Father, would you grant the grace that we need to receive your word, to receive it with faith, to receive it in such a way that we yield ourself to you. You are the authority in our life. You're the king of glory. And Lord, you have every right to rule in our hearts. You've earned that right, Jesus. You've always had that right, but by your death and resurrection, You've shown yourself to be truly compassionate, kind, gracious, forgiving, and Lord, that you are the Lord. May we give our hearts afresh and anew to you today, even as I believe many of us already have as we've worshiped, as we've turned our affections to you, as we've sung songs to you, and I believe that many of us, our hearts were touched in a way that's good, in a way, Lord, that draws us closer to you. And you say that if we draw near to you, you'll draw near to us. And Lord, without saying, we know that you're the initiator of all of it, that you're the one who starts it. We don't begin it, you begin it. And so for that, we're grateful, Lord. Now, I pray that you'd help me to express your heart for us as a body of believers. And for us as individuals as well, Lord, there's things in your Word that pertain not just to the church, but to individuals. So help us, Lord, to grab hold of the truths that are there and to be able to incorporate them in our lives by the power of your Spirit enabling us. to do that. And we will give you the praise that you so deserve. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, and as we've been going through Philippians, I mentioned before that Philippians is a letter to a church that's very dear to Paul. He began the church at Philippi. He began it in unusual situations. He was thrown in jail there for doing a simple act of kindness, but it wasn't so simple. It was a huge act. It was actually a deliverance of a young lady, a young girl from demonic oppression. And in the process of doing that, he found himself, he and Silas, in the jail at Philippi. And then after being delivered from jail, he of course went on his missionary journeys. But the church at Philippi continued to follow up on how he was doing. They continued to get information from from those who knew him and walked with him in some return back to Flippi and they were always sending support to him and now he's writing to them from a Roman jail. He's in a probably in a rented house. I shouldn't say jail. It's more than likely a rented house at this time that he had to pay for but he's attached to a Roman soldier. He's wearing a chain and the other end of the chain is a Roman guard. And so now he's writing back to them to encourage them because they're going to be going through some trials, they're going to be going through some difficulties. But you know, he knows something about them. He's heard word about some things. Later on he'll mention two ladies, Iodia and Synthike, But he he knows them some things about the church and even though it's a it's a wonderful church It's a it's really is a great church There is no perfect church I mean, I know you think you go to the perfect church. We're not perfect. Amen So, uh, I mean if you're waiting for the perfect church, forget it. There there are none You won't find one any place in all the world a perfect church and the reason is because you have people there, and we're not perfect. So as good as this church was, it was not perfect. And there were some things that had potential to bring disruption in their midst. There were some things that could have really destroyed of them as a church. And it's actually, this is a lesson for all of us about how we live together as believers, how we function in a thing called unity. And so Paul addresses that, and he addresses it in various ways, but he actually starts back in verse 29 of chapter one. And I'm going to try to just hit some highlights of this today. I can't go into the depth, especially the theological depths that I'd like to simply for sake of time today. But he goes into this in verse 29, he says, for to you it has been granted and that we're granted, as we've talked about before, is basically connected to the word grace. You've been graced with this. You've been given a grace by God. You've been granted, on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, that's grace. Our salvation is all of grace. But not only to believe in him, but also to suffer, whoa, for his sake. To suffer for his sake. Now Paul, at one point in Colossians says that he fills up the sufferings of Christ. He completes the sufferings of Christ. I don't know if you've ever had trouble with those kinds of words. How can you suffer for his sake or fill up the sufferings of Christ? Didn't Christ suffer everything for us? He did, but there are still sufferings. that we endure for Christ's sake, but they're Christ's sufferings. You remember on the road to Damascus when Paul was arrested by Jesus in this bright light? And what takes place is he falls to the ground and he says, who are you Lord? And Jesus reveals himself from glory. He says, I'm Jesus whom you persecute. And what Jesus was saying is, right now your actions, Saul, his name was Saul, your actions right now are actions against me and I am suffering, but I'm suffering in my people. When his people suffer, Jesus suffers. When you go