A Formula for Church Unity

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You know, we tend to bond with people over things that we have in common. You know, stuff that we discover we’re both into, we both have an interest in. I bonded with Christy pretty early over genealogy.

I came into the office one day talking about something I discovered. Not that I have all that much free time to get into my genealogy stuff, but found something cool and came in talking about it. well, next thing I know, an hour is gone because Christy and I sat down and compared notes.

There are some of you that I’m able to sit down and talk with about hunting and fishing and how bad I am at it, but you may be just as bad as I am, and so we bond over that. There are some of you that I’ve bonded with over history, or some of us just sit around and talk restaurants. It was on the way to that apologetics, or at that apologetics conference, Rodney and I were talking about, he said, do you know so-and-so?

And Kaylee said, is this what preachers do when they get together? They just talk about, do you know this guy from this church? I said, no, mostly we talk about stuff we’ve eaten and stuff we’ve shot.

So, you know, mostly it’s restaurant talk. But, you know, we all have different things that we bond over. Some of you I can talk about working on cars.

You know, we all have things. But those things don’t necessarily bring us unity. I can go meet some random person off the street, and we can get into a conversation about car engines, not that I know that much.

Or we can get into a conversation about you name it. And we might have that in common, but it doesn’t bring. .

. It’s not unity. Unity goes deeper than just we have a few things in common.

In contrast, I’ve been able to go places I’ve never been before and met people that just instantly became like family. It was like I’d known them my entire life. I’ve gone to the mountains of Mexico and met people for the first time and there was an instant bond a language barrier but an instant bond I’ve gone to remote villages in Quebec where there was something of a language barrier because although I speak French they have an accent although they would say I have an accent and we’re both right a little bit of a language barrier that met people there was an instant deep bond with.

Met people from up north. There was a definite language barrier, right? That’s a joke.

Because they would say the same thing about me. Definite language barrier, but instantly there was a bond. And the basis for that bond was Jesus Christ. It was something that went deeper than just what we had an interest in.

He’s the basis of our unity. There’s something about our relationship with Jesus Christ that as it pulls us closer to Him, it pulls us closer together, or it should. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Now far too often that’s not the way we let it work. And I think the world sees that and rightly calls us out on it when it’s the case. But in the last message I brought to you on Philippians last week, I shared with you at the end of it how Paul mentioned the importance of church unity.

And when he did that, he was setting the stage for where he’s going to go in chapter 2 that we’re going to look at this morning. We come to chapter 2 and he elaborates on what unity means and where it comes from. It’s not just that we have a few things in common, and it’s also not that we agree on everything like we’re in some brainwashed cult.

It’s more the way we are just drawn together by what unites us. And we’re going to look at that this morning. And by the way, if you’re a guest here, I am not preaching on church because this church is fighting with each other.

All right? If anybody in this church is fighting, I don’t know about it. Which would be unusual for a Baptist church because news gets around quickly, right?

So I’m not preaching on unity because there’s a problem here. Again, if you’re visiting, I want you to understand that. I’m preaching on unity because we’re going through the book of Philippians, because I’ve preached some pretty hard message series on theology and cultural issues the last few months.

And with things going on that different people are dealing with, I felt like we needed something encouraging from God’s Word. And Philippians is the most encouraging book I know. So that’s why we’re here.

And it just so happens that chapter 2 is about unity. Now, again, we’re going to be in chapter 2. If you would turn with me in your Bibles to chapter 2, verse 1.

Once you find it, if you’d stand with me. Now, I don’t want to throw anybody off. I’m reading from a different translation this morning because I tend to get bogged down in the details of why did they translate this word this way?

How do I explain this? How is this different? And I thought, I’m going to spend all morning explaining the meanings of these words.

And so this morning I’m going to read from the New American Standard Bible because I felt like it just made it understandable. So if that’s hard for you to follow along with in your Bible, I also have it on the screen up here. Philippians chapter 2, starting in verse 1.

