Unity In Christ

Philippians 2

Php 2:1-4 appeal to excellent spiritual motives

Philippians 2:1 NLT

1 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate?

The motivation for unity is set out in verse 1. We should want to live this way, he says, because we know—all Christians should know—the comfort that comes from belonging to the king’s family, from being‘in Christ’, ‘in the Messiah’.

Philippians 2:2 (NLT)

2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

—the basic command that drives this passage—he tells them to ‘bring your thinking into line with each other’. Of course, if that meant that person A changed his mind to agree with person B, just at the moment when person B was changing her mind to agree with person C, while at the same time person C was struggling to think in line with what person A had been thinking a moment ago, then the whole thing would become like a silly and pointless party game. That’s not what Paul has in mind. Unity by itself can’t be the final aim. After all, unity is possible among thieves, adulterers and many other types. Those who commit genocide need to do so with huge corporate single-mindedness, as the Nazis showed when killing millions of Jews, gypsies and others.

now unity in Christ is a different way to look at it

In addition to the comfort that comes from belonging to this family, there’s a growing sense of love within the family, a love that sustains and even cheers us from day to day.

1] how are we to live? in unity

2]why would we want to live this way?

as the Spirit lives within us, directing and strengthening us, and as we see one another in a spiritual light , we have to see that we should work together in a single direction.

Philippians 2:3 NLT

3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

1] why do we try to impress one another?

2]what damage do we do when we are selfishly impressing each other?

​.the extraordinary feat of looking at one another with the thinking that everybody else and their needs are more important than they ourselves

.What does ‘being humble’ mean in your words?

What does it take to think of others as better than yourself?

can we asses ourselves too low as well as too high?

what happens?

how can it be corrected?

How does God see us?

who does God say we are?

Philippians 2:4 (NLT)

4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

how easy is it to take an interest in something someone else is doing?

when you see someone taking an interest is someone else in a good way, what does it say about them? Character? Christ likeness?

Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters (Unity in Everything (Philippians 2:1–4))

‘Remember: the most interesting person in the room is the one you’re sitting next to!’ Figure that into a ministry situation, and you’ll get somewhere near what Paul is saying.

Php 2:5-11 the mind of Christ

Philippians 2:5 NLT

5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

The answer is that we must be focused on something other than us; and that something is Jesus the king, the Lord, and the good news that He has come to take the world over in His name.

Php 2:7 service oriented

Philippians 2:7 NLT

7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form,

what can we say about the position Jesus took as a human?

Php 2:8 sacrificing

Philippians 2:8 NLT

8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

When people in the ancient world thought of heroic leaders, rulers and kings they often thought of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). At the age of 20 he succeeded his father Philip to the throne of Macedonia, quickly made himself master of all Greece, and then set about the task—to him, it seemed, quite small—of conquering the rest of the world. By the time he died at the age of 33 he had succeeded to such an extent that it made sense, within the thought of the time, for him to be regarded as divine. (He had himself suggested this.)

In Paul’s world the closest equivalent to Alexander was the emperor Augustus, who had put an end to the long-running Roman civil war and had brought peace to the whole known world. It wasn’t long before many grateful subjects came to regard him, too, as divine. The power of military might and the immense organizational skills required to hold the empire together made this, for them, the natural conclusion. Other rulers did their best to copy this model. This was what heroic leadership looked like in that world.

Only when we grasp this do we see just how deeply subversive, how utterly counter-cultural, was Paul’s gospel message concerning Jesus of Nazareth, whose resurrection had declared him to be Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord. He was the reality, and Alexander and Augustus were the caricature. This is what true global sovereignty looked like. Hadn’t Jesus himself said something similar? ‘World rulers lord it over their subjects, but it mustn’t be like that with you; with you, the ruler must be the slave, because the son of man came to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:42–45).

2 Corinthians 5:19

New Living Translation Chapter 5

19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Php 2:9-11 glorifies God

Philippians 2:9–11 (NLT)

9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names,

Where did Jesus go when He was elevated?

This section turns on the ‘and so’ at the start of verse 9. This means, basically, ‘therefore’. What’s the connection? Why should the Jesus who did what verses 6–8 say he did be honoured in this way?

The answer is that in His earthly life and death on the cross Jesus has done what only God can do.this is the very heart of God himself: we are to see different self-expressions—so different, yet so intimately related, that they can be called ‘father’ and ‘son’.

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Observations about Christian living

Php 2:12 work out your salvation

Philippians 2:12 NLT

12 Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.

What is working out your salvation?

Php 2:13 God gives us desire, power to to do what pleases Him

Philippians 2:13 NLT

13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

How does God Change our desires?

Php 2:14 don’t complain/argue

Philippians 2:14 NLT

14 Do everything without complaining and arguing,

What is a strong weapon against complaining? thankfulness

Php 2:15 Light in the midst of a crooked generation

Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters (How Salvation Is Worked out (Philippians 2:12–18))

It was an ugly city. The fine old buildings had been pulled down over the years, and they had been replaced by huge square concrete monstrosities. They were designed for function, not good looks—though by the time I went there they were getting tatty and ragged at the edges, and I wondered just how functional they were now. It was a depressing place.

But then, just a few years ago, an architect was appointed by the city council to design a new civic centre right in the heart of the city, in the middle of all that ugliness. They couldn’t afford to pull everything down again, but they could just afford, they reckoned, to begin the process of making the city once more the beautiful place the old pictures showed it to have been.

The architect was not a young man, but he had cherished this sort of opportunity all his life. He went to work on the design, and some while later, when the preparations were complete, he saw the foundations laid. He was then taken ill, and unable to carry on his work on the project. But he still cared passionately about it and gave detailed instructions to his colleagues as to how it was all to proceed.

‘After all,’ he said to them, ‘when people think of me, I want them to think of this beautiful building! You’ve got to make it so that it stands like a lighthouse in a dark storm, showing people that there is such a thing as beauty even if everything else around is ugliness. That will be my reward.’

Philippians 2:15 NLT

15 so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.

Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters How Salvation Is Worked out (Philippians 2:12–18)

Paul, in this passage, is like that architect. He is looking forward once more to the ‘Day of the Messiah’—the day when God will bring the whole cosmos to justice and peace, through the return of Jesus as Lord (see 3:20–21). He doesn’t know whether he will live to see that day. But he has designed a building that, if the builders keep working at it the way he’s showed them, will stand out as the one thing of beauty in a world of ugliness, the sign of what God will eventually do to the whole city.

Look how he puts it in verse 15. You are, he says, to shine like lights in the world, in the middle of a twisted and depraved generation. You are to be the beacon of hope that they need, the sign of God’s beauty in a world that had all but defaced it. In fact, when he speaks of them shining like lights he is quoting a passage from the book of Daniel (12:3), which speaks of ‘the wise’—by which they meant Israelites skilled in knowing and applying God’s law, not least in a time of persecution—shining in that way to the world around.

how does verse 15 tell us to shine?

Php 2:16-18 joy comes from submission

Philippians 2:16–18 NLT

16 Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless. 17 But I will rejoice even if I lose my life, pouring it out like a liquid offering to God, just like your faithful service is an offering to God. And I want all of you to share that joy. 18 Yes, you should rejoice, and I will share your joy.

Two ordinary saints - the submissive mind is not just for “special” Christians but a necessity for Christian joy for all of us .