through a difficulty, a hardship, a suffering, for the namesake of Christ. It's not just talking like if you go out and you do something dumb and you know if you go out and do something crazy like in the middle of winter you decide to walk around without a coat on and then you catch a cold. You're not suffering for Jesus. You just should have put on a coat you know. But he's talking about if there are things that you will suffer because you identify with Jesus, because you are identified with him as Lord, because people see in you something and they are accosting, not necessarily you, but they're accosting the one that you represent. They're coming against the likeness they see in you of Christ. And that's why when Jesus said to the disciples, if they hated me, they will hate you. Now most people don't realize that's what they are doing. Light and darkness never go together. And if the light of Christ is shining forth from your life and from my life, what will happen is darkness will not like it. The darkness will try to overcome it. It always has and it always will try that. But it can't. The light cannot be overcome by darkness. The light of Christ in you cannot be overcome by darkness. And that's the thing that we need to hold high in our hearts, that the Lord of glory reigns in us, lives in us, and his light will always be victorious. But if you live in some kind of fantasy world where you think, because I'm a Christian, I will just skate through life and everything will be wonderful, you will if you don't represent Christ. You'll kind of just go through life. But if you're wholeheartedly representing Jesus as an act of choices that you make, as an act of love for him, love for him, and that's why you make the choices. you will not be liked by a world that's opposed to him. And Paul knows that. And he says, you know, you've been given a grace, a grace to be able to suffer for his sake. Usually whenever we suffer for something, we start kicking against it. We start saying, why me? Has God lost control of this situation? Is he off the throne? Does he not care about me now? Don't ever let that, come into your mind. The Lord is faithful to every promise He's ever made. He always will be. He is the faithful God. And so Paul's addressing this thing of suffering. He says, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hears in me, he says, you guys saw what happened to me when I was with you. You saw how I was treated and you saw how things happened to where I left and now I'm being treated the same way. He's the representative of Christ as an apostle. And so what's taken place is he's trying to prepare them for things that will come in their midst. And they will come to every group of people who identify with Christ. It will come in our church. It will come into the church down the street. It will come in your family. You see, because conflict, conflict and disagreement is common to the human experience. conflict and disagreement show up when there's this thing called pride. Wherever there's pride, actually it says in the scriptures, only by pride comes contention. And so because we as individuals tend to have proud ideas, proud thoughts, proud words many times, because we're self-focused many times instead of other-focused, that's gonna come out in our relationships. And like I said, it'll come out in relationships in the church, but it comes out, you could even use this as a study about the home. That's not why it's written, it's not written for the home, but the application of what Paul says can be used in the home. Of how do you have peace in a home? How do you have a home that, that is together in unity, and that's the main thought, the sense of unity, togetherness, walking on the same path, heading in the same direction, being of the same mind, encouraging one another, and helping one another. That's what he's gonna deal with in these verses. And then, so in verse one of chapter two, he says, therefore, if, and that word if, you have to, usually you and I think if means like, well, If I stay well all week, I won't be sick, right? But that's not, it's not an if, like maybe. The actual sense of the word means since. You might use it in a context like this. Well, my wife might say to me, she could say to me, if you're going to the store, pick up some bread. If you're going to the store, that might be conditional. If you do go, pick up some bread. But since I am going to the store, she might say, since you're going to the store, pick up some bread. The idea of it is that I'm already going on my way there, and because of that action, I'm already headed there, pick up some bread. I may not have communicated that well, but hopefully you got the point of it. The idea of what Paul's saying is he's not saying, if there is any consolation in Christ. It should be since there is consolation in Christ. Since there's, and the word consolation means encouragement in Christ. Since there is encouragement in Christ. Since, again, instead of if, since any comfort of love. There's comfort of love. In Christ there is genuine comfort. And that comfort is the comfort of his love. And so he's saying since there is this thing, since there's fellowship of the spirit, we are of one spirit. We're born of one spirit. If you're a believer in