If This, Then That

Introduction

Way back in January for our evening Bible Study we went through a series titled “What makes us tick?” examining our core values. If you weren’t here for those, that might be helpful to go back and listen to.

One of our core values Others-Oriented Service, and for that week, we examined almost the entirety of Philippians 2 because it was such a great example of this mindset. Not only do we have the instruction from Paul, but tangible examples of what it looked like to live that out.

When I started that lesson, I used an illustration of an app service that you can get on your phone to help us understand what Paul was saying.

That app service is called “IFTTT” and those letters stand for “If This, Then That”. If This, then that.

The idea of the app is that you can set triggers that will tell the app to complete certain tasks when the instructions are triggered. It can be a time based trigger: at 7am give me a weather report. It might be a location bases trigger: When arrive at home, turn on the kitchen lights (assuming that you have smart devices). They could be app based triggers: you can integrate apps together so that when something occurs in one app IFTTT does something in another app. For example, if I get an email from a certain person, send me a text message.

The whole premise to this whole thing is that when the conditions are met, the results are supposed to be automatic. If this, then that.

Last week we look at Phil 2:1, which has some conditional language. We talked about how Paul formed this conditional sentence in such a way that he’s not calling into question whether or not the conditions are true....but rather he assuming the truthfulness of them as he begins to instruct them.

If there is encouragement in Christ…and there is! Redeemed from under the law, adopted into the family of God, promised an eternal, unfading, incorruptible inheritance, there is encouragement from being united to Christ by faith!

If there is any comfort in love…and there is! No matter what happens to us in this life, we have the confidence that we are loved by God and can therefore find comfort despite life’s storms!

If there is an fellowship or partnership in the the Holy Spirit....and there is! The Spirit works in us to grant us assurance that we are children of God, He wars against our flesh, He helps us walk in holiness, and he prays for us when we do not know how to do so.

If there is any affection and sympathy....and there is! Again, we are loved by God, and that often expresses itself through the love of others around us.

Four conditional statements, where Paul says “If this, then that”

If theses conditions are present, and they are, there is no doubt about that, Paul is assuming the reality of their presence....

then this is how you ought to be living your live, these are the realities that should be present in light of those things.

What are the realities?

Christian Unity

Christ-like Humility

Other-Oriented Service.

Christian Unity

The overall command is to complete my joy, and the three things that follow teach us how the church can bring joy to Paul.

On the flip side of this, I can tell you that there are few things in life that drain a church leader’s joy than to be constantly dealing with petty arguments, self-centered pride, and selfish living. Sadly many churches are marked by such bahavior, and when a church becomes known for that within a community, it can take decades to re-establish a positive reputation once again.

Paul says, complete my joy. I am already rejoicing because of what God is doing despite my negative circumstances, and you can complete that joy by displaying these things in you lives.

What are the three things? Again, the first is Christian Unity.

Philippians 2:2 ESV

2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Unity is often a misunderstood word. There are those who advocate for certain theological or practical positions that are contrary to the clear Word of God, positions that we would identify as heretical, and yet to avoid being disciplined they call for unity. Dangerous theology is often brought into churches under the guise of unity.

This is happening right now in many churches and denominations.

Three weeks ago, the Southern Baptist Convention was held, and there were many who desired to pass a resolution that would condemn Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as being marxist ideologies, and they could not get it passed. Why? Because key leaders in the SBC were issuing calls for unity, and such a resolution would threaten that unity.

Just this week the Presbyterian Church in America were voting on what they call an overture, deciding whether or not they would ordain men who self-identify as gay, or same-sex attracted. Those who campaigned against that idea did so on the grounds that we needed to pursue unity and not pass the overture. Thankfully, the PCA took the biblical stand on that issue and the vote overwhelmingly passed, with a vote of over 1400-400. That denomination may stand the tide against all-out liberalism for a while longer. But the issue is that those who were seeking to subvert biblical truth were doing so under the guise of unity.

So there is fake unity that is based on faulty assumptions. There are those who believe that unity at any cost is necessary. But the Bible gives us a different picture. Truth by nature is divisive, because it draws a line between what is true and what is false.

Scripture doesn’t call us to be united at all costs. We all must affirm the primary things of the faith. But when it comes to other issues, we can be united. There are so many issues where we can simply agree to disagree.

If you need help discerning which issues fit in each category, there is a resource on the back table that can help you with that. Look for a document with three columns titled “Keeping Doctrine In Its Place”

But we are called to unity.

Psalm 133:1 ESV

1 Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!

Unity is a such a beautiful thing!

I don’t know many of your church or musical backgrounds. When there is a group of people singing in unison, it sounds good. But there is another level of awesomeness that comes into play when people start getting into a tight harmony. They’ll be singing different notes, but the notes harmonize and blend together beautifully. It takes six stings tuned to different to play guitar. A piano has 88 notes. You could plunk out a tune one note at a time. But there is added beauty when chords are introduced. Different notes set to the same song being played in harmony.

Such is how it ought to be with us. Unity doesn’t mean we sing in unison. Unity means we’re singing that same song, albeit with harmony rather than unison. If we insist upon unison, we miss out on some of the beauty that is available to us.

But we still need to sing the same song! If someone starts singing a different song, there are going to be problems.

We can be of one mind, having the same love, and being of one accord.

This takes work but it can be done.

I just spent a week at the IFCA International convention. Both this church and myself are associated with the IFCA. IFCA is an association of independent bible churches, individuals, and ministry organizations who band together under a shared doctrinal statement for the sake of ministry objectives.

