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The Unity of Community Part 2

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Philippians 2:1–4

Chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2, starting in verse 1.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

(Philippians 2:1–4)

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that we can come before you and worship you. We thank you that you are the triune God who has been gracious to save us. We thank you, Father, for sending your Son Jesus to redeem us. We thank you, Spirit, for filling us, for doing your work in us and through us. We pray that you would continue to produce your fruit in us. We thank you for your Word, Father. We pray that we would receive it as your Word, Word to us. Help us to be like the man in James who looks in the mirror and does not walk away and forget what he sees, God. So let us hear today your Word and walk away and take it with us. We thank you, God, that you walk with us every single step of the way, may we continue to walk the narrow path for your glory. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.

Review: The Basis of Unity

Last week we looked at this passage and we looked at what the basis of unity is. So we’re just going to do a quick review on that. Notice in verse 1 there’s a couple of conditional statements. It starts out, “if there is any encouragement in Christ,” and then most versions add three more ifs, which are there. “If any comfort from love.” What we saw was that in the Greek, there’s actually different conditional statements that you can have. And it’s kind of cool because you can look at the Greek and the way that they’re phrased, you can tell if they’re implying certain things. In this case, these conditional statements are implying actually certainty. So if you wanted to understand it or maybe put it into English a little better for us, it’s not so much if there is any encouragement, but it would be something like, if there is any encouragement in Christ, and there is. If there is any comfort from love, and there is. If there is any participation in the Spirit, and there is. If any affection and sympathy, and there is. Or you could also do it: because there is encouragement in Christ, because there is comfort from love, because there’s participation in the Spirit, because there’s affection and sympathy, because we have these things, therefore, then we get to the next part. Verse 2, complete my joy. There’s a Trinity. There’s a Trinity. And that’s what’s important for us to understand, because the basis of unity is not us. The basis of unity is the Trinity. It is none other than God himself. That’s why it starts out. We see it, and it goes on, “any comfort from love.” I believe that that love being talked about is in reference earlier in Philippians talking about the love of God, the Father. And then we see “any participation in the Spirit.” But again, no, these aren’t things that, oh, if we might possibly have it, no, these are certain things that God has been gracious to give to us. What does Christ give us? Encouragement. What does God the Father give us? He pours out his love upon us. What do we do with the Spirit? There’s a participation in the Spirit. One body, one Spirit, one Lord. So this is a very good framework. We see something here. All three members of the Trinity are active in our lives. All three members. Sometimes we don’t recognize all three members of the Trinity are actively working in your life. Why all three? Because there’s a lot of work to do in us. Okay, there’s a lot of work to do. But I also want us to notice something else. Look back in verse 1 and it does say there, if there is any encouragement, any comfort, any participation, any affection and sympathy. So I mean it doesn’t take much. It doesn’t take much to achieve unity. God realizes our frailty, he realizes our fallenness. And so he says, oh, if there’s just a tiny bit, then it’s possible. He gives us it, but it doesn’t take much to accomplish this. Now, again, minimums aren’t what God is after in his kingdom. So it’s good to see growth in these areas. We want to see growth with our encouragement in Christ, growth with our comfort from the love of God, growth in our fellowship in the Spirit, growth in affection and definitely affection and sympathy. But the point is this, if you have even the slightest, and you do, then unity is possible. That means baby Christians, if you’ve just been saved like whatever, a day, a week, a month, baby Christians can have unity with other believers. They can walk in unity, why? Because the foundation for unity comes from the triune God. So that’s the notion. So it’s not just for the mature, it’s for all. And notice this, God has an initial work on us at salvation. Right? He does his initial work on us at salvation, but then there’s an ongoing work in us. And these things are produced and the things we’re going to talk about today are produced as well. So unity is possible because the foundation for it is not based on us. If it was based on us, we’d be in trouble. But it’s not based on us. Because it’s not based on us, we can have confidence that it’s possible and we can walk in unity. So last week was more the basis of unity or the foundation of unity, if you will. This week, we’re going to look at the marks of unity, the marks of unity.

