Transcript
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Philippians Chapter two is where we are. If you have your Bibles there. We're making our way through the Bible and this morning we are making our way through the book of Philippians. We're continuing in our series through this book that I've entitled Reasons to Rejoice. We're looking at all the various times that Paul writes about the joy that he has in Jesus despite his circumstances. Remember, he's in prison in Rome, Italy, awaiting trial before Emperor Nero. The year is 62 A.D. and he wrote this letter to believers in the Church of Philippi in Greece mentioning the words Joy or rejoice 14 times. And so far we've seen three reasons he's given us to rejoice. Number one, he said, rejoice because God will finish what he has started concerning us. That's from Philippians 1:6. And then number two, that God will use our chains. Paul wrote about his chains because he was in prison. In other words, God will use our discouraging times for his divine purposes, and for that we can rejoice. That's Philippians 1:13. We talked last week about how Paul wrote to live as Christ and to die is gain that brings us joy when we know our eternal reward in heaven is awaiting us. This wasn't a death wish on Paul's part, but it was simply the idea that he wanted to finish well and that he wanted to enter his glorious reward as soon as God called him home. Well, there's another reason that Paul gives us to rejoice here in chapter 2. I'm going to begin reading at verse 1 down through verse 11, Philippians 2:1. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy fulfill my joy by being like minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind. Let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death of the cross. Therefore God has exalted, highly exalted him, and given him the name which is above every Name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory.
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Of God the Father.
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We'll pause there. Paul begins the second chapter by making an appeal. He appeals to the church of Philippi, saying, you know what brings me great joy, he says, is when you all get along with each other. That's what he's saying here. He's saying, when you put aside your differences and you find unity around the common cause of Christ, he goes, that's what brings me great joy. And frankly, by implication, what he's saying is that that'll bring anybody great joy when. When you can find unity in relationships. Now, when you look at your Bibles, God is into various arithmetic operations. God is into addition. Acts 2:47. God added daily to the church, such as should be saved. God is into multiplication. Matthew, chapter 14. When Jesus multiplied the fish and the loaves and fed 5,000, God is also at times into subtraction. Acts, chapter 5. Ananias and Sapphira. Pop. Pop. Gone. What God is not into is division. That's Satan's game. He loves to divide because he knows that if he can divide, he can conquer. And so Satan is always about trying to bring division, discord, disagreement, disharmony, some kind of division in the church in particular. But in all other kinds of relationships, in marriages, in families, in places of business, among your neighbors, Satan loves to sow seeds of discord, to cause division and strife. And so what Paul tells us here through this letter to the Philippian Church is that the way that you achieve unity is through humility. And the way that you achieve humility is by following the example of Christ. So it's number four. For those of you taking notes. Unity comes through humility. And humility comes from following the example of Jesus. This is primarily from verses two through five. I'll read again. He says, fulfill my joy. There's the word. By being like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. He says, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind. Let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And then he goes on from there to describe how Jesus did the most humble thing when he left the glory of heaven and came to the lowliness of earth, and died on a Rugged cross for the sake of the sins of humanity. And Paul's going to tell us. He's going to say, okay, now look, I just want you to see the example of Christ, what he did for us, the way he came to earth to save us from our sins. Because when you see how humble he was, you can follow his example. And when you follow his example, you're going to have unity and it's going to bring you joy. So there's this. There's this domino effect. You have humility, like Jesus. You'll have unity in relationships that'll bring joy within those relationships. Now, when Paul writes here, what he does, what we find out is when he talks about unity from humility, and humility from following the example of Christ is he's. He's not just talking hypothetically. What we learn here is that he's actually talking about a particular disagreement that is going on in the Philippian Church. And he's calling them to get along. He's exhorting them to come into unity over the cause of Christ. And, and he's addressing here some disagreement that was going on between two women in this church, and he calls them out by name. Go to chapter four. Look at the end of how it, how the, the book of Philippians ends. And he makes this comment about these ladies not getting along. It's in chapter four. Now, we don't know what the disagreement was about. We don't know why they are at odds. We don't know how long they've been at odds. But. But apparently it's so bad that what's going on in Philippi, Greece, has reached Paul in Rome, Italy, in a prison. And so Paul. Paul's going to call him out. Here. It's chapter four, verse two. He says, I implore Euodia and I implore Syntacy to be of the same mind in the Lord. That's. That's just what he says right there. He calls them out. But what we're reading in chapter two is the whole basis behind that. And so what he says here in chapter four, verse two is he's like, ladies, get along. Get along with each other. Ladies, like what's. Whatever the beef is, get along with each other. And the fact is, everybody, that wherever you have relationships, you are bound to have disagreements. That's in the church, that's outside the church. Wherever you have two or more sinners together, you're going to have conflict. You're going to have disagreements in a church, in a marriage, in a family, among friends, among Neighbors among co workers, wherever you have people there is the potential for disagreement and conflict. And it doesn't necessarily mean that anybody is bad other than the fact that we're all sinners. It doesn't mean that, well somebody has malice. It could honestly sometimes be good willed people who just see things differently and they have a disagreement about it. I'm sure that Euodia and Syntyche were good willed women who loved Jesus. But for whatever reason it doesn't tell us they had trouble getting along. Look, even Paul himself had a major disagreement with one of his traveling companions, Barnabas, over whether or not they should take another traveling companion with them whose name was John Mark. Now Barnabas was related to John Mark. So what do you think? Barnabas vote was take him. I like this guy, he's, he's family. But Paul was like no, the guy's weak. We tried this before. He left us halfway through a missionary journey. He, he doesn't have the stomach for some of this stuff. He's a mamsie, we're not taking him along. And they got into such a sharp disagreement that they parted ways. I'll read it to you. It's just a few verses out of Acts 15. You don't need to turn there. This is Acts 15:36 to 40, it says. Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, let us go now back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing. Isn't that a good idea? And Barnabas was determined to take with them. John called Mark, but Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. So Paul knows firsthand what it is to have disagreements with somebody. And the fact is it's not always a matter of trying to figure out who's right and who's wrong. It's a matter of two people who love Jesus and want peace more than they want to be right. They want peace more than they want to be right. And so they put aside their differences, they give their hurts and offenses, if they have any, to God and they humble themselves toward others for the sake of unity. Now look, granted this will only work best when, if there's a conflict just between two, when both love Jesus and understand what Paul is writing to us about, you know, if you, if you're still there in Philippians 4, verse 2, when it talks about Euodia and syntyche, I want you to notice the last three words of that verse in the Lord, this you're only going to be able to have unity and come together and have peace. And despite your differences, when it's in the Lord, when you can realize that you have the common cause of Christ, you're brothers and sisters in the Lord, you worship the same Jesus. So let's humble ourselves and let's, for the sake of unity and peace, come together on this. So it's going to take two to make this work. But even if it's only just you, if whoever you're in conflict with is not a believer, and you are, you can do your part. You can do your part to follow Jesus. Be humble. You're not responsible for their reaction, their response. You're only responsible for your own. And in Romans 12:18, it says, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all men. So in other words, like, I have a role and you have a role, and the other person may not reciprocate. But if you're a follower of Jesus, as far as it depends on you.