God's Word comes to us this evening from the epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians, the second chapter. Our text will be Philippians 2, verses 1 through 4, but I'm going to read through verse 11. Philippians chapter 2, beginning to read God's Word at verse 1. 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 rivalry or conceit, but in humility count But 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, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing. 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. This is God's word. May his spirit who breathed it out through his apostle inscribe it into our hearts and minds this evening. Let us pray. Father, we ask again that we might hear the voice of our good shepherd speaking from his word this evening. We know that our shepherd cares deeply for the unity of his flock and we hear it here on the heart of his apostle. And so we pray that you might grant to us the humility of Jesus in response to his grace toward us. That our unity might be evident to all who know this congregation. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I selected this text for this evening for one very simple reason. When I was with you in January, we looked at the earlier text, so it's the next passage. As it turns out, it's very timely because Philippians 2 verses 1 through 4 is all about unity. And you are facing an opportunity, but also a challenge, in the opportunity to consider calling a new pastor very soon, a pastor to come and shepherd you. Having lived through that a few times, I know that's a time of great excitement, but also can be a time when unity is tested. And so God in his good providence has planned for us to hear about unity this evening. Those first four verses are not exciting in some respects. There are a lot of mountaintops in Paul's letter to the Philippians. Back in January, we looked at, to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And in the text that I read through, the next passage, you have that amazingly majestic description of the pre-incarnate deity of Jesus, the Son of God. His humiliation, his self-humbling, his death on the cross, And then his exaltation, so that every tongue will confess that he is Lord. By contrast, this seems like the flatlands. I know some of you have traveled up the Golden State Freeway, across five, over the Tohono Pass and the Grapevine, and down into that southern tip of the San Joaquin Valley, Baker's Field, and we know why it's called Baker's Field, right? It's hot, it's flat. Off to the left, as you drive north, you know that the coastal range is there somewhere with some green forests. Off to the right on the east, you know that there are the crags of the maybe still snow-capped Sierra Nevadas. But straight ahead of you, lots and lots of lanes of asphalt going through acres and acres of flat farmland. Now, we're grateful for that farmland. I know some of you have dear friends and family who are bringing the wealth that the Lord has given to that part of the country to us because that's a wonderful farming area. But, you know, frankly, it's not a scenic drive. I just have to say that. It may be to you, but to many people it's not. And this text may feel like the flatlands between two mountain peaks. Let me assure you that the mountain peaks themselves deal with flatland. They deal with hardcore, ugly reality. Why does Paul write to me to live as Christ and to die as gain? Because he's in Roman chains waiting for Caesar to pass down a verdict whether he will live or die. And as he goes on in this next passage, remember he talks not just about Jesus' self-humbling to obedience, but to death on a cross, a word that struck horror in the minds and the hearts of anyone who knew the Roman Empire. Paul places this exhortation to unity, this exhortation to care about one another, to not be selfish, to not be competitive, to think about others' needs before yourself. Mundane stuff. But he places it between his chains and Christ's cross because it's only as we see those great majestic peaks that we can see the reason, the real deep reason for us to love one another humbly, to have and exhibit more and more the mind that is ours in Christ Jesus, as Paul says in chapter 2, verse 5, immediately after our text. The Philippians are going through hard times. They're not on the mountain peak. They're down in the valley. In fact, let's make it even worse. They're down in the L.A. Valley with all the smog. They have opponents from outside. We saw that several months ago. And there's some friction from within. Paul urges them to have one mind. And he does it again. He does it in chapter 127 to stand firm in one spirit. But then he goes on in our text to say it again. One mind, one heart, one soul. He doesn't waste papyrus on things that don't need to be said. There's some issue in the church at Philippi. He loves his church deeply. But there's something about what's going on among them. Maybe it's because of the pressure from outside that they're beginning to get on each other's nerves a bit. And we know that he's going to have to address a couple of dear sisters, Euodia and Syntyche, by name in chapter 4 and urge them to get along. We're not sure of all the