If Any

The Sermon’s Thesis: Unity in the Church Through Humility

For anyone who I haven't met, my name is Michael Coughlin and I'm good friends with Joe and Jim, a bunch of people at church now, Michael, but particularly Joe for the longest time. So I'm very, very happy that you would have me here today.

A couple things I wanted to say before I get started. One of them is that I'm going to preach from Philippians and the section of scripture that I'm going to preach from, I'm going to, instead of reading it to you to begin the sermon, I'm going to try to recite it from memory.

And I want you to know that so you can follow along with me. But as well, I want you to know that it's not, you know, I didn't even think of this. A friend told me to warn you, actually. It's in no way trying to show off or anything like that.

I just, I memorize scripture and I memorize this portion. I just wanted to try to do that. It's a challenge to do it publicly rather than just privately. And also maybe to inspire you to be interested to do the same kind of thing with scripture, whether it's this verse or other verses of scripture.

You should hide God's word in your heart. And secondly, I am going to be preaching the word to you today. And I'm not one of your pastors. And I don't want you to let that stand in your way of letting the Holy Spirit minister to you through me.

I may say things that that are very hard to hear. I will, I can say that because they were very hard for me to encounter in my study. So there was some, there was some time with God that I had to spend in repentance and asking forgiveness and for help from him.

And I expect you may feel a little sting yourself and I don't want you to let me be your obstacle to just your encounter with God. I'm here to preach and I'm his chosen instrument. So having said that, let me pray and then we can go into the word of God.

Father in heaven, thank you for providing this day, the Lord's day that we can come and set aside time to worship you. We thank you for the freedoms we have in this nation and in this state and county to do these things still that we do not fear any sort of physical persecution and things of that sort right now.

And so please help us to open our minds and our hearts to what your word has to say. And I thank you in Christ's name. Amen. So before I try to quote the scripture to you, I want to give you what I'm going to say is the thesis statement of this section here.

I want you to have something. If I give you a fire hose of information for the next two hours, I want you to have something that you can, that was a joke. Somebody laughed. Good. I want you to have something that you can cling to.

If there was maybe too much information or maybe this is some of it's new to you. I don't know who here, maybe it's your first time at church. I really don't know. But I want you to have something to be able to walk away with that at least there's one thing you remember and then we'll go forward with hopefully maybe more information than you would have thought is in a small passage.

Jesus Christ and Paul's primary concern is that in their physical absence there should be unity among those whom Christ has redeemed. Unity is not achieved by everyone agreeing all the time, but rather by intentionally elevating others above oneself concerning matters not of essential or primary importance to the faith once delivered to the saints.

So the goal of the sermon, and I think at least one goal of Christ and Paul is unity in the church. And so with that being said, I'm going to try to quote for you Philippians 1 27 to chapter 2 verse 13.

Paul says, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ so that whether I come and see you again or I'm absent I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

Give me, I'm going to pause because I want you to get to turn there. I forgot to give you a chance to get to the passage. Philippians 1 27. Now I'm on 28 I believe. And not frightened in anything by your opponents.

This is a clear sign to them of their destruction but of your salvation and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any participation in the spirit, any comfort from love, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore brothers as you have always obeyed sound as you have always obeyed so now not only in my presence but also in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to work and to will for his good pleasure.

So that is the text that is surrounding Philippians two one through four which will be the basis that I'm going to try to preach from today. What I want you to remember from the beginning when Paul tells them to let their manner of life be worthy of the gospel verse 27 of chapter one Paul says that he wants to hear of them that they're standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

He's going to repeat those same concepts at the beginning of chapter two so we'll address those then but one of the things Paul says that that's interesting to me is that he says he wants them to not be frightened in anything by their opponents.

He says it's a clear sign to them their opponents the opponents of the church of God of their destruction but of your salvation and that from God part of how you give a sign to the unbelieving world the enemies of God that they're headed for destruction is that you can remain patient and steadfast and even holy in the midst of affliction.