Christ, you've been born by the spirit of God. The spirit of God dwells in you, he dwells in me. And because he dwells in you and he dwells in me, there is the potential for unity. There is the potential for us to walk together in one accord, still with differing ideas, still with differing giftings, with differing backgrounds. If you look at the church there at Philippi, look at the diversity of their backgrounds. When Paul went to Philippi the first time, there was a Jewish woman who was praying, a very wealthy woman, down by the river praying with a group of others. Very wealthy, seller of purple. Then there was also a demon-possessed girl who was a slave girl, a possession of another person. And then there was the jailer who was a man of some means, who had some authority, but it was more than likely Roman. So they're completely different people, different stratas of income, different stratas of where they've come from, what they've believed. And yet now those three plus others that are part of their households come to faith in Christ and they become part of the church. And what Paul is trying to say is there is something that joins us together that goes beyond our differences, our differences as far as ethnicity, as far as our level of education, as far as the difference of what we possess, some rich, some poor, Some educated, some uneducated. Now those could be causes for division in some situations. You have in some places, you'll have people who live in a certain area because other people don't live in that area. I'm talking about out in the world. Some people will take on certain jobs because they're esteemed to be high-level jobs. And others would say, I could never work doing that because that's beneath my dignity. You get the point that disunity can come from all different places. Your background, my background. I'm just reminded of how different it is in the South than it is in the North, in America. We came up here from the South. Now we're originally from here. Sherry and I grew up here. We understand Northern customs, Northern ways. Our daughter, poor Jenny, she was a baby when we took her to Florida. All she knew about was South, Southern. And she came up here, and the first time in a grocery store, she heard somebody swearing, and another person, she looked at Sherry, my wife, and says, Mama, like, where did you bring me to? There are nothing but heathens in this place. You know, there's a respectability in the South, at least there was many years ago, but there was religion, but not always relationship with Christ, but there was religion. Why am I bringing this out? Well, in our church, and just like in every other church, there's gonna be people that come from different places and have different thoughts, even different thoughts about the scriptures. You may disagree with another person on certain things about the scriptures. Now, it's okay to disagree. The scriptures are not given for our personal interpretation, though. The scriptures were given, not for personal interpretations. The scripture were given that God might give us the truth, and we have to know what God meant when he said what he said. And you can't take a passage of scripture and just run with it off there, out this way, say, because, well, I think this is what it means. You have to take context, you have to take all kinds of things into account when you interpret the scripture. So in a church, there's gonna be differences of interpretation, differences of the way we look at, how do we apply this? But what has to take place is we have to come to a place in humility under Christ, where we see that there's something that's at stake more than our personal opinions. What's at stake is the very, name of Jesus and whether we represent him well with grace and love towards one another. Doesn't mean we give up what we strongly believe, but we're able to defend what we strongly believe with kindness, with grace, with a willingness to embrace the other person in the love of Christ and not to begin to accuse or find fault or to put down other people. I'm saying this because how many of you have been in a church someplace where you've gone through a church split? How many of you have ever been, lift your hand up high. Come on, get them up there. You've been through a church split. You know what it's like? See if this is an adequate description. It's like a divorce in a family. It's like a divorce. It's like people go their separate ways who once said they loved each other, but now they've gone their separate ways. And you know who are usually the greatest victims of that? The kids, the children. Whether it's in a, now this is not a put down of somebody. If you've been divorced, please, I'm not in any way throwing stones at you. That's not what I'm meaning to do. The pain that goes along with this, is excruciating for anybody, but especially for children, because usually they bear responsibility. What did I do wrong? Why did mom and dad get divorced? And usually they're the ones taking on the guilt of it and feeling they should have done more, could have done more. And they bear that out through their life. But that same thing happens in the church when churches go their separate ways, when people go in different directions. There's the children, there's people