souls. How many students have been accidentally saved by reading it, only the Lord knows. Bunyan was a very great writer, but mostly, he was a preacher. For fourteen years he was in jail because he would not quit preaching when the judges told him to. During that time, unable to preach with his voice, he preached with his pen! And now, more than 300 years later, we still have his sermons.

Some of them sought the salvation of the lost, but most of his published works were written for the Church—to teach, comfort, or rebuke us.

The little work we’ll start tonight does all three. It’s called An Exhortation to Unity and Peace. It was published a few weeks after John’s death and it is one of the most helpful things he ever wrote.

The booklet is divided into four parts:

1. The sense of the text opened. This means Bunyan briefly explains the verse.
2. Wherein unity and peace consist. Here he defines the terms. What are unity and peace? Are they the same thing as uniformity? Do they demand absolute agreement on every point of doctrine and practice? Are they more than warm feelings of togetherness? These are important issues. Everyone agrees that unity and peace are good things: but what are they? Bunyan tells us with some care and plenty of Bible references too.
3. The fruits of unity and peace. When the People of God are one in heart, some good things will follow. When we’re at each other’s throats, the consequences won’t be so happy. If we believed this, we’d be more eager to promote peace and a lot slower to break it.
4. Directions and motives. In the last part, he gives practical advice on how to do it—how to cultivate peace and heal division.

This is Bunyan’s outline. If the contents live up to the table of contents, the book will be well worth our time. If my talks interest you at all, get the booklet. If they put you to sleep, be sure to get the booklet for the dullness is in me, not in John Bunyan!

Tonight, we’ll take up the shortest part of the book. In my edition, it’s only two-and-a-half pages (and that includes the outline).

Old John starts with a short exhortation,

Christian unity is good. Truth and love are the cement that make God’s people stick together when other things would break us apart. Because it’s good—Bunyan says—we need to work at it—work hard and long at getting, keeping, and improving the harmony of the Church.

John has chosen his words well: utmost endeavors. An endeavor is not a casual, half-hearted try, but a strong and patient effort. But "strong" and "patient" are not adequate: Bunyan adds "utmost" to the endeavor. This stands for maximum effort. A good try is not good enough! We have to work at unity with all we’ve got. If it takes swallowing pride, we’ve got to choke it down by the gallon, if need be. If it takes loving people who don’t appreciate your love, you’ve got to love them anyway.

The Great Example here is our Lord Jesus Christ. John says,

The words, "to the end" do not mean "to the end of His life" (though He did that, too). No, they means "to the end of His love". Jesus Christ had a bottomless love for His disciples! It was on display in good times, but even more, when the times were not so good!

The disciples were not good enough for the Lord Jesus Christ! They must have gotten on His nerves something awful. Think of their thick-headedness, their unbelief, and their pride. Think of what they would soon do to Him: forsake Him everyone and one of them would deny Him with an oath!

What effort it must have taken our Lord to stay in fellowship with such men! We think of His self-control in going to the cross, but I wonder if putting up with Peter, James, and John was any easier!

If you want unity in the church, you’ll have to work for it. A strong-willed pastor (which I am not!) can impose uniformity; his personality can force compliance on the church, but unity—real harmony—requires the effort of every Christian. Including you.

Over the years, I’ve spoken to dozens of people who wanted to leave their churches. Some had good reasons, but the great majority were lazy—they didn’t want to make the effort to make things work. They would not overlook sins; they would not balance the bad with the good; they wouldn’t remember the privilege it is to be in fellowship with God’s People!

This is Bunyan’s opening exhortation: Because Christian unity is good, but not easy, we have to work at it—work hard and long and keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

If Bunyan is right, then I have to ask you: what are you doing to promote the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?

What positive steps are you taking to build friendships in the church? Or to improve the ones you have? Or to fix the ones you used to have?

Are you showing hospitality? Are you trying to get to know people? Are you keeping in touch? Do you ever ask anyone how things are at work? Do you ever inquire about someone’s grandchildren? These are little things, to be sure. But little things go a long way toward fostering unity.

Any married person knows this. What makes for a happy marriage? It’s not the big things—like going to Paris for your 25^th Anniversary or buying your wife a mink coat on her birthday. No, it’s the little things that matter most—things like listening to him, complimenting her once in a while, and being easy to get along with.

What negative steps are you avoiding to keep unity in the church? Are you willing to keep your opinions to yourself? Are you able to criticize gently? What are you willing to give up to foster togetherness in the church? If Jesus Christ emptied Himself to unite the Church, don’t you think you ought to empty yourself to keep it united?

Finally, Bunyan defines his term.

The Holy Spirit wants His people to be of one mind. That’s what John Bunyan says, and he’s right; the Bible says the same. For example,

• "Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Corinthians 1:10).

• "Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you" (II Corinthians 13:11).

• "Only let your conduct be worthy of the Gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel" (Philippians 1:27).

• "Fulfill my joy, being like-minded" (Philippians 2:2).

After exhorting us to unity, he adds a caution. John says:

If you don’t quite get what he’s saying, you’re not alone. I had to read it four or five times before I could divine his meaning too. The unity he has in mind here is an agreement on doctrine and practice. It is good when the whole church agrees on every point of theology and church life! But we must not press that unity to the point that we make people believe what they don’t or practice what they’re not sure about.

In other words, we must be united on the Gospel, but on secondary issues, we have to allow for differences of opinion, and treat the people who disagree with us with the same love we have for those who see things the way we do.

This seems obvious, yet nearly every squabble I know of between Christians is over a secondary issue. For example I know to pastors in the Southwest who used to work wonderfully together. They’re both good men and gifted preachers and pastors. But the disagreed on the Sabbath. And, instead of living together with the tension, they split the church and hardly speak to each other. They broke up a good friendship, an effective partnership, and a church over the question of what you can do on Sunday—or not do.

This is the rule in some churches. I know a church that demands full subscription to its Confession of Faith for membership. If the Confession were something like The Apostles’ Creed, I would be very much for it. For these are the main articles of Christianity; these are the beliefs—more or less—that make one a Christian. But their Confession is nothing like this at all: it’s over 30 articles long and each one is made up of several subsections. Very few pastors have studied every issue and yet the church demands a new believer to say he accepts it fully and from the heart.

Romans 14-15 make it very clear that differences in the church are allowed. Not differences on the Gospel, of course, but on matters like the Sabbath and the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Some in the church will be right about these things and others will be wrong. But neither side is permitted to impose its views on the other or make them a test of fellowship. Paul says we must

In other words, secondary issues are to remain secondary. We do not have welcome people into the church because they agree with us on a minor issue or for the purpose of getting them to agree with us on a minor issue.