The Marks of Spiritual Unity

A Christian acts this way toward his fellow Christian humbly, gently, patiently, forbearingly, and lovingly, and does everything he can to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. That's how a Christian is to act. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. If you watch the news or scroll through social media, it seems the world is only growing in bitterness and division. People are running to separate themselves based on race and gender, political party, age, or any other trait they can think of. So in a world filled with hostility and conflict, how can your church be different? How can you be an example of love and unity, and what role do you play in promoting unity in your church? What specific steps can you take to help Christians around you truly care for one another? For answers, stay here on Grace to You as John MacArthur continues his series, A Plea for Unity.

And now here's John with a lesson. Well, let's open our Bibles now to the second chapter of Paul's letter to the Philippian church. Philippians chapter 2, we'll be focusing on the first four verses, the formula for spiritual unity, the formula for spiritual unity. In Acts chapter 4, Luke wrote these words, the multitudes of believers were of one heart and one soul. Acts chapter 4, and then he said a little later in that same chapter, as a result of that unity, they had power and great grace was upon them all.

Power and blessing are related to unity. Jesus, of course, made priority out of the unity of the church, and so does the apostle Paul. It is a great concern to his heart, and thus he writes these opening four verses in the second chapter, and I draw them to your attention. If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there's any consolation of love, if there's any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, that each of you regard one another as more important than himself.

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. It's my conviction that in those four verses you have the most concise and practical understanding of unity that is given in the New Testament. This explanation, as you know, flows out of the exhortation in chapter 1, verse 27, where he said, I want to hear that you are standing firm in one Spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. Having called for unity, he now explains it. He now defines it. And as you will remember from last time, he focuses on three aspects of unity, the motives, the marks, and the means.

That is the why, the what, and the how. Why is unity so vital? Why should we have unity in the church?

What is that unity? How is it defined? And how do we attain it, or how do we maintain it? A passage that has to be considered also in concert with Philippians 2 is Ephesians 4, and I would draw your attention to it just as a supporting background to the thoughts that Paul will give us in this section of Philippians. In Ephesians 4, 1, he writes, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. In other words, he says, act like a Christian. Act like a believer. How does a believer act? With all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. A Christian acts this way toward his fellow Christian humbly, gently, patiently, forbearingly, and lovingly, and does everything he can to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

That's how a Christian is to act. The reason is given in verse 4. There must be unity because there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were also called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. And because of all of that inherent supernatural oneness, the church then is to maintain its oneness as the outworking of its very calling. So we are called to unity. And our unity is based upon a great profound theological unity within the very Trinity itself.

Now back to Philippians chapter 2 and we focus specifically on the text before us. Last time we looked at the motives for unity and we posed the question, why? Why is unity called for? Why unity in the church?

What are the strong reasons? And we noted last time that there are four of them given in verse 1. And the word if because it is a first class conditional is best translated because and so it would read this way, because there is encouragement in Christ, because there is consolation or comfort of love, because there is fellowship of the Spirit, because there is affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind. In other words, your unity is motivated by these things. The first one is encouragement in Christ. Because Christ has encouraged you, exhorted you, helped you, faithfully come alongside to enable you. In other words, because of the work of Christ in your life past and present, because of all that Christ has done to encourage you. Secondly, the consolation of love follows up because all of Christ's love and tender mercy and pity and sympathy and grace and forgiveness and care and comfort has been bestowed on you, be of the same mind.

In other words, having received so much from Christ, can you not give back that which is dear to his own heart? He who prayed in John 17 to the Father about the church that they may be one, desires unity in his church and he is simply saying, in view of all that Christ has done for you by way of encouragement and comfort, in view of all that Christ has done for you by way of exhortation and sympathy, by view of all that Christ has done for you by way of enabling help and mercy and pity and grace, can you not give back to him that which is dear to his own heart? And we pointed out that you must see disunity and a bitter spirit. You must see your antagonism to the unity of the church as a direct act of defiant, rebellious ingratitude to the Christ who has given you everything and to whom you desire to render nothing.