Being of the Same Mind

Well, what’s the first mark of unity? What’s going to help us achieve unity? Well, we’re going to see these things in verse 2. Look at the first thing. He says, “complete my joy by being of the same mind.” Being of the same mind. So the body works together in unison. Hold your place here. Look at 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12. Let’s start in verse 4. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” Again, did you note, do you see the Trinitarian framework being set up there in those three verses? Verse 4, it’s the same Spirit. Verse 5, it’s the same Lord. Generally when the word Lord is used in the New Testament, that’s referring to Jesus unless context clearly shows otherwise. Then there’s the same God. Usually when God is used just by itself unless the context is indicating otherwise, it’s referring to the Father. So you have the Spirit, you have Jesus, and the Father. What are they working towards? Well, it’s the gifts of the body working together for what? In unison for the glory of God, to minister to one another, for the kingdom to go forth. So look at verse 7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” All right, it’s the common good. Go down to verse 12: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.” Think about it, all over we just read one, one, one. What’s the idea? The body when it comes together should be walking in unity. There should be a unity there, and how is that accomplished? No, no, then the triune God accomplishes that. Well, one body. How many heads does one body have? One, right? And who’s the head of the body? Jesus, right? Well, one body has one mind. The head controls the body, and the body works together, listen to me, the body works together in unison. If we all had the gift of teaching, that wouldn’t really work out well. If we all had the gift of exhortation, that wouldn’t really work out well. So God in his grace has given different manifestations of the Spirit and he’s given different spiritual gifts to people. And how does he weave that? One person has a word, one person has a song, one person has an exhortation, but it’s the body collectively together speaking as one. Back a couple in 1 Corinthians we’ll see something similar. 1 Corinthians 2, in verse 14: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” [audio unclear] We’re getting together. We’re reading the Word. We’re maybe singing a song. We’re praying. Well, in our family, I mean, oldest is 23, so there’s been a lot of family quiet times over the years, right? But currently, we’re going through the London Baptist Confession of 1689. All right, I know, it sounds really exciting. My kids are thrilled about it, all right? But they’re at the age where they can understand some of that deeper stuff, even if they don’t necessarily seem very excited about it. And I get it, I didn’t really know much about confessions until I was in my 20s and really didn’t even see the purpose of them. There’s good stuff. It’s good to be exposed. There’s really just two main thoughts when you come to Baptist beliefs. There’s two main things. I’m like, well, we’re going to read through one and see what one strand of Baptists say about different things regarding God, regarding humanity, regarding the kingdom, regarding all sorts of things, right? So anyway, we’re reading through it. But part of that, I mean you’re having those family quiet times, it’s an opportunity to instruct your family on different biblical topics. And if you’re doing it right and you’re nurturing that, granted when they’re younger, the conversations might be rather simplistic. That’s fine, they should be. But as they’re growing up, you end up having some really good conversations and you end up on interesting rabbit trails. But rabbit trails can be a good thing as long as you know that you’re fine with chasing those things and you’re leading the chase, so to speak. So, opportunities to have discussions on all sorts of biblical matters so that you’re going through the Word and something comes up and it gives you the opportunity to address that particular thing. Or sometimes the Lord lays something on my heart and I’m like, I need to talk to my kids about this. This is something he’s showing me. I want to share it. So then I’m like, what passage clearly addresses it. That’s what we’re going to use in the quiet time. And then I’m going to use that. We’re going to talk about the passage and then I’m going to share what the Lord’s been teaching me regarding that particular topic. I mean, that’s a good thing, right? But part of that is what? I want my kids to be like-minded. Not like-minded like me, but like-minded like Christ. But when they’re learning the things of God, it lays again the foundation for unity and like-mindedness to occur.

