Humility: The Path to Unity

Today, we're going to look at this opening of the second chapter of Philippians, and we'll see what Paul's main concern for us is here, and that is being a united people in Christ by the Spirit. Important to Paul that they be, and of course it's important to the Lord Jesus Christ. We be also, so that we can advance in the joy and faith, as Paul talks about it, and also that we can advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. Listen to what he says, beginning in verse 25, and convince of this, that is that he is going to remain, and he's going to return to them. Paul says, and convince of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that your proud confidence in me may have bound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again.

Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith in the gospel. In no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them but of salvation for you, and that too from God. For to you, it has been granted for Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me. And then He says, in light of the fact that you are suffering, He says, if therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love United in Spirit intent on one purpose, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than Himself.

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. What Paul is doing in this section, we are going to look at this morning, in fact this entire section of the letter of Philippians, is he is giving his response to some petty grumbling and disputing that is going on, some bickering among some of the people at Philippi. It is not serious yet, but Paul wants to point out to them that this kind of unrest not only dulls your witness to those around you in the city of Philippi, but also it is going to erode your ability to contend as he is called it contending side by side, that is working as a team in the work of the gospel like an army when you face opposition.

And so he begins to exhort them in this, these first four verses of chapter 2, an exhortation that we all need to hear, in fact at all times, the church needs this message because we always face these same kinds of issues wherever we are, whether the church in the Philippines or the church in America, the church in Uganda, the church in South Africa, we all face similar kinds of challenges. And the Paul's purpose here is this imperative that you find in verse 2, make my joy complete by doing these things. Now this old apostle, as he is about my age, this old apostle as he is writing, he is a few years older me actually at this point, about six years older than I am, but he is writing to them this apostle that had brought the gospel to them and that he considered this to be one of his churches, one of those churches that were assigned to him by the Lord Jesus Christ.

He had planted it, he had nurtured it, it whatever it, and now he writes to them with his heart, laid bare, and he tells them what his real desire for them is, and so he appeals to them. The basis of his appeal is found in verse 1, it's a wonderful expression, it's just filled with truth about the Trinity, the triune God that we serve. The basis of his appeal are these four presuppositions, and we could read these, in fact, since there is encouragement in Christ and so forth. But these are his presuppositions, and you notice they are Trinitarian. What I mean by Trinitarian, they speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If the Father is ministering to you, if the Son is ministering to you, if the Spirit is ministering to you, then do these things.

This is the same thing, the same kind of thing that Paul does in 2 Corinthians, at the very end of 2 Corinthians, when he closes the letter to the Corinthians, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Here he is saying, if the triune God is active among you, then make my joy complete by doing these things, and listen to these presuppositions. The first is, if there is any encouragement in Christ, now the first ground of his appeal, and the first ground of every sermon I believe, the appeal is this, is the appeal is the encouragement that is in Christ Jesus, that we, that Jesus Christ is with us, even in our suffering, and especially in our suffering.

In our suffering, Christ comes alongside, the word encouragement means to come alongside someone, and give them a word that keeps them moving, and these people are facing the beginnings of persecution, and he says, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if Christ does truly come alongside, and encourage you in your sufferings for the gospel. And I can guarantee you that anyone you will ever talk to who has suffered for the gospel will tell you that Christ came alongside and brought encouragement. He spoke encouragement to their hearts. And second Corinthians, the first chapter, the great chapter on the encouragement of God, the God that we have, who is the God of all comfort, the Apostle Paul writes, just as the sufferings of Christ have overflowed unto us.

In other words, because we have put faith in Christ, that his sufferings, that is the treatment that he read from in, overflows into the lives of those who follow him. But he says, not only does his sufferings overflow unto us, but he says, so also through Christ, our comfort likewise overflows into your life. In other words, as you suffer for Christ, Christ brings deep comfort, great encouragement, and that encouragement flows out in the lives of other people. Perhaps one of the most important things, greatest benefits of suffering for the gospel, if you're ever privileged to do that, is that God will do wonderful things in your life. He will increase your capacity to comfort others. There have been people in this church who have been persecuted for the gospel.

