“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all”. Ephesians 4:1-6.
God Himself is THE FAITH. He said that unless you remove everything and take up your cross you cannot be His disciple. And Paul is telling us the foundation of the faith we are to contend for. By this message, we are now reminded of the sevenfold unity. You cannot say you love Jesus and you hate these. And this is what the Lord God wants us to remember always.
(1) The Church is the Church of Jesus Christ. Jesus has been saying it several times, in the Bible, and prophetically, the Church is His own. Therefore, anyone is mistaken to calling the Church his/her own. The Apostolic Church Nigeria has no founder. We did not call somebody the founder of the Church since inception. The sevenfold unity is narrated here, and we would be able to do it briefly because of our time. There is one body, and that body is Christ Jesus, and that body is the Body of Christ, and that is the Church of God. Not necessarily The Apostolic Church only but all denominations where the Gospel of the Lord is preached and believers celebrate the Death and Resurrection and Ascension and await Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we bring it home, The Apostolic Church is the Church of Christ. It is His Church not our church or somebody’s church. It is a pity that some power-drunken leaders or ministers can say it is their church; it is very dangerous. Therefore, if you are having this misconception in you either as a leader, prophet, apostle or anything please, it is dangerous. Your Area, District, or Assembly is not your own church. Your denomination is not your private Church. The Holy Bible explains this as a body where you get the whole structure. These are the mysteries of marriage. When solemnizing marriage we tell you of these things, and which you know very well.
(2) One Spirit: We have One Spirit, and that is what we are saying by “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”. The Spirit is not two and is not three. The Spirit that was given on Pentecost is the same Spirit we are having now. And we are all baptized with that same Spirit, into that same Spirit. As One Body, the Spirit governing the Body is One. There should be no body that has two spirits dwelling in you, that is very dangerous: You would not know where you are going. You cannot come to the Body without repentance and without regeneration to stay in that Spirit. We are having one Spirit. Therefore, if another spirit speaks another thing to you, that is not the Spirit of Christ.
(3) We also have One Hope of our calling: We are following also with one hope in Christ; with one hope that where He is, where He has gone to prepare, we will also be there with Him. It is for everybody not for some people, The Hope is sure. That is my hope and that is your hope.
Are you not hoping to be there? You have to fight for that Hope!’ You have to contend for your stand so that you hope and are hopeful till the end. It is not just hoping for two days or for ten days and then you lose hope. No! That is why we are calling on us to contend for the faith. I know those fathers that I met some fifty years ago who had slept with Him and were glorified in Him. Their hope was very constant and they believed this God till the end. This has to remind us and connect us to the life of holiness, because as stated in Hebrew 12:14; “without holiness no man can see the Lord”. So you must have that hope in you; and without holiness it cannot be there.
(4) One Lord: Jesus is the Lord we are having. You cannot be kneeling down for something else and come to the Church and still claim that you know God. We have one Lord who is the Saviour, He is our Saviour, and we are to follow Him no matter what: Whether in good or bad situation follow Him. The Bible says, that there is no other person, there is no other name given among men whereby man can get salvation except through the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). This is very imperative for us, to know whom we believe; because some people do not know whom they believe: They bring in strange doctrines to the Church, they confuse the arrangements of the Church. This should be avoided. This is what God is calling us to contend for. By all means, we should not allow that, we should not allow heresy: One Lord! Jesus is the Lord! As we are singing here, as we are praising God, as we are glorifying Him, the Lord is happy but when you go outside and kneel down to a sheep, to a goat, to a tree, to a man, to a woman for any reason, it is contrary to the will of God.
(5) One Faith, One Doctrine. There is One Doctrine in that Faith. You know, last year, the Lord was reminding us, not to remove the ancient landmark, because many were deviating from the original doctrine. It is dangerous, as I have said one time, because even Apostle Paul said, “if anybody should bring other teachings, another doctrine let him be accursed”.
Therefore, the faith in Jesus Christ which we took from the beginning, we have to contend for it. Fight for it and stand by it. People who say, “I leave their Church for them”, note, you are not leaving the church for anybody; it is your choice, it is our choice, it is the Church of Jesus Christ. Why leave the Church? Why were the Apostles persecuted? Is it not because of the faith in Jesus Christ? Still the Apostles said, “We have to obey God rather than man”. (Act 5:29). And that is the stand of the people of God at that time. Now things are getting, (you may call it) better or worse, but God is the Owner of the world and the world ought to be saved. That is why we are still giving the message all the time. The Lord is giving the message.
Some years ago when God was speaking to us at Ebute Meta, He asked us to pray very well for the country so that we could retain freedom of worship, liberty of worship. But if not for prayers, in some parts of this country, they don’t want any other person in their midst or to be promoted ever. This is making some people to change their names, those bearing Samuel want to change it to Sodiq so that they can be engaged or employed or promoted. Some even deny the faith totally. They would ask; after all, what is the Church doing for me? What is Christ doing for me? That is why you are called now to contend for the faith. Our forefathers in this Church stood firm in the faith: one fold, one shepherd; one faith, and that is what we have as the Church.
