W. Madison Grace II, Provost and Vice President for Academic Administration and Dean of the School of Theology at Southwestern Seminary, preached from Ephesians 4:1-6, in SWBTS Chapel on February 4, 2025.
Well, thank you for the great worship that we’ve had this morning and singing together and giving praise to the glory that we have in Jesus Christ, that gospel truth of old that truly binds us all together this morning, it is a great privilege to be able to not just stand here in chapel at a school that I love, that my family has been part of for a very long time, but to be able to introduce or begin this series on virtue, on character. But truly this began at convocation with our president’s address, if you remember, particularly focused on the idea that we are a part of the communion of saints. And I think it’s important that we have a good reflection upon what it means to participate or to be a part of the communion of saints that have been confessed for ages to come. We need to recognize that this type of communion is greatly connected to how do we consider the nature of our own union, especially here on Southwestern it’s not simply a union that we have with one another. It is a union that we have in Christ. And so, it’s important that we consider this well, there are many aspects of this unity. There’s a biblical aspect and theological, philosophical aspects to the unity. And throughout the semester, we want to address all these virtues that are in the Christian life.
So, I hope that you can come and invite others to come to really think about what it means to live out the virtues that make us as Christians. We’re gonna look at the fruit of the Spirit, the theological virtues, core commitments to God. They all come together, and the unified expression of the union of the communion of saints, and that needs to be exemplified here as Southwesterners and as Christians broadly So, students, faculty, staff. We must think deeply about virtue, and we must walk in accordance with these virtues. We need to seek the one who’s going to enable us to be able to do so. So, this series will help all of us consider the character that God has for us in the way in which that we walk together on this campus and around the globe. So, we are going to look this morning at Ephesians four. We read this a few minutes ago, and we’re going to particularly look at the virtue of unity. It’s a characteristic that grounds so much of the Christian Walk and the Christian life and many of the other characteristics that we’re going to look at throughout the semester. We have a right understanding of the nature of the communion that we have with one another. But before we particularly look at this passage, I just want to take a side note here and talk about the method that we’re bringing to this series.
Throughout the series, we’re going to look at different virtues, unity, peace, patience, love, all those types of things, but we are going to not merely do topical sermons on them, though it is of a topical nature. What we are trying to do is create each one of these sermons with a certain biblical text in mind. Now this aligns well with the expository preaching that we teach here at Southwestern called Text driven preaching. And I think it’s important that you recognize the method and how we’re engaging with this in very important ways. So, if you’re unfamiliar with text driven preaching, let me explain it to you in brief. The idea is that when we are teaching the Bible to others, when we are hearing the Bible, we want to make sure that we are seeing it in the substance, in the structure, in the spirit of the text that we have in front of us. These things are what constrain us into what we’re teaching. And we do this for many different reasons. I like to mention two to you for why we preach in this way. First, we believe in the inspiration of scripture here at Southwestern right, we believe that the Bible itself is inspired by the Holy Spirit that the prophets and the apostles were carried along by the Spirit as they wrote the biblical text. So that means that the nature of the text that we want to present to you is something that God wants us to have, and the closer that we are to understanding the intent that is in the text, the closer we’re understanding what God wants us to hear.
So, it’s important that we recognize the especially the structure of the text and the way in which it has been put together. The second expository teaching like this helps us all become better Bible readers. You and me, we all need to grow in the way in which we read the Bible. I. Up every year, I find new ways of understanding what this what’s in this text, and this text can affect me. It’s important for us to understand the text that leads us to our own theological formulations and our practical applications that the Lord has for us. This practice is as ancient as the church, and we can see the fruit of this model, leading the fathers as they even wrote rules of faith that help establish the orthodoxy that we see in things like the Nicene creed that we’re even celebrating this year. So I think it’s important to say to my students all the time that as we were reading these texts and become better Bible readers, that we also understand there’s a difference between what the text says and what we think the text says, and in this type of preaching, helps us really unpack the substance, the structure and the spirit of the text that’s in front of us, so that we can hear what God wants for us.
So with that in mind, let me read the text one more time, I was trying to understand what the Lord has for us in these short verses, so therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace, there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to, one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. Pray with me, Most Gracious Heavenly Father. We love you. We love your word, and we ask that now in these moments, as we consider this text written so many years ago by your spirit and illumine to us in this time by that same spirit that we can understand your word. So, give us understanding in this time in your name. We pray. Amen. So, as we look at this text, there’s three major ideas I’d like us to consider as we walk through it. First of all, if we look in verse one, we see that Paul himself is making a plea for us for virtuous living.