They haven't been, their lives haven't been threatened, but their livelihoods have. And they have discovered that in those situations, Christ comes into their situation in a powerful way, and he empowers them and equips them to comfort others who go through similar situations. And so Paul says, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if you are being encouraged by Christ in your suffering, and then secondly, if there is any consolation of love, the word consolation means to cheer someone up with comfort. Now encouragement speaks about Christ, the fact that Jesus Christ comes alongside of us in our suffering, but this word consolation, the speaking from someone to cheer and comfort your heart.

This encouragement here, this comfort here, is speaking of the Father's love as cheering the heart. Knowing that your love by God will cheer up a sad heart. Many of you have experienced that, just recently, that when God comes, when the Father comes, and he speaks to your heart in this way, it comforts your heart. Romans 5.5 says that the Spirit of God has gushed forth within our hearts the love of God, and that gushing forth of God's love for us just continues on and on throughout our Christian lives. And so he says, look, I know you're in trial, I know you're in struggles, I know that you're beginning to experience a persecution just as I am. But if there is any encouragement in Christ, and if there is any consolation of the love of the Father, and then the third thing he says, if there is any fellowship in the Spirit, if there is any sharing in the Spirit, if the Spirit really comes alongside you in your suffering, and brings fellowship, he breathes life into you as you go through this suffering.

By the Spirit we're united to Christ, but we're also united with one another, and he's saying that the Holy Spirit doesn't work with us, that's so unusual, that he binds us together with other believers so that when you hear about the suffering of other Christians around the world, and you let that penetrate your heart, you don't do what John says you should not do, that is close up your heart to those who are suffering. When you open your heart up, when you allow your brain to conceive, and you're hard to understand what believers are going through in other parts of this world, when you think on that, you meditate on it, you begin to experience the fellowship of the Spirit, the Spirit begins to empower you to actually suffer along with them, and to be able to call out to God for them.

It was the last time you prayed for suffering Christians around the world. I mean you are aware, I've said it over and over again, there are more Christians suffering today than ever before in all church history, and I mean some of them are losing their lives, more people are being killed for the cause of the cause of the gospel today than ever before. You have brothers and sisters in the Sudan, who are going through horrible sufferings, and the sufferings you don't even want to hear about, you don't want to see, you don't want to know about because it hurts so deeply. But he says the Spirit of God gives him powers us, in fact he is the empowering agent of all that God is doing among us, both to will and to do with his good pleasure Paul says in the second chapter here.

The Spirit of God, if the Spirit of God works it in this way, and so he says, if there is this inflow of the grace of God in your lives as you are going through suffering, the comfort of Christ, the encouragement of Christ, and the consolation of the love of the Father, and the fellowship that the Spirit brings. If that is true, and then he talks about the overflow of that, the last phrase there, if any compassion and mercies, aren't you amazed at how God has so changed you, that you were a merciless person before, and now he's made you a merciful person, that he has so changed your heart that you actually have mercy towards people who are suffering. The word compassion here is the closest thing to an English, is the word viscera, that soft tissue within those deep feelings is what he's trying to express.

There's any really dealings that are expressed in mercy, affectionate tenderness towards people who are suffering. That's what flows out of us, into the lies of other people. And I think about that in this room this morning, there sits people, men, especially who were heartless in the way they treated other people. You didn't care if other people suffered, you didn't mind inflicting a little punishment on them, and now God so changed your heart that you were moved by people suffering. That's the work of the Spirit. That's the supernatural work of God. And so Paul says, if there's anything supernatural going on in your lives, that's the assumption that you must do this work that he's going to call them too.

And so he urges these believers to feel deeply what one another is going through. In Colossians chapter 3 verse 12, it says, if you want to participate in the life of the Church of Jesus Christ, you have to prepare yourself by putting on bowels of mercy. Bowels of mercy are deep, allowing yourself to be touched deeply by the spring of other people. To allow yourself to be moved by people's circumstances and situations, the appeal here is that there must be a robust love for one another. We must be rigorous in the way that we pursue love. We have to stretch ourselves out in loving one another to the degree that when one member suffers, we all suffer. Now John tells us in first John 4 that until you have been loved, you cannot love anyone else, and you can only love others to the degree that you've been loved.

