Message Summary
This is the second message in the series “Knowing, Growing, & Showing.” Today’s message emphasized unity, in particular, unity in the body of Christ. Unity in Jesus’ church, among its members, is one of the marks of a healthy thriving body of believers. The expression of this unity is love. Love is not merely a feeling or an emotional response it involves doing something, expressing the love of Jesus to another. As 1 John 4 states, we love God because he first loved us and expressed his love through the giving of his Son to pay the debt for our sins so that we might live through him. Because of this undeserved love, we then ought to love one another. Notice why we are to love others: not because of what they have done or can do for us, but because we who deserved death were given life in the Son of God.

The following passages describes how love among believers, or unity in the body of Christ, reveals certain things. We will look at four.

1. Gospel has taken root and produced gospel growth
1 John 4:11–12 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

1. Why should we love one another?
2. How does “no one has ever seen God” relate to why we are to love one another? cf. John 1:18 and 1 John 4:20.
3. What are the results of loving one another?

2. Prove that we love God
1 John 4:20–21 If anyone says, “l love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

1. How do we prove that we love God? cf. Matt 22:34–40.
2. Can you think of tangible ways to love God and others?

3. Lay aside our freedom in Christ in love for others
1 Corinthians 8:1–13 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up…we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one”…However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled…For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died…Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble

1. Despite knowing that idols are not real, what does Paul call on the Corinthians with this knowledge to do? Why?
2. What are some things that you could substitute for food that may cause a weaker brother to stumble? Clothing, certain types of music, entertainment, Bible translation, etc.
3. How might you go about helping a weaker believer to walk in Christian liberty in the area(s) they struggle with?

4. Vindicate Jesus as Messiah and God’s Son
John 17:20–23 I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

1. Notice the “so that” repeated in vv. 20 and 23. This expresses the two purposes why Jesus is praying for Christian unity.
2. What does the first “so that” say about why Jesus is praying for unity? Notice, it does not say so that the world might be saved. This is certainly included, but only secondary to the world knowing that Jesus was sent from the Father.
3. What does the second “so that” say about why Jesus is praying for unity? Who are the “them” and “you” in v. 23? Why?

Application
1. Read Matt 5:21–26. Is there possibly a brother or sister in Christ whom you need to ask for forgiveness?
2. Read all of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and then pray through it yourself, asking God to bring his church together in perfect unity.

Further Study
For more on the church and church unity you could read:
1. The Book of Acts
2. The Letter to the Ephesians
3. The Ten Marks of a Healthy Church, by Mark Dever