It says, but also for the interests of others. And you may be seated. So unity is something that we mention from time to time.

It’s something that we talk about in church. It’s something that we hope to have. But we don’t always recognize the importance of unity in the church until it’s missing.

If you’ve ever been. . .

You know, we don’t have to limit it to the church. If you’ve ever been in a group of people that were just fighting and bickering, Maybe it was church. Maybe it was within your family, your extended family.

Maybe just turning on the news at night and you see people constantly bickering. We understand how irritating that can be after a while. How it just grates on us.

Because we’re not created to live in that world. Do you realize when God created us, He created us for perfect harmony with Him and everything else around us in the Garden of Eden. The fighting and disunity is not what we were created for.

And so after a while, it’s going to grate on most of us. Now there is a certain segment of the population that just enjoys stirring the pot. I will never understand that.

They’re going to have to deal with the Lord about that. But God created us for unity. And we recognize how important unity is when we are in those circumstances where there is the bickering and the fighting and the arguing and just the contentiousness.

You’re walking on eggshells. And then when we step out of that and there is peace, we recognize how much we missed that all along. And so if all you know is everybody getting along, if all we’ve experienced for a long time is everybody being nice to each other and basically getting along, we forget just how important that is.

And so Paul tells the church at Philippi here that unity is vitally important, and it’s vitally important because it brings joy to God’s people. And Paul tells us what unity looks like in the church. We start in verse 2 here where he tells them that part of unity as being of the same mind.

Now, this does not mean that we think alike on every matter or that we have to. It’s more like being on the same page and headed in the same direction. In this congregation, I know that we do not all agree on every issue.

First of all, it’s statistically impossible that this many people would agree on everything. My wife and I do not agree on every issue. I am not going to invite her up to tell you what some of those issues are.

But we don’t agree on everything, and yet we still agree on the things that matter, and we’re headed the same direction. I’ve been in enough discussions here to know sometimes we have different ideas about how we ought to handle this ministry, how we ought to handle this question. We don’t have to all think alike.

God did not create us to be a cult where we walk in here and switch off our brains and stop thinking for ourselves. Even on doctrinal issues, we may from time to time have areas of disagreement on things that are less important. For instance, some of us may have different understandings of what Scripture teaches about how the end times are going to play out.

You know what? That issue, if we can agree that Jesus is coming back and that He’s going to judge the world and that He’s going to take His people to be with Him, if we can agree on those basic facts, the rest of it is just kind of details that we can discuss, But we don’t have to fight about. We can still be unified because we’re on the same page, we’re looking for the same thing, and we’re working toward the same goal. That’s where we find this unity.

When he says being of the same mind, again, it does not mean that one person thinks for all of us. I know I’ve told you this before, but it’s one of the things that has stuck with me since I was a child. Our pastor used to tell us that if two people are in a relationship and they are both exactly alike, one of them is unnecessary.

And it’s the same thing in the church. If we are all exactly alike, some of us are unnecessary. But the Bible talks about how there’s a diversity of gifts.

God’s created us different so that we can work together and all the ministry gets done. But we do need to be working in the same direction. And he explains what that means, what it looks like.

He says in verse 2 that we should be maintaining the same love. And so he called the church at Philippi to be united in how they love, in how they love each other, and in what they love most, which would be Jesus. That everything about their love should be united.

And if we can be in that place where we love one another sacrificially, where we love Jesus more than we love ourselves, if we can get to that place and we can stay in that place, that takes care of a lot of problems that crop up in churches. Now, what I’m not telling you is the excuse I hear from time to time. that no other issues matter as long as we just love Jesus.

Doctrine doesn’t matter. What we teach doesn’t matter as long as we love Jesus. There is the doctrinal question of which Jesus are we talking about.