Having the Same Love

Second thing Paul mentions here back in Philippians chapter 2, having the same love. So God’s love is mentioned as we saw in verse 1, that lays the foundation for our love for one another. What does 1 John say? “We love because he first loved us.” So we have the same love for God. He pours it out to us and then we can reciprocate it, right? So we’re trying to display an agape love back to him. We do it imperfectly, but we try to. And then we try to have that same love for others. So we can rightly, listen, we can rightly love others because God first loved us. We can rightly love him because he first loved us, but we can also rightly love others because he first loved us. And when we talk about loves, it’s important to talk about what I would call rightly ordered loves. The Latin is ordo amoris, the order of loves. Ordering of loves. Who are you supposed to love above all else? God, right? Does anyone come anywhere close to being on that same level with your loves for God? Or should anyone come anywhere close? No, what happens if someone does come close or surpasses it? What’s that called? It’s idolatry, right? So right there, the fact that we’re supposed to love God and him at the foremost, at the front, not just like number one, he probably should really occupy like the first 25 spots or something like that. I mean, it’s supposed to be ultimate, highest love possible, but right there we see that there’s an ordering of loves. Our love for God is of a higher magnitude than any other love. So there’s rightly ordered loves. So you’re supposed to love God above all else. He’s at the top. The duty for me, if you think about it, so this order of loves, you could call it a hierarchy of loves, some loves are ranked higher than others, and that’s a good thing. The duty for me to provide for my household is very high. It’s a requirement. 1 Timothy 5:8, right, if anyone does not provide for his own household, he is worse than what? An unbeliever, that’s pretty serious. But I don’t have the requirement to provide for other households. True? Well, why is that? I mean, it goes back to the rightly ordered loves. You love your children. You love your children more than other people’s children. Not only is there nothing wrong with that, that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing. That’s the rightly ordered love. You love your spouse more than someone else’s spouse. That’s a good thing. So this kind of gets into responsibilities, right? You have a responsibility to your children, you don’t have to other people’s children. You have a responsibility to your spouse that you don’t have to someone else’s spouse. This applies to your neighbor as well, right? The parable of the Good Samaritan. Well, listen. One, if you love your neighbor according to God’s standards, and hear me on this, if you love your neighbor according to God’s standards, your neighbor might not feel loved according to their own standards. Does that make sense to you? You love your neighbor according to God’s standards, your neighbor might not feel loved according to their own standards. Even if you just take something as simple as sharing the gospel with someone. I mean, that’s loving your neighbor for sure, right? We can all agree we’re supposed to do that. But perhaps you’ve shared with someone before, and they’ve gotten all bent out of shape, and they’re like, how dare you? Well, according to their standard, their standard of love, like you’ve broken their standard of love, but have you broken God’s standard of love? No. So if you love your neighbor according to God’s standard, they might not feel loved according to their own standards. But here’s the thing in all this rightly ordered. Really part of this is the understanding, and hear me right on this, is you have to love yourself. You actually have to love yourself. Even if you think of Jesus when he’s talking in Matthew 22, he says the first and greatest commandment, and the second he says is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” I mean so there’s this idea that we actually love ourselves and that’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing. If we’re supposed to love our neighbor as yourself, well then it indicates that there’s some love that we should have for ourselves. Even if you think, just listen in Ephesians 5, it says this, “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.” Again, implicit here is this idea, actually it’s really more explicit, is the idea of self-love. “He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.” I mean, so he’s really making a basic, like, hey, you take care of yourself, you make sure you’re fed, you do stuff for yourself, like how much more should you do that for your spouse, right? How much more should you do that for your neighbor? But you do have to love yourself. If you don’t love yourself or if you don’t love your family, guess what? I mean, that just trickles down and all, and you’re not going to think rightly on actually many biblical topics. If you don’t love yourself, you might not even want to get married. I mean, you’ve heard the birth rate actually across the entire world, pretty much in every country except like just a handful, but the birth rate is like plummeting. Like not just like going down, like it’s plummeting. But you know what’s interesting? When they put it on a scale in terms of like super liberal, kind of liberal, moderate, conservative, the people that are on more the very conservative, their birth rate actually hasn’t changed for the last 55 years. So I mean, so what does that tell you? Like, so the further left you get, I mean, the less kids they’re having. Well, I’d say some of that is a lack of true self-love. Not unhealthy self-love, there’s a lot of that going on, but a true biblical self-love. And what have we heard for the last few years? You know, love is love. Love is love. I’ve mentioned this before, but it says in the Old Testament the story of Amnon with Tamar. It says Amnon loved Tamar. And then what did he do? He raped her. That’s horrible. That’s not a biblical love. I mean, I love steak. I probably had more steak in the last year than maybe the previous five years, and I’m enjoying every single bite of it, okay? But I love steak. But is my love for steak the same as my love for my wife? No. But I mean, the phrase out there is love is love. Love is love. Is my love for my next-door neighbor the same love as my family? No, it shouldn’t be. Again, we’re back to the rightly ordered love. Love is not love. That’s like saying water is water. All right, I mean, actually, I think we got some water back in the coffee room. But I mean, we wouldn’t just uninstall the water fountain and just dip water out of the toilet. If water is water, why not? There’s different, yeah, there’s different water. It kind of matters the source. Well, not all love is biblical love. So different loves, part of my idea here and part of where I’m going is different loves drive us places. Different loves drive us. I mean love is like a car, it takes us places. Different loves take us different places. This love with knowledge and discernment, a love with the foundation of the triune God, that’s going to drive us somewhere. It’ll take us somewhere. So a grounded love leads you somewhere, and ungrounded love, it can also lead you somewhere. And they’re going to lead you in two completely different directions. Different loves ground you in certain truths and lead you to certain truths or certain falsehoods. Eros love, even if you just take it, it’s okay to have an eros love in the context of marriage. Outside of marriage, it’s untethered. It misleads you. It takes you down the path of destruction. So misplaced love leads you wrongly. Eros love for your married coworker, untethered. It leads you down the path of destruction. Even if you think about storge love, that’s the love that a mom or dad has for their kids. What does that mean? I mean, if you love your kids, it means training them. It means you’re wanting them to be like-minded, not just like you, but like Christ. Thinking the things that Christ thinks. It means instructing them in the Word, and it means just teaching them basic life skills. You love them, you want to see them succeed, you want to see them go far. So this same love in Philippians 2, having the same love, it really has two aspects to it. There’s a quality of love and then there’s quantity of love. The quality of love, we’re talking hearty, sincere, rich, full. And then when we talk about quantity of love, think about it, it’s the same measure that’s measured to you. Well, what’s the measure that God gives to you? Is there even really a measure to it? We would never be able to stop measuring because it’s infinite, right? You got your tape measure, we’re not going to have enough tape measures. It’s this infinite love that he has. So we talk about quantity of love. Well, he measures a love to us, but that measure is an unending love. Have you felt and received the unending love of God? Brothers and sisters, it’s a beautiful thing. Reflect on it, receive it, enjoy it. Here’s what one theologian said. He said, “Loving the same Christ, the same doctrines of Christ, the same ministers of the gospel and all the saints, rich and poor, high and low, weak or strong believers, without making any difference, by which means unity is preserved. For if one loves Christ and another antichrist, one loves doctrine and another the opposite to it, one loves a teacher of the law and another a preacher of the gospel, one loves one gospel minister and one loves another in distinction from and opposition to the other, one loves the rich and not the poor, men of great gifts and grace and neglects the meaner saints, when this is the case, they can’t be said to have the same love. Nor can there be harmony, concord, and agreement.” All right. So we want the same love. We’re loving the same Christ. We’re loving the same doctrines. We’re loving one another and we’re loving well. As it’s been measured to us, we measure it back out.

