God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
The unity of the church is to be a reflection of the unity of the one God upon which the church is built. The ideal (unity) and the real (division) do not always match up in the life of the church. A biblical theology of unity reveals a richer and deeper understanding of unity than mere uniformity, but it also holds out the goal of visible unity towards which Christians should aspire. The model of church unity presented in Scripture is a unity-in-diversity which protects it on one side from an over-reliance on human hierarchies but also from too great of an emphasis upon human autonomy... [Unity is being] bound to God and to one another by the gospel (Richard Lints).
Our response to those in the world is not to envy or admire them in their rejection of God. It’s not even to condemn them by wagging a Pharisaic finger of self-righteousness. Jesus said He did not come the first time to condemn the world. He came that the world might be saved through Him. Likewise, our job is to have compassion on the world – no different than the way Jesus did when they tortured and mocked Him on the cross – to point people to forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Judgment is His job and as we just witnessed in Revelation 14, that’s exactly what He will do when He comes a second time.
