(Allen McClymont’s sermon on 8 Feb 09)

INTRODUCTION

Today our passage is Philippians 2:1-11 and our theme is Christian unity, but before we look more closely at it I want to read to you part of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17:20-21:

 

“My prayer is not for them alone (I’m not just praying for the12 disciples). I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message (us), that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

 

Jesus prays for unity, that his followers will be united and the standard or the closeness of the unity we are to have is extremely high. The unity that we, as a Christian congregation, should have should be the same as the unity that exists between the Father and the Son, ‘just as you are in me and I am in you’. What’s more, in this prayer we see that if we are united, this unity will be a witness the authenticity of the Gospel. In other words, people will believe that God sent Jesus when they see the unity we have within the church with one another.

 

Unity is very important to Jesus and I’m sure that all of us here agree that Christian unity is vital. The issue facing the church today however is not agreeing on the importance of unity. The issue facing the church is how to actually do it! And this is where Paul in Philippians can help us. The whole of his letter to the Philippians is a concerted effort, by all the means at his disposal, to foster and maintain unity. And that is the first thing I want us to see from these verses.

 

1. The Goal: Unity in the Church (2) 

Our goal as a Christian community is unity. We find this goal in verse two of our reading today. Paul passionately appeals to the church to make his joy compete. For Paul’s joy to be complete only one thing is missing, the continuing unity of the church. Paul uses four different ways of saying the same thing. His desire is that that the church is united in heart and mind. They are to be like minded, having the same love, being one in spirit, and being one in purpose.

 

I think it is important to see that the unity Paul is talking about comes from having the same purpose and following the same Lord. What is desired is unity not uniformity. Unity doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything all the time. It is not a subtle way of getting people to conform to the will of others. The unity Paul seeks is a unity in diversity. One of the things that excites me and motivates me at STM is when I see, different races, people from different generations, people from different work backgrounds, working and living together in community. In my own time at Bible College in NZ I met and worked and studied with people that I never would have met in the normal course of my life. Some of them were a real challenge to appreciate. But in the end, it is in our struggles and attempts to live together in harmony that we presented a unique witness to the transforming power of the gospel. Having a unity of purpose enabled us to overcome the other differences we had.

 

So what Paul desired was not uniformity but unity in diversity. Secondly, we need to recognize that we are called to love one another not like one another. I think that sometimes when people talk about unity and loving one another we get the idea that we have to pretend that we like everyone. What we are called to as Christians is to love one another. This means we are to want God’s best for the rest of the community. Now this will include being in right relationship with other people in church. The Bible has a lot to say about sin and forgiveness and we must ensure that we don’t allow bitterness and unforgiveness to take control of us. It will also include praying for one another. I know of nothing that changes my attitude to other people more completely than praying for them. But I don’t think loving one another means that everyone in the church has to be our best friend. It’s not an invitation to hypocrisy. We are called to love but not to like everyone.

 

2. The Means: Humility (3-4)

God calls us to unity. If we accept that then how can we promote unity and maintain unity in church? Well according top Paul the means by which we can promote unity in church is by living humble lives. Paul knew that simply telling people to be united was not enough. We must also live lives that unite. And the key to living a life that unites is living a life of humility.

 

Paul gives the Philippians something not to do and something to do, something negative and then something positive. Negatively in verses three and four he warns to guard against pride and thinking only about ourselves. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit and remember to not only look out for your own interests. You see Paul knew that pride is almost inevitably at the bottom of most church splits and divisions in the church. What is pride? Pride is happens when we consider ourselves better than everyone else. Pride makes us insist on being right. Pride makes us more concerned about our reputation in the church, than with the reputation of the church and the reputation of Jesus Christ. Pride then is the opposite of what we are meant to do. It is what creates division and inevitably destroys unity

 

Instead Paul gives us something positive to do. He urges us in these two verses to consider others better than ourselves and to look out for the interests of others. In contrast to pride, humility is considering others better than ourselves. It is one of the indispensable qualities of a Christian. It is also the quality that is most misunderstood by the world. The world around us despises humility. It asks, ‘who is going to progress in their career by being humble’. To succeed in this world you must promote your self, trumpet your accomplishments and minimize the accomplishments of others. To non-Christians and to some Christians as well, being humble is recipe for failure. The world teaches us that our only responsibility in life is looking after ‘number one’. Paul says that for Christians looking after ‘number one’ is the problem. He begs the Philippian church not to be proud but to be humble.