That there’s a plea here, see, therefore I the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling that you have received. And so this, this urging that’s here is a plea for all of us to consider the way in which that we walk, the way in which that we go about the Christian life, the way in which that we are employing the virtues that we should have as we are doing the work that God’s called us to in the world around us. And so, this is really the major point that Paul is making in this text here, and then he’s giving us reasons and ways in which that we will actually complete this walk as we go forward. So that’s kind of the main idea here. And what we need to be thinking about is considering the way in which that we walk. Now this type of walking is not merely the sense of saying, like, hey guys, be cognizant. Be knowing of the way in which that you walk. So, he’s like, Yeah, I I know I send in this way. I know it’s a frailty that I have. And yeah, I’m aware of my walk. Thanks Paul. I can see it. I have a mirror every morning. Thank you for that help. And really, as Paul saying, I’m urging you, I’m pleading with you to be disciplined in your walk. And he’s calling us to be formed in a certain way, to go throughout our Christian life in a very disciplined way.
Saying these are the type of virtues that you should have, and when you don’t have them, you need to supplant them. Take the vices that in your life and put them to death and replace them with the virtues that we have, and these virtues he’s going to spell out here and throughout the rest of the biblical texts that we have in front of us helps us understand the nature of this walking, but Paul is very concerned with this throughout the entire letter. So, if you go back and read all of Ephesians, I think you can, you can see that walking is a very particular manner in which Paul is urging us and how to live the Christian life. In 417, we are told to walk not as the Gentiles. There’s, there’s a separation that occurs from the world around us, and we’re supposed to walk according to the way of Christ. In five, two, we are told to walk in love, and this is a characteristic we should have as well. In five eight, we’re told to walk as children of light, and in 515 we are encouraged to walk as wise people.
When we see this, we see that Paul is really trying to help us consider the way in which we’re living our lives. So even from the get-go here, I think all of us need to be self-examining ourselves, like, how am I walking? Just pause a second, ask yourself that consider your walk. How’s it going? What’s going well? What’s going not so well. I mean, these are the spiritual checkups that we need to have in our lives. Constantly. Lives. Constantly, too much of the Christian life and Christian ministry sometimes makes us feel like we have to put on a show in front of everyone, and so like we’re the leaders here. And there’s a type of Christianity that we have to project to others and say, like, everything’s fine, everything’s good. And then this kind of plastic Christianity just kind of permeates from us. The way to avoid that is to be honest with yourself and daily consider the walk.
I mean, later on in Ephesians, he’s going to say like, hey when you walk, wake up every day, put on that full armor of God. So, the entire letter is helping us walk in the right way, in the right manner. Now, another part of this is that when we walk through these different virtues and when we are being called to act in certain ways, there is a level that we are stung by them. I just want to acknowledge that right now, for from this sermon and everyone we have throughout the rest of the semester, is like the reason why Paul is having to tell us to live out these virtues is because we’re not doing so. We all struggle with these things. So don’t think like there’s some sense of perfectionism that you’re missing out on, that the rest of the Christians are getting they’re not. They may be able to hide that some bit, but all of us are struggling in our sin, struggling in our own walks, and Paul is just by the grace of God, reminding us of the way in which that we’re supposed to walk.
So, if it stings a little bit, let it sting and then heal yourself from that by means of the word in the Spirit, and conform yourself in this walk. We’re not walking perfectly, but together, we can help each other walk better, and that’s what he’s saying here. I The prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk how worthy of the calling you have received, and I think it’s important that you see that worthy of the calling is a summative statement of everything that’s going to follow after this. All the different virtues that we see here, and especially the idea of unity that we’re going to focus on, are all connected to this idea of the way in which that we were called. There’s a holistic whole to this that we are a part of, that we’re looking at. We’re not looking for some laundry list of things that we need to do. Check I got that. Check. I got that.
He’s saying, like there’s a way in which we’re supposed to live, that is one whole package. And he gives us a foundation from that throughout this text. So, we need to think about the way in which we’re walking and the holistic nature of the Christian life. That’s what we have for us. And so it’s important that we are being disciplined in this walk, and as we are considering these virtues in our lives, that we don’t consider them in some way of like, okay, as I’m doing all these virtues that I’m living it out now I have the Christian life, as if there’s some sense of neutrality that we can get to where we’re putting aside all of our sins and coming to a net zero of not being sinners. That is absolutely impossible, because every day we sin.
