The Source of Our Unity

If you were here last week or just know Paul’s letter to the Philippians really well, you know that Paul is in Prison and he’s writing to the church in Philippi who is under intense persecution and he said in the last chapter that persecution can actually bring blessings and the path to those blessings is through their unity. He called them to be one mind and one spirit striving side by side. Now, in chapter two he’s telling us more about the unity we are supposed to strive for. This passage begins with ‘So.’ Because of everything I’ve said in chapter one, ‘so.’ These aren’t separate arguments, but one continuing plea for unity.

Unity is a funny and even fickle thing. You can find unity around a winning football team. You can find unity around a losing football team. Both of which I know a lot about. You can find unity around Travis and Taylor getting engaged. You can find unity around the Cracker Barrel logo change. But not only are those kinds of unity fragile, they only unite people who already have similar interests and preferences. They can only unite a certain type of person and can never extend to all types of people.

But, the unity Paul is pushing us toward is something that can bring all types of people together. It can extend farther and deeper than any other kind of unity. It is more stable than your average friendship. It’s more secure than a sports team or super star. And it is more powerful than the bond in a nuclear family. We will get to the effect of our unity next week, but this week I want to look at 1) What unity looks like, 2) Why unity is hard, and 3) Where we find the key to our unity.

1. What unity looks like

In verse two he says, 2 icomplete my joy by being jof the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. - Phi 2:2 So, it’s clear that unity is what he’s after, but what is unity? What does unity look like?

Unity is a people of one mind and spirit marked by the fact that they look to each other's interests ahead of their own. Paul says exactly that in verse four, 4 Let each of you nlook not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. - Phil 2:4 Just let that sink in for a moment. Unity shows itself when we look out for the interest of others at least in the same way as, if not more, than our own interests.

Years ago my dad was at a neighborhood meeting and everyone was complaining about one house who didn’t mow their lawn. They were talking about sending harsh communications to that house and even fines. Then, this one man, who was a strong Christian, spoke up and said, “What if I mowed their lawn?” And the room was silent. They had no category for someone looking to the interests of others instead of their own. And that’s just one guy in a neighborhood. Imagine what that would look like in a church where everyone had this mind toward each other!

Imagine if our first impulses were toward each other instead of toward ourselves? Imagine if we prayed for others more than we prayed for ourselves? Imagine if we had extra money and we looked for ways to serve others before we spent it on ourselves? Kids, imagine if you praised your siblings before drawing that praise to yourself. Imagine if we served in the children's ministry on Sunday instead of coming to the first service and getting on with our day or going to Equipping Hour? (Second service: sleeping in and just catching the second service?) Was that too on the nose? :)

Non-Christian historians have studied the rise of Christianity and all of them point to the early church putting the interests of others ahead of their own as one of the main contributing factors to the church’s growth. Rodney Stark, a sociologist at the University of Washington, wrote a book called The Rise of Christianity and said this: “Christianity spread because the Christians cared for each other in times of sickness and disease. Their communal compassion both staved off death and served as an example to outsiders of the transforming power of Christian faith.”

And Paul isn’t just encouraging this in the Philippian church, he’s pleading for it. 2 icomplete my joy by being jof the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. - Phil 2:2 Now, we will come back to what Paul means by ‘complete my joy,’ but we have to see that he is begging the church to behave in this way. So, why is it so hard for us to do that?

1. Why unity is hard

Unity is hard because we naturally count ourselves as more significant than others. Paul wouldn’t have had to write verse three if we didn’t. Doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humbly count others more significant than yourselves. - Philippians 2:3 We are naturally most interested in ourselves.

I have told my kids over and over the best trick to making friends is to ask others questions about themselves. If that’s all you do, you will be one of the most popular kids at school. My dad gave me that advice when I was a kid. He said, just get them to talk about their favorite subject: them. This is a great life hack that works because we naturally love ourselves more than others. That is our natural inclination. It’s in our DNA. That’s the reason it’s hard to count others more significant than ourselves.

In this verse, if you are using the ESV, you have this word ‘conceit.’ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit. In King James Version, it reads ‘vain glory.’ Some say that the most straightforward translation of this word, even if it is really clunky, would be ‘empty glory.’ What does empty glory mean? It means that there is a lack of glory. A lack of the renown, honor, and achievement we desire. A vacuum of glory exists inside us so we go from place to place trying to find glory to put in our lives. This makes us more focused on ourselves than others.

But instead of going to God to find the glory we lack, we go to all these places that will never ultimately satisfy. We look to our job for glory, we look to relationships for glory, we look to money, and social status for glory. We can look to our knowledge of the Bible for glory. It’s embedded inside us. That’s why it’s so hard to count others as more significant than ourselves.