Are we talking about the Jesus of the Bible, who was the only begotten Son of God, born to a virgin who lived a perfect sinless life, died on the cross as the one and only sacrifice for our sins and rose again three days later to prove it? Or are we talking about the Jesus of Islam, who was a created being, who was a prophet but was not the Son of God? Are we talking about the Jesus of Mormonism, who was one of many sons of God?

Are we talking about the Jehovah’s Witness? We could go on and on. There are some basic things that we need to agree on.

But within those parameters, if we can love the way that this calls us to, and we can love Jesus more than we love ourselves, if we’re driven by love, including a love for truth, then it takes care of a lot of these problems. He tells them in verse 2 to be united in spirit. This carries with it the idea of sharing sentiments, basically that they value the same things. I told you a minute ago, my wife and I do not agree on everything.

Sometimes we have disagreements when it comes to parenting style, fair to say, because I think it’s backwards from a lot of relationships. She tends to be very law-oriented, and I tend to be very grace-oriented. I’ve said before that there’s a reason God put us together, because if we were both like her, the kids would grow up in East Germany, and if we were both like me, the kids would grow up in the Wild West. So God put us together so that it works, so we can pull each other back into balance.

But here’s why it works, because we both value the same things. We may occasionally have, and I don’t mean to make it sound like we’re just fighting all the time about how this works. We can sit down and talk calmly about it, but usually I’m saying, well, maybe they didn’t mean it.

I will show you 47 reasons why I know they meant it. Here’s why it works, because we value the same things. At the end of the day, even if we have different perspectives on how to get there, our goal is to raise children who love Jesus.

Are we perfect in how we get there? No. Come hang out at our house sometime.

Kids running all over the place. Half the time, Charlie doesn’t have pants on. Sometimes we yell at the kids.

Sometimes they get mouthy. You know, we’re not perfect, but we value the same thing. We’re both committed to raising a family of children who love Jesus.

And that unity in the Spirit sort of makes it work, sort of brings things back into line. And it should be the same thing in the church. You know, we all have different callings.

We all have different ministries. There are things that God has wired me to be passionate about that some of you, it’s not that you don’t care, but you might say, I really don’t have time to mess with that. There are things that some of you are passionate about, that God has put that in your heart, and you think, I don’t know why the pastor won’t get more behind this.

It’s not that I don’t care, God just hasn’t wired me in that direction. But you know what? You may work in this ministry, and I may work in this ministry, and somebody else may work in this ministry, but if we have come together with the purpose of we want this to be a church that loves Jesus Christ and loves people as a result of our love for Jesus Christ, if we value that, if we value the truth and the authority and the sufficiency of God’s Word, if we value sharing the Gospel, if we have some of these same values in common, then it takes care of a lot of little disagreements.

Because we realize it’s not one thing competing against another. It’s not one group of people competing against another. It’s each of us doing the separate things that God has called us to do, but working in the same direction so that it all gets done.

And this leads into what he says here in verse 2 about being intent on one purpose. That means they share a goal in common. Because they value the same things, they have a goal in common, even if they have different thoughts about how to get there.

As a church, there are a lot of things that we could set up as goals. There are a lot of things that churches do set up as goals. Some of them are not good.

Some of them are good, but they’re not what’s best. Our main goal, our main goal should be to bring glory to Jesus Christ by making disciples. Everything we do, because that’s what He told us to do, right? Right before Jesus left to go back up to heaven, His parting words, Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.

That word literally means make disciples of all nations. Teaching them to observe all that I’ve commanded you. Those were His parting words.

I’d say that’s pretty important. Our job, our goal should be to make disciples, then everything we do should feed into that. And if that’s our goal in everything we do, not running around with 15 goals and saying everything contributes to that one goal, then it brings us to a place of unity.

And I hope what you’re seeing here is that we don’t have to go to one extreme of fighting constantly, but we don’t have to go to another extreme. What was that movie? The Stepford Wives?