The purpose that Paul’s bringing to us here is to recognize that your walk has to look like someone else’s. Your walk has to be patterned after someone who knows how to truly walk. Well, that’s all he’s trying to say here. And notice he is this person writing to us in prison. So, he’s already emulating to us like this type of walk is not what the rest of world’s looking like. It’s not your best life now. It’s not the sense of flourishing that we’re looking after. It’s a walk that this world is going to say that’s really bizarre. How can you be in chains and prism telling us how to live a life, how to walk a walk? And he’s saying that’s actually the point here, the way in which that I’m walking as Paul is in a way in which to show you how you should be walking as well. And sometimes that means prison, and sometimes that means as his world pushes us away. But it’s it is a type of walk that needs to be worthy of the calling that you receive. So, our walk is Christ’s walk. His way is our way. How does he want us to walk? He told us this. He said, take up your cross daily and follow after me.
So, as we consider our walk, how are you doing that and taking up your cross? How are you considering this so friends don’t miss this urging that Paul has for us. He is not merely adding some historical point of reference in this letter to say where he’s at. He’s saying this is what the Christian life looks like. Sometimes it has chains, but all the time it has joys. So, what is this manner of the unity that we have for us? What is the manner of the walk? We have for us another way. So how do we do this? That’s great. I want to walk according to the Lord. I want to consider this, but how do I do it? That’s the big question that we have in front of us, and this is where we can really see some of these ideas coming together separately. But he gives us three categories here that are all accumulating into the concept of unity. Look at verse two.
So, we’re supposed to walk one with all humility and gentleness. We’re going to talk about some of these throughout the semester. I’m not going to go deep into them now, but we need to recognize here the type of walk that we should have is grounded in the sense of humility. Now don’t think that humility and gentleness are two different concepts here. Humility is the major concept, and the way in which we know that we’re doing it is illustrated in the way in which that we’re gentle with one another. So, humility and gentleness is a way in which that we should interact with one another, and as juxtaposed to put up against someone who’s harsh and arrogant, right? We all know harsh and arrogant people, and we don’t like them. The question is, do we recognize that when we’re harsh and we’re arrogant, are we walking according to a gentleness that illustrates the humility that we have? I when I think about this type of characteristic, I can’t help but also go to go to Christ. Last year we went through Philippians. And in Philippians, two, you just see this sense of the humility of Christ.
He says, have this mind which is yours in Christ, Jesus, and it walks through the gospel. What he did, the servanthood of Jesus is the example of how we understand the life that is lived actively in gentleness and demonstrating true humility. So, we see here Christ as our example. Second, we’re asked to be patient. How many struggle with patience? Right? That hand went straight up, yeah, I’m there with you, right? It doesn’t take too long for us to drive just around the DFW, right? You get on the road and all of a sudden, like someone’s impatient, or you are, or both, right? And so, horns are honking, and people are cutting each other off, and we all want to get our place as quickly as possible. And we become really impatient people, and we come impatient with one another, because we want our way, and we want our way now, right?
And so, we live out from the centerness of the flesh, the centerness that really is in sin, where pride really takes over. And as prideful people, we truly are impatient with others, because surely, I know better than the people around me. If you guys would just be quiet or get out of my way, everything would be right. But that’s not how we’re supposed to be. We’re supposed to be patient with one another, patient when we don’t understand, and patient when we actually listen to one another and not just wait for our time to interject a character of patience that brings us together in unity. And how do we do this? It’s shown here by bearing with one another in love. You can be patient with one another by the way in which that you bear with one another in love. What does he mean by that? Hey, I should be loving to one another, and it’s unloving when I don’t act this way.
And we kind of really have a low bar of what it means to truly love one another, but Paul has just previously explained to us what he means by love. Look here in chapter three. We find this in verse 17, it says, I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints, where it is the length and width and height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So, what is the type of patience in the manner in which that we’re walking, that we should have? It’s one that’s bearing with one another in love. And what is that type of love? That love is demonstrated here by Christ Himself, that love that’s come to us, and oftentimes we want to receive that love and receive that mercy and grace and forgiveness from God, and to be receptors of it, but we don’t always give it back. The type of love that we’re supposed to bear with one another is a type of love that’s not just this kind of textbook definition of how we should be kind to one another.
