Caring cooperation in the consolation of Christ.
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,
make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
Introduction
If you’re at all exposed to modern media, movies, or even books you pick up pretty quick the values of our culture. Have you ever noticed how many popular movies depict a healthy relationship between the protagonist and their parents? It’s very, very few. Oftentimes the main character doesn’t even have parents, they step onto the scene as orphans or having recently suffered the tragic loss of their parents. We can speculate why that theme makes up the beginning of so many stories we’re familiar with, but I wonder if it’s necessary for the main character to be the master of their own destiny. All the influence of parents have been removed and the protagonist is free to plot their own course into adventure and heroism. It really does ignore reality doesn’t it? To one degree or another we recognize how our most fundamental relationships, the relationships with our parents or lack there of, affect our trajectory into the world and especially the relationships with those closest to us. Rachel and I were going through marriage counseling with our pastor and he handed us a packet of over 100 hundred questions about our upbringing so we would have the opportunity talk about the experiences we’ve had with our parents that may cause conflict or difficulty in our marriage. Sometimes couples have the privilege to have those conversations before getting married and sometimes they happen after, but at the end of the day we recognize how influential the relationships we have with our parents can be on our closest relationships particularly marriage. Paul in our text today is going to make a similar point in saying that the relationship we have with Christ has very real downstream effects for the good of the relationships we have with each other as believers.
The loving fellowship we enjoy in Christ is intended to produce a fellowship of loving believers.
The loving fellowship we enjoy in Christ is intended to produce a fellowship of loving believers.
1. Consolation of Christ
1. Consolation of Christ
Notes:
Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,
Paul begins by addressing our most fundamental relationship: the relationship with have with Christ and the abundance we have in Christ with an if...
Is Paul hesitant about this reality? Is there something yet to be done in order to ensure these benefits are realized?
I don’t think we ought to see Paul’s language as communicating uncertainty but rather the opposite. Paul is certain of these realities and is merely reasoning from this absolute basis.
Have you ever heard someone ask, “Does the sun rise in the morning?” as way of saying, “This is as obvious as the sun rising in the morning. It’s guaranteed.
Paul isn’t wondering whether or not these realities are true in Christ, he’s speaking of them as plain realities for us as believers. The rest of Scripture attests to the certainty of these realities.
if there is any encouragement in Christ (There is),
“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
if there is any consolation of love (There is)....
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Just as it is written,
“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
if there is any fellowship of the Spirit (There is!)...
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
if any affection and compassion, (There is!)...
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
Paul wants to make it abundantly clear that in spite of the trials you and I experience as we walk in the footsteps of Christ
There is every reason to be encouraged in Christ
every reason to be comforted in the love of Christ
rest in the fellowship of the Spirit that will not forsake us,
and every reason to know that God of all compassion and mercy will comfort us.
These things are true and sure because our God is unchanging and His Word is sure! Now before we get to the conclusion of Paul’s argument, I want us to pause and look at these elements in particular.
What fundamental human needs do these things Paul is laying out satisfy?
As human-beings there are three fundamental pursuits we always seek after.
comfort
love
fellowship
Immediately we might immediately consider the inappropriate or worldly ways the world seeks out these fundamentals.
The pursuit of comfort is often accompanied by laziness, a love of money, the use of illicit drugs, or various kinds of ungodly entertainment, all in pursuit of that unattainable comfort.
A pursuit of love is also made worldly and twisted. Through all types of impurity and infidelity the world goes after its own understanding of what love is.
Furthermore, the world too seeks after fellowship a sense of belonging and camaraderie. Many of these are fine and well, finding a fellowship of friends at work or within the community, but often even these pursuits become a locale for identity and acceptance.
All this is to recognize that as much as the world pursues comfort, love, and fellowship and the sinfulness of the world corrupts those pursuits, that doesn’t make those pursuits innately evil. Some, I’m afraid recognize the ability of the world to corrupt these pursuits and then avoid these pursuits altogether.
The pursuit of comfort is just laziness, therefore I’ll pursue work and never rest.
The pursuit of love is just selfishness, therefore I’ll be totally self-sufficient.
The pursuit of fellowship is to depend on people for my identity, so I’ll isolate myself.
These are simply pursuing different, godless ideals.
Whether you pursue comfort or work both can be godless
Whether you desire love or self-sufficiency both can be godless.
Whether you pursue fellowship or independence, both can be godless.
The answer to problem of the world’s pursuits is to recognize the fundamental human need and meet that need in accord with our God given design, not starve the need for fear of feeding it something unhealthy.
Have you ever had a bad experience with food somewhere? You attend a nice restaurant someone recommended to you, maybe there’s food there you’ve never tried before. It just so happens that you end up sick from your dinner there, and as a result you resolve to never try that kind of food again or even go to that restaurant again. It’s a understandable response! At the end of the day, was it the food or how it was prepared? The solution to avoid getting sick with poorly prepared food is (1) never eat it again for fear of getting sick (2) go somewhere where it’s prepared right.
