Unity is recognized as an absolutely essential quality whenever a group of people are working together toward a common goal. Sports teams know this all too well. A team that is unified can often find a way to beat a team that is more talented but lacks unity. That’s why we observe things like what just happened in the recent NFL draft—a highly-talented quarterback fell into the middle of the second round because of concerns about his attitude. Teams worried that he would disrupt their unity, so he was taken much later than his talented suggested he would be taken.
But people recognize the need for unity in every area of life. During the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin stressed to the Continental Congress that, “We must hang together or we will certainly hang separately.” He knew that there was no way that the colonies could defeat a force like the British unless they were unified amongst themselves.
I’m sure we’ve all experienced how important unity is for the groups that we’ve been involved in. Maybe you’ve been part of a board or a club that wasn’t unified. You probably remember how much you dreaded going to those meetings, because nothing was ever accomplished and people just bickered with each other. Maybe you’ve experienced some fighting in your family. There’s nothing that can ruin Thanksgiving or Christmas like a good fight, right?
As we continue in our study of the book of Philippians, we’re going to be entering a section today where Paul is going to begin stressing the need for unity within the church. He’s going to tell us why it is important, and then beyond that he’s going to tell us how we achieve unity in our midst. What we will start to see from Paul today is this:
Living as one is goal number one in the life of the church.
Would you turn with me please to Philippians 1:27–30? Last week we looked at Paul’s tagline for life, the one statement that summed up how he looked at everything: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” He was pondering whether his imprisonment might end up in life or death, and he concluded that God would allow him to continue to live because that would be beneficial for the Philippians. But as we’ll see in today’s passage, Paul knew that there was a possibility that he wouldn’t see them again. Even if he was released, other things might come up that would keep him from going back to Philippi, so Paul now instructs them about the main thing that he wants them to focus on, whether he ever sees them again or not [READ 1:27–30].
From these verses let’s focus on two perspectives on standing together:
I. We must stand together as teammates in light of the Gospel (1:27–28)
Let’s take a look first of all at what Paul says in v. 27 [READ v. 27] Paul uses a couple of meaningful word pictures to get his point across here. The first lies behind his command at the beginning of the verse to “conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” His word picture is a little tricky to convey in English, but a very literal translation of his word picture would say, “act like citizens in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Paul was apparently drawing on the idea of Roman citizenship and the concept of living up to the standards of a citizen.
For us in America today, we don’t really think about our citizenship very much. I think every person in this room was probably born as an American citizen. That wasn’t true in the Roman Empire—even if you were born in the Empire, you weren’t automatically a citizen. Citizenship was an honor that was usually awarded for some kind of heroic or notable act—though like anything else it could also be purchased if you had enough money! Now most of the people in the Philippian church were Roman citizens because the emperor Octavian had granted the inhabitants of the city citizenship after he won a major battle there against the men who assassinated Julius Caesar. Roman citizenship was very desirable because it gave you certain legal rights, but it also had certain responsibilities that you were supposed to live up to as a good citizen, and it seems that Paul was drawing on that idea in this word picture.
He’s going to remind us over in chapter 3 that we are now citizens of heaven, but along with that come certain obligations. We have new obligations toward God. For example, God has adopted us into his spiritual family, so we are to act as obedient children. We also have a new master, the Lord Jesus Christ, so now we are supposed to serve Him rather than our sinful impulses.
We also have obligations toward each other since we are all united by our faith in Christ. If you want to do a challenging Bible study some time, do a study of all of the “one another” commands in the New Testament and look at all of the things that we are called to do for each other. We are supposed to love one another, forgive one another, bear one another’s burdens, submit to one another in proper channels of authority, be kind to one another, etc.
So it seems that Paul is saying that we need to live up to the obligations that we now have since we’ve accepted the Gospel, and he goes on to stress that a key aspect of that is standing together in and for the Christian faith. In the last part of v. 27, he writes of his desire that “I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. Now in the Greek behind the words “striving together,” Paul uses a word picture from the world of athletics. He actually uses the verb athleÅ, from which we get the English words “athlete” and “athletic.” So when he calls us to “strive together,” with his word picture he is calling us to be like teammates for the faith.
What a great picture for us to imitate as we live and serve together as believers—we are teammates. Teammates rally together behind a common goal—in our case, our common goal is to honor God by living as His ambassadors in this world. Teammates are supposed to place their egos under this common goal, so that achieving the goal is more important than getting our own way. Teammates cheer each other on and celebrate when they have victories—just think about when a player scores a touchdown in football; the quarterback might go running down the field to chest bump with his wide receiver or the running back might hug the linemen. What a great way to think about each other—as teammates for the faith!