It is a metaphysical, deeply mystical understanding of love that goes beyond our comprehension, as we read it here, that ultimately finds itself and how we are existing and persisting in God. That type of love leads us to the knowledge of that we can be filled with all the fullness of God. What greater sense of love do we have here than that? And that love should compel us to be patient with one another. It’s things right.
We need to hear this. It. And then he goes on in verse three, and says, making every effort to keep the unity, keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. And that’s our main idea here. And I think it’s a summative statement of these other concepts of virtues that come together, that this body itself, this communion of saints, however we put ourselves together, whether it’s a local church or whether it’s Southwestern seminary, needs to understand that there is a unity that we need to have with one another that’s predicated, again, upon the calling that we have received, and we walk together in accordance with this type of unity.
So, we really need to understand what Unity means, because unity is utilized a lot of different ways sometimes, and give some negative ideas what Unity is, and then we get to some more positive understandings that come out as text to what Unity truly is. So, when you think of unity, I want us to be clear here that Unity does not mean uniformity. There’s a sense that even times with leaders, that we stand up in front of people and we say, we need to be unified. God has called us to be unified. And what we really mean is, I need you to get on board with I’m saying. And when you don’t get on board with, I’m saying, because I’m in this position of leadership, then you are not acting unified. You’re actually engaging in disunity. And that’s not what we have here. By Unity, we think about the nature of the communion of saints itself, the nature of the body, as we see throughout Scripture, is that we are a body with many members and many parts, and there’s a diversity that comes into our unity that is very good and helpful.
However you want to think about the different personalities and different types of people that are out there, we have to recognize that not everyone is like us. For some of you, that’s a surprise, right? Like there’s this one ideal human and we’re all supposed to be like that. Have a touch with reality. People are different than you are, and that’s okay, and we need each other. When someone pushes against us to say, like, oh, I’m not perfect, or that’s another way of thinking about it, and that makes me better. But when we when we teach that uniformity is the only way, then we’re not actually allowing the fullness of the Body of Christ to come together and having all the gifts come together and help us become the people that God wants us to be. Unity is not uniformity. Secondly, unity is not a democracy. I know, especially as Americans and Baptists, we talk a lot about the nature of democracy in the sense like there’s an equal vote across this, and we all have to somehow come to a sense that we voted on this, and a majority wins all the time.
That’s not we have by unity, especially as we understand that the foundation for our unity that we’re going to see here in a minute, but unity itself is following after a mission that’s been given to us and following leadership that God has given to us as well. First, to be unified means that we recognize the type of leaders that God has given to us, and we trust them that they are seeking the Lord in the way in which they’re leading, whether that’s your pastor, whether that’s Dr Docker here at Southwestern or whether it’s you in the way in which that you’re leading, in the community that you’re a part of, that you lead from a place of trying to follow after spirit, and the rest of us follow our leaders in the sense of trying to be unified, not in the sense of like, well, it’s a democracy. We’re all working similarly here. And third, true unity does call for separation at times. Unity at all costs, never goes well, because it means that we have to compromise on some things that are very, very important, and we don’t want to do that true unity itself has to be sought after from the foundation we have in God. And when we are trying to be unified with someone that is not seeking after God.
Well, those are the heartbreaking times that we have to say like this truly is real disunity, and we do need to part ways, and we have to seek after that. We were given a way to do that in the church through the practice of church discipline. Just read Matthew 18 if you want to go deeper into that. But the sense of Matthew 18 is not that we’re kicking people out or having our way and finding ways that we can all be unified to a very small amount. It truly is something driven by love to make sure that we are seeking the Lord for our community greatly. But when someone is not seeking the Lord, when someone’s rebelling, it’s the Lord and not seeing the Unity that’s grounded in God, then we have to part ways. So what is true unity? Then true unity is this unity that we see here in verse three, that we were to make every effort to keep the unity. What is that type of unity? It’s a unity of the Spirit.
There’s a divine nature that. Comes into play here that makes us unified, that brings a body together, that helps us truly find the one another’s that we have and is found in the way in which that we are a dynamic unity in the Spirit. So when we see any sense of disunity, you got to ask yourself, is that because I am not paying attention to the spirit that’s trying to draw us all together when there’s friction within our unity, is that, because the Spirit stirring us up to become better and who we are, however we think about it, the nature of our own unity is divine, and we have and it comes together through the spirit here. And we think about the church and the churches, we definitely see this looking at Pentecost as the place where the church begins. The church doesn’t begin until we receive the Spirit, and that spirit is what empowers us to do the work that we’re doing.