And you must see it for what it is. It is a sin against a relationship, not an ethical code. It is a sin against Christ. And then he moves to the Holy Spirit for the next two and he says, because there is fellowship of the Spirit. In other words, because of all that the Spirit who communes with you from within you has done for you, regeneration, sanctification, gifting, sealing, enabling, interceding, filling, making fruitful, strengthening in the inner man to resist temptation, providing power for witness because of all that the Spirit has done in his communion with you. And then he says, because of affection and compassion and goes to a second dimension of the Spirit's ministry and that is sympathetic kindness. Not only has he granted you power, but he's granted you sympathy. Not only has he granted you ability to serve, but he has granted you tender, compassionate care and intercession on your behalf. And so he says, not only the work of Christ, but the work of the Spirit is motive enough.

Why? Because it is the Spirit who longs for the unity of the church. It is the unity of the Spirit, Ephesians 4, 3, that is the bond of peace. And since the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit have done all of this for us who are unworthy sinners, is that not motive enough for us to give back that which is dear to their hearts? Can we say to the Holy Spirit, I take everything you give, I give nothing in return. I take everything you give, I do not give back to you that which your heart desires, the unity of the Spirit.

See sin for what it is. It is a quenching of the Spirit. It is a doing despite unto the Spirit of grace.

It is an abuse of a relationship in which the Son of God and the Spirit of God give all to you and you give back nothing. And then Paul adds one more motive in verse 2. He says, make my joy complete. Not only should we be motivated by the relationship with Christ and the relationship with the Holy Spirit, but the relationship with the pastor as well. Paul says, if you can't do it for Christ's sake and the Holy Spirit, then do it for my sake. In Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17, you remember that the writer of Hebrews calls upon the believing community to be sure that they respond to those that are their leaders. And he says that you are to obey them and submit to them and you are to do this so that their work will be with joy and not with grief. In other words, you're to bring joy to the heart of your shepherd. In 1 Thessalonians 5 it says, we request of you brother, in verse 12, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you who have charge over you in the Lord and who give you instruction, that's your shepherds, your pastors, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work.

And what is the outflow of that? You live in peace with one another and you admonish those who are unruly. And you see that nobody repays evil for evil, but that everyone seeks what is good for one another and for all men, unity. If you want to please your shepherd, seek unity in the church. So it's a pastoral plea as well. The motives then are clear. Because of your gratitude and love for Christ, because of your gratitude and love for the Spirit, because of your gratitude and love for your shepherd, be of the same mind. Be of the same mind.

And understand please that if you bring discord to the church, you have sinned against Christ, you have sinned against the Holy Spirit, and you have sinned against your God-given leaders. So see it for what it is. It is the violation of a relationship, not just a code, not just an ethical standard and not even just a biblical principle. It is the violation of a relationship.

That should be motive enough. Going one step beyond motive, we ask the question, what? What is unity? What does it look like? How are we to view it? What is its nature? What is its essence?

How is it defined? And He will give us four statements in verse 2 that define the marks of spiritual unity. They are very rich, they are somewhat overlapping, and yet they have each of them a distinctiveness which can be noted as we examine this great verse. Look at verse 2. He says, make my joy complete.

Here's how. And He gives us the four marks of spiritual unity. By being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Four great, great truths. They are the marks of spiritual unity. And I want you to understand them and I want you to understand the sum of them as well as the parts.

So listen carefully. The first mark is this, being of the same mind. Being of the same mind. The Greek verb phreno is used here and it basically means to think the same way. That's what it means, to think the same way. The key to unity is thinking alike. Unanimity of thought is essential to true spiritual unity.

We have to think alike. Go back with me for a moment to a comparative verse in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians. First Corinthians 1, Paul writing to a church that obviously was disrupted terribly, all kinds of factions and schisms, in fact so many of them that he said, I have to speak unto you in chapter 3 as unto carnal and not unto spiritual because there are so many divisions. But his prayer for them in chapter 1 and verse 10 is this, and he launches right into it after his introduction, I exhort you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree.

