Paul would write to the Corinthians that he was the least of the apostles.
In Ephesians chapter 3 he says, I am the least of all the saints. Line up every believer and I'm not superior to any of them. That's an unnatural realization.
Wouldn't that eliminate all ungodly comparison with each other? Have we viewed every other person in the body as superior to ourselves? Have you ever noticed how natural it is to put yourself first?
Whether it's looking out for your own needs or seeking recognition, self-interest seems like the default setting. But in Philippians 2 verses 2 through 4, Paul presents a radically different way of living, one that doesn't come naturally to any of us. He calls us to humility, urging us to put others ahead of ourselves and to live in harmony and unity as the body of Christ.
Keep listening as we uncover how to live a life worth living by emptying ourselves of pride and filling our hearts with humility. Now in Philippians chapter 2, Paul has effectively begun this discussion. In verse 1, which we covered last Lord's Day, Paul said, look, if this is true and this is true and this is true and this is true, then this ought to happen.
Remember? I could paraphrase it. If there really is encouragement in Christ, and there is. If there is any consolation of love in Christ, implied, and there is. If there is any fellowship in the Spirit, and there is. If there is any affection or compassion, implied in him, and there is.
Then, make my joy complete by being of the same mind. Now why would the Apostle Paul effectively tell the church in Philippi to remain unified? Why would he effectively send a warning to them? They were an amazing church. As we go through this letter, frankly they brought joy to the Apostle Paul whenever he prayed for them.
They brought him a great satisfaction and encouragement because they financially supported him. They understood the value of the Gospel, but they were in danger. Most New Testament scholars believe this is sort of easing in to what's going to become all the more apparent a little later on in the letter. That there is divisiveness taking place even in Philippi. One author writes in his commentary that all those sound doctrine, moral purity, and passionate commitment to the Lord and to his work are essential to a church's effective ministry and unity.
They cannot guarantee protection from discord. So Paul is pleading with them to be on guard, and he writes to this church, make my joy complete, this church planter, make my joy top the charts by being of the same mind. That verb, being of the same mind is the main verb in these verses, which sort of helps us as students to know that all the other actions are really secondary.
In fact, what Paul is going to do is tell us what it looks like to be of the same mind. Now before we take a look at them, let me tell you ahead of time. They are all unnatural. They all go against our nature.
They don't come naturally. Paul is going to call them and us to humility, which by the way is an unnatural way to live. We don't get up in the morning and naturally think of living a humble life for others.
Our first thoughts are of ourselves. So we're going to have to live supernaturally, living by means of the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. In whom we have fellowship, koinonia. So what does that look like? Well first of all, Paul writes here in verse two.
It looks like this. Maintaining the same love. That's the first one. We'll call this loving intentionally. Maintaining the same love.
By the way, would you notice that Paul doesn't write loving the same things. I mean we took a survey from what we eat, what we drive, what we wear, what we watch, what we read. We don't love the same things. I mean what brings us together?
You're thinking I have no idea. Well, he explains it. We don't love the same things, but we have been occupied by the same love. We are loved by God through Jesus Christ.
We share a common life in him that supersedes all the differences. Now, Paul uses the word agape here for love. It's the New Testament word of loving by volition. It refers to making up your mind to love. It's used of a husband-wife relationship, God the Father with us.
The word is used. You don't fall in love as much as you choose to love. It isn't sourced out of feeling or emotion, but the will. In fact, we're told. We're commanded to love, which is how he can command us.
It's a decision of the will. To love, not with word or tongue, but in deed and truth, John writes in 1 John 3.18. He also writes that by this we know that we have passed from death unto life because we happen to have this kind of intentional love for the brethren. Would you also notice that Paul is taking us beyond loving only those who love us. He isn't telling us here to maintain a love for those who love you. He isn't telling us here to maintain a love for those who are lovable.
That's good news, isn't it? None of us are lovable all the time, some of you more than others. I won't mention any names, but I went all through and said we're all a little like porcupines. We all have some good points, but it's really kind of hard to get too close to each other. Now we're in the same family. We're actually going to live together forever.
Is that exciting or what? This kind of living Paul wants the church to begin rehearsing now is unnatural. I love people who love me. I love people who love things I love. He says we are unified by means of having occupied the same love in God through Christ. He goes on to add in verse two, we're also united in spirit.
We're not only to be loving intentionally. Secondly, we are to be living harmoniously. One Greek word, soumsoukas, it means one sold.
S-O-U-L-E-D. The only time it appears like this in the New Testament. Soumsoukas means to live harmoniously. Harmony cannot happen without humility. Somebody's got to give.
Even today when you leave, what are we going to eat? Someone has to give. In fact, the prefix sum in this word soumsoukas begins our word for symphony. Symphony, which happens to be a wonderful illustration of a unified church. Different talents, different instruments. Harmony, we heard a little bit of it earlier.
Wonderful. Imagine if the guy playing the tuba says I want to play whatever I want to play and I want to play whatever I want to play. Imagine some member of the London Symphony plays the timpani, the kettle drums saying I'm not going to play unless you give me a solo. Every time we have a performance. It would be one word for that man.