And we don’t need the Bible to know this is true. If money, power, and sex were the paths to glory, then the wealthiest people should all be delightful, satisfied, bundles of joy. But, we all know that’s not the case. I was listening to Morgan Wallen’s song, Last Night, and in it, he said, “He’s so poor, all he has is money.” Our vacuum of glory is a black hole that all the money in the world can’t satisfy.

So, how did our wiring get so messed up? Where did things go so far off track? Well, if you go all the way back before man was even created, the Bible talks about the fall of Satan. The first one to oppose God. The first one to be re-wired. His name was Lucifer, the greatest of the angels. Look at how the prophet Isaiah describes the desires of Lucifer. You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. - Is. 14:13.

Did you hear Satan’s desire? I want to ascend. I want to be the best. And what was the result of that desire to ascend? Just a few verses later, But you have been brought down...How you have fallen…He counted himself more significant than the other angels and even God Himself and the result was a terrible descent. A descent that took him down to earth and in the presence of Adam and Eve, now in the form of a serpent. He told Adam and Eve that they would be like God if they listened to him and ate of the fruit God commanded them not to. They decided to count themselves as more significant than God and, like Satan, their desire to ascend cost them everything.

And since all of us come from Adam and Eve, at a genetic level, we are born with the same genetic problem. We are born counting ourselves as more important than others and it will cripple our ability to achieve unity through putting other peoples’ interests ahead of our own. Even when we do the right things, our motives can be off. We serve to be seen. We help out to assuage our own guilt. We give money to feel better about ourselves. Good works with selfish motives are still a product of empty glory.

Our natural inclination isn’t to count others more significant, it’s to count ourselves more significant. That’s why looking to the interests of others is so hard. That’s why our unity can be so easily fractured. But, if Paul were to stop here, this would be discouraging at best and moralism at worst. But, Paul actually begins and ends this passage with the key to unlock this unity.

1. The key to unity

Paul never tells the churches to do something without giving them the reason why. In our better parenting moments, when we tell our kids what they should do, we also tell them why they should do it. Well, Paul gives us the why of all whys. Paul tells us that we should be unified and that unity comes through not only looking out for our own interests, but for that of others as well and that the reason we are saved in the first place is because Jesus did that very thing for us. Look at verses 6-8. [Jesus] who, though 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. - Phil 2:6-8

So, how did Jesus look not only to His interests, but our as well? In two ways. First, by coming here. He emptied Himself by coming to earth. Different theological camps have tried to say Jesus ‘emptying’ Himself meant that He either wasn’t divine or that he was divine, but never used that divinity here on earth. That’s not at all what Paul is saying. Jesus emptied Himself by taking on flesh. He isn’t any less God. It was subtraction by addition. He is God and always was. It wasn’t like there were two members of the Trinity and then 2000 years ago, Jesus came on the scene to completed the band. He was, is, and always will be God. And he emptied himself by taking on flesh…by becoming a man. He added to himself a human nature that was empty of divinity.

Imagine entering into the worst, most lowly company of people you can imagine. Imagine living in a house full of drug dealers, thieves, rapists; people who have absolutely no moral foundation at all? What would this do to your soul? Oftentimes, undercover officers will require extensive counseling after living in these kinds of environments for prolonged periods of time. This is what Jesus did in coming here, only 10,000 times as much when you consider where He came from. That’s closer to what Paul means by emptying Himself.

Not only did Jesus leave comforts, He took on humiliation. He was called an illegitimate child of some unknown father. His life was nothing but looking to our interests and all He got from us in return was complete abandonment. And because he served us by coming here, we have a God who understands our plight better even than we do ourselves. Jesus looked to our interests by coming here, but secondly, he looked to our interests by dying for us.  he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. - Phil 2:8b

He didn’t come here only to relate to us, He came here to switch places with us. Our selfish natural inclination is what the Bible calls sin. And it’s not something that we catch passively, like catching a cold. It’s something that we are a part of. We are born in rebellion to God. And that sin requires eternal death and punishment. When I talk with non-Christians, this is where I lose them a bit. Sure, they know they are flawed and need some forgiveness, but flawed to the point of eternal punishment?

The penalty of our sin has less to do with the degree of our sin and everything to do with who it is that we are sinning against. And we see this very clearly in our own laws. I know I’ve used this illustration a few times, but I can’t think of a better one. If you come up here and hit me, you may get arrested, but you’ll be home for dinner. If you do the same thing to Governor DeSantis, what happens? You’re in prison. You do the same thing to the president of the United States, what happens? You may never see the light of day again. The same offense, but as the person offended becomes more important, so does the degree of punishment. So, what logically happens when the person offended is the Holy God of the Universe? If that God is truly holy and just, the penalty is eternal.

