In Bill's first sermon, he said Jesus prayed, his high priestly prayer, that we would love one another, he prayed for our unity, that the world would know that the Father sent the Son, right? Right, that's the gospel. That Jesus would live a perfect life, die a sacrificial death, be buried and rise on the third day, that's the gospel, the essence of it. So the book of Philippians, here's the way one person put it, I love it, is a sustained impassioned plea for the centrality of the gospel and for its practical implications. Now it has many themes. The two gals weren't getting along, those two gals there. It has many themes, three main themes. It has more themes than three, but it's got three main ones, and they are this simply. It's that the person and work and lordship of Christ. Now that's in the hymn in six through 11, and we'll just look at it really briefly. this morning, and then, and by the way, if you want a challenge, I will challenge you this, when I read my commentaries, I told Bill and he laughed, I said, when, Luther said that when the angels wanna laugh, they read the commentaries. Okay? But in that hymn, it's, if you take that hymn and you can just, if you take Philippians 2, 6 through 11, and you take Isaiah 53, they dovetail, it's profound. It is profound, except for at the end, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, that's Isaiah 45, I think it's 22 and 23. So the person, the work, the glory, the worship of Christ, then the joy in Christ. And so the word rejoice, either in the noun or the verb form, occurs 16 times in the book. And we're gonna see why that's so profound when we move on this morning. And then suffering for Christ, especially 129, where he says it's been granted to you. That's the idea it's been gifted to you. It's God's gracious gift to you. So we're gonna have to come back to that. We don't think of suffering as a gift, do we? I don't think that. But yet it says, cast your burden upon the Lord, right? And he will sustain you. Isaiah 55, Psalm 55, I think it's 22. That word for burden is the word also in Hebrew for gift. Interesting. I just find that fascinating. You say, you get into all these things. What are you saying, Sean? Well, as Bill would say, he always asks this question, what is the context? Now remember, text without context is a con. You feel like you've been conned lately? I won't even say it. I can make comments here that will be snide and remarks about the media and politics and all that. I'm not going to go there. Bill is right 99% of the time. He's wrong when he says that context is king, because Jesus is king, amen? So context is queen, amen? What's the context? This is really great. So I'm tempted to go back to chapter one and preach a sermon. I'm not going to do that. We'll never get to chapter two. I've seen that happen here some Sundays. I won't say any names. What he's saying in chapter one, Paul is saying, Jesus is my greatest treasure, that should have been a capital T, and therefore my greatest pleasure. To me to live is Christ, to die is what? Game, right? And so Jesus is Paul's all in all, right? Well, what he's getting at in this letter is he greets them and he thanks God for them and he prays for them. but then he does something very interesting is he's rejoicing that the gospel was preached and he says his imprisonment has furthered the gospel and then he says I'm really glad I don't care what the people's motives are some are doing out of love and some are not doing out of love but it doesn't matter what their motives are because the gospel is being preached and Paul says I rejoice in that more people are hearing about Jesus I think that's fascinating. We could do a whole sermon on that, that he doesn't care about their motives, right? And so he has this courageous conviction that whether he lives or dies, Christ is his life and Christ will be magnified no matter what, whether he lives or dies. He says, it doesn't matter. And then he goes and he turns the corner and he says, I'd rather depart and go be with the Lord. You ever thought like that? I'd rather escape and get out of this. You know what I'm talking about? It'd be good to just get out of here. We say this sometimes, beam me up, Jesus. Star Trek fans. I won't even go into sci-fi because I have to suspend reality to go there, okay? But he says it's more profitable for you if I stay here. And why? He's saying it's fruitful labor. My fruitful labor will mean your joy in Jesus, in trusting Jesus. And the more joy you have in Jesus, your faith is going to be built up. You're going to be magnifying Him. And Paul says, you know what? It doesn't matter what happens to me. This is profound. He's modeling what he's getting ready to tell them, by the way. And so he says, if I pursue this fruit of your faith in Christ and your joy, therefore, in Christ, guess what? It is to pursue the glory of Christ. Isn't that his point? That Christ is magnified, whether by his life or by his death. But if I stay and I build up your faith and you're gonna find your joy in Jesus, I mean, we could go into that just more and more, but that's his point in the context. Now, then he gets into, so let me just say this. When you see that, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel. There are a lot of people, I'm not gonna say, I told Bill it would be a miracle if I could get him go, I say one week, but one day really, to go for one day without saying PBR. Meaning it's not past blue ribbon, it's performance-based. So when you see that