problems, but he's addressing an issue. As he says here, I want you to make my joy complete by exhibiting unity. And the way you do that is by putting yourself last and others first. And the reason that you have to do that is because the triune God is committed to you. Now, Paul talks about really the reason, the motives up front in verse 1. Then he talks about the goal of unity in verse 2. And he talks about the means to get to the goal in verse 3. I'm going to reverse his order a little bit and I'm going to save the motives for the end. because by the time we hear the means that God calls us to, we're going to need to be reminded of the motive that he's given for us. So we're going to start with the goal. Start with the end point. One mind, one heart. Chapter 2, verses 1 through 4, you may not guess it from an English translation. In Greek, it's one continuous sentence. And it's a continuous sentence that has only one main verb in it. And the main verb is a command. It's in verse 2. It is complete my joy. Complete my joy. That's what dominates the whole thing. One command, make me happy, Paul says. Now that may strike you as a rather odd way to appeal if you're trying to appeal to people to be selfless. You need to think about others. Think about me, for instance. Make me happy. Complete my joy. But Paul's doing this very deliberately because, you see, he's learned a new way to look at joy. The joy that he longs to have completed is not a joy that is ultimately self-centered. It's a joy that is Christ-centered. We don't have time this evening to look at all the places where Paul mentions joy in this little epistle. It abounds with joy. But notice that at the beginning of chapter 4, he calls the Philippians his joy and his crown. My joy and my crown. Paul is not saying to them, I want you to be selfless. I want you not to think about what makes you happy because that will make me happy simply out of selfishness. In fact, it's because Christ has captured his heart that Paul's joy now is seeing Christ's purity and love formed in other believers. That's what he's looking for. He's selflessly calling his friends and us away from a selfish mindset of rivalry and conceit, as he says in verse 3. Paul knows that if you chase happiness for yourself, it will always run away. But if you are concerned for others, God's joy will sneak up on you from behind. So Paul says, complete my joy. My heart embraces yours. We can sort of paraphrase it this way. My heart is all about seeing Jesus glorified in you. And therefore, my joy depends on your unity. So it pains me to hear about some sort of tensions among you. He doesn't mention what they are, but he says it pains me because I know those tensions come from competition, from rivalry, from conceit. So even if it doesn't bother you that you're ignoring each other and wounding each other, if you care about me, and he knows they care about Paul, If you care about me, complete my joy by loving each other in a sacrificial way. That's a good perspective on what pastors and elders are looking for in a congregation. A congregation that loves the Lord enough to love each other, even when it's hard. You think about the fact that pastors lose sleep over friction in a congregation. They surely do. Elders do as well. Complete their joy. Be of one accord with one another. Paul defines what it means for the Philippians to complete his joy in the rest of verse 2. He says, the way you'll complete my joy is by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind. That may sound a little repetitive. It's deliberate. The first and the last of those focus on, as you could hear, the mind. on what we believe, common convictions, doctrinal agreement. The center ones focus on affection, on devotion, on loving each other. Both are important. Paul wants to see both of those in the church at Philippi. We need both. Some people say doctrine divides, service unites. Oh, we don't want to worry about doctrine because it just divides people up. That's not Paul's idea. Paul says when we have one mind, when we agree on the gospel, it pulls us together. And so he focuses on this theme of unity, consensus, common convictions. One mind, the same mind. But he says that's not all that I'm looking for. It's crucial that you come to see the gospel more and more clearly. That you grow, as Paul says to the Ephesians, that we grow toward unity in the faith and knowledge of the Son of God to the mature man. It's crucial that we know more and more of the word and that as we do, we become more like-minded. But Paul says there also needs to be attachment in affection. So right tucked between the one mind phrases, as you see, he has these two expressions, having the same love and being in full accord. That's the way our version renders it, being in full accord. It's hard to render it into English. It's a single Greek word that refers to souls in sync, S-Y-N-C, which is actually taken from the Greek. Souls in sync. You actually might call it be soulmates. I know that's cheapened in our culture, but that's what he's saying. Really, have your souls aligned with one another. Love, not just unity of conviction, but unity of affection. As Paul knows, those don't always go together. They're