It's also a way that God draws the non-believers into the church that have yet to be saved but Paul says to the church at Philippi it's been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake and he says engaged in the same conflict you saw I had Paul was in the Philippian jail we all know that from Acts 16 and if you don't know that that's where you can read about it and it's interesting that he says that their suffering is engaged in the same conflict that they saw he had so there's a reference here that the Philippians who are in this church that Paul really brings almost no rebuke to whatsoever are suffering for the gospel they're either a group of people some of whom were also imprisoned like Paul or maybe there's other forms of suffering that Paul knows that they have experienced and in fact it's the same kind of conflict that they saw Paul experience.

So Paul came to Philippi he experienced the difficulties he experienced there and he expects the church that is there that's basically following in his footsteps in those sufferings to be able to draw upon his experience so that they might know that there's hope in Christ even for those who suffer.

This is not the purpose of this sermon but it is important to understand that suffering is part of the Christian life. And when a man or a woman gets up and preaches somehow that becoming a Christian is how you will escape suffering.

They are lying and it is something that will hurt people who are genuine believers who come to the Lord if they are taught to expect anything other than that in this life. And so it's important. But Paul's concern here is that their suffering be accompanied by holiness.

That their suffering be accompanied by walking in a manner manner that's worthy of the gospel. And then the next sentence Paul is going to flesh that out in at least summary detail what it's going to look like.

We have a problem in Philippi. If you turn over a page or two to chapter four again you read the New Testament and and let me I'm going to summarize the New Testament for you is some apostolic writer is telling a group of Christians this is all the stuff you're believing or doing wrong.

That's almost every single letter of the New Testament. Philippians is really not that way. Philippians does not appear to be this church that has this big doctrinal problem. They're not having works mixed with faith in their salvation.

They're not chasing after false apostles or or doing all sorts of things that are outside of of what Paul has said is for holiness. It seems to be a good church a loving church. But if you look at the beginning of chapter four in verse two Paul specifically calls out two women.

He says I entreat Iodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. I mean can you imagine that you know we all want to make a name for ourselves right. We all want to be remembered forever. You know I'm sure I'm glad actually that most of my life isn't on YouTube.

You know most of all my pre-Christ days were not recorded. I'm pretty glad for that. And you know what. I'm also glad that that the sins that I've committed that are probably far greater than Iodia and Syntyche not getting along about whatever it is are not going to be enshrined in the bible for all of history.

Okay. But nevertheless these women if you if you continue reading they labored side by side with Paul in the gospel together with several other of the workers whose names are in the book of life. And yet they are not getting along about something.

And it's important enough that the holy spirit inspires the apostle Paul to let the elders and deacons which is who you see at the beginning of the letter that it's addressed to and let them know you need to deal with this.

And you need to get them to work together and be unified. Paul doesn't say by the way Iodia is right and Syntyche is wrong. Or it that's not the that's not the point they labor together in the gospel and their unity over the essentials is what is important.

And the disunity that is starting to be wrought in the church that Paul has heard about somehow is problematic enough to write about. So now on to the second chapter. Paul is writing the the letter to the philippians from prison.

This is one of the prison epistles. So I just want you to imagine yourself that Paul has to write to them what he is most concerned about and what would make him pleased. So I know if I was in prison I would want probably you to bring me food.

If I was allowed to get outside food I'd want clean socks underpants you know I'd have all these desires for myself. That'd be my first inclination at least. And this is what Paul says he wants. Let's read this next sentence chapter two.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ any comfort from love any participation in the spirit any affection and sympathy complete my joy by being of the same mind having the same love being in full accord and of one mind.

It's not even the longest sentence Paul ever wrote. Is it some of you know there's a lot there and I don't proclaim to be an English teacher. I am technically the president of a home school but a lot of a lot of dads are it doesn't make me qualified.

But I'm going to try to parse this sentence out. Not not to the level of of all the little details that English majors would understand with that. But I want to look at this sentence and I want to try to break it down in such a way to help us really understand it.