In other words, we love because we first love us. The reason that we love each other is because Christ first loved us. And people who have not yet experienced the love of Christ, people who do not know what it's like to be loved by Christ and loved by the Father, have a very limited ability to love other people, to love people who really can't do anything for them, that bring them no benefit. They're just brothers and sisters in Christ. What benefit could a brother or sister in Christ in the Sudan do for you? They couldn't do anything for you. Except pray for you. But they have no resources. And as they suffer, I guess they are. The appeal here for what he's going to call us to do is to have such unity of spirit.

The basis of his appeal is on the comfort and love that we've received from God, the triune God, and that we share in common as brothers and sisters in Christ, not only here in Brantwood, but around the world. And then he turns to this appeal and begins to appeal to their hearts and appeal to our hearts by application. And notice in verse two, it tells us why the unity that he's going to appeal to us about is so important. Why is it so important that we experience the kind of unity that he is going to call us to? Notice what he says in verse two, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Make my joy complete by doing this.

This is a strong personal appeal. In other words, he tries to grab hold their heart and he says, I want you to make my joy complete. The Apostle Paul who's suffering in prison, who's in chains. I want you to make my joy complete, not by breaking me out of prison. But by having this attitude, this speaks volumes about the pastoral heart of the Apostle Paul, what his heart was for these people. He's already expressed his joy in the first chapter over their participation in the gospel. He says, this brings me great joy to know that you are still participating in the gospel. That you are witnesses for Christ and even had joy for his own imprisonment because he knew that his own imprisonment was advancing the gospel.

And he rejoiced in his own circumstances because he said it was going to bring greater glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. And now he's going to urge them bring my joy to full completion. God continues to give me joy, but I want you to bring it to full completion by advancing the gospel still more and more in Philippi. Keep moving, keep advancing. And if you look at chapter 2 verse 14, listen to what he says, do all things without grumbling and disputing. Why is he so interested in that? Why does he want him to stop grumbling and disputing? I mean, how do you live in this world without grumbling and disputing? That's the air that we breathe. If you work in this world, there's grumbling and disputing going on all over the place.

But he says, I want you to do everything you do as the people of God involved in this work without grumbling and disputing that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Among you, you appear as lights in the world holding fast the word of life so that in the day of Christ, I may have caused a glory because I did not run nor toil and vain. In other words, my effort in bringing the gospel to you is not in vain. There is a crop that's going to be born through my work there at Philippi. That's what he's interested in. And so he tells him, in order for you to advance the gospel and to make my joy complete, you're going to have to get your act together.

You're going to have to stop the murmuring and bickering and you're going to have to come to have a common mind about life together in Christ and your role in the work of the gospel and your mutual love for one another. We are not going to be fruitful in the gospel if we are not actively loving one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. And notice what they have to do to complete Paul's joy. He's going to tell him three things that they have to do. He says, you make my joy by first by being of the same mind, secondly by maintaining the same love and third being united in spirit and ten on one purpose. What does he mean by these things? By being of the same mind. This does not mean having the same opinion about everything.

Hallelujah. Aren't you glad? It doesn't mean you have to have the same opinion about everything. It means quite literally to have the same mindset, the same mental set, the same way of looking at life. What is that? Well, he's going to tell you in the rest of this in verses five through eleven. He's going to tell you what this mindset is. It's the same word that's used in verse five. Have this attitude, this mindset in yourself, which was in Christ Jesus. What is this mindset that we already have? Well, it's the mindset of Christ. It's the mindset that he had that brought him into this world, caused him to humble himself, take the form of a servant. In other words, it's the mindset of a servant.

It is what true biblical humility is. Biblical humility is not beating your chest and saying you're worthless. True humility, biblically, is that I see myself, I see my true value and I see my true weakness and sinfulness. But I don't make too much of either one of those things. I have the mindset of a servant. I see myself as your servant. Who is the greatest in the kingdom? Come on, who's the greatest in the kingdom? The servant of all, right? In other words, the one who serves the most people. Who is the greatest in the kingdoms of this world? It's the person with the most servants, right? The greatest person in the kingdom, in the kingdoms of this world is the person who has the most servants.

