The Joy of Unity
Notes
Transcript
The Joy of Unity
Philippians 2:1-4
The title of this sermon comes from the first few words of verse 2. Paul tells the Philippians to “complete his joy.” Paul already rejoiced in the Philippians (1:4).
He loved them.
He thanked God for them.
He was sure the Lord would continue to do a work in them.
Paul’s joy in them would find fulfillment when they were experiencing a proper unity in the Lord.
Illustration: Think for a moment if you had two children. Suppose those two children were at odds with one another.
You would still love them
They would bring you some measure of joy
They could increase your joy by dealing with their differences.
It wasn’t enough for the Philippians to all love Paul. He wanted them to love one another too. The same is true with the Lord. He wants us to have unity with Himself and with one another.
Last week we saw that Paul encouraged the church in unity. He said the church should:
Stand firm in one spirit
Have one mind
Strive side by side for the gospel
In chapter 2 he continues that encouragement. I’m going to show you three truths regarding unity from this text.
1. Unity is an obligation of the church (1).
Notice the word “If”. Paul says, “if there is an encouragement in Christ.” He’s not suggesting there isn’t. This is a literary device he uses to make us think. He says, “if Christ has encouraged us.”
So that makes us ask ourselves “Has Christ done anything for me?” the obvious answer is “Yes!”
Also notice the word “any”.
Has Christ encouraged us in the least bit?
Has Christ comforted us in the least bit?
Of course, He has! We have been given an abundance of comfort and encouragement from Christ.
Why are we to think about how much Christ has done for us? Because our obligation to Christ is connected to how much He has done for us. He’s going to show us four blessings we have received in Christ.
A. The encouragement of Christ.
How has Christ encouraged you?
When you were in your sins He said, “Come unto Me all ye who are weary and heavy laden.”
When you feel hated by the world He says, “If the world hates you know that it hated Me first.”
When you feel like giving up He says “Be of good cheer I have overcome the world.”
When you feel like a nobody He says, “The first will be last and the last will be first.”
When you feel alone He says “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
When you feel you are about to die, He says “Let not your heart be troubled… I go to prepare a place for you.”
There is no reason for the believer to be discouraged. We have Christ the encourager by our side. If we are discouraged it’s because we have abandoned the means He has established to encourage us.
Scripture
Secret prayer
Service
Fellowship
Christ in the Word!
Christ in prayer!
Christ in service!
Christ in His people!
Christ never says, “Give up!”
He always tells me to keep going forward.
B. The love of Christ.
“any comfort from love”
There is no greater comfort than the love of Christ.
You are loved by God. You could not be loved by anyone greater. If you ever doubt that love look at the cross.
If Christ were the only One in the universe that loved you, you could not be loved any greater.
Think of the thief on the cross:
Hated by the world
Killed by Rome
Loved by Christ
He was comforted moments before death by the love of Christ.
Why is the love of Christ so comforting?
Because I know He will love me tomorrow.
He’s the only one that we know will love us tomorrow.
C. The fellowship of the Spirit.
I know a lot of Baptists are scared of the Holy Spirit. Please know we would have no spiritual life at all without the Spirit of God.
We are alive in God through the Spirit.
He is active in our life.
We worship because of the Spirit.
He awakens our affections for the Lord.
He urges us to:
The Scripture
Service
Witness
Repent
When we wake up in the morning, He is the One who shines the light on Jesus.
He is the one who brings Scripture to mind.
He is the One who gives us discernment.
We have fellowship with God only because His Holy Spirit lives in us.
D. The mercy of God.
Paul says, “affection and sympathy”. God gives us mercy every day. How merciful has He been to you friend?
He’s given you mercy when you’ve sinned.
He’s given you mercy by sparing your loved ones.
He’s given you mercy to reap better than you’ve sown.
Things could have been so much worse if it were not for the mercy of God.
Sometimes I think of moments in my life that could have turned out terrible, but the mercy of God was extended.
God has given us mercy for our sins.
God has given us mercy in our circumstances.
Let’s put all this together. We have been given an abundance of:
Encouragement from Christ
Comfort from Christ
Fellowship in Christ
Mercy from Christ
This obligates us to extend encouragement, comfort, fellowship, and mercy to those we go to church with.
The context is the Philippian church. It doesn’t mean we’re not to extend these things to those outside the church. But the context is the church which means it starts there.
This is what creates unity in a congregation. Because we have received such wonderful things from Christ, we have an obligation to extend them to one another.
Do I encourage my fellow church members?
Do I love my fellow church members?
Do I fellowship with my fellow church members?
Do I extend mercy to my fellow church members?
2. Unity must be maintained by the church (2).
A. We must continue to be like minded.
Paul begins and ends this list with essentially the same thing. At the beginning he says, “the same mind” at the end he says “one mind”. This doesn’t refer to doctrine. We should be likeminded in doctrine, but this has a more general meaning. He’s going to explain it in verses 5-11. It’s the mind of Christ.
The church is made up of different people. We are not all the same. There are things we see differently. But we should all have the mind of Christ.
We should always be looking at things from the perspective of Christ. We all have Christ in common.
What does it look like to have the mind of Christ?
It’s a life of sacrifice. It’s a life of humility. It’s a life of service.
This means that every Christian should be:
Humble
Serving
Sacrificing
How do we maintain that?
We study Christ.