context, let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel. He's not saying you've got to please God by how you live. He's not saying you've got to earn your salvation. He's not saying you got to be good and God will love you. He's not saying that. And then notice, so whether I come and see you or I'm absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit. Notice that one spirit, but you're standing firm. And that with one mind you're striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. That's that partnership in the gospel. And negatively, not being frightened in anything by your opponents. And notice what he says, this is a clear sign. to them of their destruction, but, contrast, your salvation. And then notice that whole thing of that, if you go back on that, it's interesting. If you look at walking worthy, living a worthy life, standing firm, and then go on further, and what? And your salvation, all of that is from who? Tell me. You see it in the green, you see it? It's all from God. That means it's all by what? Your works? No, it's all by what? Tell me. It's by grace. And how do we know that? Look at 29. For it has been granted. That's grace. It's all by grace. Everything's by grace. I'm serious, come on. No, it's not all by grace. You gotta, it's by grit. It's by your discipline. Come on, John, weren't you in the military? Yeah, that, now watch this, granted you for the sake of Christ that you should not only believe in him, so faith's a gift from God, isn't that right? But also that you should suffer for his sake. Where's Paul writing this from? Where's he writing it from? From prison, interesting, that's fascinating, right? And so he's suffering, and so he's saying what? A sermon in the sentence this morning, what's the theme of the sermon? Okay, that we're to strive side by side for faith. Then you go back and look at that 127, faith of the gospel. In order to do that, we must think like Christ. We must follow his example of humility. I think what he's saying simply is this. I'll just, I'll sum it up. You cannot have unity if you do not have humility, and you cannot have humility if you do not go to the cross. That's it. That's the whole message from this text. So where are we gonna go this morning? We're gonna go with three points, shared gospel blessings, and then he's gonna talk about shared gospel thinking. Your mind does matter, believe it or not. And then he's gonna talk about, what is it? A specific gospel command. So let me stick to my notes and we'll just go right through this. Shared gospel blessings. He gives us four ifs in the text. And so we'll just start with them just like this. If there's any encouragement in Christ. To be in Christ, notice those two words, in Christ, is to share in all the blessings he's gained for us. We've been chosen in him before the foundation of the world. We've been adopted. I'd love to go into these. We've been redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the? Lamb. Yeah, you know it, right? We've been forgiven according to the riches of his grace. We have the blessing of knowing Christ. He says that in chapter three in verse 10. We're being found in him. He says that in chapter three, verse nine. We've been given the gift of faith. We just saw that. In Christ then, we have a never ending supply of encouragement. The word he uses, paraklesis, it means to come alongside and to help somebody. Jesus used the word for the Holy Spirit. When we usually think of encouragement, this is interesting, we usually think of you need courage, you need it to be encouraged. But the word also means exhortation. And when we're discouraged, here's the question, when you're discouraged, where do you turn? Well, I call Pastor Bill. I text Pastor Bill. Now, here's the thing. I have done this before. Somebody will call me. they got more problems than Carter's got pills. I'm serious, they'll call me, you know, and it's almost like, and no matter what I say, it's not gonna encourage them. Do you know why? They haven't gone to the Lord first. And so I'll say something like, could you do me a favor? Could you pray? And then if you need to call me back, we can call him back. I've done it. I'm going to tell you, I'll make an idol out of someone else. I will call that person. I would tell you this is confession. I hate confessing this, but I will. I'm studying this hard passage in this particular text. And I thought, well, I'll just call Bill and he'll solve it for me. I'm serious. Why don't I just pray and ask the Lord, hey, you know, you can help me with this, can't you? Of course he can. So here's the point. If we go to one another, Right? Instead of the Lord, we make an idol out of people. We are to go to each other for encouragement, not primarily. We're first to go to who? We're to go to God. We're to go to our triune God. That's the point. He's gonna encourage us in Christ. That's what he's saying. We go to Christ for encouragement first, and our encouragement in him is inexhaustible. He's creating. I think this is the point. He is creating. I've seen it at sunrise. This place is different. Because he's encouraging you through the gospel, and he's creating a community of grace. It's here. Because unlike what Twain said, you've got different animals here, in the cage. Well, it's not a cage, it's a church. And the miracle is that you actually get along. I don't know if you've got a charismatic or a Pentecostal, with a reformed person, that doesn't work. I'm sorry. I'm serious. It's like, you don't usually see those two