{"id":2558,"date":"2021-07-20T15:03:31","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T22:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/?p=2558"},"modified":"2025-12-23T13:01:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T20:01:57","slug":"sermons-on-gods-design-for-unity-and-diversity-in-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/2021\/07\/20\/sermons-on-gods-design-for-unity-and-diversity-in-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Sermons on God&#8217;s design for unity and diversity in the church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The past two Sundays, our pastors have been down in Mexico with a mission team from our church, so they asked me to preach. It was a great blessing encouraging our church body with the message from Ephesians 4:1-16 that God calls us\u00a0to walk with each other in loving unity and to build up His church by embracing our God-designed diversity.<\/p>\n<p>From Eph. 4:1-6, the main point was: God calls us to walk with each other in loving unity based on the unity of God and His design for the church.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Our calling to loving unity. (1-3)<\/li>\n<li>Our basis for loving unity. (4-6)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Unity in the church. (One body, one calling, one hope, one faith, one baptism)<\/li>\n<li>Unity in the Trinity. (One Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also dipped briefly into Jesus&#8217; prayer in John 17:11, 20-23 to draw out the theme of unity that He emphasizes:<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Pattern<\/strong> \u2013 Trinity exemplifies unity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Plea<\/strong> \u2013 Christians are to be one as Trinity is one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Purpose<\/strong> \u2013 The goal of this unity Jesus prays for?\u00a0Jesus prays for unity so that world will experience God\u2019s love through Christ.<\/p>\n<p>I also emphasized (both weeks) the essential balance of striving for unity with holding to truth &#8211; the core, biblical teachings that our faith is grounded upon.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the message, which went a bit longer than intended, but we had a lot of fun learning from God&#8217;s Word:<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 474px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-2558-1\" width=\"474\" height=\"269\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"http:\/\/belzglobal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Eph-4.1-6-sermon-on-unity.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/belzglobal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Eph-4.1-6-sermon-on-unity.mp4\">http:\/\/belzglobal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Eph-4.1-6-sermon-on-unity.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>From Eph. 4:7-16, the main point was:\u00a0Let us build up the body of Christ by embracing our God-designed diversity.<\/p>\n<p>As the united body of Christ, let us:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Build up the church toward maturity (Eph. 4:7-16).<\/li>\n<li>Embrace our God-designed diversity (1 Cor. 12).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Here is that message:<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 474px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-2558-2\" width=\"474\" height=\"269\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"http:\/\/belzglobal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Eph-4.7-16-sermon-on-diversity.mp4?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/belzglobal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Eph-4.7-16-sermon-on-diversity.mp4\">http:\/\/belzglobal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Eph-4.7-16-sermon-on-diversity.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>I hope these messages encourage your heart with the importance of unity and diversity harmonizing together to produce a God-honoring symphony that draws others to know and love our glorious God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The past two Sundays, our pastors have been down in Mexico with a mission team from our church, so they asked me to preach. It was a great blessing encouraging our church body with the message from Ephesians 4:1-16 that God calls us\u00a0to walk with each other in loving unity and to build up His &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/2021\/07\/20\/sermons-on-gods-design-for-unity-and-diversity-in-the-church\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sermons on God&#8217;s design for unity and diversity in the church<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-thoughts","category-messages-and-presentations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2561,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions\/2561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}