Frank Sinatra is probably one of the most well-known singers of the last century. He had numerous hit songs during his career, and even though many of us didn’t live through his peak years, we can probably sing a few lines of his songs. One of his best-loved songs is a song called “My Way.” Let me read some of the lyrics of that song, and as I do I want you to think about the attitude that this song expresses. The song starts like this: “And now, the end is near/ and so I’ll face the final curtain/ My friends, I’ll say it clear/ I’ll state my case of which I’m certain/ I’ve lived a life that’s full/ I’ve travelled each and every highway/ And more, much more than this/ I did it my way.” Then after a couple more stanzas, the song ends with these words: “For what is a man? What has he got?/ If not himself, then he has naught/ To say the things he truly feels/ And not the words of one who kneels/ The record shows I took the blows/ And did it my way.”
Now I don’t intend to psychoanalyze Frank Sinatra here, but this song seems to capture a spirit of individualism and self-determination that we really prize in our culture. We celebrate people who seem to live life by their own rules, people who seem to be able to handle anything that comes their way simply through self-reliance. We cheer on TV and movie heroes like The Lone Ranger, Rambo, Wonder Woman, James Bond, and Jack Bauer.
But did you ever stop to think that even The Lone Ranger had a sidekick? Even Batman had Robin; James Bond always had Q inventing new gadgets that allowed him to do his work. So even when we’re creating characters who are the epitome of the solitary hero, we still can’t get away from the reality that these heroes need other people in order to carry out their work.
So the old cliché is proven true once again: “No man is an island.” We can never get away from the fact that we need each other, and we need to work together with other people in order to accomplish anything in this world. This fact is not simply true in a church, but in fact the church was designed this way by God. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul likens the church to a human body, with the idea being that we all have different abilities and functions, but nevertheless we form one cohesive group that only works when it works together.
In our study of Philippians today, we are going to hear another call to unity from the apostle Paul. In last week’s passage, Paul urged the Philippian believers to stand together like teammates in light of the opposition that they were facing. Today, we are going to see Paul describing the basis for their unity and telling them how they can achieve it. I hope you’ll see clearly today that:
Humility based on our common experience with Christ is the blueprint for unity.
Would you turn with me please to Philippians 2:1–4? In these verses, Paul is going to make a personal appeal to the Philippians based on their mutual relationship with him and with the Lord Jesus Christ. The result is a passionate appeal for unity. Let’s see what he has to say [READ 2:1–4]
In these verses, Paul outlines for the Philippians the basis for their unity and the path that will get them there. Let’s take a look at those two things. First, the basis…
I. Our common experience as Christians is the basis for our unity (2:1–2)
In verses 1 and 2, we find a loaded “if-then” statement from the apostle Paul. The force of this statement is to show us that the logical conclusion from our common experience in Christ is to live in unity with each other. Unity has to be based on some kind of common ground, and Paul is going to remind us that we have all the common ground we need.
Paul begins by connecting this “if-then” statement back to what he had just written about their suffering. He states, “therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ.” The Philippians, you may remember, were facing some opposition from people outside the church, so they were in a situation where they could probably use some encouragement. Paul reminds them here that they can all find encouragement in Christ. Christ gave them all forgiveness and love and a reason to believe that one day things were going to be better, and they all had that encouragement in common.
Not only did they have that encouragement—they also had the consolation of love. Paul probably has in mind here the fullness of the Christian idea of love, that love is something we receive from God which enables us to share it with others. And he describes the product of that love as “consolation,” something that encourages us in the midst of an otherwise discouraging situation. It is something that lifts our spirits.
Then he continues on to write, “if there is any fellowship of the Spirit.” Again, he probably has the full idea of fellowship in mind here—that we all have fellowship with the Holy Spirit that serves as the basis for our fellowship with each other.
And then it seems that he appeals to their feelings for him. I think with this last phrase he is saying, “if you have any affection and compassion for me, then make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” So now his request comes in—he asks them to fill up his joy over them by being united with each other, and he describes that unity with several different phrases. First, he tells them to be of the same mind. Now I don’t think Paul is saying that they have to have exactly the same opinions about everything, because in Romans 14 he writes that Christians may legitimately have different convictions about certain things. Rather, he is calling them to have the same mindset or the same frame of mind toward each other, and he clarifies what that mindset is with the phrases that follow: it is a mindset that points us to love one another, to be like one in our spiritual lives, and to pursue the same purposes and goals in the body of Christ. This kind of mindset will serve to draw us together and keep us unified.
I believe we can think about this mindset in much the same way that a magnet works. I have a basic refrigerator magnet here; now you may remember how a magnet works from science class. It works basically like this: each atom that makes up the magnetic surface has a magnetic field around it. When you hold the magnet up in the air like this, the magnetic fields around the atoms all point their forces in different directions, but when you put the magnet close to a metal surface, all of those magnetic fields start to point in the same direction, which creates a force strong enough to make the magnet stick to the metal.
Now my point is this: if we can all cultivate a mindset toward each other that is pointed in a godly direction, then we’ll have a force that will pull us together—just like the magnet and the metal surface. But if you have a godly mindset toward me, and I have an ungodly mindset toward you, we won’t have that bond because we’ll be pulled in different directions.