Now that is an amazing statement. You mean he's asking a church to agree? That there be no divisions among you. That you be made complete in the same mind. That means thinking the same way.

It's the very same idea. And that you have the same judgment. All agree, no divisions, same mind, same judgment.

And then he says right after that, it's so sad that you're so divided and quarrelsome. You're to have the same mind. This is not an arbitrary thing. This is something Scripture repeats. We are to think the same way. Now listen to me. Unity comes when believers think alike. Now listen carefully. I'm not talking about doctrine and neither is Paul.

This is not just cold, hard facts. We're all here. We could all sign the same doctrinal statement. That doesn't mean we think alike.

This is something beyond that. What he's really talking about here is attitude. Having the same attitude, the same mindset, the same disposition. In fact, you will notice in chapter 2 and verse 5, he speaks of having this attitude in yourselves, which was in Christ. In chapter 3 verse 15 in the New American, it talks about having this attitude again.

In verse 19 he says regarding the ungodly that they set their minds on earthly things. Their attitude is controlled by the earth, the world, and the system around them. So he uses this concept of mind and attitude interchangeably and that is a proper understanding of the term. We're not here talking about the same facts. We're talking about the same feeling, disposition, attitude. Common thinking pattern, common, to use another word, concern, common understanding.

You say, how do you get that? It's a challenge and it does not come by human means. That is, it cannot be engineered. It cannot be orchestrated.

I have watched for a number of years and even presently I'm watching the inability of human beings to orchestrate unity. It can't happen. It can't happen on a fleshly level.

It can't happen on a human level. It will happen only on a divine level. We will never think alike until we have understood the spiritual realities that make for that. And we will never know and do wholeheartedly and unanimously the will of God until we think alike.

You have conflict when people don't think alike. The Spirit of God is not saying get your doctrine together. That's not the issue. Philippians didn't have any doctrinal problems. There's not even an allusion to one in this entire epistle.

He isn't saying get your ethical standard worked out. They didn't have any problem with that. There is no glaring sin in that church to which he directs any verse.

The problem was attitude and that is the thing that is so elusive. You can identify heresy. It's very clear when it's spoken. You can identify sin. It's very clear when it's done. What you can't find is underlying attitude and that's why it's so devastating.

That's why it's so destructive. And so Paul is right on target when he says you have to think the same way. Your attitudes have to be in perfect harmony. You say, well, how in the world can we do that?

Well, I'm going to show you how, I hope. Taking the term that's used here, the verb freneto, and finding it in a few other places, I want you to follow how it's used and see if we can't build a little theology of thinking here that will help us know what it means to think the same way. Let's go back to Romans.

And I will point out to you several usages that I think are applicable. In Romans chapter 8, I would draw your attention to verse 4. It says at the end of verse 4, do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. That's really the end of a sentence but that introduces us to a contrast between flesh and spirit. Then verse 5, for those who are according to the flesh set their mind on the things of the flesh.

Same word that we saw in Philippians 2. But those who are according to the spirit implied set their mind on the things of the spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.

Now you have two possibilities. You can either think with the spirit or you can think with the flesh. If we are to think the same, then we must all think in harmony with the Holy Spirit. So the first principle is that if we are to be of the same mind, we must think on the things of the Spirit of God. We must have spiritual thoughts.

We ascend beyond our own realm, our own agenda, our own flesh, our own unredeemed humanness, that which the Puritans called remaining sin that must be mortified in us. And we must realize that the conflict is between the spirit and the flesh. Note this, never the spirit and the spirit.

You understand that? You don't have two people thinking with the mind of the spirit in conflict. If there is conflict, somebody is thinking in the mind of the spirit or no one is and someone else is thinking in the flesh. And so he says, if we are according to the spirit, then we think the things of the spirit. So if we are to have the same mind, we must be thinking on the things of the Spirit of God. Chapter 12, verse 3, and we'll come to a practical conclusion of what all this means in a moment.