strange animals in the same cage. You don't see it in the same church and they actually love one another. Am I saying, let me build you up and encourage you by how great you are. No, that's the point. We cannot create that kind of a community. that the gospel here, the gracious gospel community does not come from our relational skills. It does not come from putting on a plastic smile. How you doing, fine? Like you lie through your teeth. No, no, no. We don't create that. God does through the gospel. He encourages us, especially when life is hard. This is the way one person put it, Ray Orland. There's nothing like pain to make Jesus real to us. Isn't that true? I will bet you some of the humblest person, people that you've met in the whole world are those who've been through the hardest things. Isn't it true? It is, it's grace. And God has worked in their life to make them more dependent on the Lord. Then he says, secondly, if any comfort from love, I don't know if I've noticed this, but have you ever had a relationship that didn't go well? And you felt grief? You felt sadness because that relationship wasn't going right? You feel a sense of loss, and then when that happens, hopefully you lean on the Lord. We look to him, we lean on him, and he gives us comfort through his love. Now, here's the way one person put it, I love it, Steve Cole. He said, since he loved me when I was rebellious and undeserving, I can extend that same love to others even if they aren't deserving. Isn't that right? That's grace. And then he went on. He said, when someone sins against God, he doesn't cut them off. Instead, he ups the intensity of his love by going after the person. As the good shepherd went after the one lost sheep, even so, my love shouldn't depend on the other person's response. It depends on the comforting love of God for me in Christ. Now here it is, here's the kicker. I need to allow his love to flow through me to the one who's offended me. That's it right there. That's it. He's comforting me. I'm becoming an instrument for his love, even though the person is very difficult. Even though the person avoids me. Even though the person wants nothing to do with me. I can tell you stories and it would make you laugh, but it's not funny as I look back on it. The further I get away from it, it gets funnier. But you run into people that are very difficult. And you know what you say, Lord? You must give up. on you, but never on the other person. And you must say, Lord, if you wanna love this person through me, go ahead. But I can't do it. That's a glorious day when that happens. And you surrender, and then he pours his love into your heart by the Holy Spirit, and you begin to become an instrument for his love to that person. That is Christianity. That is one-on-one relationships, right? And third then, notice what Paul says, a participation in the spirit or with the spirit. The Greek word for participation is our word koinonia for fellowship. And so the Holy Spirit binds us to Christ. He unites us as brothers and sisters. He makes us partners in the gospel, 127, we saw that. He helps us in our weakness, even when we don't know how to pray. Interesting, Romans 8, 26. And Paul says that we worship God by the spirit, chapter three and verse four. And so that in any conflict with a fellow Christian, I must rely on the indwelling spirit to be the oil, to lubricate the friction so that I can love and get along with the other person. When I was in Bible college, I'll confess, I was truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth. There wasn't any grace, hardly at all, you know? And someone said, John, you know, you have to hold these truths that you hold in a loose hand. And then he quoted the verse that we have next week, he said, He must be eager to maintain the unity in the bond of peace, right? And then he said, the Holy Spirit is like oil. That's one of the references for him in the Bible. And so we're like gears and we grind. And then he comes and then the gears aren't grinding. You think about your relationship with someone that you really struggle. You need the Holy Spirit to come in and be the oil, amen? It's true, whether it's a Christian or not a Christian. Otherwise we're gonna slice and dice each other up. And then the last of these four ifs, disaffection and sympathy, we put it in green because it stands alone. Because the first three ifs, they have possessive participles, but not this one. And by the way, I'm not gonna get into Greek grammar. Like Bill, he gets up here and does his grammar thing. True confessions, when I was in Bible college, we had one year of English grammar and three years of Greek. The English grammar was harder than the Greek for me. True confessions, I was crying. I was crying, it was so hard. I hated it. But the point is, all these are indicatives. These are all things that God has done in Christ. He's not telling them to do anything at this point. Now, why are this fourth if, affection and sympathy, different? Most likely he's using this Trinitarian lingo language. Some people call it formia, I don't like that. Very much like 2 Corinthians 13, 14. Did we put that up there? Yeah, it's, no, that's, we didn't. But anyways, this is what the text says. He says, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's Christ to hear, an incurable Christ, and the love of God, that's the second thing he mentioned, love, comfort from love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. If we say so what, he's mentioning the Trinity. John Owen, he