Being in Full Accord

Third is being in full accord. This is an interesting word. In some versions translated a little bit different, maybe a little more literal, but this word is used only one time in the whole New Testament. And it’s very likely that Paul coined the term. So he made it up because he wanted to emphasize a particular thing. Side note, I’ve had people tell me they think I make up words up here, okay? I don’t do that. Maybe a slip of the tongue occasionally or something like that, but I’m not just up here making up words. I’ll leave that to Paul. In soul, souls that beat together in tune with Christ and in tune with each other. It means a union of souls acting together, as if but one soul worked inside of each one of us. Here’s what again one theologian said, “Having the same soul, not in substance and number, as some philosophers have asserted, but having the same affection, the same judgment, the same will, as the first Christians are said to be of one heart and one soul. Are unanimous in their sentiments about doctrines and ordinances, being all of a piece in their practices and agreeing in all their counsels, debates, acts, and votes in their church meetings.” It’s interesting, years ago when we bought this building, it’s actually been about a little over 23 years. So we bought the building 23 years ago. God was very gracious to us. Awesome story there. But when we bought the building, one of the deacons was not in favor of the purchase. But once the decision was made to purchase the building, then that deacon was a champion for the cause of the purchase of the building. That’s walking in unity. Supporting one another. Listen, the toughest thing to do is be on any type of a board and have the board make a decision that you didn’t vote for. You know, make a motion and someone seconds it and then you vote on whatever it might be, right? But one of the toughest things to do is to be on any type of board and the board makes a decision, and I’m not talking about like simple decisions or bad things like that. I’m just talking about maybe even direction. But the board makes the decision, you didn’t vote for it. And now you have to support it. And here’s the temptation for many people. Here’s the temptation. Like someone comes up to you and they start complaining about that particular decision and you’re like, well, I didn’t really vote for that. Is that showing unity with the board? It’s not. It’s easy to do. It gets you off the hook. You don’t have to take any heat. If you’re going to be a part of that board, then guess what? The idea is the collective is better than the individual. So maybe, just maybe, the board as a whole knew better in that situation. Hey, perhaps they didn’t. But you’re trusting the collective. That’s protection in the plurality. So I’ve taken heat from people over the years from being on different boards that make a decision that I didn’t vote for. And now I’m getting talked about by someone and they’re upset about something, it’d be very easy to be like, well, yeah, I agree with you. Again, I’m not talking sinful decisions or anything like that. You’re on the board, not just to get your own way and then you go and pout when you don’t. You’re there to serve. You’re there to serve to help lead and guide if you’re on the board, but you’re there to serve as well. So the board makes a decision. Yeah, you’re supporting it. You’re supporting it. You can’t do that? If you’re not at a place you can do it, then you shouldn’t be on a board, honestly.