We fellowship with Christ.
We worship Christ.
B. We must continue to love one another.
Having the same love means to love impartially.
We don’t treat people differently because of their:
Abilities
Race
How much money they have
If we think they are cool
One of the best ways to learn to love people is to get to know them. I will promise you that once you get to know people it’s easier to overlook their idiosyncrasies.
There are some odd people in the kingdom of God.
There are some rough people in the kingdom of God.
There are some highfalutin people in the kingdom of God.
In the Philippian church we see Lydia who was a rich woman and a young girl who had been a slave and demon possessed. Then you have a jailer. It was a diverse church.
Some people will be easier for you to love. Work on loving the ones you do not naturally gravitate to.
C. We must continue to dwell in one accord.
That phrase is just one word in Greek. It means “joined together in soul.” It means that we are joined together in soul with those we go to church with.
We hurt when they hurt
We rejoice when they rejoice
It means we care about each other. One of the great things about Wednesday night is we share our burdens with one another. We also have a prayer sheet that lists church members burdens.
It’s a blessing to know others are suffering with you.
A card.
A phone call.
A visit.
A kind word
All of those things show we are joined together in soul.
We maintain unity in our church by expressing a genuine concern about the people we attend church with.
Verse 1 is essential to verse 2. Listen to me:
The proportion to which you are experiencing the grace of God determines the proportion to which you are extending the grace of God.
Your relationship with the church reflects your relationship with Christ.
If you are encouraged in Christ, He will have you encouraging others.
If you are comforted by the love of Christ, He will have you comforting others.
If you are fellowshipping with Christ, you will fellowship with your church members.
Unity in the church is maintained by spiritual maturity. If I am who I should be in private I will be who Christ has called me to be in public.
Our problem is we think unity is all about when we get to church. It isn’t. Unity is the fruit of personal spiritual maturity. The only way to maintain unity is to maintain a growing personal relationship with Christ.
John Macarthur gives a great illustration on this.
Think of a bag of multicolored and multishaped marbles with a hole in it. There’s nothing to hold those marbles together. If the bag has a hole all the marbles fall out.
Now think of a magnet. It is covered with all sizes and shapes of metal shavings. Even if the bag is torn the shavings stay connected to the magnet. When you pull the individual shavings away, they are being drawn back to the magnet. When they are drawn back to the magnet, they are drawn back to one another.
Christ is the magnet. Jesus is the only reason we can dwell together in unity. If we forsake His ways and His Word we have no hope for continued unity. It is in Christ that we are united.
If we are Christ like, then we will love Christ’s people.
3. Unity must be guarded by humility (3-4).
A. Pride is a weakness we all have.
Do you think you have a problem with pride? Let me test you. When you see a group photo that includes you who is the first person you look at?
I bet you determine if it’s a good or bad picture by how you look in it don’t you?
The jokes about churches splitting over carpet color are funny because they are so true. There was a study done some years ago where people submitted silly reasons churches split or had heated arguments. Here’s a few of them:
Length of the worship pastor’s beard.
A church dispute of whether or not to install restroom stall dividers in the women’s restroom.
A big church argument over the discovery that the church budget was off $0.10. Someone finally gave a dime to settle the issue.
Arguments over what type of green beans the church should serve.
Some church members left the church because one church member hid the vacuum cleaner from them. It resulted in a major fight and split.
The Bible says only by pride cometh contention (Proverbs 13:10). In every silly fight like this, pride is a factor.
We want to be right.
We want to get our way.
Pride will lead us to make mountains out of mole hills. The sooner we recognize this the sooner we can conquer pride.
B. We must not allow pride to determine our actions.
Paul says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit”.
That means be careful not to promote your own agenda. This doesn’t mean we can give opinions. This doesn’t mean we can’t have our own ideas. It means we should not push them to the point that it causes strife in the congregation.
It’s not hard to see when pride is driving us.
It’s usually not a moral issue, we should be stubborn with those.
It’s normally not a doctrinal issue. We should be stubborn with those as well.
It’s usually an issue that doesn’t make a lot of difference.
Illustration of me and Jennifer and Karate Kid picture in restaurant.
Pride can ruin relationships.
Notice the second half of verse 3. “in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
This was something Paul practiced.
He called himself “the chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), yet we call him a man of holiness.
He said he was “the least of apostles” (1 Cor. 15), yet we would call him among, if not, the greatest of the apostles.
He genuinely considered others as more significant than himself. We will never put others first if we do not value them more than we value ourselves.
C. We must be concerned with the interests of others (4).
Our world says look out for number 1. The gospel says put others first.
Here’s a few ideas of how we can do this in church.
Look around in church and find someone who needs a break. Some folks are working hard. Some folks are wearing a lot of hats.
Find a person who is need of encouragement.
Find a person who may be lonely.
Take someone to lunch.
Illustration: When my mom was alive I’d always call her on my home from fishing. She would want to know just what I caught and how much it weighed. All the details. When she passed I realized no one else really cared. That was hard for a while because I didn’t realize how much it meant to me that someone was interested in something I did.
Never underestimate the impact you can have on someone else’s life simply by showing interest. Showing interest means you don’t get to talk about your self the entire time. You have to talk about the other person. That requires humility.
When a church treats unity as an obligation
When church members maintain unity by having a deep personal relationship with Christ
When church members walk in humility
The church will experience true joy.