supposed to, but they don't always. In fact, sometimes the people that we agree most with, doctrinally, may be the people that get on our nerves a bit, personally. Paul says, I want to see it all. I want to see you growing in your unity and doctrine. And I also want to see your souls aligned with one another. That's what will give me joy. That's the goal. That's what I long for. So that's the goal. How do we get there? Well, that's what he unpacks in verses 3 and 4. He gives us a self-denying strategy to exalt others rather than ourselves. I'm tempted to say this is where Paul stops preaching and starts meddling because he really makes it concrete. We all agree unity is a beautiful thing in the abstract. We all want to be one. But now Paul says, now if that's actually going to happen, here's what needs to happen. You need to give up rivalry. You need to give up conceit. And instead you need to put on humility. And that's hard. That's hard. He starts with the negative. He starts with these two things that we are not to do. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit. Another version has selfish ambition or empty conceit. Either are good translations at that point. The first term, rivalry or selfish ambition, describes the desire to be personally preeminent, to have other people notice us, to get credit for all the other things that we have done, and therefore a competition that puts others down so that we can look to be better than we really are, maybe. Paul had used that particular term back in the first chapter when he was reporting on how things were going at Rome. You have a great memory. I'm sure you remember whatever it was back in January, those months ago. We looked at that term because Paul there talked about some in Rome, Christian preachers, preachers who were preaching the true gospel, but from all the wrong motives. They thought Paul is inhibited by his chains. We're going to make hay while Paul sits in prison and more people are going to be attracted to us. Paul says they're acting out of rivalry, selfish ambition. I'm sure the Philippians, when they heard that, were shocked because the Philippians loved Paul and they probably were a little angry at those people in Rome who are trying to make Paul look bad by puffing themselves up. Now Paul says to the Philippians, now you too. You too. No rivalry. No competition among you. It's not just about those people near me in Rome. It's about you too. There may be a danger of selfish ambition. And it prompts us to ask the question, why am I doing in serving God in my church, in my home, in my workplace? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Am I self-serving even as I'm allegedly serving others? Do I want to get the recognition? Do I want to get the appreciation that I think I deserve? Do I resent it when I do the hard work and other people get the credit? Paul says no rivalry, no selfish ambition, and no conceit, no empty glory. If you take that word apart in Greek and you can't always do this, but this time it actually works. Empty glory. It's good to love the glory of God and it's good to anticipate, as Paul says in Romans 5, that by his grace we can anticipate and await the glory of God to be shared even with us by mercy alone. But empty glory is a different thing. That's appearance without substance. That's a shell without a kernel. It's empty. It's hollow. So Paul says, none of that. None of that. Instead, humility. Lowly-mindedness. Humility, because we know the Bible, is a good thing. In the Roman world, this particular term, humility, was something that was scorned and was despised. It was a mindset of people that didn't have sufficient self-esteem. I think Americans could relate to that. People who didn't stand up for themselves enough, didn't push their own rights enough. One scholar talks about how the pagan authors of Paul's era used the term humility or lowly-mindedness as a term of derision, almost equivalent to weakness, lack of freedom, servility, subjection. Another scholar talks about it conveying ideas of being base, unfit, shabby, mean, of no account. And you might want slaves who had that attitude because then they'd do what you told them to if you were a slave owner. But no self-respecting Roman would ever want to be told to be lowly-minded, humble, not thinking about his own rights and reputation. And yet Paul calls us to lowly-mindedness, to humility. Paul knows from the ancient scriptures that God gives grace to the lowly-minded, to the humble. Proverbs 3.34 Paul has been captivated by the Lord Jesus Christ who himself described himself in Matthew's Gospel as lowly, lowly in heart. Matthew 11.29 Paul is about to say in that majestic description of the majesty of Christ and his humility, that Christ made himself low. He humbled himself to the point of death on the cross. That descent of the Lord of glory to the shame of the cross upended Paul's whole sense of values. Paul was no longer after the reputation of being the righteous law keeper now. Paul could face honestly the fact that he had failed to keep the law and persecuted the Lord's anointed. And his only hope was in the mercy of Christ. It upended the whole scale of values in the Roman Empire. It upends the whole scale