Look at Acts chapter 4. All right, we’re at Acts chapter 4, the early church, we’re learning about it. We got the history here. Luke writes it down for us. Verse 32, Acts 4: “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul.” Now how many do we know were saved right there at the beginning on Pentecost? How many? Yeah, 3,000, I think men, right? And women and children. 3,000. There’s at least that many more that have been getting saved since then. Now we’re in chapter 4. That was chapter 2. But what does it say? The full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. How is that possible? 3,000 plus people. How is that possible? Well, it’s possible with the Spirit of God. It’s possible with the love of the Father. It’s possible with the encouragement in Christ. It is possible. And they were doing it. And they’re all pretty much baby Christians, the vast majority of them. They’re getting saved. Two chapters later, they’re of one heart and one soul. “And no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” And notice this in verse 33: “And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” Notice what happens when they have one heart and soul, right? One, they have a very giving and sharing attitude. Everyone has all things in common. But two, verse 33, great power. There’s great power. You want the great power? You want the Lord doing things in your midst? There has to be the one mind, the one heart, the one soul.

Of One Mind

Look what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 12: “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.” Then notice what he says, “Be at peace among yourselves.” I mean, one easy application is you need to make sure you’re at peace with the leadership, right? That’s what he’s just talking about. But in the greater context, like be at peace among yourselves, like the Thessalonian church, they’d be at peace amongst themselves. And then he goes on, so be at peace among yourselves. “And we urge you, brothers.” Right, so they’re at peace, “admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” So you’re at peace among yourselves. That doesn’t mean everything’s necessarily always going great and fine, because apparently some of them needed to be admonished. Some of them were idle, some of them were fainthearted. They needed to be encouraged. Some of them were weak. They needed to be helped. It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be different challenges in the body going on. I mean, that’d be great. If you find the perfect church, guess what? Don’t go there, because you’ll make it imperfect, okay? So it’d be great if there weren’t going to ever be any issues in the church. There’s going to be issues, but here’s the thing. If you’re walking in unity, then that issue can be walked through, whether it’s with one person, a small handful, or the church. It can be walked through, it can be worked through, and you can make it through by God’s grace and his glory. Lastly, Paul talks about in Philippians, he says of one mind, which is very similar to what he said earlier in the verse, depending on your translation, of the same mind and here he says of one mind. The idea with one mind, he’s emphasizing something here. He’s really emphasizing the word one. That’s there, one. Being one. How many Holy Spirits do we have? We just have one. That’s all we need. But we have one. Look at Ephesians 4. We’ll see something that’s emphasized for us. He starts in verse 1: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Right, eager to maintain the unity. Eager to maintain it, why? Because you realize how essential and important it is to body life. Eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Then he goes on, so he’s talking about unity, and what does he emphasize next in verse 4? “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” That’s the idea that Paul has here as well in Philippians, one mind, we’re one-minded. We’re on the same trajectory. That’s why a lot of churches have like vision statements and mission statements. That’s good because it gives direction, one mind. In 1 Peter, just listen, he says, “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” You want to talk about themes, persistent themes you see throughout the New Testament. You want to talk about persistent themes? Unity is found in just about every epistle. Some emphasis on, and sometimes it’s not just like a little, oh, I mean it takes up a few verses or a chapter, but unity is there. Why? Because Paul saw how essential it was for the body to be able to flourish. That’s why he says, complete my joy. Some versions, make my joy complete. He’s like, hey, I mean, you guys are doing good. Think about it, Philippians. I mean, is he correcting any doctrinal error in the book of Philippians? One of the few that actually, he’s not correcting any doctrinal error. Is there any ethical, have they gone off the rails on anything ethically? Maybe if anything, once we get to the two ladies in chapter 4, there’s just unity there. Maybe that’s part why he’s addressing it here, very possible. But they haven’t gone off the rails ethically like the Corinthian church. But what is he emphasizing then? And so in spite of, he’s like, make my joy complete. Now he’s not talking like the joy of the Holy Spirit or something like that. He’s got that in the full. He’s like, hey, here’s a huge blessing. You want to encourage me in my walk, do this. Make my joy complete, walk in unity. So we could call it like a community of unity.