There were around 350 people there this year. Do we all agree on everything across the board? No. In fact, many of us have some strong disagreements on a variety of issues. But don’t let that keep us from having unity with one another as we gather at the convention. We affirm each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Again, we agree on the most important things! We agree on the Gospel. We agree on the Trinity. We agree on biblical morality. We have some secondary doctrinal disagreements, but we agree to not let those things drive us apart.

Unity. we must pursue unity, biblical unity.

Christ-Like Humility

Philippians 2:3 ESV

3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

It takes a special humility to have unity. Unity is not something that can be grown if we are only always looking out for ourselves. We are called to something higher.

Do nothing from selfish ambition, or your translation may say strife.

This word seems to refer to the idea that we are seeking to advance our own causes to the detriment of others. This could be a jockeying for position, a attempt to secure power of influence, or more subtle actions like undermining others behind their backs.

This word is often used in the Greek world referring to political subversion for self-advancement. This is not how we are to be. Those who seek power are often the one who should have the least of it, for their own good and for others. Influence, authority, and power are not to be sought to selfish purposes.

Do nothing from conceit, or vainglory, as some translations say.

This is the idea that we really think much of ourselves. We think of ourselves as being better than others, so of course I would be better in that position, because I’m a better person.

This pairs with the selfish ambition. Often we pursue those because we think we are entitled to those position because of how great we are, and, after all, we would only every use that position/power/influence for good.

It is easy to be tempted by these things. The second you say “I would never be tempted by that” you’ve already taken the first step toward this potential pitfall. We are all capable of it, so we must be on guard.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but on the flip side, we’re to do something else instead: in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.

Humility. The most evasive Christian virtue. The virtue that the second you believe you’ve got it, you’ve lost it.

Why is humility so hard? Perhaps you’ve heard of this before, but in study after study, the majority of participants in a variety of surveys consistently self-assess themselves as being better than average.

Survey participants are asked to self-assess their own skills in a variety of areas on if they think they are better than average. Consider driving, for example. In one survey, a full 75% of participants self-assessed themselves as better than average. Statistically that’s impossible. A good portion of those individuals has an overly-inflated view of their own abilities. And this is born out in study after study in field after field. Its not just driving. Do you think you’re a better than average fill in the blank. Student. Citizen. Artist. Singer. Name the category, if there’s been a study on it, chances are, the majority think they’re better than average!

We are notoriously bad at self-assessment! We think too highly of ourselves. We assume that we are bees knees, the cat’s pajamas, the cat’s meow, or whatever other weird saying exists in our culture to communicate the idea that I’m it!

This is why being in a community that is going to love one anther enough to be honest with each is so important. Left to myself, I’m going to signicantly over-estimate myself. But if I have others in my life that can see me from the outside and provide independnat evaluations, that is going to be yield much better results for our lives.

Romans 12:3 ESV

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

We all have blind spots. It is only the eyes of others that will help us.

So we aren’t to be conceited, but are to be humble, considering others as more important than ourselves.

We are to place the priority on the lives of others rather than our own.

Now this can make us uncomfortable. This has the potential to be inconvenient for our own lives. But despite the inconvenience this is what we are called to. When we see what God did for us, what Christ endured on the cross....complaining about an inconvenience just doesn’t seem right.

Others-oriented service.

Philippians 2:4 ESV

4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

If we are living lives of humility, esteeming others as more valuable than ourselves, then the natural result will be living our lives in the service of others. We will no longer be concerned merely with what I want and/or need, but also the the desires/interests/needs of others.

This is passage is one of reasons why we have our seventh core value that is formulated in this way:

Other-Oriented Service. We selflessly serve others, both in the church and community, as an expression of the Love of Christ.

We have other passages like

Galatians 6:9–10 ESV

9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

We are called to live our lives in service to others. I do not exist for me. You do not exist for you. We exist for each other.

This is hard at times. I mean, sometimes its easy, if you like the person you’re serving, but what if its someone that you’re not particularly fond of?

There was a time in my life when I believed that we had no obligation to help others who were outside the church. I believed that it was good to help others, but required. It was optional. I held this position, because most of the passages that speak of our obligation to help others were in the context of helping our brothers and sisters in Christ. So, I reasoned, it is a misapplication of the text to appeal to those passages that refer to our service of others outside the church.

But then we find those passages like the one from Galatians. Do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. With means that the initial “everyone” refers to those who are not believers. They’re not in the church.

I had to change my faulty view because the text was directing my to embrace the reality that we are called to others-oriented service—yes, especially to our brothers and sisters in the church, and it should probably even start there before anywhere else—but also to all those we may run into that we have the opportunity to serve.

Now, it can be easy to come to passages like this and make our default position be that I need to do these things in order to earn favor with God. Our temptation is going to be to get it backwards. If I pursue unity, humility, and service, then I will get encouragement in Christ, comfort from love, fellowship in the Spirit, etc.

But that turns everything on its head. That’s not the way God has set things up, and that is not how Paul explains things here.

He says it is precisely because we already have those things that we pursue these virtues. It is to be a natural outflow of what we already have in Christ, not to earn any favor with God.

If this, then that. It is to become an automatic response, but it is a response! Turning it around leads to a dangerous legalism.

We are already loved more than we could have ever hoped! When we see that, our response should be one of amazement! And if God so loved us, so we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:11

In the coming weeks we will see the great humility of Christ on display. He performed the ultimate act of humility and was highly exalted by God as a result. As we close, we are going to sing a song I then shall live. It’s a song that speaks of our response to the love of Christ and how it translates to our lives. But again, it’s not done to illicit or earn favor from God! It’s a response to his love for us.