A beloved verse from Paul’s letters to the Philippians comes from the 21st verse of chapter 1: “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” It’s truly profound. Living life on this side of heaven with everything revolving around Christ. Living for him, worshipping him, walking with him, been filled by His Spirit.
Every single day. And in living a life totally focused and dependent upon God, to die is gain.
For Paul, in spite of adversity and struggle, death wasn’t something to be feared because it meant that he was in the presence of the Lord. Knowing Jesus Christ as savior. Again, that’s a radical idea in our world. I think as Christians, we struggle to not be just as fearful of death as everyone else. But we have a God who has justified us of our sins. We have the Spirit internally witnessing to God. We have a savior who came and died for us. But perhaps because we get so caught up on what’s “practical,” that we lose sight of what is eternal.
To live is Christ and to die is gain.
If our entire life is devoted to Christ, to knowing him and serving him; then an even greater thing it is to actually be with him, to be in his presence. To be with him in a place where we don’t have the worries and stresses of everyday life. Where we don’t have illness or disease. Where there isn’t sin or hurt. But where it is enjoying fellowship with the Lord. How do you approach a verse like that? Do you think “amen to that.” Or do you struggle with that idea? I know I do sometimes. But I shouldn’t.
To be With Christ
I love what Paul says in the following verse.“If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:22-23).
I think it’s a reality that is difficult to embrace. Let us live lives that are so committed to Christ. That are so assured and reliant upon the gospel. That you are in such focused and daily pursuit of the Lord on earth that you know it’s an appetizer to an even greater feast.
The point certainly isn’t to undermine life. Everyday we have is an opportunity to know and serve God. Philippians 1:24-25 says”But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith.”
There is work to be done, as participants and members of God’s church on earth. We don’t live for the purpose of watching football and playing video games. Certainly we can do those things. But that’s not what it’s all about. It’s about serving the Lord and growing with him. Knowing God and making God known.
Joy in God
There are people who go their whole lives and have no interest in God. Maybe they say they believe in him. But he isn’t their hope for salvation. He isn’t the one for whom they are daily living and desiring to honor.But then they take it as a foregone conclusion that they will spend eternity with him in heaven. And people get mad that God wouldn’t just let everyone in. But if you’re interested in heaven, start pursuing God today. Start living for God today. Because we can know him. We can grow with him today.
The secular people who think they deserve heaven…really? Because heaven is a place that is all about God. And for those of us who are walking with the Lord, let us live lives today that are all about God. Let the profundity of that transform the very way in which you approach God.CS Lewis said: “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.”
Originally published on February 25, 2019
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This weekend, Parler was taken offline. Apple, Google, and Amazon all removed the social networking alternative to Twitter from their app stores. Amazon Web Services, who had hosted Parler, discontinued that service.
I remember earlier this year, when Twitter and Facebook were ramping up their censorship. The argument was “these companies have a right to control what’s on their platforms.” People said “it’s just the free market working.” When technological monopolies who operate like cartels are not free market actors.
They said “make your own alternatives.” And then there was Parler, which grew in popularity. For conservative journalists, writers, and media personalities, Parler had become their free speech platform to communicate with their audience.
And now that’s shut down.
Many are fine with this (because they don’t actually care about free speech). They point to the horrendous riot in Washington last week. The fact that some people used Parler for nefarious purposes is the justification for deplatforming the entire app. Millions of people were responsibly using Parler, but because some weren’t, the tech companies had to take it down.
(Note: I don’t at all support the riot that happened last week. I wrote about how terrible I thought it was).
There’s no moral high ground for Big Tech
Big tech companies are not bastions of virtue. Apple produces iPhones in Chinese sweatshops where people are paid next to nothing. Facebook was used to help fuel a genocide in Myanmar, and failed to stop it. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have all been utilized by terrorist organizations.
And at times, those companies, have dragged their feet at shutting down terrorists on their platforms.
I’ll give a little bit of slack to these companies, in that I’m sure it’s very difficult to keep up with people who are associated with these groups. But my point is that those platforms are allowed to continue. There was a horrible event that happened in Washington on January 6, and it took less than a week for Parler to be shut down.
I see articles that accuse it of being a “right wing extremist” platform. Any site that isn’t a leftist outlet is going to be called a right wing extremist platform.