Unity, Not Uniformity

And unity is different than uniformity. Unity refers to a state of being, being together or joined as a whole. Harmony. You can hear a beautiful song. You can have a choir, and they’re not all singing melody. Actually, if they all sing melody, it’s okay, but if there’s different singing in harmony, they’ve got different parts they’re singing, it can sound amazing. Are they in uniformity? No, but are they in unity? Yes. Different parts, same goal, same song. So unity is different than uniformity. Understand that. You think about nature, or sports—that’s probably the easiest analogy to give you. A basketball team, there’s five players, but you don’t want five centers on the team, right? You don’t want five point guards. In fact, if you end up with a team, and sometimes in high school or when you’re dealing with younger teams, sometimes you end up with a team and there’s five centers, you’ve got five tall guys, guess what the coach is going to do? He’s going to adjust his offense and defense accordingly. If you’ve got five little guys that are all point guards and good handlers with the ball and they’re super fast, what’s the coach going to do? He’s going to adjust it accordingly. Why? To help them be in unity. But if you want a basketball team that maybe can do something—you think college basketball, those coaches out there, they’re not all recruiting five centers or five point guards. They want a team that complements each other. They want them in unity. They’ve got a common goal. They’re all pulling for one another. It’s not me-ball, not me, me, me. Well, brothers and sisters, how much more so the church, right? Paul’s going to get into it later. “Have this mind among yourselves,” verse 5, “which is yours in Christ Jesus.” He starts talking about humility, and then the ultimate example is Christ. So if it’s true of sports teams, how much more so? The example really is from the body being together. And when it is in unity, it can accomplish much for the kingdom of God. Can accomplish very much. So unity, not uniformity. How important was this to Paul? We see it right there. So important, he’s like, make my joy complete. That’s pretty important. You know, he’s in prison, as we know, and Epaphroditus comes, and hey, we’re concerned, how are you doing? So the letter back, and he’s like, basically, I’m doing well. But he’s like, oh, you want to know one thing you can do? Here’s what would make me very joyous: unity.

What about Jesus? Maybe we’ll get into this next week a little bit. But Jesus, his high priestly prayer, John 17, he’s praying. What does he say?

That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

(John 17:21)

I mean, you want great evangelistic response and effort, fruit from that. We see it right here. Jesus says the world may believe that you have sent me. Unity is a very strong statement to the unbelieving world, a very strong statement. Now, the gospel has to be there and it needs to go forth. But when outsiders come in, or we go out to outsiders, and they see people from all different socioeconomic backgrounds and skin colors and ages—that doesn’t happen out [audio unclear] You may believe, well, what’s it conditioned on? That we’re one with the Father, and one with the Son, but then we’re one with one another. That is possible through Christ, that is possible through the Father, and it’s possible through the Spirit. It might not always feel like it. You’ve probably been part of different churches, maybe churches that split. Listen, we’re called to display these marks, being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, being of one mind. We have no excuse not to have these marks.