grasped Paul's point with profound insight. This is what he said. There being such a distinct communication of grace from the several persons of the deity, in other words, from the Trinity, the Godhead, he wrote, the saints must have distinct communion with them. so that our fellowship with one another as Christians is a direct result and a reflection of the fellowship of the Godhead, of the Trinity. In other words, what he's saying is there's grace upon grace, there's comfort and consolation, there's love and blessing innumerable. They all flow like an endless river toward us from the affection and sympathy of God the Father in Jesus Christ and by the ministry of the Spirit To live the Christian life is to have our lives hidden with Christ in God. That's chapter three, verse three of Colossians. This is what one person put, David Strain, he said, it's to participate in the everlasting exchange of loving delight that flows between father, son, and spirit for all eternity. And then he said, what glories are ours, what privileges have been lavished on us. And so when you get to that point, let me go back to that, affection and sympathy, who do you think of? Let me ask. Who do you think of? Who? Okay, we're gonna get to the parent here. Michael's exactly right. But what's the parent, who's the parent being like? Yeah, exactly. It's like Jesus and why? Here's the thing. When he looked at the miracle, he said, why can't you get it together? I mean, when he looked at the multitudes, and they were like sheep without a shepherd, he said, you bunch of dumb sheep. Is that what he said? No, he had what? Tell me. Compassion. That's the word for sympathy. It is fascinating, affection, when we think about love. I could go into that more. But what does it say? He looked at them as sheep without shepherd, and he had compassion. They were downcast. They were distressed. Why? He's gentle and lonely. That's Jesus, right? We read that he doesn't break Bruce Reed, he doesn't extinguish smoking flax. Thank God that he didn't look at me and say, stupid Shawn. You've heard of Shawn the Sheep, you've heard of that? It's a game, I guess, Shawn the Sheep. I will tell you, I hated that. I worked at the ice arena and the kid came up and goes, Shawn the Sheep, Shawn the Sheep. I'm like, what's he talking about? Oh, he's talking about some game the dad said. Can you imagine if he said, serve Sean Wright, you know, to be suffering, he's such a sinner. Thank God he had compassion on me. And now here's the key, having received Jesus' compassion and tender mercies, I must show the same to others. Because I have to know because I want to, even though they don't deserve it. I gotta draw near to Jesus, I gotta enter into his heart of love for me, even though I put him on the cross. Now here's the key. In any relational conflict, I must ask this question. I must first look to my relationship with Christ and ask, am I motivated by his great love? See, if you ask like, why does Paul reason like this? If there's this, if there's that, if there's this, if there's that, he's doing an if, or the word really could be translated, since these things are true, then this is how you deliver. He's building a case, so I'll pick on my son today. But I'll pick on myself as well. He's sitting here, so. If I said to Tyler, and I said, look, hey, didn't I buy your clothes? And he'd say, yeah, when he was little. And if I said, well, I can't say, didn't I wash them? I said, didn't your mom wash them? He'd say, yeah. If I said, and didn't your mom dry them? He would say, yeah. And then I would say, well then, shouldn't not be too much to ask you to fold your clothes? That's what Paul's doing in the text. He's communicating in a similar way to build his case, leading to a conclusion in verse two of shared gospel thinking, okay? And it's interesting what he says, then complete my joy, now we're getting back to the parent, Michael said, by having the same mind. or John Stott wrote a little book called Your Mind Matters. It's little, it's a little book. Maybe I'll even try to get Bill to read it, I don't know. That'll be a modern day miracle too. The scripture says, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is, yes. Now, back in the 1990s when the dinosaurs were still around, James Boyce gave a tragic yet accurate analysis of our culture. This is what he said. We live in mindless days, mindless times, in which millions of people are drifting along through life, manipulated by the mass media, particularly by television, and they hardly know it. Few give thought to their eternal souls, and most, even Christians, are unaware of any way of thinking or living other than that of the secular culture that surrounds them. I'm asking this question, can you imagine what he would say about today? We say, well, it's only 30 years later. Yeah? Things have changed a lot in 30 years. Could you say amen? I could go off on that, I'm not gonna. Paul wants the church to be like-minded and his joy was simply the byproduct of that. He's echoing the apostle John. Michael's exactly right. John says, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. And so if you're a parent, you can relate to this. Proverbs says, a wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son is a heartache to his mother. And so like a father to the Philippian church, Paul's longing for them to be unified. Now, again, we said he wrote the letter from prison, right? Let me appeal to you. If you were in prison, what would be your greatest joy today? We said