Let me just build the blocks a little higher. In verse 3 of chapter 12, through the grace given to me, I say to every man among you, please note this, not to think, same term, for highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment as God has allotted. Now stop at that point. Second thing, we're to think with sound divine judgment. That means objectivity. Where we get into trouble is when we think subjectively. We have discord at all different levels of relationships because, first of all, we're not thinking the things of the mind of the spirit, and secondly, we're not thinking objectively. It's not sound judgment.

It's subjective. We've got our own agenda. We've got our own priorities. We've got our own little enterprise. We've got our own little turf. We've got our own personal ambition. We've got our own little fortress to maintain and defend. We've got our own pride that compels us to whatever ends its evil longings pursue, and so we have not objectivity.

We are the victims of our subjectivity. Paul says, think on the things of the spirit and think with sound judgment, with God as the source. Have not only the mind of the spirit, if you will, but have the mind of God. Look at Romans chapter 15, verse 5. Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you, here's the same term, to be of the same mind, think the same, have the same disposition and attitude and concern with one another. Here it comes, according to whom?

Christ Jesus. Now we have Christ in the picture. We think the things of the spirit. We think the things of God, which gives sound judgment, and we think the things of Christ.

Pretty simple, isn't it? That's John MacArthur with today's lesson from his current series, A Plea for Unity. John is a pastor. He's the featured teacher here on Grace To You, and he's chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. John, the aspect of unity that you discussed today, being of the same mind, we received a letter from a woman named Kaylee who shares a heartbeat with Grace To You, and she has seen up close what happens when unity breaks down in a church. So read the letter you have there. Well, I will, and this is nothing rare. Faithful people face this in churches constantly, the breakdown of unity.

But this is Kaylee's letter. Thank you for preaching God's Word faithfully and standing up for the truth. My dad is a pastor and uses a lot of your resources. Your sermons are encouraging, and I have learned a lot from them. Today I listened to one of your recent messages from Ephesians 2 about the church being unified. It was a good reminder to love the church. As a pastor's daughter, I've seen a lot of church politics and how stressful being a pastor can be. I have been hurt to see church leaders not support my dad and go behind his back, all because they wanted to avoid conflict in the church and not hear biblical truth.

As a result, my dad had no choice but to resign. Ephesians 2 reminded me to love church members even when they hurt you. Thank you for your sermon and the reminder to forgive and love others, Kaylee.

I want to thank Kaylee for writing this letter, and I want to say that we all know that she's not alone. This happens to pastors all the time in churches. In fact, I suppose in most churches, pastors are attacked by somebody in the church who's tampering with the unity of the church, and it's so important for us to understand that. So let me help you maybe help your pastor and your church members to be the source of joy for the leadership and the pastor by encouraging you to go to gty.org and search for the title, The Church is One Body.

There's a Part 1 and a Part 2. You can download those right off the website, and that would be helpful instruction for you or others in your church so that you can be an encouragement to your faithful pastor. And by the way, when you support Grace To You, you help minister to people in difficult circumstances and you connect people like Kaylee with biblical truth that steadies the heart and gives encouragement. And certainly in a day when Bible teaching is becoming harder to find and more needed than ever, let us know you stand with us, and let the station know they're doing it right. Contact the staff and thank them for Grace To You.

Yes, please do that, friend. Your support really does make a difference in people's spiritual growth. It allows us to take God's Word to places with strong churches and to reach more and more believers and unbelievers around the world. To partner with us in life-changing ministry, get in touch today. Mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412.

You can also donate online at gty.org or when you call our toll-free customer service line at 800-55-GRACE. That number again, 800-55-GRACE. And a special thanks to you if you are one of our Grace Partners. Keep in mind, you can also support this ministry when you send us your feedback. Let us know how you're benefitting from Grace To You. So if John's study, A Plea for Unity, has shown you practical ways to serve others in your church, if our recent series on restoring marriage improved your relationship with your spouse, or if someone you know has come to faith after hearing this broadcast, we'd love to hear your story. Email us at letters at gty.org or send your letter to Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace To You television this Sunday, and then be here next week when John looks at how you can love everyone in your church, even those you disagree with. Join us for another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.