And unity like this is all the more important when opposition from outside comes our way, as the Philippians were apparently facing. Paul tells them in v. 28 to be “in no way alarmed by your opponents.” You might remember that when Paul first visited Philippi, he was thrown in jail because some residents of the city felt that the message of Christianity was a threat to the Roman way of life. Some of these same residents may have still been harassing the Christians there, so Paul tells them to stand together as teammates and to not be unsettled by their opponents. Paul says that such a show of confidence would be a sign or a demonstration of two things. First, it would be a sign of destruction to the opponents. By remaining fearless, the believers would show their belief that God was going to take care of these opponents. Whether its now or at the final judgment, God will bring wrath against those who oppose His people. What an omen for the opponents! But for the believers, a confident stand would be a sign of salvation. Their faith in God would shine through like a light in the midst of the darkness of persecution.
So a united front against this opposition would send a strong message to their opponents AND it would be a strong encouragement to the believers. And the mention of opponents brings us to our second perspective on standing together:
II. We must stand together in light of the persecution that God may graciously allow (1:29–30)
In verses 29 and 30, Paul puts persecution in a perspective that in some ways is mind-boggling, particularly for us in a country like the United States where persecution is so foreign to us [READ vv. 29–30]. In verse 30, Paul refers to his imprisonments—the Philippians had seen Paul in prison when he was in Philippi, and now they were hearing about his imprisonment in Rome. And Paul states that they were experiencing the same conflict, which could mean that some of them had spent time in prison because of their faith.
So they were suffering because of their faith, and Paul referred to that as a gift that they had been granted by God. And notice that he puts it on the same level as the gift of faith in Christ! So if we think that believing in Christ is an honor, suffering for His sake is an honor on the same level!
I have to admit that its hard for me to wrap my mind around discussions of suffering like this, and I would venture to say that this might be true for you as well. I mean, I get what Paul is saying here, but persecution is so foreign to our experience in the United States that I think its difficult for us to relate to passages like this. As a result, I’m not sure that we always respond to the idea of persecution in the best ways.
I think commentator Gordon Fee summarizes our reactions well. He writes, “the content of Paul’s explanation is something contemporary Christians hear reluctantly, either out of guilt that so many of us look so little like this, or out of fear that it might someday really be true for us.”* Let’s think about both of those reactions for a moment. First, I think there can be at times a temptation for us to feel guilty over the fact that we don’t really face much persecution to speak of in this country. We might be tempted to think that we’re mediocre Christians because we don’t face the persecution that is a reality for many of our brothers and sisters around the world. But I don’t think the Bible gives us any reason to feel guilty about the religious freedom that we enjoy. Jesus did say in Matthew 5 that we are blessed if we endure persecution for His sake, but the Bible never tells us to seek persecution or desire it. Persecution is under God’s control—He may choose to allow it and He may not; we just need to make sure that we stay faithful to Him no matter what.
But let’s think about this second reaction for a moment—the reaction of fear. I think this is probably a more common reaction for us. We hear about the persecution that’s going on right now in places like China and Sudan and we become fearful that those same things may one day start to happen to us here in the United States. And then we often feel that what we need to do is expend our energy ensuring that America remains a comfortable place for Christians to live. But I’m not sure that’s the proper reaction either, because I don’t think it seriously wrestles with the passages like this that talk about the blessings that can come from persecution.
So how should we respond to verses that talk about persecution when its not a daily reality for us? Let me suggest two ways. First, we can stand together with our brothers and sisters who are facing persecution right now. Because of the atrocities of Hitler and Stalin and Chairman Mao in China, the 20th century was the deadliest century in history in terms of Christian persecution, and much persecution continues today. Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body [of Christ].” Organizations like Voice of the Martyrs do a great job of keeping us informed about how we can help Christians who are suffering persecution right now. So we can stand together with them!
Second, since we don’t face much persecution, we should be even more diligent to make sure that we don’t get distracted from being dedicated to Christ. Let me explain what I mean. I will never forget what I was told by a friend of mine who pastors a church in Kansas City. A few years ago he attended a meeting where he met an elderly Christian woman from China who talked about the persecution that she had faced for her faith. She had been in and out of prison several times for witnessing to others, but she told my friend that Christians in China pray for us because they believe it must be extremely difficult to live for Jesus in the United States when we have so many things to distract us—things like leisure, wealth, comfort, entertainment, etc. So they pray for us that we would be able to keep our focus on Jesus and not be distracted by other things.
For those believers, persecution is an external factor that forces them to stay focused on Jesus. But since we don’t really have an external factor like that, we have to be more diligent for ourselves to make sure that we stay focused on Christ.
And you know friends, standing together can help us do that. Paul wanted the Philippian believers more than anything else to focus on standing together, and that lesson is just as important today as it was back then. We are teammates for the faith, so we need to seek for a unified team spirit. We should encourage each other when we see someone doing something well. We should pick each other up when we’re hurt. We should celebrate together and cry together and rally around the common goal of bringing glory to God. This will help us stay on track, and it will give us strength if persecution ever does come our way.
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