Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Would you please pray with me…

Father,

We come to you humbly because you came to us in full humility.

Your Son laid aside His due glory for a moment so that we may one day be fully immersed in it.

Even now, God, you reveal yourself to us, and for that, we can never be grateful enough.

So, Father, we pray that you would further bind us together as a family, to be of one mind and one love so that we can live in your name before a world that most desperately needs you.

God, we thank you for Jesus, for the price that has been paid so that we can be your people, for a Gospel that can take an egregious persecutor like Paul and make him cherished son and that means that you can take an egregious sinner like me, and do the same.

Continue to purify us so that we might pursue holiness.

It is in your holy and matchless name we pray…

We come before you as a messy people, and that's putting it so kindly.

So often we shield ourselves with these veneers and perceptions in hopes of portraying that we are decent, good, and put together better than the next guy.

But if we are truly honest with ourselves we are all too aware of our brokenness and sin.

So, Lord, we pray for honest hearts, that we might deal honestly with ourselves, yes individually, but more importantly as a body of believers who come together in your name.

Introduction/Prodding Question

Please open your Bibles to , and as you do, I want to ask you a question.

Where do you see dysfunction?

For some of you, you might recall a particular project, you might think of an occurrence with friends where y’all just couldn’t get right, or some of you might think of Thanksgiving dinner.

I was a Communications Studies major at The University of Tennessee, and as such a lot of my major grades revolved around group projects.

So to say that I witnessed dysfunction at a premium would be putting it softly.

Numerous was the occasion we had to coordinate, cancel, reschedule based on work schedules, class schedules, other tests and more.

Several times I was assigned to a group where I would see a particular group member once on the day the project was assigned, only to witness the most amazing disappearing act as I was not able to reach them until the night before our presentation.

Yes, we often have ample representations of dysfunction, but how are we to be characterized as a people of God?

Friends the reality is that we are a body of broken people, marked by dysfunction trying to slug our way out of such messiness.

That is why we strive towards Paul’s encouragement in his letter to the Philippians when he addresses this beloved church.

Hear the Word of the Lord...

Text

"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.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, through he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Speaker: This is God’s Word

Audience: Thanks be to God

Transition

So again I ask, have you ever been a part of something so divisive?

Chaotic?

Dysfunctional?

There are some of you out there... middle children probably... that relish at the opportunity to instigate some mess.

My brother is one such figure.

Some of you may say, “Eric, that’s not fair.”

Well I say, I went to seminary and that means that I get a microphone and Brett doesn’t so, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah...

Illustration

I remember being young and witnessing my oldest brother breaking a ceiling fan with a beach ball and in a frantic hurry he repaired the fan blade with some Elmer’s glue and masking tape, only for my maniacal brother Brett to wait for the blade to rest just so, with Ryan thinking that he had attained victory, only to flip the fan switch, starting the fan and sending the blade to the ground.

Ryan got disciplined and Brett laughed his sick little head off.

But for the most part, I’d like to think that we all strive to make the best out of our situations and to work peacefully and in step with those around us and to strive towards unity.

That's somewhat the virtue that Paul explains in our text today but of course we see that the unity he touches on is much more profound than overcoming a silly sibling rivalry.

This world is not short of its tips and tricks to achieve unity, but Paul expounds upon a much more life-giving, gospel-driven reasoning why we are to strive for unity as God’s people.

With that in mind I propose to you this central idea of the text, “In light of , we, as God’s people, are to humble ourselves as Christ, Himself, was humbled.

And we see

Exposition vv.1-4

As we unfold the Scriptures here I encourage you to key in on the example of humility set forth by Paul, perfectly set forth by Christ, and the repercussions of such humility.

Exposition vv.1-4

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

vv.1-2

vv.1-2

“So if…” This isn't Paul debating whether or not these things are true; with this conjunction he is linking to his previous writing where he famously resounds, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

He is setting up his argument here as if to say because there is encouragement in Christ, because there is comfort and love and VICTORY, be bound together, in step with one another, of same love and mind.

Is this not the truth of the gospel?

That the reality of the cross brings us together and keeps us together because of what Jesus accomplished at calvary.

It's not a question of whether or not these things exist in Christ but rather a rhetorical arrangement to slam home the knowledge that in Christ these beautiful things abound fully, or what he would later exclaim in , “What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

31 What then shall we say to these things?

pIf God is for us, who can be9 against us?

31 What then shall we say to these things?

pIf God is for us, who can be9 against us?

p Num. 14:9; 2 Kgs.

6:16; Ps. 118:6; 1 John 4:4

p ; ; ;

This is a truth that resounds in the lives of the Philippians and it should be our cry today.

Consider the foundation of the church at Philippi…

9 Or who is

9 Or who is

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 8:31.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Yes, unity and synergy are admirable characteristics in a number of ways but unity as a body of believers is where we find a truly full and robust understanding of what it means to be one, united, together.

I am so thankful for the churches that are represented across this room.

My church (Imago Dei), Summit, Fairview, wherever you may call your church home, we are definitely spoiled in this area from an abounding number of churches who passionately seek and desire to make disciples of Jesus far and wide.

And what we should carry with us on this Great Commission is the knowledge that God calls his children unto Himself regardless of background, upbringing, or status.

If anyone could testify to such qualities and characteristics of the gospel, it was Paul.

A man who was the self-proclaimed "chief of sinners," as he described in .

In we receive the account of the first Christian martyr in Stephen, which is to say that he stood firm in the faith even when standing toe to toe with death itself.

The one who carried the sentence… Paul’s himself.

The very next chapter in chapter 8, the apostle Luke details that the first-century church wasn't just preached against, wasn't just legislated against or inconvenienced like we might experience today in our culture, but that Paul once ravaged the church.

If anyone could testify to such qualities and characteristics of the God-man, Jesus, it was Paul.

A man who was the self-proclaimed "chief of sinners," as he described in .

In we receive the account of the first Christian martyr in Stephen, which is to say that he stood firm in the faith even when standing toe to toe with death itself.

The one who carried the sentence… Paul’s former self, then known as Saul.

The very next chapter in chapter 8, the apostle Luke details that the first-century church wasn't just preached against, wasn't just legislated against or inconvenienced like we might experience today in our culture, but that Paul ravaged the church.

Illustration

This was no small persecution.

It was quite different from what we might know today.

But Luke paints a picture of exactly what kind of man Paul once was when He says in that Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.”

When I was a senior in high school, the drama department put on a production of The Diary of Anne Frank, and I was truly am captivated by this story.

The entire play consists of these Jewish families, secluded to hiding out of fear of capture, imprisonment, and imminent death.

Several times throughout her account we hear of the Gestapo closing in.

A paralyzing hush falls over the families in hiding and eventually they are arrested and drug off to prison camps where they eventually meet their end.

This genuinely is the hideousness by which Paul once hunted down and murdered the very people he would soon join.

He ravaged the church and yet not but one chapter later, in , we receive the conversion of Saul, made new after an encounter with the risen Christ.