of values that drives our culture too. Jesus, the great Lord, becomes lowly. So Paul is not embarrassed to call us to be lowly. When God's grace grasps us deeply, We begin to think more about others and less about ourselves. We begin to think more about others with the same innate, passionate intensity that we have often lavished on ourselves. We start feeling others' disappointments and pains and grief as intensively as we do our own. We put their needs before our own. How does it work its way out? How do we get that way? Not simply by gritting our teeth and saying, I've got to be humbler. I've got to work more at other people. If we do that, if we think it's got to be our own willpower to make ourselves humble, that's only going to breed further resentment against those whom we're called to love. Maybe even resentment toward God who demands such an unnatural reaction from us. What will make our hearts lonely? Lowly. What will make us humble? only to be overwhelmed with the wonder of the condescension of Christ for us. Overwhelmed with wonder that we've received such unnatural, supernatural, selfless love from the triune God who pours out his grace in encouragement and love and comfort and partnership and tender compassion. That's why Paul begins where he does. So we end where Paul begins. We come to the sovereign ally, the triune God, who has made an investment in our unity. Verse 1. Paul says, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from love, if any participation or fellowship, we might translate that, in the Spirit, if any affection and sympathy, complete my joy. Paul's building a case. It's like one of those legal documents that has whereas, whereas, whereas, whereas, whereas, therefore be it resolved. These are all the whereases. Paul is not wondering if there are these things. He's really saying since, since Christ encourages you, since you have comfort from love, since you share in and have fellowship with the Spirit, I'm assuming these things. This is what gives you the ground, the motive, the power to care more about others than you do about yourself, to respect others' opinions the way you so naturally respect your own, to honor others' agendas and put your own sometimes in the background. This is what gives you the strength to do it. The triune God is committed to your unity. Now, where's the triune God here? Well, we see the name of Christ and we see the name of the Holy Spirit. Is the Father referred to in this first verse as well? Not all scholars agree on this, but some who do, I'm persuaded by some who do see the Father, especially in this phrase, comfort of love. Comfort of love. I think we're led to expect that there might be a reference to God the Father simply by the fact that Christ is mentioned first and then the Holy Spirit is also mentioned here. So we have two of the three persons of the Trinity explained. That is, I think, confirmed when we look at a text to another church in which Paul is actually addressing the very same subject. It's the letter to the church in Ephesus, Ephesians chapter 4, from the same Roman imprisonment from which Paul wrote to the Philippians, making a strong appeal for Christian unity through humility, the very same issue that he's addressing here. And notice how Paul says at the beginning of Ephesians 4 as he's turning the corner from his doctrinal foundation to his application to the relationships in the church. He says, walk worthy of the calling which you have received with all humility. That's the word we find here as well. With all humility, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit. There is one hope that belongs to your call. There is one Lord, Jesus Christ, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. Paul is clearly marshalling the evidence that each member of the Trinity is committed to our unity. Each member of the Trinity. The Spirit has come among us to unite us as one body. Christ the Lord has given himself for us and it's that faith in his death that we confess and that is symbolized in our baptism. And over it all is the God and Father who ordained it all and sent the Son to redeem us and sent the Spirit to apply that redemption for us. So that's pretty good evidence, I think, that Paul thinks in Trinitarian terms when he calls us to unity. And there's one more piece of evidence. I realize it's Sunday evening, but you're alert. You're here. In 2 Corinthians chapter 13, in the benediction that we will close our worship with this evening, Paul pronounces grace upon God's people. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, referring to the Father, and the fellowship, participation, partnership of the Holy Spirit be with you all. You hear the three? Christ mentioned first, then the love of God the Father, And finally, the partnership, participation of the spirits. Virtually the same expression that we have here. Paul's thinking in terms of the three members of the Trinity. The whole Trinity is committed to our unity. The Father planned your redemption and sent his beloved Son to rescue you. This is what it cost. What Paul will describe in verses 5 through 11, The son who was in very nature God, did not stand on his rights as God, but instead made himself nothing, became obedient to the death of the cross by the father's purpose. The father did not withhold his own son, but graciously gave him up for us all. The son willingly took that mission, that lowly mission to rescue us, to die on the cross for us. And the Spirit gladly strengthened the Son for his work and gladly continues to apply the work of the Son, the success, the victorious mission of the Son to the hearts of everyone whose name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, all for the sake of making us one, all for the sake of preserving and furthering our unity, of conviction and affection through humility, through putting others above ourselves. And Paul adds on a couple more here at the end of verse 1. Affection and sympathy. These two come to us from God himself. Two words that Paul loves to use is used affection earlier in chapter 1. Affection is almost a gut-wrenching word because it speaks of that deep feeling of longing that we have for people that we love dearly. And Paul says in chapter 1, he says, I long for you, I yearn for you with the affections of Christ. This is not simply some aloof theory for Paul, but it's a deep commitment. And then he goes on to speak of mercies. Sympathy is the way our version renders it. Elsewhere he talks about God as the Father of mercies, 2 Corinthians 1, verse 3. Or he urges the Romans in Romans 12, verse 1 to respond to the mercies of God by presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. Christ's encouragement, God the Father's love, the Spirit's partnership with us are concrete expressions of the triune God's deep affection for us and the mercies that tie us to God's heart forever. It was costly. It was costly. But the triune God was willing to pay the price to make us his own. How then can we fail to respond to God's encouragement, comfort, love, companionship, affection, mercies? How can we fail to respond to all that God has given to us? We need to love one another deeply. How can we refuse to lay down selfish ambition and vain conceit, our hurt feelings maybe, or our competitive urges? Having received such love, We should beg our Savior to turn our hearts inside out. If our hearts have been turned in on ourselves, they need to be turned inside out, upward to God in thanksgiving and worship, outward to others, to be more concerned about them than for ourselves. What might that look like in practice? To count others more significant than yourself, as Paul says here at the end of verse 4. To put their concerns alongside or even ahead of our own. It might mean pausing in the midst of a busy day to offer a listening ear to somebody who needs a hearing and a word of encouragement and not glancing at our watch and not being restless that we're wasting our time but really being willing to see this is an opportunity to serve someone else. It might mean allowing other people to bask in the spotlight of admiration even though you know you actually did the bulk of the work, but being glad that others are appreciated. It might entail listening respectfully to another person's viewpoint, somebody who doesn't agree with you, instead of using the time when they're speaking to marshal your own arguments back, to really listen, to really listen. That's the kind of practical things that Paul has in mind here. It may mean that when full agreement on some issue seems out of reach and when there are not crucial biblical principles at stake so we could go a number of different ways in a way that would be pleasing to the Lord, it may mean at that moment that we have such others-focused empathy that we're willing to let their agenda take the day, take the field, defer to my brother's or sister's preference or conviction and to do it willingly, not grudgingly, not resentfully. This doesn't feel like dancing on the mountaintops. It feels like walking in the heat of the valley. But it is the path that Jesus walked to redeem us. And it is in walking this path that we bring joy, not just to Paul's heart or pastor's and elder's heart, but by God's grace we can bring joy to Jesus' heart. Even as Paul called the Philippians to fill up his own joy with their oneness of mind and heart through self-forgetting, others honoring humility. This is our calling. This is my prayer for you, my brothers and sisters. Let's pray together. Father, we ask you to turn our hearts inside out. As we're born children of Adam, we are so naturally curved in on ourselves, preoccupied with ourselves, our comfort, our reputation, our preferences. Only Jesus, the second Adam, can turn our hearts so that we look upward to you and outward to others. And we pray that you will do that more and more, that the oneness of both conviction and affection that binds your people together will be more and more evident as you give grace in hearts and lives to put aside rivalry, to put aside vain glory, empty glory, conceit, and to embrace the humility that has been honored so by our Lord Jesus when he humbled himself to the death of the cross for us as he now is exalted at your right hand. Give us grace, Father, to walk the path that our Savior has walked out of gratitude for his grace and in the strength of his spirit. And in thanks for your love, we pray in his name. Amen.