 

Now again we need to be clear by what we mean when we say humility. What does it involve? Well at its core I believe humility involves changing the way we think about other people. You see how we treat other people depends on what we think of them, how much we value them. If we think they are more important than us, then we will treat them with respect. Conversely, if we think that we are more important than them we will expect them to treat us with respect. Paul writes in verse three writes, ‘consider other better than yourself’. What he means is that we are to treat people as more important than we are. It involves recognising that they are made in God’s image, that Christ has died for them and they are precious to him. This is what humility is all about. Pride grows when we have an exaggerated view of our own importance. Humility grows as we consider other more importance than ourselves.

 

3. The Motivation: God’s relationship with us and Jesus Christ (1, 5-11)

Paul knows how difficult this is and so he gives us two examples to motivate us to live humble lives. Our first motivation is God’s relationship with us.

 

a) God’s relationship with us (1)

In verse one Paul begins by giving the grounds for unity. He lists the benefits of being united in Christ, of being a Christian. He begins by reminding the Philippians of the security we experience as believers. The word in the NIV is encouragement but I think a better translation is comfort or consolation. Paul is reminding them of the comfort and consolation that being a Christian brings. The comfort that comes from knowing you are held in the palm of God’s hand.

 

He then reminds of Christ’s love for them. He asks, ‘have you experienced that care and concern that a child experiences in a loving home?’ It brings to my mind the picture of a loving home where there are parents that love their children and want them to fulfil all their potential as a human being made in God’s image.

 

Thirdly, Paul asks have you experienced the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. Here the famous Greek word koinwniva is used, fellowship. I believe the focus is on our fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Paul is asking if the Philippians remember the Holy Spirit’s guidance and direction in their lives.

 

And fourthly, he asks if they have experienced the mercy and compassion of God. Again the focus is on their relationship with God and the mercy- the second chances- we have been given by him. What is being spoken of is the powerful compassion of God.

 

Paul is not really asking questions here rather he is reminding the Philippians of what he knows to be true in their lives. What he is really saying is, ‘since you know the comfort that comes from in being held in the loving hands of God, since you have experienced the love of God in your life, since you know what it is to have the Holy Spirit living in you, and since you have experienced the mercy & compassion of God in your life, then live a life of humility and live in unity with your Christian brothers and sisters. In other words, if being a Christian means anything to you, then you will be motivated to work at living humble lives. If Christ really means anything to you at all then you must work together.

 

b) The example of Christ (5-11)

If that is not enough Paul then in verse five points to Christ as the perfect example of humility. These verses show us that humility is a quality of God and, what is more, it is a quality that we as humans are to emulate. Our attitude of humility should be the same as that of Christ. The model for the Philippians is Jesus Christ himself. They are to use Christ as a pattern for their relationships. They are to have the same self-emptying, humble, and self-sacrificial attitude that Christ did. What God did was consider us more important than himself, even though there is no way we could possibly ever be more important. We see this humility, in the way God sent us his Son. He humbled himself, firstly by becoming a Man, and secondly by dying on the cross for us. The incarnation (Christmas) and the atonement (Easter) are at the heart of these verses, the birth and death of Jesus Christ. These were the two deepest descents in his self humbling. So if you think that being humble doesn’t apply to you, then think again. If the God who created you and me can have a humble attitude, then we must to  

 

CONCLUSION

The challenges for us today is clear as I conclude, are we willing to lay aside our pride, humble ourselves and serve others? The Bishop Michael Ramsey a number of years ago was addressing a group of ministers who were about to be ordained. In his address he gave four ways to grow in humility that I want to share with you, and I will end with them.

 

1. Thank God often and always: thank God wonderingly for the privileges you have in Christ. Thankfulness is a soil in which pride does not easily grow

2. Take care to confess your sins carefully and often: make sure you criticize yourself in God’s presence. Self examination is an essential discipline we never grown out of

3. Do not worry about status: there is only one status that God is concerned about and that is our proximity to himself, and fourthly

4. Be able to laugh at yourself: we must be serious about the gospel but never too serious about ourselves. The danger when we begin taking ourselves too seriously is that this inevitably this leads to an inflated view of our own importance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AMEN