Monopolies need to be broken up
One of the great virtues of the internet used to be that it be “free and open.” Not so anymore. Big tech has increased its censorship. They employ their own fact checkers, but it’s imperfect and one sided. Leading up to the election, legitimate stories about Hunter Biden were censored. Oops.
Sadly, the tech companies will retain their power. Especially in the current political climate. The Democrats control the federal government. They’re not interested in expanding rights to free speech. Who from the DNC has publicly questioned shutting down Parler? No one.
People might think it’s wonderful that the social media platforms all banned President Trump this week. It’s also showing just how powerful they are. They can retaliate against the president himself. Surely no congressman or congressional committee can stand up to that. They influence what we see and their fact checkers decide what’s true.
Do I think the purge is on? No. But I also don’t see what would stop big tech if they wanted to further silence those who disagree with their politics.
I hear a lot of talk of conservatives creating their own echo chambers. I always find that so ironic. The popular culture has become an echo chamber for the left.
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So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:1-4
Prayer
Our heavenly father,
These continue to be trying times for our nation. This was another ugly week. We’ve been through so much as a society in the past year. There is so much division and disunity. There is so much hatred in our world and society.
Lord. Let us be people who pray for our community and for our nation. Lord, in a society that’s increasingly divided, may we be uniters. In a nation that’s increasingly combative, may we be peacemakers. Lord, we pray that you would use this text to point us to the unity that you desire from us. May we practice that in our church but may it also influence the attitude that we have with our spouses, with our children, with our co-workers, and with total strangers.
Lord, may we be a people who do shine the light of the gospel in all of our relationships and interactions we have with others. Lord, in a world where there is so much hatred, we pray for this church and that we would be a people who are noticeably different from that. May we be a church who point people to Christ through our words, actions, and love for our neighbor.
Lord, we pray that you would use us to be your hands and feet in our community. We pray for opportunities to show and share the love of Christ. Lord, in these tumultuous times, may we not be weighed down by the problems of the world. But may we look up to our great God. Lord, for anyone today who is feeling especially discouraged, I pray for comfort for them, I pray for peace for them. Lord, we pray that you bless our time in your word. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Introduction
Music.
It’s a beautiful thing.
It’s something that brings joy.
We just celebrated Christmas. The classic songs take us back to other times.
Same thing with songs that were meaningful at different times in our lives. It has a way of transporting are thoughts to when we were teenagers.
Music builds community. It moves us. It inspires us.
We don’t always even notice the music, but it’s so often in the background of our lives. The restaurants we go to, the stores where we shop.
Throughout the Bible, we see how important music is in our worship of God.
Part of the beauty of music comes from the unity that’s needed in performing a song or a piece of music.
If the different instruments were playing different songs, that would not be an enjoyable listening experience.
If someone was singing the lyrics to a different song, that would make no sense.
For music, we need people playing the same song.
We need unity. We’re continuing in our new years series.
Last week, we talked about the importance of personal holiness.
Today, we are talking about unity. And the plan next week, Lord willing, is to talk about evangelism.
And the idea is that we started with individuals, we’re expanding that to the church, and next week, expanding that outward to our community and the world.
So today we focus on unity as we look at the beginning of Philippians 2.
Just to give a couple of brief notes on Philippians.
Philippians is written by Paul. He wrote it from jail, but despite being imprisoned when writing Philippians, it’s a very joyful and upbeat letter.
But one of the areas that he did need to address with the Philippian church was the subject of unity. We see that in more than one place in this book, but we’ll really just be focusing on one section today.
And so what we’re going to do this morning is look at this section in three parts.
And the main idea of this passage is this. Be the you in unity.
The basis for unity
Verses 1-2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,
This first verse is actually pretty loaded. Paul makes four statements in this opening verse. And all of the statements are meant to be directed to the same type of person. A person who is a Christian and who has trusted in Christ.
We’ll be brief on these.
Four ways that the gospel impacts us.
First, Paul talks about encouragement in Christ.
That seems to best be understood as the encouragement and comfort which comes from knowing Christ and having your salvation found in him.
Second, Paul talks of comfort form love which seems to refer to the comfort that comes from the love of God.
Third, Paul talks about participation in the Spirit which refers to a shared unity within the church. In the church, we are all born again by the same Spirit. We are all sanctified by the same Spirit.
Many scholars see this passage as being Trinitarian. That it’s getting at the works of all three persons of the Trinity in the Christian life and in our salvation.
