The Church Is One
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jesus prayed that His followers would be one (John 17:21). Yet to many onlookers, the church appears divided. What are we to make of this? Today, R.C. Sproul addresses the true basis of the unity of Christ's church.
Donate today to receive Derek Thomas' book Let Us Worship God, plus digital access to R.C. Sproul's teaching series and study guide for The Bride of Christ: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/
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Hear moments of theological insight throughout the week on the podcast Ultimately with R.C. Sproul: http://ultimatelypodcast.com/
Meet Today's Teacher:
R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The more pluralism comes into the church, the greater the level of toleration and the greater |
| 0:08.9 | the possibility of visible unity, organizational and structural unity. |
| 0:14.7 | However, there's always a price tag for that, and historically, the price tag has been doctrine. |
| 0:28.3 | To many onlookers, the church appears fractured and divided. What are we to make of this? |
| 0:34.9 | Thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind |
| 0:38.0 | as we begin a series on The Church. You can add the entire 10 message series, plus receive |
| 0:44.3 | a copy of Dr. Derek Thomas' book, Let Us Worship God, when you give a donation in support |
| 0:50.1 | of renewing your mind and renewing your mind.org. Well, let's begin this week's study with a message titled, The Church is One. |
| 1:01.8 | In the 17th chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus gives the most extensive prayer that is recorded for us in the New Testament. |
| 1:13.9 | And it is a prayer of intercession in which he prays for his disciples and for all who believe |
| 1:22.2 | through the testimony of the disciples. |
| 1:25.2 | And consequently, that prayer is called Jesus' high-priestly prayer. |
| 1:32.7 | Now, one of the central themes of that prayer was that Christ prayed to the Father |
| 1:39.8 | that His people might be one. It was a prayer for Christian unity. And he went on to say that he |
| 1:50.9 | prayed that we might be one even as he is one with the Father, so that the unity of the people of God, the unity of the church, is to reflect and mirror |
| 2:05.8 | the same kind of unity that exists between the Father and the Son. Now, we know that the |
| 2:15.0 | prayers of Christ, as our high priest are efficacious, that they are powerful, |
| 2:23.1 | and that this was a major concern for him, that his people not be divided. |
| 2:28.6 | Yet, here we are living in the 20th century where the church, at least in its visible manifestation, |
| 2:37.0 | is probably more fragmented and more fractured than at any time in church history. |
| 2:45.0 | And so we've seen a crisis with the question, what is the church after all? And so what we're going to be doing |
| 2:54.0 | in the next few days is looking at the biblical concept of the church, at least in some aspects |
... |
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