If we, if all the men, especially in this room got together, we started talking. The way that we, we established a pecking order is who has authority over the most people? That's upside down, isn't it? In the kingdom of God, the greatest person of all is the person who is the servant of the most people. The servant of all. And of course, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. So when he says everyone have the same, the same mindset, he says all of you have the mindset of a servant. See yourself as a servant of all. And then he says, secondly, be maintaining the same love, the same kind of love with which they have been loved by God. In other words, biblical love begins when someone else's needs are more important than mine.

You ever had that experience when someone else's needs became more important than your own. That's where biblical love is manifested. When I see the needs of others as more important than mine. Notice in, in back in verse 9 of chapter 1, we've already looked at this that he, that he prays for them that their love might have bound still more and more in all discernment. That they would become better and better lovers. This is in danger of being eroded as we read this book because of friction in the body, because of misunderstandings and disagreement. And he says, I want you to have the same disposition about one another as God has towards you. And maintain the same love. Don't get weak in your love for one another.

You remember in the church in Laodicea when Jesus sent a letter to the church in Laodicea and he says, this is what I have against you. You left your first love. You left your best love. You remember what it was like when you first got saved, when you first came to Christ and you just loved everybody. You loved every believer. You didn't see any faults at all. They all look like angels to you. They all look like saints. But then you begin to be able to discern better as you grew. It became a better discerner of people. And pretty soon you begin to realize, you know, these people are not perfect. I mean, all this talk about the church being filled with sinners saved by grace is really true. They really are sinners.

They really do have weaknesses. They really do have faults. They can really get on your nerves. You notice that? They can really get to you at times. He says, maintain the same kind of love. And under pressure, this becomes especially true. And so you can imagine the chill up by as the pressure begins to be applied in that church as they begin to experience persecution. They begin to get irritated with each other. You ever getting one of those moods where everything everybody does irritates you or at least your husband gets that way. Somebody you know gets that way. He says, maintaining the same love. And then united in spirit in 10 on one purpose. That's a wonderful expression. United in spirit in 10 on one purpose.

It's quite literally united in soul. Having being one sold. Having the same affections, the same feelings about things that he's talking about. And being intent on one purpose, having the same purpose. In life, which is here in this context is the advance of the gospel. The emphasis here is unity in feeling as well as unity in purpose and thought. He wants us to feel the same way about one another and about the savior and about the father. He wants us to have be one sold as a congregation. That's an interesting contrast in James chapter one. It says that the man who isn't a dilemma and he doesn't know what to do. He's in the midst of a trial. He doesn't know what to do. That he can ask of God and God will give him wisdom in that trial.

But he says the problem is that you have to ask in faith because if you don't ask in faith, you are a two sold man. You want to, but you don't want to. You know, you feel affection, but you don't feel affection. And you have conflicting feelings and affections. And he says, if you're going to get anything from God, you have to be one sold. Well, here it says that the congregation, if we're going to be effective in the work of the gospel, we have to be one sold. We have to be united in affection as well as intent and purpose. And this is the continual episode of this book unity within the community of faith. Now, how in the world is unity achieved by the church? If you've been saved for over three or four years, you should be asking that question.

Now, come on, be honest. How in the world can you ever have unity in the church of Jesus Christ in a local church? How can you have unity among God's people when the content of his appeal here in verses three and four do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind that each of you regard one another is more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. So first, he describes two barriers, the two great enemies of unity, selfish ambition and empty glory, vain glory. Those are the enemies of unity in the church. And then secondly, he describes the path of the spirit, which is going to take us to unity, and that is love and humility.

So these are the two things that he's appealing to us to do. This is his purpose that we be like this, that we be at church, that gets rid of the roadblocks, that turns our back on the enemies of unity. Do nothing, not anything at all, not ministry, not anything in your life, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. What is that? What is selfishness? You remember back earlier in the first chapter that Paul says some men as a result of me being put in prison, some have been emboldened to preach because they want to make me feel bad, and they do have selfishness. And he says the opposite of preaching out of selfishness is preaching out of love. So selfishness is the opposite of love. It stands at the heart of human fallenness, selfishness, self-interest, self-aggrandizement.