This is the focus to me of of what Paul is saying. This is where the imperative the command is that he's giving to the Philippians. You know the Bible has commands right. Do you know that. Yeah. There's a there's a phrase we use indicative and imperative that a lot of people in theology use.

The Bible indicates things. It tells us things about you. You have been saved. What did Joe just teach us. You have been imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ as he was imputed with your sin so that God could declare you justified in his sight.

That is just a forensic truth. It's just something we can say. You've been placed in Christ in the heavenly places. That's an indicative. You're a son of God. You're a daughter of God. We can say these things that indicate who you are.

But then the imperative is now you must go live like that's true. You evidence or demonstrate that you believe that God has adopted you doing it into his family by actually acting like you're a son of a king.

You understand. So when you sit outside with the paupers and you eat trash nobody's going to believe you're a prince. So we must understand that there are commands of scripture and although they are impossible for us to perform in our weakness and in our flesh they are all undergirded by the strength of the Holy Spirit and the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And that is our motivation and our power to fulfill God's commands. So sentence starts with so it just so I think just means therefore as well it's it's saying because of what I just said I want you to do the following.

Keep in mind Paul did not have a chapter break in his letter either. This is just a continuation of his previous thought. We're so used to chapters the way we read books that oftentimes it's a whole different scene in a story.

Paul's just continuing his thought walk in a worthy manner of the gospel of Jesus Christ you should have holiness and in the midst of your suffering and affliction. And he said so therefore if now if is a conditional word what this means.

And is that if I say if it means that I'm going to tell you if something is true then you're going to have to do the next thing. This is just logic 101. This is like the simplest little little concept.

Actually if p then q. And if you don't understand logic yet I think you should learn. I think Christians should be the most reasonable people in the world. We're the only ones that actually have a basis for it and we're the only ones that can do it consistently with the author of all reason and the fountain of all wisdom Jesus Christ.

So if what Paul's gonna say is if this thing is true then here's your command and so this is our chance to evaluate. Well if it's true so if I said to you hey if it's raining outside go shut the windows.

You look outside. It's not raining so you don't shut the windows. Right. If I say if it's raining outside shut the windows and you look out and it's raining raining is now true you go shut the windows.

So I don't mean to belabor that point for those of you that get it but for somebody who hadn't really thought through some of those things I want you to be able to use that kind of thinking. You probably do it all the time.

Right. The littlest children in here who don't have the grammar or the vocabulary to describe logic actually employ it regularly because it's built into us. It's what's one of the things that separates us from beasts is we are rational which is why I'm the rabbit trail king.

So just deal with it. Which is why when you refuse to discipline a child you're actually treating the child like an animal. When we refuse to lovingly discipline and admonish our brothers and sisters we're actually treating them like beasts because what we're saying is they're unreasonable.

They're unable to hear the word of god or the simple commands that natural revelation will give us. And we start to treat people as if they're really nothing more than animals that the best they can do is just chased after their passions and lusts.

And for me to try to make a law that would prohibit that is just unacceptable. Because who would obey it anyway. I believe people were made better than that even in their sinfulness. And I think they ought to be exhorted to reasonability and logic.

But let's look at the first part of Paul's if here. So Paul says if there is any encouragement in Christ any comfort from love any participation in the spirit any affection and sympathy. And then that's where he's going to say.

Then you're going to do the following. So Paul gives us four really distinct conditions here that we're to look for. He doesn't write it out like a logic statement but it's it's four separate things. So the first one is if there's any encouragement in Christ.

The second one is if there's any comfort from love. The third one is if there's any participation in the spirit. And the fourth one is if there's any affection and sympathy. If if those things are true you have to do the next thing that you get it.

So let's see because I'm already going to tell you and you know it that it's true you know the next thing's a command. So why did Paul go to such length to use the language he used here. Let's find out if there's any encouragement in Christ any comfort from love any participation in the spirit any affection and sympathy.