to get out, of course. I mean, I can relate with that, but not Paul. Not Paul. He's chained. He's guarded. He's unjustly accused. He's vilified by those who should have been his friends. He's got no comforts. He's got no guarantee of getting out in the near future. What would his joy be? To get out of prison? No, no, no, no. His joy is first spiritual, somebody said, this is a Monteverdi's commentary. And secondly, it's occupied with the welfare of others, not himself. And thirdly, he's engrossed in this topic of unity. It's as if Paul says, I will need no further happiness, if only I can hear that you are a united church. Profound to me. This guy's modeling what Jesus did when he came from heaven and died on the cross. He's an example of it. Here then is at least one test for our motives and actions. Now when I say this, I say one, it's a clarification, I gotta be really careful. But I was so brought up shortly after this, I thought, I'm not getting up and preaching. I'm gonna have to find a reason to get a flat tire on the way to church. And tell Bill you're up, I'm not doing this. Here's the thing, ask this question. Before you do anything, before you say anything, before you go anywhere, ask this question. Will this bring joy to those who care for me spiritually? That's profound to me. That's profound. Because you could even back up and say, will this bring joy to Jesus? And if those people that are caring for me as elders and pastors are anything like Jesus and have his heart, they're gonna be grieved. If it's gonna grieve them, it's gonna grieve him. Or if it's gonna grieve him, it's gonna grieve them. Does that make sense? That's the gospel. So be of the same mind. Let's ask the question, what does he mean by the same mind? The commentators went that away on this. Notice he goes on to say that there to be of one mind. If you got an old King Jimmy, I think verse three says lowliness of mind. The humility is the ESV. We are to have this mind among ourselves, verse five, which is in Christ Jesus or is already yours in Christ Jesus. Well, here's the problem, you know, I see Bill and his computer, you know, he can put it in bold, he can put it in italics, he can underline it, right? Paul doesn't have a computer. And so he's making his point, he's repetition, he's using repetition. But what does he mean when he says of the same mind? Here's the question, does he mean your husband and wife, you know, you're talking to each other, does he mean that we gotta see everything the same way? No. No. Nor does he mean that we're supposed to set aside, you know, truths that salvation or depend upon essential truths like that you must believe in order to be a Christian for the sake of some false unity. No. He said already we got to stand firm for the faith of the gospel in 127. No, A.T. Robertson, this is what he said, Christians should be like clocks that strike at the same moment. We're all in what? Harmony. I think what Tozer said, if you had a bunch, let's say you had 50 pianos, right? You don't tune the pianos to each other. Any musician knows that. That would be a mess. No, you get a tuning fork, and you tune all the pianos to the tuning fork. I don't look to you, and you don't look to me. We all look to who? Jesus is the tuning fork, amen? And if we're tuned to him, then we're gonna get along with each other, amen? Well, that's the way it should be, so here's the thing. So the foundation, then, of our unity is the word of God, which is truly unchanged, and it's unchanging. Now, what Paul does mean, he doesn't mean we gotta have groupthink, we're all cults, we gotta think just like Sean. In 30 years of pastoring, people come up to me, this one guy comes up, Roger, he comes up and goes, now, Sean, he's from Arkansas, you know, Sean, do we all gotta believe like you? I said, absolutely not. You have to believe what the Bible teaches. And he was like, wow. And Roger was an interesting guy. He'd ask these questions like, do you think the flood was universal? Sometimes people ask these questions, you've got to get behind the question. No, serious. What he was really asking is, is the world billions of years old or just 6,000? And you're like, people ask these questions. Here's the point, does Paul mean that we've gotta have the same group think? No, he's saying our minds must be geared toward Christian love so that we seek the highest good of another. We must be growing in our experience that we possess. What's that? The mind of Christ revealed in his word. Let me bottom line, I'm gonna get to it, it's really simple. He's saying that we must have a mindset that's profoundly committed to unity. He's saying that we must think collectively, not individually. We must think in one another categories. The mind of Christ thinks about brothers and sisters in God's family. The mind of Christ cannot conceive of being a lone ranger Christianity, divorced from the body life of the church of Jesus. So that a relationship that with Jesus is a life that's pleasing to him, it never thinks in me categories alone, as one person said, but always places the me in mind in the context of us and ours. I would challenge you, do you ever pray the Lord's Prayer? I dare you to pray it with personal pronouns. What's the first word? who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give me this day my daily bread. It didn't say that. You can't pray it in personal pronouns. It's profound. So to have Jesus is to have brothers and sisters, is to be in a family. I cannot follow him if I don't love