When my own self-interest dictates my values and my behavior, my decisions in life, that selfishness. It's the opposite of Christ's attitude when he took on the servant's role. Why did Jesus Christ become a servant in order to service? In other words, he was looking out for our interests. The second thing he says we have to get rid of is empty conceit, empty conceit, vain glory, being pumped up in your own mind about who you are and what you are, feeling like you are a little bit better than others. Look at Galatians. This is an amazing passage in the book of Galatians in chapter 5. Notice in Galatians 5 verse 26, Paul says, let us not become boastful, challenging one another, inving one another.

Now notice the two extremes there, challenging one another, inving one another. The two extremes of empty conceit. That is thinking I'm better than you are being depressed because I think you're better than me. You see that? He says, don't become boastful, challenging one another, inving one another. And then look back across the page in verses 14 and 15 of chapter 5, Galatians, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in one statement. You shall love your neighbors yourself and then notice the next verse. This is an amazing statement. But in contrast to that, in contrast to loving your neighbors yourself, if you bite and devour one another, take care less you be consumed by one another. This is Christian cannibalism.

It's believers chew on another. And they were chewing on one another in this church out of empty conceit. Some of them felt they had found the inside track to acceptance with God that only a select group of Christians have. Paul had preached the free gospel of grace. He had pre-salvation and Christ justification by faith alone and Christ alone to grace alone. And these Judaizers had come along and said, look, Paul doesn't quite have it right. If you want to be really acceptable to God, then you must take on the marks of the covenant, the mosaic covenant, circumcision. Eating a certain kind of diet, keeping Sabbath. And as they begin to buy into this, they begin to judge their brothers and sisters who didn't buy into it.

Have you ever been that around that kind of thing? Around Christians who have a certain take on things, they have a certain bent. And because you don't, then they judge you as being less acceptable to God. And they may never put it that way. But what happens is we begin to do this very thing. We begin to bite and devour one another. And Paul says, you better be careful unless you be consumed by one another. And of course that happens in churches. You can get chewed up and spit out in churches. That's a horrible thing, isn't it? It's been happening since the first century. And so what Paul is warning the Philippians is, turn your back on empty conceit. He knew these, if these attitudes were allowed to continue in the church at Philippi, it's going to wreak havoc in that church.

It's going to hinder them from doing the work of the gospel. That's why he warns them in chapter 2 verse 14 that I read, get rid of this bickering and complaining, mumbling. This is the exact opposite of the mindset of Christ. Selfish ambition and vain conceit. Instead of selfish ambition, Jesus poured himself out and became a servant. Instead of vain conceit, he humbled himself into the point of death and across. If anybody could grab hold of their status, their glory, it would have been Jesus Christ. But it said he didn't think being equal with God and manifesting his glory as God, something that he had to seize as an opportunity for his own purposes and his own glory. But he emptied himself, Carl Bart.

I know some of you don't like me to quote him because he's a neo-orthodox, but he was a he was a brother in Christ. And he said some wonderful things. Listen to this. He said this passage reflects the heart of the Pauline ethic. And this is what he says you must do. Each believer is to climb down from the throne on which he sits and to mind and to seek after the one purpose, which is the purpose of Christ. You've got to crawl down off of the throne upon which you sit and embrace the purpose of Christ and the mind of Christ. Now, after telling us to be careful to watch out for these enemies of unity, which is empty, you can see. These things stand in the way of a church experiencing the kind of unity we must experience if we're going to be effective in the gospel.

If we develop little groups who think they're better than other groups because they don't have the same take on a certain thing, then we won't be effective in the gospel. And then he tells them what the only path of unity is. The only way you're going to get to unity, he says, this is the sinequanon of unity is through humility. In contrast to selfish ambition and empty conceit, notice with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Now, this was quite a statement in the context in which Paul is giving it. He's in jail in Rome. He's living in the Roman Empire and the Greco-Romans in their mind because they had an anthropocentric view of humanity. Man is at the center of the universe.