Paul uses this word any. And what I want you to imagine is what the word any means. What it means is that if there's even a trace amount of something there's any right. If I go into the kitchen after the meal somebody says is there any food in there.

I'm not checking to see if all the crock pots are filled to the brim. Am I the answer to if there any food would be if there was even a morsel. Right. Even if it was just veggie trays there would technically be food in there even though most of us would would say there isn't.

We'd have to acknowledge right that there is no offense if you're a veggie person that's fine. You know there's a lot of meat eaters. And in these counties in middle Ohio right. Paul is making an argument that a lot of times we call from the lesser to the greater.

And it's where what he's saying is if there's any of these things which we'll we'll look at what these things are in a moment. Then you have to do the the command you have to complete his joy by performing the duties required if there's any of these things.

And what I'm going to tell you is that Paul is using the word any in a in a hyperbolic but almost hypobolic. It's beyond the way he should state it way. Because let me ask you a question. Is there encouragement in Christ.

I know you're afraid to be seen as charismatic. Is there encouragement in Christ. Absolutely. Is there any. Yeah. Yeah. But in some way no there ain't any. There's a ton there's more encouragement in Christ.

And there's discouragement in you. You understand that it's overflowing to be like if I said is there food in the kitchen. And you couldn't get over there because it was flowing out the door. That's what Paul's getting at.

I think by saying if there's any he's got these people who are suffering and he knows that it's difficult for them. And I don't think he's trying to tell them that they're doing something wrong. I don't think he's accusing them of not acknowledging these truths.

I think he's emphasizing for them the amazing abundant encouragement that there actually is in Christ. And what's encouragement. I mean just from an English perspective it's putting courage into another person.

Right. Taking away fear of things Paul told him. Don't be frightened by anything in your opponents. Or in anything by your opponents. Well how do you. How do you do that. Well take your encouragement from Christ.

And there's way more than a little bit. I think some of us are afraid to go to God and ask him to give us things almost like he'll run out and then some other guy won't have enough. You know I think we're we afraid of that.

Deep down inside. Paul says that there's any encouragement in Christ. I'm gonna say there's plenty. There's more than you could handle and there's more than you need. He says that there's any comfort from love.

Is there comfort from loving Christ. And God. God demonstrated his love for us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Right. His love has been poured out into our hearts. That's Romans 5.

You have an amazing amount of love that's already been bestowed upon you. I sense I've said this before actually in this room. But if all God did was wipe away your sins and say you know what I'll let you go to heaven.

That'd be more than more than enough if all God did was wipe away your sins and actually annihilate you instead of eternal conscious torment which I hold to that would be gracious. God pours out his love towards you.

It's not just this begrudging father whose son went and said well I don't. I don't like these sinners but I'll die for him just so we can have a plan of salvation. It was his love. God so loved the world right that he gave his only son.

And so we are made heirs joint heirs with Christ. God's love is so abundant so amazing and so overwhelming to us that I think it's hard for us to fathom. And I think part of it's because when we think about love we don't start with God.

Who do you start with. I start with me. Well I know my love's imperfect and so I think of love that way. I think of how either my dad loved me or how I love my own kid. Or how all the things that have happened in this world where love is perverted and corrupted and it's despairing and it's been destroyed in many ways.

And then I have this idea of what love is. And then when I think God loves me I don't actually conceive that it's altogether different than the way I can even conceive of it. And so we need to get our minds starting with God instead of with ourselves.

God defines who we are. We don't define who he is. So what I want you to consider is that God's love is so abundant so immense. It's so much greater than you can actually comprehend. And it's untainted the way ours is.

It's untainted. It's not like the love of your imperfect father or your your imperfect mother. It's not like the love of your ex-spouse or your kid that's left the house. It's prodigal. That's not the kind of love God has.

God's love is perfect and it's incorruptible. And it's been bestowed upon you as well as the Philippians. So is there any. There's an abundance. Is there any participation in the spirit. This word participation is is the fellowship.

And and I sometimes don't like the way the ESV calls of participation you know. But Paul even says earlier in chapter one says in verse we'll just go to verse three he says I thank my God in all my remembrance of you always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy.