But our God is just and loving. So, He sent a substitute. Someone without sin to take on the penalty of God’s wrath. Jesus put us first by becoming our substitute on the cross. By dying for us. He looked to our interests by coming here and He looked to our interests by dying. And in Jesus we see that God has a different economy. He has a different story. What was the result of Jesus looking to our interests? His exaltation. Look at verses 9-11: 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:9-11

This is why Paul began this passage by saying So if there is any encouragement in Christ, (So, if the gospel is true. If Jesus has looked to our interests more than we could ever really know) (If there is) any comfort from flove, anyg participation in the Spirit, any haffection and sympathy, (if you are the recipients of this and lavishly so..) 2 icomplete my joy by being jof the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. - Phil 2:1,2

This is why this is not moralism. Looking to each others’ interests isn’t something we have to do to be a good person. It isn’t something we need to do to be saved. It’s what saved us! So, why did Paul say ‘complete my joy’? He could have easily written this passage without those three words. Because he is modeling how we show the worth of the gospel: Joy in gospel unity. That’s the gospel worthy life.

But, it’s not just that Christ did it for you so we should do it for each other. Remember from last week that the pattern of Christ is now the pattern for all of us who put our faith in Him. Because we are His by His grace and sacrifice, we live in a new spiritual story where we humble ourselves, we count others more significant than ourselves, we look to the interests of others and not just ourselves…and through our humility, the church is exalted. We die to our selfish desires and ambitions and the Holy Spirit exalts us by creating resurrection after resurrection in our hearts. We grow in love, joy, satisfaction, and unity. It’s not just that we are living under a different set of principles, or with a different example, it’s that we are now living in a different story.

I think Paul is doing something else very intentionally here. He’s changing the way Christians understand blessing which is different than Old Testament Jews. Blessings to Jews meant physical promises of blessing. If you obey, it will go well with you in the land. Your crops will flourish, your wives will bear children, your enemies will respect you and not fight you. This is how it worked in the Old Covenant.

But, in the New Covenant, it doesn’t work that way. As God’s people we aren’t ‘in the land’ anymore. Now, we are ‘in Christ.’ The basis of our obedience isn’t ‘if you obey it will go well with you in the land,’ like it was in Deuteronomy 4 and 5. Now, in Philippians, it’s ‘if there is any encouragement in Christ.’ And the blessing you receive isn’t external and physical, it’s internal and spiritual. It’s more about your relationship with God than what you and God can do for each other. It’s a relationship, not a transaction. If we are in Christ by humbly admitting that we are sinful and acknowledging that only He can save us, we are exalted with Him regardless of our external circumstances.

And so for Christians - those in Christ, external prosperity is no longer a marker of covenant blessings, and better yet, external suffering is no longer an indication of covenant curses either. Because Christ took the punishment for us, there can be no further punishment. Natural consequences for foolishness, sure. But no more punishment.

So Paul is saying, “Now, when you experience trials and sufferings and opposition in this life, it doesn’t mean God is mad at you. It means you’re sharing in the story and suffering of Christ. Do you see how different that narrative is? Now when you look at the really hard and painful things in your life, and you’re tempted to ask, “Who sinned, Lord, was it me or my father?” Like the disciples did in John 9 when they saw a blind beggar, you can preach the gospel to yourself like Jesus did to them and say, “Neither - this is happening so that the works of God might be displayed in me.” My life isn’t hard because God is mad at me, my life is hard because I’m living the story of Christ - because I’m in Christ, and that actually means that my suffering is an evidence of God’s love for me. Because I am united to the Son he loves, and with whom he is well pleased.

This is why Paul can be in prison for his faith and say in verse 17, “If I’m poured out like a drink offering for the sake of you and your faith, then I will rejoice! Because it means I’m living the story of Jesus.” This glory is something we see, however faintly, now, but something that everyone will see clearly one day. Believer and unbeliever alike. Paul says that one day, every knee will bow. Some will bow in reverence and some in fear. Every tongue will confess. Some will confess in awe and some in terror. But, this reality will be made clear to all one day. Those of us who will bow in reverence and confess in awe on that day, have access now to a unity that is not fickle or fragile and a unity which transcends culture, race, ethnicity, and social status. There is no unity that can reach farther or deeper.

So, we live now with the knowledge of that day. We serve the interests of others knowing Jesus has served us by saving us. We count others as greater than ourselves because this brings joy to our hearts and unity to the church. And when we do this, something amazing happens. But, you’ll have to come back next week to hear:)

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