Unemployed. They'd kick him out of the symphony, right? The church happens to be a symphony composed of different instruments. Different ages, different people, different backgrounds, different skill levels. Absolutely wonderful or learning how to play one instrument. Probably not that good at any other instrument. We all combine with our different contributions to the music.
All the while endeavoring to keep pace, stay with the meter, and keep an eye on the conductor. Jesus Christ, the chief shepherd of the church. See this is being of the same mind. It means we are loving each other intentionally. It means we are living together harmoniously. Thirdly, we are to be longing cooperatively.
Notice the next description. Last part of verse two, intent on one purpose. Intention. Again, this is the idea of longing. This one passion. Now if we take from chapter one Paul's primary focus of challenging us to live lives worthy of the gospel from chapter one verse 27. This would tie then in with this cooperative longing.
This purpose. The idea of living in such a way that we glorify God by obeying Jesus Christ as it relates to the gospel. And what did Jesus Christ command us in relation to the gospel? In a nutshell, don't keep it to yourselves. Go around the world. Make disciples, baptize them, teach them.
There's something called the great commission. He gave us in Matthew 28, repeated effectively in Acts chapter one verse eight as he's ascending. This is our primary purpose as a church and as believers. To glorify God by obeying Christ in delivering to the world the gospel, making disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them.
It hasn't changed. If there's one thing then that the devil will delight in would be to distract the believer and to distract the church from this cooperative longing. Passion. To just think about ourselves. To just think about our little world, our little address here on Tryon Road. It's just all about us. Whatever you do, don't think about anything other than your immediate living condition. That's natural.
But to think of some global commission, that's unnatural. Here's humility. Loving intentionally, living harmoniously, longing cooperatively. Now this is what humility looks like. This unity of being in the same mind. Now he's going to go further and tell us what humility does not look like.
Look at verse three. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. Do nothing from selfishness. That is, do nothing that is motivated by self.
Okay, how unnatural is that? The word Paul uses here was translated earlier in chapter one in verse 17 as selfish ambition. Gives you a little bit of a fuller nuance. It's the word eretheia. It originally referred to a day worker who was paid daily from cutting and binding sheaves. Later on, the word became a reference for people seeking personal wealth. In fact, it was used of politicians seeking a personal platform by any means. Finally, by the time of Paul's letter, the word referred most often to somebody who's jockeying for position in any arena.
Someone who is motivated by his own ambition for power. Jockeying for position, beloved. That is absolutely natural.
You're going to do it on I-40 on the way to work. It's natural. You can understand why Paul would warn the church of this characteristic. Discord and division are inevitable when people jockey for position in the church. When people will not give. When people focus on their own agenda, their own likes and dislikes. When the body is divided into all of these little self-serving constituencies.
Philippi was struggling with this. I read several years ago a biography by Jonathan Edwards. I'll tell you a little bit about it while someone turns on the air conditioner. One of the leaders of the Great Awakening. Just open those doors and the front doors.
That ice on the front porch will cool it all down immediately. The book is entitled, in fact he gives a little insight into the marriage of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards. The title of the book is Marriage to a Difficult Man. What a title.
How many women love that don't raise your hands title? My wife gave me the book, I have no idea why. One particular chapter recorded the conflict in the church he pastored. Wonderful pastor, theologian, wonderful church, struggled, ultimately divided unfortunately. But what happened on this occasion was the balcony collapsed.
Unfortunately no one was hurt. But they had to rearrange all the seating for the congregation. Unlike our churches today, everyone back then sat in the same seat. Well back in the 1700s you were actually assigned your seat. In fact back then they rented them to you and until later they were free by those who desired to open up the church. But the seats were typically arranged by how important a person was perceived to be.
Carry over from James where he talks about the rich guy coming in and getting the front seat and poor guy in the back. In his church they gave the dimensions of the pew. They seated six people per pew on the floor. But in the balcony, less desirable seats, they packed nine people into the pew. Listen to this, the coveted seats were at the very front, just like Colonial.
You got them. Now since there was no balcony, everybody has to be rearranged. The biographer recurts from Jonathan Edwards' own journal how the deacons and church officials toiled for hours upon hours over the seating chart and finally worked out a plan that seemed to ruffle the least feathers. How is that for distraction? How's that for forgetting the purpose?
We wouldn't do that, would we? Now notice he adds to this empty conceit. Do you see that? Empty conceit. It's a compound word, literally means empty glory. In the King James translation it'll say vain glory. It's pursuing glory but really it's just empty. It's just like a vapor. Empty conceit, self conceit, which is essentially empty.
It's an attempt to get glory but in reality it's nothing more than exaggerated, made up importance, it is vain. One of the favorite things my grandson Nicholas enjoys is having us blow up a balloon and then put it in his hands without tying it and all the air fizzles out of it or sometimes he lets it go and it zigzags all around the room. We love these cheap toys, they're great. Balloons all over the house. It occurs to me that self conceit is like that balloon. It's full but at the same time it's really empty. And the larger it stretches on the outside, the bigger the emptiness on the inside. It's just really full of hot air. It's Paul's idea of empty conceit, people who are just full of hot air.