They believe that humility was shameful. It was a shameful thing for you to have true humility in the biblical sense to see yourself as a servant of others. The biblical mindset is theocentric. God is at the center. He's the one who owns all the glory. It all belongs to him. And humility is the right positioning of yourself before God and before others. You want to get right with God and you want to be right with others? It's to have a mind of humility. In other words, you start resting your case with God instead of trusting in your own strength and your own machinations, the things that you can accomplish and do. You rest your case with God. You believe that God is in control. He's at the center of the universe.

The biblical mindset rests on this truth that God is at the center. In other words, we understand that we are creatures and he is the creator and we are utterly dependent and we must trust him. We are dependent upon him. We can't accomplish anything apart from him acting and working. When Paul gives these assumptions back in the first verse of chapter 2, he's saying, if these things are true, if you've experienced this, if God is active, in other words, you see, you can't produce this yourself. You can't produce the encouragement in Christ. You can't produce the consolation of love. You can't produce the fellowship of the Spirit. That's something the son, the father and the Spirit must produce.

If God isn't working among us, then we can't accomplish anything for God. If we are just left to our own, if we are a bunch of evangelical deists that have gone something and now he's walked away and it's up to us to put this all together and make it work, then we're in big trouble. When Paul assumes this, we have a mindset that understands that we are dependent upon God and we trust him to work. You have an unsafe love when you have somebody you love dearly and you want them to come to Christ so bad and you've tried every method you could ever think of to try to manipulate them into coming to trust Jesus Christ and they still haven't done it. And you're frustrated, you don't know what to do.

Well, God is trying to bring you and me to the place where we realize he's the only one who can do this. We are shipwrecked on God and stranded on omnipotence. We have to trust him. He must work if anything's going to be accomplished. And so Paul says we must not be self-focused. Don't merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interest of others. And he gives us the perfect example, the rest of this passage which we'll look at next. He gives us the perfect example is Jesus. I think about this for a second. Jesus Christ is the only man who has ever known God perfectly and lived on this earth. The only person who's ever lived on this earth and knew God perfectly was the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you know what is striking about the Lord Jesus Christ? He was humble. That's what he says about himself in Matthew 11. I'm meek and lowly and humble in heart. I could tell you how you can detect where the person really knows God. Are they humble? Do they manifest true humility? The person who knows who God really is to the degree that he does that will humble himself. He'll be a mind. He'll be a person with humility of mind with a humble mindset. You'll see himself as a servant. You see Jesus saw and understood that being the servant of Jehovah was the highest calling a man could ever be called it. And then notice that last phrase, regard one another as more important than yourself. And this doesn't mean think that they are better than you are.

It means be more concerned about their needs than you are about your own. What's driving you right now in your life these weeks? What is it that's driving you? What is it that's motivating you every day? What do you think about when you first wake up in the morning? What do you keep drifting to all day long? What's the last thing you think of when you lay your head down in the pillow? What is really controlling your heart today in these times as we approach Christmas? What's controlling your heart? He says it ought to be the needs of others instead of meeting my own needs regarding others is more important than myself. That is precisely how Christ's humility is expressed in verse 8. There was a time.

In fact, there was a point in history in which God the Son left the Father's right hand and Jim South in the womb of Mary to a real human nature that single little cell. And the reason he did it, the reason he humbled himself in this way that the infinite God became finite is because he was looking out for your interests because he was coming to do something for you. Do you find it hard to serve people because it's so humbling? You find it hard to serve people because it's so taxing on you. How could you serve people without not being able to accomplish and acquire those things that you want and those goals that you want to accomplish? It's interesting to me Bill Bell is in my recent conversations with him.

One of the recurring themes is the fact that it's only been in this last part of his life as he has become so help us and people have manifested the love of Christ him as brothers in Christ in a way he had never experienced before. He says it's been through this experience that I've begun to feel like God is my father. Isn't that significant? That because he's being loved by the brothers, he begins to feel like God is really his father. You see how significant you are in serving other people. I remember Bill Bell when he would hardly look you in the eye when he would sneak into church and sneak out 15 years ago when I first met him for months, he would come into church late and leave early so he wouldn't have to talk to anybody.