Fourthly, Paul talks about any affection and sympathy Paul is talking about the changed life and emotions that should come from a person who does know the Lord. it’s the fruit of our salvation. It’s a care and concern that we’re called to have for one another.
Take all of that together.
Paul is saying that this is what salvation looks like in verse 1.
And that brings us to our second point in verse 2.
The call for unity
For the person who is a Christian, who knows Christ, who knows God’s love, who’s active in a body of Christian believers by means of the Spirit, Paul gives the command: complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
Be the you in unity.
Where Paul talks about being of the same mind, he’s not saying people should lose their individuality or uniqueness. He’s not saying we should all become robots and yes men.
But he’s saying that we should be united in goals and direction as a church.
Because when we as a church are one in heart, we will become one in mind.
If we are united in what we value, that fosters unity.
And Paul is emphasizing the importance of being joined and united in verse 2 where he keeps adding further elaborating comments on what it looks like for Christians to be united.
That’s how the church is supposed to function.
It’s how a healthy church is supposed to function.
We enjoy a show called Secrets of the Zoo. And in the first season, every episode was at the Columbus Zoo, and there was a phrase that the zookeepers used several times in the show.
Let’s say the animal was a polar bear, they’d talk about the polar bear and say “she’s such a good bear.”
Or let’s say it was a hippo, “he’s such a good hippo.”
And in some ways, that phrase sounds almost silly.
A good hippo. A good bear.
They do what hippos do, what bears do.
What Christians are supposed to do is be unifiers.
When I was applying to churches a couple of years ago, a lot of churches have questionnaires.
Our church gave me a questionnaire. And I forget if our committee asked me this, but one of the common questions I would get in a questionnaire or in an interview would be about my preferences for worship music styles.
That’s an important question. But I also think that if you’re committed to unity within the church, that’s not the most important issue.
By the way, I really appreciate all of our people who do music for us.
There should be principals that matter. We should care about music which is Biblically faithful, which points people to the Lord, which is not man-centered music.
And music is just one example.
I’ve talked before about crazy reasons people leave churches.
Music is a major reason. Carpeting, paint, choir robes, on and on. There are all sorts of reasons why people leave churches where it’s clear that the priority was not unity and the love of the church.
And I think it can be especially difficult in American churches. Because if you’re not happy with a church, if you decide you don’t like something about a church, it’s so easy just to uproot and go to the next church. It happens all the time. And there can be legitimate reasons to do that. But often times, the reasons why people uproot are not based on good theological reasons.
In the first century, they didn’t have churches everywhere you looked, the way we have it in America. So you really needed to figure it out.
But the command is just as Biblical for us today that we need to strive for unity as a church.
And it’s also an area where there’s work that continually needs to be done in our own hearts and attitudes.
A church can have very good unity in a season of its existence. But there’s no guarantee that it will always be that way. Which is why it must be continually pursued.
2020 was a year where many churches were pushed to the brink in terms of unity. It was a challenging year. Different opinions about Covid and how to handle that. Different opinions over politics. Different opinions about social issues.
All of these are important things.
Again, unity is not a call to be mindless.
But it is a call to make unity a priority. It’s our job as Christians to emphasize unity within this church and amongst each other.
Unity is meant to be a reflection of the gospel. That we have a gracious savior who loves us and we are supposed to be gracious and loving to each other.
Unity matters because we need each other.
There’s this lie that’s spreading in America among people who identify as Christians which undermines the importance of church. You can do your own thing. Don’t need to be involved in church. You can just pick the pastor you really like and watch his sermons online. That’s just as good right?
Wrong.
Nothing wrong with watching a pastor on TV or listening to one on the radio.
But it’s important to know that that person is not YOUR pastor.
No matter how many great insights you’ve gained or what you’ve learned about the Bible.
We’re called to actually be part of a church. It’s the body of believers. It’s important to be actually doing life. To be growing and struggling with people.
Proverbs 27:17:
Iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another.
So we’ve explained what unity is and that we’re called to pursue unity as a church.
The process of being a unifier
But how do we pursue unity?
Verses 3-4:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Paul never says that this list is the exhaustive guide to unity, but it’s a pretty good start.
And there are two primary areas of focus in this process.
Beginning of verse 3 where Paul says to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.
He calls upon the people to instead be humble.
Keep in mind that Paul is writing in the first century. He’s writing during the Roman Empire. The Greco-Roman world did not view humility as a virtue. If anything, it was a weakness.
What is humility?