We don’t have to be Stepford-y if you’ve seen that movie. We don’t have to all be like robots doing the same thing. Unity is really a balance in the middle here that says God has made each of us different, and He’s wired us differently, and He’s gifted us differently for ministry.

He’s given us different callings, but the goal and the purpose and who we work for, who we serve and who we love, that’s all the same and drives us forward. And Paul said when they did this, when they got to this place of unity, he said they would make my joy complete. It brings joy to God’s people when we’re able to work together in unity.

I’m not going to ask a show of hands but I just want you to answer this within your own mind who wants to go to a church where we’re fighting all the time if your answer in your mind is gee that sounds like fun I’ve got some people I could introduce you to and y’all could get together and have a wonderful time most of us don’t want to do that I’ve got some numbers in my phone I could give you go call them and have a wonderful time most of us don’t want to do that we’d much rather walk in and we love each other and we’re working in the same direction and we encourage one another. When somebody stumbles, we pray for them. When somebody’s grieving, we lift them up.

We encourage them. When somebody’s running well, we challenge them to keep going. We’d much rather be in a place like that.

It brings joy to God’s people. And Paul said, it’s going to bring joy to me. Don’t forget chapter one, he’s in prison.

And Paul doesn’t know from day to day, is this day going to end with me still in prison? With me being released from or me being executed right here at the prison. Literally had no idea which it was going to be from day to day.

And yet in that circumstance, he was able to look at the Philippians and say, if you all will just work in unity, then I’m full of joy despite my circumstances. Unity is pretty powerful. And I believe it also brings joy to God, not just God’s people.

The Old Testament says how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity. We’ve got to understand that unity is based on the gospel. It’s not just based on how we feel about each other.

It’s not just based on what we have in common. It arises from us being pulled together from within instead of being pushed together. It’s not conformity.

It’s not like, okay, we’re going to make a law that everybody has to dress the same way and think the same way and act the same way. You know, we can, societies will do that sometimes. I was watching a documentary the other day.

they were talking about in North Korea, how many government-approved hairstyles there are for men and women. From the outside, they’re going to make everybody look and act the same way. That’s not unity, that’s conformity.

Unity says we’re being drawn together from the inside. I like the example that John MacArthur gave in one of his messages. He said, if you took a sack and you put a bunch of marbles in the sack.

You can hold the marbles together. You can keep them together because there’s the pressure of the sack from the outside holding the marbles together. But as soon as you cut a hole in that sack, the marbles just go everywhere.

They make a huge mess. Because it was uniformity. It was being held together by external pressure that held them together.

It wasn’t unity. He said unity is more like dropping a magnet and a bunch of iron shavings into a sack. Because the power, the attractive power of that magnet pulls the metal shavings together toward the magnet so that whether you have the sack or not, the shavings are still going to stick together because it comes from within.

And that’s the picture the Bible presents of unity. If we go back to verse 1, we see where Paul ties our unity to the things that are given to Christians. There’s a bunch of lists in this passage that we need to understand.

This list in verse 1 is talking about some of the things has given to Christians that contribute to our unity. Now he says, if there is, and it might make it sound like maybe there is, maybe there’s not, but the way it’s set up in Greek, it’s more like saying since there is or because there is all of these things. And so what he’s saying is that the unity in verse 2 is based on what God has provided to believers in verse 1.

He’s not saying maybe those things are there, maybe they’re not. He’s saying since they are there, then you get to verse two and there’s unity. So what are these things in verse one?

Some of these things that he’s provided to us. There’s encouragement in Christ. There’s consolation of love. There’s fellowship of the spirit.

There’s affection and compassion. Now this encouragement in Christ, we do experience a degree of encouragement from our relationship with Jesus. There have been moments of incredible trial and tremendous sorrow in my life that I would not have gotten through.

That I would not if I did not have the ability to cry out to Jesus and know that He heard me and know that He was there because I experienced it and because God’s Word tells me so. There’s encouragement in Christ and because of Christ, we have this consolation of love. As Christians, we are comforted by His unfailing love.