That was verse three and four. Now in five he says because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Verse seven he says you're all partakers with me of grace. There's been participation even with Paul.

But we have fellowship with the spirit as well. This is why I can walk into a room with several people I don't know I can preach the bible from the bible and I can have fellowship with you. And you can hear what I'm saying because it's the same spirit that indwells you that's indwelling me.

Lord willing it's the spirit of Christ that's giving me unction to even say the things I say. And Lord willing it's that same spirit that allows you to forgive whatever problems there are with the instrument of the preaching and to hear the preaching of God through this instrument.

And that's how we have fellowship in the spirit. And Paul's saying you have fellowship with the spirit so you should have fellowship with one another. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not blind. I've been to this church before and I know some of you have suffered greatly in this church now I don't think I'm going out of bounds by reminding you of this that that there were people here that aren't here now there's been difficulties in this church that a careful obedience to this scripture would have prevented.

And I'm not blaming the people in this room right. You know it's a group thing. But Paul desires churches to be unified and he gives us a formula to do it. And so now here are the words affection and sympathy.

That word affections the it also means bowels. It's the word it's the same word that uh in the greek that described Judas's intestines coming out. So I don't have a big theological point behind that I just think it's notable.

It's kind of fun to know. It's just the idea that deep down inside you you have these feelings. Right. We're physical and spiritual. Right. We're not. We're not these uh spiritual beings that just kind of exist outside the body like everything's connected with us.

And so have you ever had a difficult time with someone that you love. Didn't you feel it in your gut. Yeah. Or when you're when you have to have a hard conversation with a brother or sister or your spouse or or even a child you get you get butterflies in your stomach.

Why is that we're connected. We're we're a whole person. And so if you have any affection and sympathy well you do again not to belabor the point. But there is an abundance of all the things that Paul is saying are required for you to continue to do the command that he's about to give.

So the command is complete my joy. So remember the analogy if I was in prison what I would want right. Paul's desire is to find out somehow that the Philippians he's going to hear from Timothy. You can keep reading if you want to understand that like where he's going Timothy's going to bring Paul the news is what he hopes.

He wants his joy completed. That's what he wants. He didn't ask him for stuff. In fact he in chapter four he kind of makes a point of the fact that like I don't need any of your stuff. He wants to know that his children are walking in the truth.

He's just like Apostle John who says that Paul wants to hear that the church that he planted is able to persist and love one another and actually display to an unbelieving world that is filled with chaos that the community of the saints is actually powerful enough to overcome our cultural differences our differences in how we want to do diets our differences in in in a lot of non-essentials.

And I qualify that by saying there's there's some essentials too. So I don't want you to think that some stuff's not worth fighting for because it is. And I'm not trying to say you can't have an opinion that differs from another person in the church.

What I'm saying is that Paul's going to tell us that you have to handle that properly in such a way that preserves the unity that Christ wants in his church. So Paul tells them complete my joy by being of the same mind.

He wants them to be one-minded. He says to have the same love to be in full accord of one mind. Sounds like he says the same thing a couple times there. Actually Peter says a similar thing you want to look at first.

Peter 3 8 give you a moment to turn there. I believe that your encounter with the word of God is important. And if all you do is listen to me I don't think there's enough sensory perception for it to be the way it ought to be.

I think you should be looking at the words on the page often enough. Sometimes I may actually quote scriptures from memory a few times just as I preach. And if you didn't know I was it just sounds like the words of a guy.

Maybe. Right. You should know you should learn it first. Peter 3 8. Peter says. Finally all of you have unity of mind sympathy brotherly love a tender heart and a humble mind. You'd almost think Peter and Paul have a fellowship of the spirit.

Right. Same author wrote first Peter ultimately that wrote Philippians unity of mind sympathy brotherly love. I imagine uh you know Joe and Mike and I and probably some others of you too. We go out and we preach the gospel sometimes and we go places that that we call safe.

