Read for This Week’s Study
Phil. 2:1–11, Jer. 17:9, Phil. 4:8, 1 Cor. 8:2, Rom. 8:3, Heb. 2:14–18.
Memory Text:
“Fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind” (Philippians 2:2, NKJV).
Unity is strength. But knowing what is true is not the same as doing it. We all fail sometimes, despite our best efforts at unity. But that’s not the same as deliberately undermining unity. No wonder, then, that as Paul continues writing to the Philippians, he wants them to be “of one accord, of one mind.”
Paul bases the necessity of unity on the teaching and example of Jesus. It’s a theme that we find throughout the New Testament and especially in the epistles. The origin of disunity in the universe stemmed from the pride and thirst for position and power of a single angel in heaven, a sentiment that spread quickly, even within a perfect environment (see Isa. 14:12–14). It then gained a foothold in Eden through a similar discontent with the rules God had put in place and the desire for rising to a higher sphere than that which God had designed (Gen. 3:1-6).
This week we’ll look at the biblical basis for unity in the church, focusing especially on the amazing condescension of Jesus, the lessons we can gain from beholding Him, and how we can grow to be more like Him.
*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, January 24.
Supplemental EGW Notes
I urge our people to cease their criticism and evil-speaking, and go to God in earnest prayer, asking Him to help them to help the erring. Let them link up with one another and with Christ. Let them study the seventeenth of John, and learn how to pray and how to live the prayer of Christ. He is the Comforter. He will abide in their hearts, making their joy full. His words will be to them as the bread of life, and in the strength thus gained they will be enabled to develop characters that will be an honor to God. Perfect Christian fellowship will exist among them. There will be seen in their lives the fruit that always appears as the result of obedience to the truth.
Let us make Christ’s prayer the rule of our life, that we may form characters that will reveal to the world the power of the grace of God. Let there be less talk about petty differences, and a more diligent study of what the prayer of Christ means to those who believe on His name. We are to pray for union, and then live in such a way that God can answer our prayers.
Perfect oneness—a union as close as the union existing between the Father and the Son—this is what will give success to the efforts of God’s workers.
Complete union with Christ and with one another is absolutely necessary to the perfection of believers. Christ’s presence by faith in the hearts of believers is their power, their life. It brings union with God. “Thou in me.” Union with God through Christ makes the church perfect.
He who seeks to serve others by self-denial and self-sacrifice will be given the attributes of character that commend themselves to God, and develop wisdom, true patience, forbearance, kindness, compassion. This gives him the chiefest place in the kingdom of God.
Nothing can perfect a perfect unity in the church but the spirit of Christlike forbearance. Satan can sow discord; Christ alone can harmonize the disagreeing elements. . . . When you as individual workers of the church love God supremely and your neighbor as yourself, then there will be no labored efforts to be in unity, there will be oneness in Christ, the ears to report will be closed, and no one will take up a reproach against his neighbor. The members of the church will cherish love and unity and be as one great family. Then we shall bear the credentials to the world that will testify that God has sent His Son into the world. Christ has said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”—Reflecting Christ, p. 200.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.