We Have No Excuse

You’ve got no excuse. I mean, God literally hands it out to us. And if you’re a believer, have you been saved by the blood of Jesus? If you’ve trusted in him, if you’ve repented of your sins, you have the gift of salvation. He’s granted that to you. We saw that a little bit earlier in Philippians. But if you have that, if you have salvation, then you have the means for which to walk in unity. God’s giving you the basis, the foundation for it. It’s none other than him himself. Then what do we do? Well, this is it. These are the marks. Are you walking in the same mind? Are you having the same love? How’s your love doing for your brothers and sisters in Christ in this room? And let me tell you something. I mean, it’s easy to talk and say, oh, I have unity, I have unity, I have unity, if you don’t ever get to know people. Right? I mean, it’s really not unity, but there’s not, I guess, disunity. And yeah, lives are messy. Lives are messy. Everyone’s life is messy. So we’re going to mess up and we’re going to sin against each other. Right? When your kids sin against you, you don’t just write them off and toss them out. I mean, the world does, right? But we don’t. But what happens? I mean, in one sense, you’re kind of like, I really don’t have any option. That’s my spouse. But what do you do? If you’ve sinned, if you’re the guilty party, you go make it right. Same with your kids. They’re going to sin against you. What do you do? You restore the relationship with your kids. I mean, sometimes you might get into a little kerfuffle with your neighbors or something like that. Well, you’re going to live there probably for a while, right? So you try to go make that right. I had an issue actually just recently with my backyard neighbor. I was like, okay, I had some different things going on. I’m like, okay, I just need to make sure I’m at a place where I’m walking in the Spirit, I can address it, I can deal with it. So Andrea and I pray before I go over there. I go over there, I knock on the door. Thankfully, he was very gracious and understanding, we’re on the same page, hey, we have unity. Rather small issue, nothing major. But here’s the thing, I even told him—I don’t know if he’s a believer or not—but I was like, I was a little concerned this might not go well. So my wife and I prayed before I came over here. He started laughing, right? I mean, but you see, thankfully we’ve been blessed with some amazing neighbors, really at each of the places, houses we’ve lived at, but some people don’t have great neighbors. And you see some videos online, you know, and the neighbors freaking out and screaming and yelling and all sorts of stuff like that. And I was like, I don’t know how he’s going to react to this situation. But I wanted to be in unity. It needed to be addressed. So what do you do? You go discuss it. So I mean, it’s really not an option. In fact, that’s why, if you’re going to the altar, and you remember that your brother has something against you, what are you supposed to do? Leave your gift and go make it right. Go seek the reconciliation. Go seek the forgiveness. Go seek to make amends and work through things. So we don’t have an excuse not to walk in the same way. God has been gracious to grant us these things. So we want to walk of the same mind, we want to walk in the same love, we want to be in full accord and we want to be of one mind. Yes, in our families for sure, that’s super important. But Paul is specifically talking about church life. So hopefully you’re on the same page with your kids, they’re on the same page with you. When they’re younger, you know, you can just make the decision for them. A little bit challenging when they get a little bit older, right? But Paul’s addressing church life here.

So you’ve got this sphere of the family, you’ve got this sphere of the civil realm, you’ve got this sphere of the church, right? There’s some overlap in there, but he’s addressing the church life. And for the church to flourish—you know, my heart is for the church members to flourish as disciples, for people to flourish—there has to be unity. When disunity happens, what happens? All sorts of discord occurs, and fissures occur, and brokenness, and then what happens? People become more focused on one another than outward focused on what God’s calling that particular church to do and to accomplish. They get more focused on themselves and their rights and what they have as their privileges, so to speak, than what God wants for his kingdom to go and advance. And so yeah, part of that goes right into verse 4: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” If you’re in a family, you don’t have the right to say, “not my problem.” If you’re in a church, you don’t have a right to say, “not my problem.” No, if you’re part of that church, you’re trying to work through it. You’re trying to work things out. You’re trying to help the unity. Not paint it over. Right? Yeah, I mean, if you’ve got like mold on the wall and you paint over it, what’s going to happen? Is the mold gone? No, it’s just going to come right back through. It’s still there too. Okay, so you’re not glossing over it, not pushing it to the side, but you’re working towards the unity. You’re working to address it, you’re working towards it. That’s what we need to do, brothers and sisters. We need to have a heart of unity to walk in such a way. All right? It works well so that when attacks come from the outside, you’re already unified, so you can address the attack. But guess what? Sometimes attacks come from the inside. Sometimes there’s wolves among us. And then sometimes there’s our own flesh. Our own sinful flesh gets in the way and we start saying stupid things or doing stupid things. Our brothers and sisters need to be gracious enough, kind enough, loving enough to deal with what Paul talked about in 1 Thessalonians. Encourage, admonish, correct, rebuke—2 Timothy. So yeah, it’s going to be messy at times, but God in his grace, if we’re walking in accordance with him, will walk us through it each step. Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Lord, I do pray for the unity of this church, that you would make us of one mind, of one heart, of one soul, of one accord, Father. So that your gospel can go forth, so that people will see that the Father sent the Son. So that we can flourish and not be concerned about the side arguments or squabbles going on. And we thank you, Father, that you have given us what is necessary for unity, to walk in it, to see it, to live it out. By your grace and by your strength, may we do so, God. May we grow in these different areas discussed, all for your glory. We pray. Amen.