Humility is not self-loathing. It’s not thinking that you’re really great but saying that you don’t think that and fainting humility.
I like the C.S. Lewis definition of humility. Humility is not thinking less of yourself but it’s thinking of yourself less.
It takes a focus off of ourselves, our wants, our needs.
And that’s consistent with how Paul describes humility in this passage.
Because it is in this spirit of humility that Paul instructs the Philippians to count others more significant than yourselves.
The Bible has much to say about humility.
Proverbs 3:34 says that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. That same idea is picked up in James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said: Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:12).
And here again, we have Paul exhorting the Philippian Church toward humility.
And that has gospel impact.
In the following section of Philiippians, Paul will point to the humility of Jesus.
Philippians 2:6-7: though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
That is one of the most theologically dense verses in the New Testament, so we’re not going to fully unpack that here, but one important idea when Paul describes Jesus.
Jesus is glorious. Jesus is God.
But even Jesus was humble during his life in the world. He was fully submissive to the will of God.
In his humility, this glorious Christ, who was in the beginning, who was the eternal Word, who was perfect and sinless went to the cross.
Verse 8: And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Jesus was humbly obedient to the father.
Our society likes to glorify people. We like to glory talent, geniuses, prodigies.
Jesus was the one in whom the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell, and yet he humbled himself before God.
And that is to the glory of God, because it is because of Jesus’ humility, and his submission to God that we have the gospel and can be saved from our sins.
And one of the ways that we can show humility is be humble to God’s word and his commands in scripture.
It matters to God that we be unified as his church.
That’s always true, but I think of the especially high level of disagreement and disunity that there is in our society right now. It should especially stand out to the world, to our neighbors, to our community that we have a commitment to unity.
John 13:35, Jesus says: By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
That isn’t saying that we can’t have opinions. That isn’t saying that in the proper times, we shouldn’t make those opinions known.
We have a church budget that we vote on. That’s a good time to speak up.
We have a board that we vote on. That’s a good time to make your voice heard.
We have an annual meeting.
And certainly, we’re always willing to hear concerns.
People do share concerns with me sometimes. I appreciate that. I don’t want anyone to ever feel like they can’t speak up.
I think that’s perfectly good and reasonable. So please don’t misunderstand what I talk about unity. The point isn’t that it’s virtuous to never raise concerns, suggestions, or thoughts.
But I think part of where humility comes through within the life of a church is being able to agree to disagree.
I think all of that is worth bringing up because there are churches that can misuse and abuse verses like these and be very top down and authoritarian and controlling.
The verse is not calling us to absolute submission.
But it is important to have humility. To know that we’re fallen people. To pray for our church. To pray that the collective wisdom of our leaders and of our church will be what is honoring to Christ.
But within the church, it’s important to have humility.
And again, I think of the reasons why people so often leave churches. They’re so often not about major doctrinal differences. People leave because they didn’t get their way, and that is not Biblical.
It’s important to major in the majors.
The gospel is a major. The inerrancy of the Word of God is a major. The divinity of Christ is a major.
But a lot of things are not major issues, and in those areas, there needs to be grace, and a love for the church and the unity of the church should supersede the minor issues.
Verse 4 says:
4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
That’s an important principal.
I should also say that I’ve never seen anyone at this church just totally go against this idea. I have seen it in other churches.
And I’ve heard stories from other churches.
People trying to throw their weight around, impose their will on an idea of ministry.
That’s why I previously said that unity is something that must be constantly pursued by churches.
I think in America, where we have so many options with everything, where every business with which we interact lives and dies on our satisfaction, otherwise bad publicity and negative reviews will quite possibly ultimately result in lost sales.
And so I think churches can fall into pandering, customer service, giving the people what they want.
I think this is especially true in large churches, but churches of any size can fall into this thinking.
Unity cannot exist in a Church with people who are only looking out for themselves. Where people are takers.
And so what this passage does is serves as a reminder of the attitudes that we have within the church.
Again, I appreciate all of you. I appreciate this church. I think that unity is something that’s important to be reminded of from time to time because there are a lot of unhealthy and dysfunctional churches, unfortunately.
Conclusion
The great German preacher and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave 7 principles for unity which I think provide us with helpful observations in how we pursue unity as a church.