young in the faith, people who just came to Christ. And this is the thing that we always have to remember. In our midst, there are always those who are babes in Christ. They've just had their hearts opened up to God, their eyes opened up to the Lord. And to them, God is so good and his church is so good and it must be perfect. It's kind of like your kid when you were, when he was or she was small, thought you were perfect, right? And now they're older and their eyes have been opened. But the point I'm trying to get to is these young ones, whether they're spiritually young or young children, Young children who, when mom and dad suddenly, for whatever reason, they leave, and their friends are, they're separated, and they don't know why, and they can't figure it out, and they can't make sense of it, because we're all supposed to love each other. Amen? This is an exhortation to us as believers. Paul is bringing this out to this church because he loves them with the love of Christ, and he's trying to put up some roadblocks so they don't go down a path that will be hurtful and destructive to them and to those around them. So, he says, again, if any affection and mercy, since there is affection and mercy, God's mercy, God's affection is among us. That's in verse one. Then he says, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Now he's not saying all of you think alike. The one mind is an attitude that you possess. It's not just thoughts. It's the way that you relate with people, the one mind, the one attitude that you should have. And then he describes this one attitude. He says it this way. First, let nothing be done through selfish ambition. Don't do anything you do to get ahead. Now, I'm talking about within the church. Don't use any tactic to try to gain an upper hand on somebody else. Whether you're in a discussion or something, don't use this attitude of I gotta win. See, because if there's a winner, there's always going to be something else, a loser. And if you're trying to always win, what you're going to try to do is you're going to try to make somebody else lose. And in doing that, that does not build unity. What that does is it builds division. It brings division. And so Paul is saying, don't let anything be done through selfish ambition or conceit. Sometimes people think that they're better. that they're smarter, that they have more going for them than other people. And that's very easy. It's easy for, in a congregation this size or in a congregation of 10 people, to have people who are, have different character qualities, different maybe because of their backgrounds, because they've been Christians longer, but there are things that we can possess that make us different from other people. And sometimes we think that different means better than, and we hold ourself that way sometimes. It's like, well, I know more than you do. I've got a handle on this. I've got kind of the corner on this wisdom, and anybody else that doesn't have my wisdom is, we wouldn't say stupid, but sometimes we can act like, well, you know, you'll learn sooner or later, meaning you don't know now. And by the way, I said that this is, these are practical things for the household, for families. How many times do you see kids in a family competing for who's gonna be best? Who's gonna be top dog? Competition, and I'm gonna say something, somebody's gonna, I know it's gonna throw something at me. I think competition can be a healthy thing if it's done in, in a gracious way, but it can be one of the most divisive things in the world. Especially if you've got in a household where you've got kids that are trying to prove that they're better than their brother or sister. Prove that they're smarter than mom or dad. Or you have teams playing sports. How many of you have seen fights where there's sports being played because At the end of the game, one wins, the other loses. How many of you have seen where there's somebody that you'd think was a nice person suddenly punching somebody because they feel like they got, in their competition, the other person got too aggressive? The attitude of Christ, the attitude of a Christian is completely turned upside down in many of the events that we have. Now, that's not saying all. There are many sporting events where guys that are Christians, women that are Christians, they conduct themselves in their profession with dignity, with grace, and with kindness. And when they're wrong, they admit they're wrong. Just like in any other profession. But there's something about being competitive. When you're competitive, it automatically makes for an us and them attitude. And sometimes, Unfortunately, as Christians, we've bought into it many times in the way that we lift sports up and encourage our kids to be involved in anything and everything. Now, sports can teach teamwork and can teach a lot of good things. So like I said, don't throw stones at me, but recognize that there are some things you don't want your kids to learn in sports. And if you don't guard them, I guarantee you the world won't. So how does all this come together? He says, been in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Now it's not talking about putting yourself down. It's you look at others and say, I want you to succeed. I want you to be the