And so to go back to Paul’s words here, if we can get our love for each other pointed in the same direction, and our spiritual lives pointed in the same direction, and our goals in the church headed in the same direction, then we will stand together with the same mindset. We will have that unity that he calls us to have.
And then, in the next couple of verses, Paul gives us what really appears to be the roadmap to finding this kind of mindset…
II. Thinking correctly about ourselves and others is the path to unity (2:3–4)
In the next two verses, Paul is going to tell us how to correct our mindset. First he tells us what to avoid—“Do nothing from selfishness (and we know that means to think only about yourself) or empty conceit.” The King James Version uses the word “vainglory” there, which is really a great description—this is an attitude where you’re trying to bring glory to yourself, but in reality you’re just being downright vain. You’re trying to heap praise on yourself that you really don’t deserve.
I imagine its pretty clear why those attitudes would be disruptive to our unity in the church—they would lead us to focus on ourselves. But Paul gives us the antidote in the next statement: “but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.” Notice how Paul focuses on the mind in this passage—in v. 2 he calls us to “be of the same mind,” and now he calls us to “humility of mind.” I think he’s really emphasizing our thoughts here because the way that we think about each other makes a huge difference in the way that we act toward each other.
I don’t think we often do a great job of policing the way that we think about other people. It’s so easy to let our minds run wild with derogatory thoughts about others because we excuse ourselves by saying, “Well, I’d never actually say those things to so-and-so. I’d never tell them how I really think about them.” Well, maybe not, but we have to realize that even though we may not act out in hurtful ways against someone, our thoughts about them may keep us from acting in helpful ways toward them. We may not actually tear them down, but we probably won’t find ourselves building them up either.
The way that we act toward other people is a battle that is won or lost in the mind. It is a battle that is waged long before our mouths start to speak, or before our hands and feet start to move. To change our actions we must change our thoughts, and that’s why Paul calls us to have “humility of mind.”
Now we need to make sure that we have the right idea about what humility means, because its easy to have wrong ideas about it. We often associate humility with tearing ourselves down or belittling ourselves. Think of it like this: suppose that I entered a contest and I won the opportunity to play a game of one-on-one against Michael Jordan. Then imagine that we got together to play our game and he beat 40–0. He stole the ball every time I had it, and he dunked on me every time he had it. Then imagine that afterward we sat down to have a Gatorade together and I said, “Well, Michael, its pretty obvious why they call you the greatest.” And then he says, “Oh, I don’t think I’m really very good at basketball. You probably just had a bad day; I’m sure you’re really a lot better than I am.”
Now some people would say, “Oh, what humility!” That’s not humility—that’s insanity! Humility does not mean that we have to pretend that we’re not talented at something. The best biblical description of humility that I know comes from Rom. 12:3, which says this: “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” Humility means that you think about yourself accurately, with sound judgment—not building yourself up too much, and not tearing yourself down.
So the humble person is one who thinks about himself accurately. And that means that humility requires us to think about our relationship to others accurately as well. So Paul warns us against our usual mindset in v. 4 [READ v. 4]. Our usual temptation is to think that our interests, our needs, our opinions are the only ones that matter, and that causes us to focus on ourselves to the exclusion of others. And when that happens, our mindsets start to point in opposite directions again—I’m focused on what seems best for me, and you’re focused on what seems best for you, and all of a sudden we’ve lost that Godward focus that pulls us together.
So to live in humility of mind means that we need to think accurately about ourselves and others. We can remember that we’re valuable in God’s eyes—there’s nothing prideful about that. Yet at the same time we must remember that we are not more valuable than the people around us. We are called to love them as we love ourselves, so a humble mindset calls us to focus on being servants of others for their benefit and well-being.
If we are going to live in unity as a congregation, we must remember that our common experience as Christians gives us a solid basis for unity, and a humble mindset toward each other is the path that will get us there. We must think correctly about ourselves and each other, and a vital factor in the way that we think about ourselves is what we think about our relationship with God. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you need to realize something very important about your relationship with God. The Bible says that humanity was created in the image of God, with a deep and intimate relationship with Him. But rather than live to serve God, we decided to serve ourselves; we have rebelled against Him and turned our backs on Him, and the Bible calls that sin. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Our relationship with God has been broken because of our actions, and because of that we are estranged from God in this life, and we run the risk of being separated from Him for all of eternity if we pass away in this condition.
But because of God’s love for us, He didn’t want things to remain this way. So He decided to do something for us that we could not do for ourselves—He decided to provide a payment for our sins, to send His Son Jesus into this world, God taking on humanity and dying in our place on the cross, then rising from the dead on the third day so that we might have the hope of eternal life. God now offers that hope to us as a free gift—if we will place our faith in Jesus as our Savior, he will forgive us of our sins and restore our relationship with Him, so we can enjoy the relationship with Him that we were meant to have, both in this life and the next.
If you have realized today that you have never accepted God’s gracious gift of forgiveness by faith, you can do that right now by placing your faith in Jesus Christ, believing that he has done everything that was necessary to pay for your sins.
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