So, the nature of a unity at your local church, the nature of the unity of the universal church, nature unity at Southwestern has to be a pneumatic unity. We need to be seeking the spirit together to bind us together. That’s important. You’re going to fail. I’m going to fail. But in the spirit, we are brought together, and we are bound together by what the bond of peace, the bond of peace, and we’re going to hear more about peace later on this semester, but just really briefly here, I want you to recognize here looking back at chapter two in Ephesians, we find this verse 13. But now in Christ, Jesus, You who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall hostility in his flesh he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two resulting in peace.
There’s gonna be a whole other exposition of that text that we’re going to have later on, but I just want you to recognize here is leading to the sense that there is a Christological unity here. So, the type of communion of saints that we have here at Southwestern and we have in our churches is completely predicated upon the ability we have to be a spirit filled body and a Christ centered body. It goes back to our theology. Paul is leading us to that. So, when we get to verses four, five and six, we are seeing like he’s leading us from the type of walk that we should do to understanding the foundation of the Christian life that enables us to walk this walk that’s important to recognize that. But let’s not miss the point here that he’s constantly pushing us to Christ, gentleness and humility. Christ, patience, bearing with one another in love. Christ, unity in the Spirit, in the bond of peace.
Christ, you want to live a unified life. Find your centerness in Jesus Christ. And then he leads us to this foundation. Verse four, there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to, one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. So, as we come to this there’s a theological foundation here. Why didn’t he start with the foundation and move forward? Because sometimes we need to be reminded of where we go astray. We need to be reminded that we’re not gentle, we’re harsh, that we’re not patient, we’re impatient, and that we seek disunity all the time. And in thinking through these things, we rightly come into this space where we say, How can I really ground myself in the unity God has for me? And the answer is, by knowing God.
Now you’re like, okay, systemic theologian, obviously he’s gonna go there and say theology is the answer for all of this. And we’re right. That’s what he’s saying here. Theology is the answer here, as we understand how reality really comes together. How does this world exist? It exists by the one God who created us all, who is sustaining us all, and who is leading us to his purposes, where we’ll be with Him forever, that that’s what we confess and we believe, and that’s the reality that we have here. And this theological reality is one that is grounded in him. And who is this him? It is God, I think, that we have here in four, five and six, a Trinitarian, unified understanding of how we’re supposed to ground our whole walk in God, and that’s what he presents to us. So don’t look at this again as this is somehow some checklist or laundry list of ideas about unity that we should seek after. Sometimes we do that there’s one baptism that means that you can’t be rebaptized. There’s only one baptism we want to follow.
For that there’s one Lord, there’s not two Lords, and those things are true. But I don’t think this was this text is saying, This text is trying to say, consider the walk that you have, and helping us understand that the unified, virtuous walk of the Christian life is grounded upon the God that is unified. And so, if this is a Trinitarian form, Let’s not miss the point that our Trinitarian theology is grounded in Deuteronomy 64 that says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. And there’s a unity we have to our God before us, and in the diversity, we have in understanding this God, we see this, I think, in three ways. Look at verse four. There’s one body, one spirit, just you’re called to one hope. As we think about the body or the people of God, and we understand that we are bound together in this unity by means of the spirit, and we can see that nature of the church itself is finding this unity in the spirit that he’s already talked about here, and he’s saying like as we are engaging together to complete the Great Commission that he’s given to us, that we are motivated by the one hope that we have there.
What gets you going and sharing the gospel and engaging in the Christian life is really given by the sense that one day Jesus is going to come back, he’s going to judge the living and the dead. But for those of us who are in Christ Jesus, we will be with Him for all eternity. That’s the hope of glory, and that’s what keeps us going, and it helps us with the mission that we’re that we are supposed to be unified in trying to accomplish in this world. Secondly, we see that there is one Lord, one faith and one baptism. The center of our understanding of the Christian Walk. The Christian life is grounded in the Gospel itself. There is no other Lord other than Jesus Christ that saves us. There’s no other faith than believing in the resurrected one. And there’s no other way to let the world know that we believe in these things than the baptism, which is our public profession of faith to the rest of the world, to say, this is who I am. I am with Jesus, and I’m not with the world, one faith, one Lord, one baptism, and finally, one God and Father of all.