They look big and important but it's like a vapor. You want an empty life, fill it with yourself. You want a full life, empty it of self and that's going to be unnatural.
It's going to take the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul goes on to describe two more unnatural aspects of humility that further establish unity. First, we'll call this an unnatural realization. Look at verse three, with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. That's an unnatural realization that other people are more important than me. He can't mean that. The word translated by the way, regard, just sort of puts another nail down in this truth.
It's a word that refers to a settled conclusion. You're not patronizing, you're not making it up, you're not just sort of faking it because people are going to watch and you really ought to act like people are more important than you know. You're coming to the settled conclusion that other people are more important than you are.
How do you get there? Notice again the first part of the phrase, with humility of mind, regard one another as more important. With humility of mind, in the original language that's one word you could translate it lowly, a lowly mindset. That same word is used of Jesus Christ, he was lowly of heart.
It wasn't at all about him. Now that's not a reference to some kind of poor me syndrome. I'm going to work on my lowly attitude about me. You know I'm no good, I'm going to go eat some worms or whatever.
I'm so inferior. Now the mindset Paul is referring to here is with humility of mind is a mindset that actually forgets about oneself entirely. They don't think of themselves at all. They don't think badly of themselves. In fact when it comes to this immediate context of the church, there are people in the assembly who don't think about themselves. But others. Keller called it the art of self forgetfulness. It's unnatural, has to be developed.
And when they do they consider everyone else in the body as more important than themselves. The word translated they're more important. It'll be helpful to understand it means to be superior. In other words what he's saying here is a person who is humble doesn't view himself as superior to anybody else.
Okay? He's not superior to anybody. This is why Paul would write to the Corinthians that he was the least of the apostles.
He says you line them up. I am not superior to any of them. They are superior to me. In fact he broadens that as he develops in his own Christian experience. By the time you get to Ephesians chapter 3 he says I am the least of all the saints.
I line up every believer and I'm not superior to any of them. That's an unnatural realization. But wouldn't that remove all competition from the body? Wouldn't that eliminate all ungodly comparison with each other? Wouldn't that eliminate all the gossip?
Have we viewed every other person in the body as superior to ourselves? That's the idea. The favorite expression then of the church would be you first. No, after you. You first.
Try that in the parking lot after the service. The most unnatural thing will occur. There are no big shots in the body of Christ.
No one is out to win points or popularity. Some kind of platform. We all just play our part according to the divine conductor. I love the illustration I came across that perfectly sets this in context. An older woman wrote an article about the wedding her grandson was going to be in. He was the ring bearer.
He was five years old and active. This is why we go to weddings, isn't it? To see what the ring bearer and the flower girl are going to do. She came up with this idea and she said after the rehearsal, listen, I think I'll give a prize tomorrow to the person who does the best job at the wedding.
They'll be the most important person there and they'll win a prize. This kid was all eyes, all ears. The next day she wrote, we were all holding our breath. But when it was time, the little ring bearer, the little terror performed his role perfectly. During the reception, she said, I told him in front of everybody that he had won the prize. He was excited and relieved.
He said this. I was pretty sure I had it until she came in wearing that white dress. And everybody stood up and I started thinking, she might win. I mean the least consequential person in making this happen thinks he was the most important. I mean how silly are we any less silly? Are we any less silly in our competition and comparison? We need a mindset that comes to an unnatural realization about each other. Secondly, we need to make an unnatural resolution.
Look at verse 4. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others. See, an unnatural realization comes to the conclusion that other people are more important than I am. An unnatural resolution says other people's needs are more important than mine are.
Are you serious? Absolutely. The natural thing is to look out for number one. In fact, the word translated to look out for comes from the verb scapeo, scapeo, which means to make this your aim. It's interesting that scapeo forms our words telescope, scapeo, scope, microscope. So you pull out that metaphorical telescope and what do you do by natural inclination? As you look down the road of your life as far as you can see and you see certain things coming your way and you're going to plan for it, you're going to make adjustments for it, you're going to do everything necessary because you've scoped it out. Or you take the microscope and you focus in on all the details of your daily life, all the events, relationships, issues, needs, bills, what are problems and we focus on them, we talk about them, we pray about them, we worry about them, we fret over them.
See that kind of telescopic and microscopic activity is natural, comes easy. Paul is effectively saying here take that and train that telescope on the life of someone else and take a look at what they have coming toward them and then help them. Focus on their immediate needs and concerns and do something about it. In fact in the mind of the Spirit of God through the Apostle Paul this is how to serve one another, this is how to combat division and discord and personal agenda and pride. This is going to be an unnatural way to live, a supernatural way to live, bringing glory to Christ and unity to the church and service to others and the gospel to the world. You want an empty life? Fill it with yourself. You want a full life?
Empty it of self. It's an unnatural way to live but it is the only way to live life worth living. That was Steven Davey and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Today's message is called An Unnatural Way to Live. By living intentionally, living harmoniously and putting others first, we reflect the humility of Christ. Let's embrace this supernatural way of living and bring unity, love and the gospel to the world around us.
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