It is comforting to know that no matter how much I fall short, and I will, it’s not just a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. When I fall short, His love never falls short. And He still is there with open arms. Not because I deserve it, but because He’s loving.

We have the fellowship of the Spirit. That means that because of Jesus Christ, you and I have 24-7 access to the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit.

I don’t understand the mechanics of how this works, but I understand God’s Word teaches it that at the moment we trust Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit of God comes to live inside of us. Maybe not in a physical way, but He comes to take up residence inside of us. And He’s there.

And it’s not that you have to work harder and be a super Christian to get it. At the moment you trust Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside you and He’s as much there as He’s ever going to be. And at any given moment, we have access to God’s Holy Spirit.

He’s there guiding us. He’s there leading us. He’s there equipping us with gifts for service.

we have this incredible fellowship with the Holy Spirit of God. And because of the Holy Spirit’s presence, it talks about this affection and compassion as Christians. The Spirit’s presence assures us of God’s loving attention and compassion toward us.

God notices us. Have you ever felt like God forgot you or didn’t notice you? I’ve been there.

As a believer, I know that’s not true. I know that’s not what God’s Word says, but I’ve felt it. Again, your feelings will lie to you.

The Holy Spirit is a constant reminder. God has not forgotten you because He’s left you His Spirit. The Apostle Paul calls it the earnest or the down payment.

He calls the Holy Spirit the seal that’s put on us as believers. And the Spirit is a reminder that God notices us and He loves us. It’s not just notice like, I noticed what you did wrong.

He notices us. He loves us. He has compassion toward us.

God has given us all of those things. We have them not because we’re special, not because we’ve earned it. Sometimes the world thinks we as Christians think we’re just better than everybody else.

We’re not. And we know we’re not. Sometimes we act like it and we shouldn’t, but we know we’re not.

We don’t have these things because we’re special or because we earned them. We have them because Jesus provided them for us. We have them because Jesus did all the work that was necessary for us to have them.

And so these are gifts. They’re gifts that accompany the gospel. When the gospel of Jesus Christ works in our hearts, when He changes us, He works in our hearts and minds to bring us closer to Him and to make us more like Him.

Now the result is, if you’re growing closer to Jesus Christ and you’re becoming more like Jesus Christ, and the person sitting next to you is growing closer to Jesus Christ and is becoming more like Jesus Christ, we’re not going to be able to help but grow closer together, right? We’re moving in the same direction. I don’t have time, but if I did, I’d have a visual aid right here and have a few of you come up and move from various parts of the room and move closer to the podium here.

As you move closer to the podium, you’re going to be walking closer together. Folks, it’s the same thing with Jesus Christ. The closer we grow to Him, the more we become like Him, the more it’s going to bring unity to us. The unity that He talks about in verse 2 is based on all the gifts He’s given us in verse 1.

His love, His compassion, His grace, the presence of the Holy Spirit, these things draw us closer to Him and they draw us closer to each other. So unity comes from the gospel, but unity has to be maintained through humility. And I’ve written down in my notes, the gospel produces unity in the church, humility maintains it.

It’s not that we earn any of this. Again, it’s there because of the gospel. But I have known people who were saved who could act like jerks and drive a wedge between them and others in the church.

Can I say it this way? I have been a person who has been saved and can act like a jerk and drive a wedge between me and somebody else in the church. The gospel calls us to humility.

If you’re not familiar with this term gospel I keep using, it’s the fact that Jesus died to save sinners. He rose again three days later to prove it, and He offers forgiveness as a free gift because He’s paid for our sins. The message of Christianity is not be a good person.

The message of Christianity is admit that you’re not and trust Jesus to forgive you. So there’s really no room for boasting or pride in Christianity. It’s a humbling thing to have to admit I’ve sinned and fallen short of a holy God.