best you you can be under Christ. I want to do everything in my power to help you climb the ladder, not be on the ladder trying to pull you down. I want you to be the best believer you can be. I want to pray to that end. I want to pray that you will walk with Christ. I want to be willing to give of myself to make that happen. Sometimes we're just kind of, we're caterpillars. You know, there's what you call pillars in the church, kind of hold the church up. Then there's caterpillars. They crawl in and crawl out, but they never hold anything up and they never help anybody else. I'm glad that's not true in our church. As I look out, I see so many of you ministering in different ways. I mean, some ways that nobody ever sees except God and the person that you're helping. So I am grateful. I'm so grateful for a church that has people committed to serving one another. So when I come across these passages, I'm not throwing stones at you. I'm simply saying, we need to guard what God has given us. We need to protect it. At all costs, we need to protect it. And he says, where am I? I'm at the verse four. No, he didn't get down to verse four yet. Oh, yes, we did. Sorry about that. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out, not for his own interest, but also the interest of others. You know how that works out? I know fellowship meals. We have wonderful fellowship meals here. And I'm grateful for that. But you know, I've noticed something that happens. Usually there's some who are doing a lot of the work, setting it up. And a lot of that are doing a lot of the work, cleaning up afterwards. And a lot just enjoy it. And that's good. We should enjoy it. But you know what we need to do as a church? We need to look for opportunities to serve. When everything's all done, there's some people that come to church earlier than others. Some people that are here earlier, practicing, setting up food, doing different things. And they've been here for a while and they're tired. When we have a fellowship meal, it's good to have fellowship, to stand around and talk and pray together and do all those things. But sometimes what happens when it's all said and done, there's usually, I can count probably about five to 10 people that are always around doing the cleanup, doing the vacuuming, doing the helping wash the dishes or put stuff away or taking out the trash. Now, why do I bring things like that up? Because if we look for opportunities to serve, to bless, that's the thing that deepens our unity. That's where people say, you know, instead of, they feel like, man, I'm just being taken advantage of here. I'm always here. I'm always doing this. And we don't have that. I'm grateful we don't have that. But in order to avoid having that, others need to step up to the plate at times and say, let me help with that. Let me do that. Why don't you take a rest today? You're always doing this. It will bless people. It will bless them in a way that you don't know. and it will guard the unity of the faith. So I was gonna get down to the really, really, really important stuff here. Verse five, thank you. My wife keeps me on track. Finally, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And then he gets into a deep theological thing. But you can't get bogged down in theology. You gotta look at the practicality of it as well. Who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. Some people say, well, you know, Jesus never claimed to be God. No, but the scriptures over and over do. That he was God. He was very God of very God. He was in the form of God. Every part of God was in him in terms of being deity. And what he did was he, in the incarnation, he took upon himself a human body. He did not take upon himself a sinful nature, but he took upon himself a human body, but he never ceased to be God. He was always God from all eternity till all eternity. He has always been and always will be God. But He took upon Himself in the incarnation, He took upon human form, a human body, a real genuine human body that could bleed, that could feel pain, that could have emotions. And so Paul is saying, let this attitude, this mindset, this way of thinking be in you that was in Jesus, as important as he was, as God. He didn't think it was something below him or something that was wrong to be equal with God. He didn't think it was wrong to set aside his glory, in a sense. When I say set aside, I have to be careful because, like I say, he was always God. What we see on the Mount of Transfiguration is when suddenly it's revealed the glory that was always his, and suddenly the disciples see the glory of Christ on that Mount of Transfiguration, when he shines brighter than the sun. It's kind of like if a king goes out into his public, but in order not to be recognized, he puts on a coat of a beggar, and he goes out among the people. and everybody thinks he's just the same. Well, Jesus was the same in some sense. He didn't just put on a coat. But he was unrecognizable by people for who he was. And so you have this idea of the incarnation and what happens, it says in verse seven, but made himself of no reputation. The father didn't make him make himself. He made himself of no reputation. That means he took the lowest spot possible. He came, though he's God, he comes as a