But it's a very real possibility that I could end up in prison or jail at some point. Right. I thought about it as I was studying this passage. I think the thing that would bother me the most would be to find out that my little boys couldn't get along.

I think I was thinking about it if I was stuck in jail and my wife was coming to visit me. And you know bring me a couple things and just tell me she missed me and let me know how things are going. The thing I think that would bother me the most other than just if somebody in my family full-on apostatized would be knowing that my children could not simply get along with one another that the love that they have as part of the same family is not enough to just cause them to be unselfish.

And I think that's Paul's concern. So back to chapter two of Philippians. If there's any of these things you have to complete his joy. You have to give him the joy that is due to him as their father in the faith.

How do they do that. How do you have the same mind and the same love and be in full accord and of one mind. Well verse three Paul gives them some counsel. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

It's not selfish ambition or conceit to fight for the truth of the gospel and some of the things that Paul himself models very clearly fighting very hard for in the scripture. Right. Paul's talking about all of the other things that are not essential to gathering as a church.

How do you work together to love one another. And the way that you do that is by you not doing anything that's for your own selfish ambition or out of your own conceit or pride. But by doing all things in humility the cure is humility.

Calvin said. If this were the completion of Paul's joy right them doing these things he says the Philippians would have been worse than cruel if they had tortured the mind of this holy man with a twofold anguish by disagreement among themselves.

This is important. It's not only important to the Lord but it's important to your brothers and sisters. And I think it's important to churches to have unity to have enough love for one another that a disagreement that is not essential to the church's foundation does not divide brothers and sisters or even the church.

James in chapter four if you want to turn there he says. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you. Right. He says. Is it not this that your passions are at war within you. You want and do not have.

So you murder you covet and could not obtain. And so you fight and quarrel. All these letters were written to churches too. This wasn't written to you know your average non-believer. This is what is happening in churches.

They fight and quarrel. Why. Because the passions that are at war within them cause them to come in conflict with other people. And rather than lay aside their rights or rather than value or esteem other people better than themselves.

People fight for what they want. So they effectively are 10th 10th commandment violators. By coveting something that they're not getting and wanting it so bad they end up willing to sin for it fighting quarreling.

And we're all guilty of it. And so I'm gonna I'm up here. I think sometimes I point I look at people in the eye. It's the way I speak. And if and if for a moment you thought I didn't have to deal with this all week long just you know get that out of your mind.

I'm I've had to go to the Lord and ask him to bless me and grant me more humility to grant me a hatred for my own pride. But pride goes before destruction right. Howdy spirit before the fall. Everyone who is arrogant and hard as an abomination to Yahweh be assured he will not go unpunished proverbs 16.

We need to have this idea in our head that our pride is actually the worst problem in our life. It's the it's the source of all your other sin. So whatever you think your worst sin is I'm going to tell you right now.

Pride's related to it. It's at the root of it. God humbles us a few different ways. God humbled Nebuchadnezzar right. By making him a beast for seven years. Deuteronomy 8 says. And he humbled you and he let you hunger and fed you with manna.

Right. God humbles us in a lot of ways. Sometimes we we gain humility through humiliation. I think it's a valid Christian prayer to say Lord grant me humility without the need for personal humiliation.

God grant me humility by allowing me to believe what your word has already told me about it rather than me being a stumbling block to brothers or a reproach to Christ. We already have examples like David in the scripture.

Does anybody here need to commit adultery to learn that that it's bad. We have examples of all sorts of sin in the scripture already of people who were humiliated. We have Syntyche and Iodia in Philippi a couple of ladies just not getting along at church.

We don't need to repeat what they did so that we can say we tasted and experienced something for ourselves. We can believe what the word says about it. And so Paul wants us to see others as more significant than ourselves.

This is I think stronger than the way it sounds. It's. I think he wants us to see others as better than ourselves. Verse 4. One of the commentators I read said that it's actually possible for a pious man who is outwardly better than others to see others as better than himself if he has the right view of himself from God's view.