Here we see the nature of the Father as he is sovereignly over all creation, as his will is in power, working out throughout all of history leading to the intended causes that He has for us and that we are just going to submit ourselves to His plans in our lives, spirit, son, father, Trinity all found here in the theological foundation of the unity that we have. So if you are struggling with unity at some point your life right now, I would probably say you’re struggling with submitting to God, struggling with allowing Jesus to truly be the center of your life, struggling with listening to the spirit in the ways in which that you’re working, struggling with the sovereignty of God as the one who’s actually ruling and living and leading you in your life. And who is this God? I love how he closes us out, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all, there’s no place we can go where God’s not.
There’s no sense of separation and wills where God is not leading. Either we’re going to be in tension against him, or we’re going to be walking in unity with him. Those are really the two options here. So, as we look at this passage, as we think about unity, I just want us to ponder together, once again, that question, Have you considered your walk? Is it walking worthy of the calling that you have received? So, as we come to a point of conclusion, I really want us to reflect together, to pray together, to think about our own Christianity and so. So first, I just really want to ask this question, for those of us who are in here, those who are watching online as you’re considering your walk, do you actually truly know this God that is grounding the unity that we’re supposed to be part of?
It is very possible for you to claim Jesus Christ and be admitted into Texas Baptist College or Southwestern seminary, but not truly know our Lord. And I’m not trying to make anyone doubt their salvation now, but I’ve been here long enough to know that we have students that don’t know the Lord. We have staff members that sometimes don’t know the Lord, and. I’m just asking if somehow, in reading this text and understanding it together, that you feel a little disjointed from the type of unity that we’re talking about, perhaps you should consider that you can’t walk this walk because you aren’t empowered to do so by the God that is the foundation of it all. What I’m saying is like, if you aren’t a believer, we’re asking that you consider Christ today.
And there’s a room full of people here that would love to pray with you, to invite you to become part of this unified, virtuous people of God today. Secondly, I think that we need to reflect upon the type of virtues that we need to correct now, this is a an ask for the entire semester, as we go through every one of these sermons, as we think about all these different virtues that as they sting us, that we don’t just walk out of here as a wounded person, but we allow the Word and the Spirit to be effective in our lives and heal us from this so that our walk actually is improving and increasing. So even now, as we come to sing together, that you would ponder the way in which that you’re walking and the virtues that need correcting in your life. And third, and finally, it’s just, I think it’s really important for this community here at Southwestern in particular, that we consider unity, if our unity is to be grounded and founded upon God Himself. If the nature of unity is comes into reality by means of the Word and the Spirit, by Jesus Christ and the centerness that we have in Him, then we need to repent of any disunity that exists in this community.
And I don’t know what that is. I don’t have anything in mind here. I just know that our prideful, sinful hearts push against unity and push and rebel against God, and the simple response to that is to repent. You need to repent to the Lord of that sense of disunity, and perhaps even some of you need to go across this room and repent to one another for the type of disunity that exists even here. But we want Southwestern seminary and Texas Baptist College to be a place of unity that is grounded in God, in the Spirit, through the Son accomplishing the will of the Father.
So, let’s consider, well, our walk today. Let’s pray Most Gracious Heavenly Father. We thank You for Your Word, and we know that you lovingly give us your word. And it stings sometimes, because we are still imperfect people that need to confess our sins before you, that need to repent of the ways in which that we don’t follow after you. And so Father today and this semester, I really am just imploring for myself and for this community that I love and I love to be a part of, that we can walk worthy of the calling that you’ve given to us walk, worthy of calling you’ve given to Southwestern seminary, and that the virtues that you would have us to live would be ingrained in us, that the discipline of this everyday life would be guided by your word and the characteristics that we have of truly being in Christ.
So, Father, forgive us where we sought this world and we haven’t sought in your ways. Help us be a community that imitates Christ, the true human that was able to live a life truly in humility with gentleness, the true God, man that was able to be patient with us and bear with us in love, the True Lord that is able to give us the sense of unity that your body truly needs. So, Father, I ask that you help Southwestern Seminary in Texas Baptist College, seek Christ, be unified in Christ, and from that unity go forth to accomplish your mission, mightily, leading people to faith, fighting against the powers of darkness and seeing the light of Christ shine brightly in your name, we pray amen.