And now you can't stop him. But see he's been transformed by the work of God, the path to unity among believers. If selfishness and empty conceit is sure to erode relationships within the church and the surest path of unity is considering each other as more important than yourself. That's what brings unity, is when you put the interests of others above your own interests. How do we consider one another as Mormon ourselves? He says, do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others. We fulfill the law of Christ, Paul says, by bearing one another's burdens, by drawing close. Now I think without a doubt what Paul is telling us here is that we have to aggressively as the body of Christ, we have to aggressively pursue being these kinds of people, of being on the guard, on guard against empty conceit, selfishness, and be radical in our commitment to allow the Holy Spirit to produce within our hearts a concern and love for one another that means we'll even allow ourselves to be put out, even when it's costly, even when it takes energy and resources of all kinds in order to really minister to one another in a significant way that we would be willing to do that.

Paul tells us if we're going to have unity in the church, if we're going to be effective in the gospel, we must have unity. Fighting churches are not effective in the gospel. Bickering, murmuring, grumbling, complaining, congregations are not going to be effective in the work of the gospel. We must have unity and the only way we can have unity is if we are characterized by humility. But you know what? I believe with all my heart when Paul says here in chapter 1 verse 25, I am convinced that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith. I am convinced that the greatest joy that you can ever experience in this life, on this earth, on this globe, the greatest joy you can ever experience and you can experience it in Sudan, in Uganda, in the Philippines, or in Brentwood, California, the greatest joy we will ever experience is through humility.

It's through the faith that we have in Jesus Christ being manifested in real concrete ways that we begin to see ourselves as servants of one another, that we don't need to church, trying to figure out what we're going to get out of this. That our main thing is not wanting to shape this congregation and the ministries of this congregation so I can get my needs met. But being a part of that so that I can meet the needs of other people so that God would use me as a servant to really meet the needs of people. And when we are characterized by that, we are going to be effective in the work of an advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we're going to see people come to Christ. What greater joy is there than that?

I mean, it's the greatest joy in life for God to use you, even in a small way, for someone who's outside of Christ who's still in their sins, who are alienated and lost and in darkness, away from God, to see them to come into the kingdom of light, to experience the love of God, to have the spirit of God poured on their hearts, the love of God. There's no greater joy than that. And that's what God has called us to do. So whatever it is that's controlling your heart in these busy days that you have, you have so many things to do and so much shopping to get done and so many tales to take care of, please don't forget that at the very heart of who you are is a servant of Jesus Christ. That's your high and lofty calling.

And he's going to use us to the degree that we are a church that's really characterized by humility and unity. Then we can be effective. I had a great compliment last night. We went to a birthday party with a friend of mine who just turned 50, big event in his life. And there was a brother there hadn't seen a long time and that he had come and visit our church sometime back. And he got to talk to me about it and he said, I've never been in a church where people were more friendly and loving towards me. The two times I've been to your church. That to me, that's a great compliment. You know, we can't have that if we don't have unity and we can't have unity if we don't have humility. So don't be afraid to humble yourself and reach out to people and let God use you in a significant way, minister to the needs of other folks.

Let's stand together and pray. Please come tonight. It's going to be a great time. It's kind of like these kind of adventure or kind of like a family getting together and watching home movies. But it may look a little funny to other people, but to us it just warms the heart. It's a great experience. So please come and let's enjoy this fellowship tonight. Let's pray. Father, as we come before you, we are so grateful for the love of Christ. We thank you that he humbled himself and took on the form of a servant. Came into this world and died on our behalf and then brought us to you. We thank you that he has lifted us up and seated us in the heavenly at your right hand. No, God, we pray that our minds and our mindset, our purpose would be one that our hearts would be united.

Please make us servants, Father. We don't ask you for great and lofty things. We ask you, O God, that you would do a deep and pervasive work in the heart of this whole assembly. That we would be a congregation servants to one another so that you could use us in the way that you really want to. As we leave here today, I pray you'd help us to minister to one another to incite one another to love and good deeds as you've commanded us to so that Jesus Christ might receive glory in His name we pray. Amen.