(6) One Baptism: Baptism of the body through the Church, the Body of Christ. We are just using typical water or we go to the stream or to the river. The Bible has told us that except we are baptized with water, you cannot be in the kingdom. The fellowship we are having now is the fellowship of the Spirit. You are here enjoying the fellowship of the Spirit in this Convention. Even though we in the Church must not force anybody who has not been baptized to be baptized with water.
When I was talking about being baptized, a man said, why do you want me to be baptized? And I said, do you know how you were baptized? He said he doesn’t know. I told him and said I myself I was baptized three months into the Church of my mother and I don’t know what they did to me. Can I hold that one as baptism? The person to be baptized will renounce this, and this, and that, and accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Asking many questions, debating on baptism is not allowed. We are all baptized into the Body of Christ. I am an ordinary member of that Body just like you. The only head of that Body is Jesus Christ, the head of the Church. That baptism, the teaching concerning right hand of fellowship and the other things we do here must be properly done.
(7) One God and Father of all of us: we are not having two Gods. You may say God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is the same God that appeared to Moses. This God that we have is the one we should believe and follow till the end. We cannot go in details more than this on the sevenfold unity. If you cannot accept them and stand by them, how are we going to hand over to the coming generation?
Let us read Psalm 11:3, “If the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The Lord will establish us on the foundation, the true foundation, in Jesus Christ’ name. Amen. As we are to fight for the faith, (that is what we are doing in this Convention), we must also prepare to contend for the faith of our fathers. How do we achieve that? Build yourself in the most holy faith. (Jude 20): Build your faith on the Rock. Jesus is the Rock, Jesus is the truth and so, you must build yourself on Jesus so that you can contend and be ready to face every eventuality. You must handle this truth very well. The Bible says “buy the truth and sell it not” (Prov. 23:23; Isa 55:1).
Also, understand the need for spiritual purging from sin. By the blood and fire (Lk.3:17; John 15:2; I Cor.5:7). Sin must be decisively dealt with. If you play with sin, it will play with you. There was an incident in the Bible God used Phinehas to avert, (Numbers 25). We the leaders especially must rise up, and stand against sin. I want to remind everybody when you are talking about sin in the Church, it is not a matter of smiling and laughing; if you are not against it, it will finish you. Sin is delicate.
When the Israelites were seduced in the wilderness, they mingled themselves with women and the girls of Moab, because there was a piece of advice from Balaam, so that they would compromise and confuse their relationship with God. Now, even when there was punishment from God in the presence of the leaders, the priests, and a man met a Midianite woman entered their camp. In Numbers 25:7-8; “when Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel”. You have read it and I have read it very well from verse 6-13; Phinehas had to avert the plague that day by removing sin. So when God is telling us to contend for the faith we must understand what we are to contend against. When we compromise with the bad habit or attitude of the people, we are not contending for the faith.
Sacrifice of self (Rom.12:1-2; Gal.2:20). And you must make a sacrifice of self, i.e. dedicate yourself as a living sacrifice. The devil cannot cast away devils; so when you are not against them, when you don’t have power over them, it doesn’t work. Paul said, “I am crucified with the Lord; leave me alone, because I have the mark of Jesus.” If you must have that mark as a believer, sacrifice yourself.
Also you have to mortify the deeds of the flesh. The flesh and carnality must be subdued, buried and interred for the Spirit to reign.
The fire of true worship has to be ignited and rekindled. That’s part of what we are doing: To raise up the fire of the Holy Spirit through Apostolic Worship. Your worship must be filled with the power of the Holy Ghost not just going there praying in the morning and worshipping. The Bible says, in Galatians 3:3; “are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Where are we ending? Where are we heading to? Even till this morning the Lord is still reminding us as leaders, as parents; what are they going to take over from us? Our Apostolic Heritage, many have forgotten it. Power of the Holy Ghost is disregarded: they don’t believe in any power; they just believe in education, reading; education only without the power of the Holy Spirit.
Spiritual unity is a very crucial part of our heart for the Christian faith and the life in Christ of this Church. Spirituality cannot be given second position, it is primary. That is what Paul presented.
Let us conclude because of our time. I have so much to say but because of our time; are you ready to contend for the faith, or you just hold the faith loosely? Are you ready to receive new power during this Convention? To contend for the faith, the will of God must be done. His will must be done, not your will, not my will, not our will but the perfect will of God in all ramifications. In everything, in the administration of our doctrine, in our movements, in our prayers, in our meetings, the perfect will of God must be done. And that is contending for the faith.
Not doing or joining any side that is contrary to the perfect will of God; the great thing is, holding the truth. It is a pity many of us do not hold the truth. That is why hypocrisy is growing wings amongst us. Deceit: Jesus will kill it from us now; he will kill it from our midst because it is the truth that sets free. Therefore, equip yourself from this Convention by seeking the power to contend for the faith.