1 Hold their tongues, refusing to speak uncharitably about a Christian brother;
2 Cultivate the humility that comes from understanding that they, like Paul, are the greatest of sinners and can only live in God’s sight by his grace;
3 Listen “long and patiently” so that they will understand their fellow Christian’s need;
4 Refuse to consider their time and calling so valuable that they cannot be interrupted to help with unexpected needs, no matter how small or menial;
5 Bear the burden of their brothers and sisters in the Lord, both by preserving their freedom and by forgiving their sinful abuse of that freedom;
6 Declare God’s word to their fellow believers when they need to hear it;
7. Understand that Christian authority is characterized by service and does not call attention to the person who performs the service.
I’m tired of the media gaslighting the whole country.
My opinion of yesterday was that it was ugly. I hated seeing people breaking into the Capitol, breaking things in the Capitol, going into congressional offices and taking selfies in the congressional chambers. I think people who committed crimes should be prosecuted for their actions. I don’t think that Trump did enough yesterday to denounce the destruction and also dragged his feet in conceding the election. Those are horrible errors on his part which will impact his legacy.
2020 protests vs 2021 protests
But the gaslighting comes in the form of the two different standards that we see. Yesterday’s riot is (rightfully) condemned, but it’s as if this summer didn’t happen. We had riots and destruction all across the country. The narrative was that those protests which did over $1 billion in damage were “mostly peaceful.” The Federalist had an article today called People compared them to our founding fathers and the Boston Tea Party.
The Federalist links to a Mother Jones article titled “Riots aren’t irrational.” GQ ran an article called “Why violent protests work.” And on and on.
All of that was acceptable. But yesterday was bad. And I’ve heard different explanations for why yesterday was different.
People temporarily created their own autonomous zone in Seattle. But yesterday was “treason.” Yesterday was a “coup.”
I’m consistent. I think both were bad.
Admitting defeat in 2016 vs 2020
As I write this, it was only this evening that President Trump acknowledged defeat in the election. I’m glad that he did. He needed to. But he should have already done that. I know that there are lots of allegations of voter fraud. I can even agree that it happened on a small scale. But there were investigations. The justice department is headed by Trump’s personally appointed attorney general. Trump’s justice department has said that there was not widespread voter fraud.
Trump should accept the results of this election. But we also went most of his term with the media and many on the left never accepting Trump’s win. Even in the final weeks before November’s election, Hillary Clinton was stillsaying that the election had been stolen.
We heard it was Russian collusion. We heard the election was swayed by social media. That was all fine.
I’m consistent. I think election losers should both concede defeat and then not continually backtrack and talk about it being stolen.
Trumpism vs Social Justice Warriors
I’ve seen lots of editorials about “Trumpism,” and how Trump’s supporters are a personality cult. I can concede that SOME Trump supporters are that way. But that also goes both ways and we see an almost religious fanaticism from some some of our social justice warriors as well.
The religion of social justice has its priest (people like Ibram X Kindi, Shaun King, Robin Diangelo) who are the mystics who point people to the higher truth of their worldview. It has its own scripture (their books and writings). Wokeism has its own affirmations. It has its own rituals of absolution (public acknowledgement of guilt). Wokeness has its own force that explains the world (racism).
It turns out that in a society where we get more and more invested in politics, and where we do more and more fear mongering about defeats and demonizing of the other side that people get very entrenched in their beliefs and it becomes a quasi-religion to some.
But it happens on both sides. And when both sides do it, that’s a bad thing.
Collective guilt
There were indeed many peaceful protests this summer, which happened without incident and where people wanted to peacefully demonstrate and make their voices heart. God bless those people. That is their right as Americans. But the coverage wanted to make it seem like essentially all of our protesters were people demonstrating in this fashion. Then we have yesterday, and anyone who supports Trump is collectively guilty
I’m hearing the narrative that law enforcement went easy on the protesters because the crowd was largely white. We had police allowing buildings to be burned down in major cities. In certain areas, police were ordered to stand down.
Again, I’m not defending destruction which happened yesterday. I’m just asking for some consistency.
So as a Christian, I do denounce this rioting and destruction. I believe in what is true, and just, and good. I think the idols we make of our politicians are corrosive and dangerous. I think our great nation is in a dark place and that the gospel and revival. For Christians, we must pray for this and work towards being light in a dark world and being peacemakers in a contentious world.
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It is a tumultuous time in America and for the church in America. On this first episode of the Three Theology Questions podcast, we discuss our culture and the state of the church in America with podcaster and filmmaker Les Lanphere.