The problem with the world isn’t that they pursue comfort, or love, or fellowship. It’s that they pursue those things from the world who doesn’t know how to prepare it for them. Only God knows how to appropriately prepare those things so that they’re truly satisfying.
Where do we go with our needs?
To the world to our detriment?
Nowhere to our starvation
To God for our health and satisfaction.
God wants us to be satisfied! He just wants us to be satisfied in Him in accord with our design.
I would argue, the pursuit of comfort, love, and fellowship are fundamentally human pursuits that God gave us. There’s something in all of us that wants to go back to the perfection of the garden whether we recognize it or not because we were made for that perfection.
Consider the perfect comfort of the garden where everything was provided in abundance! There was no pain, no suffering, no hunger, no shortage of anything good in the blessing of God. Adam’s work was completely free of toil and sweat and God dwelt in peace with them.
Have you ever wondered what walking with God, the perfection of love, day in and day out would have been like? All your need and desire for love, compassion, and affection is completely satisfied in a moment by the presence of God with you as you walk through the garden. Adam and Eve experienced that perfect satisfaction in the love of God for them.
The shorter catechism defines the chief end of man as glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. Our chief end is rooted in our very design. We were designed to enjoy God to be satisfied in His perfect love for us.
Furthermore, Adam and Eve enjoyed a perfect fellowship in the garden.
With God.
There was no sin to separate them from being in his very presence.
There was an intimacy and belonging that they would have known in his presence.
With each other.
Adam in the perfection of the garden and the presence still desired fellowship. God didn’t say, am I not enough for you? He said, “It is not good that man be alone.”
a. Adam and Eve belonged to each other in a perfect marriage enjoying fellowship with eacother without sin.
In the end there’s a fundamental human desire for comfort, for love, and for fellowship and Paul is directing the eyes of the church to Christ. All these fundamental needs and desires which you have cannot be found in the world. They’re found in Christ and they’re found in abundance! Only once we’ve encountered these things in Christ, that fundamental relationship, can we hope to be fruitful in the church, in the lives of those people who we’re committed to and covenanted with.
Paul says, because you have this consolation in Christ, this abundance in Him, live as a united people.
2. Complete Cooperation
2. Complete Cooperation
Notes:
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 2
make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
Now we talked about unity some last week and there’s some similar language, but if we look ahead in our text the application is different.
Last week we addressed the unity that is evident in the church when affliction and trial come at the church from the outside. Unity amongst soldiers is supremely evident on the battlefield.
Paul here is making the same argument for unity but applying it within the body. Unity is also supremely evident when no one is looking. When the parade is over and the uniformity of the group is laid aside, the pressure of battle is over and everyone goes home, no one is looking, what’s left?
Paul begins again to describe this unity which binds us together no matter the circumstance by
a. being of the same mind.
Now in last week’s passage we saw the phrase, “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;” These words described a oneness from the depths of our being, our souls.
Paul is actually using a different word in today’s text that has a more explicit reference to our understanding.
The phrase we see in the next line, “intent on one purpose.” has a similar meaning at its root, to set our mind or our understanding on one thing.
What does it take to be of one mind or one understanding?
Common truth
Common teaching
We see this concept expressed in Deuteronomy as Israel is about to enter the promised land. They’re about to face many enemies and many temptations and Moses is concerned for their unity, they do not become influenced by other nations and their gods.
Deuteronomy 6:4–7 (NASB95)
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
“You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
The preservation of a body of people, the preservation of their unity cannot be done without a common truth and a common teaching of that truth.
Imagine briefly one without the other.
Truth without teaching
Teaching without truth
We as believers, like Israel preserve our unity by holding to a common truth, the revealed Word of God, The Law and the Gospel. Both of these we must be diligent to teach else we cannot attain one mind, one understanding or one purpose.
Where we were
Who we are
Where we are going
Paul’s instruction to Timothy fall along these lines as well w/ the same desire for the unity and the preservation of the church.
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
Paul’s warning of a time when teaching will be prominent and desired, even, but there will be no truth… only myths.
A common truth, the Word of God and faithful teaching preserves the oneness of understanding essential to our unity.
Furthermore, Paul exhorts the church to maintain the same love, united in spirit (or soul)
It’s one thing to be of the same understanding, having their minds thinking alike, but it’s another thing to ask everyone’s heart to be in the same place, having their hearts aligned.
I believe what Paul has said in verse 1 and what he is about to say in the coming verses has direct association to this calling to a common love.
The only way we can share in a common love for one another is if we share in a common love for us from God. Should we know the same love in all its abundance, then we can share that love with one another.