man. He takes on human flesh and he comes as a man. Now, how far down did he go to do that? I want you to think for just a minute. How far did the Lord come down? in humbling himself to come from glory where angels worshipped him, where everything was subject to him and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, the three being one. But how far did he come down? And what did he endure for you and for me? So in his incarnation, we see him as he was, but in his humiliation, we see him what he willingly became for our sakes. Made himself of no reputation, taking upon him the form of a bondservant, a slave. and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. It wasn't enough to humble himself to become a man. He humbles himself even more. And he humbles himself to this point, and became obedient to death, to the point of death. even the death of the cross. The most despised thing that a Jew could think of was dying on a tree. Because the curse of God was upon the person who died on a tree. He humbles himself to become a man, but then he humbles himself to become a servant, a sacrificing servant, a suffering servant, the one that Isaiah 53 speaks about. And he dies. Not for anything he'd done, but for all that we've done. And so his humiliation takes place. Now that should be enough for us to say, you know, I want to walk like Jesus, I want to live like Jesus, I want to submit like Jesus, and I want to do it for others. But there's more to it than just that. The latter part of that says, therefore, verse number nine, therefore God, the therefore is there because of what Jesus did. Because of his actions, therefore God has highly exalted him. Isn't that what it says? He went down, Jesus went down, God lifts him up. That same principle is there for us. When you humble yourself, God will exalt you in due time. If you exalt yourself, God will humble you. Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name. that the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things on earth or of those on earth and of those under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He starts off with the incarnation, the humiliation, humiliation, and then his exaltation. God has lifted him up above everything and everyone else. That at his name and his authority, every knee will bow. Every knee from every generation through all of eternity. Angels that disobeyed will bow. Angels that obeyed will bow. Those who love Christ will bow. Those who hate Christ will bow. Some out of a desire to honor Him, they will bow because they love Him. And others who hate Him, they will be bowing because they are made to bow. And because of that, because of who Jesus is, The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul is saying to us, let that be the way you think. Let that be your attitude towards one another because if in the church that's your attitude, if in your home that's your attitude, there will be peace, there will be unity, there will be the glory of God shining out from among you. Why don't we stand together? Yes, I want to pray though. If somebody would go back and get the kids. We're going to share communion and as we do. I know that we have some visitors with us, but just to remind us as a congregation that we have what's called an open communion here, which means if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, if you've confessed him as your Lord, you may Share communion with us as long as you're not under any form of church discipline from another church. And if that would be the case, we would talk with you. We'd be glad to talk with you and try to bring reconciliation as best we can. So if if that would be the case, we would ask you to withhold from taking communion. But if you're a believer in Christ, you're welcome to have communion. So as these kids are coming in, I'd like to pray. Lord, There's nobody like you, Lord Jesus. And we are completely overwhelmed with how great you are. Lord, you astonish us. We would never think to redeem mankind the way you have. We wouldn't even have thought that mankind needed to be redeemed. if you had not redeemed us. Lord, you are truly good in all of your ways. Your knowledge, your power. We continually ask that question, who is like the Lord? And we continually answer it, no one. No one is like you, Lord. And so we pray, would you help us? Help us to be the kind of people that walk after you, that follow in your footsteps because we've been born again and because we have a heart that wants to love you and serve you and serve others, Lord. Help us, God, to put away childish things and a divided spirit and that way of always wanting to be first, look better than, be smarter than. Lord, if there's any of that in any of us, please God, pour out your grace and mercy, grant repentance, teach us how to change so that you might shine brightly in our own hearts individually, but then corporately as a body, that when people come into our midst, Lord, they might sense God is truly among them. And then in sensing that, Lord, that they might bow before you. the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. So Lord, we're praying for that, we're asking for that. May our children see you in our lives and may they desire the good things that they see. In Jesus' name, amen.