It’s humbling to have to admit on a regular basis I’m not as good as I think I am. and I’m not as important as I think I am. And it’s humbling to realize that God loves me anyway, and that Jesus died for me anyway.

And so Paul tells them that they need to adopt the right posture, this humility that’s consistent with the gospel, and is going to maintain the unity that they have because of the gospel. Here are the things that he tells them to do. He tells them, don’t elevate yourself.

Don’t build yourself up. Verse 3 says, do nothing from selfish or empty conceit. This word selfishness means contentiousness.

Have you ever met somebody that’s just cranky? Don’t anybody look around the room. No fingers pointing.

We’ve all met people that are just cranky. They’re just itching for a fight, it seems like. And the sad thing is I’ve met a lot of those people in church.

Not here so far. Well, I can be that way sometimes. I’m sure we all can be it sometimes.

But there are some people that that’s just the way they wake up every morning. Paul says, don’t be that way. Don’t be contentious.

Don’t be looking for a fight. Don’t make everybody around you have to walk on eggshells. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.

That word empty conceit means a desire to glorify yourself. It’s easy to fall into the trap of saying, if I just did this, it’d make me look really good. Everybody would see how special I was if I did this.

Paul says, don’t do that. That is the wrong way to maintain unity in the church, is to start acting that way. Instead, he tells us to elevate others, to build others up.

He says in verse 3, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. This humility of mind, it’s a modesty in the way that we think of ourselves. It’s not, he’s not telling us that we have to walk around and just say, I’m dirt, I’m trash, woe is me.

He’s just telling us to recognize ourselves for who we really are. We’re sinners, we’re fallen creatures who don’t deserve God’s love, and yet we’re created in the image of God and He loves us anyway. You see where there’s a balance there where that ought to bring us where we’re not just rolling around in the dirt thinking we’re worthless, but at the same time we understand that it’s all because of God’s grace that we’re not worthless.

So he tells us to do things with humility of mind, seeing ourselves the way we really are. And he tells us to regard one another as more important than ourselves. And this idea of regarding is like an official decree.

It’s like a decree that a king would make. Declare them more important. And what I take away from that is that we’re supposed to treat them as more important whether they deserve it or not.

Because this is the way God works with us. As believers in Jesus Christ, He declares us righteous. He says that we’re forgiven.

We’re innocent. Are we actually innocent in our behavior? No.

But because Jesus paid for our crimes, God looks at us and decrees that as far as His law is concerned, we’re righteous whether we deserve it or not. And we’re basically being called to do that with other people. Treat others as more important whether they deserve it or not.

That little tidbit is really uncomfortable because it’s easy to say, oh, regard others as more important because I can carve out a whole list of exceptions to that. For all kinds of people who’ve done me wrong or aren’t living right, I can carve out all kinds of exceptions. But no, he says, decree it.

That to me, if we look at the way God decrees our righteousness, that’s telling us you treat them that way whether they deserve it or not. You just act like they are. And then he tells us in verse 4, bear one another’s burdens.

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. I don’t think that one needs a lot of explanation. When you see a brother struggling or stumbling, you don’t turn the other way.

You don’t ignore it. You do something about it. You take care of what they’re dealing with as if it’s as important, if not more so, than what you’re dealing with.

We are supposed to take care of each other. See, the gospel is humbling. I know I’ve already said this, but it bears repeating.

We are sinners, and we’ve been saved by the undeserved kindness of God. And to receive that, we have to acknowledge our hopeless condition. We have to acknowledge the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into and our need for Jesus Christ. And that’s really not compatible with our pride.

And so the gospel calls us to humility, not just to receive it, but to live it out. And when you and I embrace humility, we’re acting in a way that’s consistent with the gospel, and it’s going to eliminate a lot of the friction that arises in churches, in families, anywhere else. A lot of the friction that arises from our self-centered pride.

Because God wants