I believe that God knows the power of primary relationships. He knows the effect of good parenting or bad parenting can have one a marriage, a friendship, or even the relationship you have with your kids. So whether that primary relationship was good, bad, or non-existent, we have Christ to mould us and shape us as a loving Savior. Christ is that primary relationship that is supposed to affect how we treat one another, our spouses, our church family, our children.
This is the importance of the truth taught. If the gospel is not preached, those primary relationships will always be the primary influence on how we treat one another. Some have great experiences and do well because we know an image of Christ in our parents. Some others not so much. Either way, we must have Christ clearly in view, and the gospel preached that this primary relationship would have it’s full effect.
“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.
“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
“These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
We love, because He first loved us.
The love we share that unites us is not something new we have not experienced before. It’s a love we have all experienced through Christ and ultimately reflected to one another. When we love one another, we personify the love of Christ which we know in the gospel.
When Paul says, husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church, he knows that as believers those husbands have a real understanding of the love of Christ because they’ve experienced it personally. It’s not simply a blueprint or example to follow though it is that.
If you take a step back, our unity is a derived unity. That is, it is not worked up within us or among us. Our understanding which unites our minds is from God, and the love which unites us is also from God. If we are not looking outside of ourselves and outside of the world to the Word of God we will never know unity, for unity is found in all that God has given us.
It ought be no surprise that the exercise of this unity emulates the God who made it possible.
3. Christ-like Care
3. Christ-like Care
Notes:
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
Now Paul is certainly expounding on what it is to be unified. Selfishness, empty conceit, and looking out for our own personal interests exclusively are antithetical to unity in whatever organization or community you might be in, but he’s ultimately calling us to Christ-likeness, specifically, a Christ-like care for one another.
We’ll see next week in greater depth how this call to humility, regard for one another and considering the interests of others is perfectly exemplified in the life and humility of Christ.
Until then, let’s look at these three verses and dig in a little deeper on selfishness and humility.
I think selfishness/ looking out for your personal interests alone is fairly evident. If you have children or ever served in nursery you know what selfishness looks like. Our sin nature drives us to perpetual pursuit of all that is good for us even at the expense of others. At the root if it is really pride: thinking ourselves greater than everyone else and deserving our every desire. It’s fundamentally against the will and character of God.
”The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” -C.S. Lewis
It sounds a little extreme at first because pride by itself doesn’t explicitly hurt, or harm anyone oftentimes. By itself it’s simply a disregard for anyone else including God. Pride and selfishness are deserving of such weighty words because of exactly what Lewis said, “Pride leads to every other vice...”
If Paul’s heart is for the preservation and endurance of the church then it seems appropriate he would address the heart condition, selfishness and pride, that lead to so many other vices which undermine the church.
We naturally expect Paul’s call to humility to follow his rebuke of selfishness, but I want us to notice the characteristics or fruit of humility.
Let me put it this way, “In selfishness and humility, who benefits?”
Selfishness clearly benefits ourselves, but who benefits from humility?
I found myself wondering if I don’t have a short-sighted view of humility - one that simply isn’t selfish and at the end of the day, no one benefits.
I think it’s a fair question to ask. Is it still humility if I don’t actually think about the needs of my brother or sister, and I only think about myself less.
There’s a popular line, “humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking about yourself less.”
I think it’s been mistakenly attributed to Lewis, but in any case, I don’t know that that’s the complete picture of humility Paul is giving us.
An integral part of humility is how you think about others. Maybe that’s implied in that quote, but have we ever considered humility to be actively benefiting our brother and sister because we genuinely believe they are more important than us.
We would probably more readily associate such thinking and belief to love, but I find it noteworthy that humility is Paul’s descriptor here.
I believe this argument makes all the more sense when we consider our text for next week. Christ’s humility was not displayed without great benefit to us. He considered our salvation more important than the preservation of his life.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
He exchanged life’s comforts for suffering.
The love of the Father for his wrath
and the perfect fellowship He enjoyed with the Father having been forsaken.
He gave up all the fundamental desires of humanity which he found perfectly in the Trinity for eternity past so that our sins would be paid for on the cross. He considered our interests greater than His own though He of all people was entitled to each of them.
Just stop and think about that for a moment. the complete suffering and humiliation of Christ, God and King over all through whom all things were made, that we might know His comfort, His love, and His fellowship.
A Prayer: Father humble me in view of this abundance which you have given me in Christ. Might that humility in me bring about genuine benefit to my family and my church.
In Summary,
Paul has made it clear that we have been given an abundance in Christ. An abundance that satisfies all of mankind’s fundamental longing.
In our provision of comfort, love, and fellowship we have the basis for real unity as a church.
This unity is evident in mind and heart.
Out of this abundance and unity we humble ourselves for the good of our brothers and sisters as Christ humbled himself for our good and our salvation.
In the abundance we experience from God might we strive to have our brothers and sisters experience that same abundance through us.
Through comforting words to one another.
Through love and service to one another.
Through genuine fellowship in the Spirit with one another.
Let’s Pray.