you. And the same thing as you. You know, some of the funniest things are the real things. I cut ice for three years in Sherwood at the ice arena. Thanks to my wonderful friend, Bob Bomer. He got me he said hey, I know they're looking for a job, and so I went in I applied I got the job The hockey players have this saying that's funny. There is no I in the word team Do you know why there's no I in team? Because there's no I in team But the reason that the hockey players say that is because they hate the figure skaters, and there's an I in figure Now unless you cut ice you have no idea what I just said I Because if you've got figure skaters out there, right, and hockey players waiting to go on the ice, they want the figure skaters to get out, to get off the ice. In fact, they'd like them to get out of the ice arena. Now, the funny part about that is, you know, that they call those figure skaters divas and all this, but then I've seen some hockey players act like little girls. I'm serious, when they get on the ice. Guys that need to grow up. What's the point? Knowing God is a community project. Let me illustrate. A conductor of a symphony orchestra was asked, what's the most difficult instrument to play? And he said, second violin. This is what he said. He said, I can find plenty of first violinists, but to find one who can play second violin with enthusiasm, that's a problem. And then he said this, now watch this. If we have no second violin, we have no harmony. That's the way one person put it. Paul is not asking if you and I are prepared to play second violin. He's asking us to make second violin our ambition, to choose second place, the supportive role, to make the servant posture our constant choice. Only then will the instrument of the church produce harmony. One run writer said this, he said, I guess they put it in a verse, it's a song maybe, it takes more grace than I can tell to play the second fiddle well. We're in an elders meeting, Bill asked me, how's it going? How you doing with sitting in the pew? I said, it's hard and it's humbling. I'm like a racehorse on the side of the track. It's fascinating to me to just say, okay, you know, let the Lord be glorified. And I'm finding out what John the Baptist meant when he said, may he increase and may I decrease. Amen? So. We have specific shared gospel blessings, shared gospel thinking, and finally specific gospel commands, and I'm done. Notice what he says, having the same love, the love of Christ revealed in his incarnation in his death on the cross. Paul goes on to illustrate that in verses five through eight. It's a love that yields its rights for the sake of others. Christians must have the same love in mind in every relationship. And somebody said this, that love always comes to visibility. In other words, love is a verb, you gotta see it, amen? And then he says, and I love this, being in full accord, right? In other words, we all need to be in a Honda, right? That's not what he meant, but what you do not get in the English is what the word means is to be two-souled, to be like-souled. to have one soul. You know, we say this sometimes, he or she is my soulmate, right? That's the idea here. The soul is the real person, particularly the affections and will. And so true unity is not organizational or outward. It's a matter of the heart. Now here's the key. If this could be programmed, Bill would be doing it. But Bill hates programs. And rightly so. You can't manufacture the fruit of the spirit. Can I hear an amen? I've seen some plastic fruit in my day. It's really good for hiding green beans under, you know, when you don't like green beans on the middle of the table. That's another story. It's not automatic. It's not a matter of luck. If you believe in luck, you need to come see me after the service, okay? It's not happenstance. I must deliberately set my mind on being one with those who truly know Christ, even if I don't particularly like them, I will guarantee you there's some people here that you don't like. I'll guarantee there's some people here that don't like you. There it is. I will guarantee you there's some people here that you don't agree with everything on. I bet you if you're a husband and wife, you don't agree on everything, isn't that right? But that shouldn't stop you from loving the person. So let me put it this way, God wants you and I to be whole, it's a holistic thing, what do you mean? If love includes the emotional aspect of unity, word and joy, though we wouldn't say it's not primarily or limited to emotions, then accord, this full accord can include the volitional side, my will, then Paul has unity in mind, he's saying it includes your mind, you can't check your brains at the door when you come in. Are you ready? It includes your affections. You can't shut down and turn off your feelings when you come in the door. I've seen this happen. I could get into so many things and talk about this, but he's saying what? He's saying it's the mind and it's the emotions and it's your will. And then he says, of one mind, what does he mean? Intent on purpose is one translation. In the faith of the gospel, it's a collective witness of the body that rides on our outwardly visible love for one another. Jesus said, they shall know you're my disciples by your love for one another, right? So if I'm minded right in my right rank toward the gospel, I will also be minded toward getting along with fellow Christians, especially those who are in my own family, who are in my own church. So, practical, we could end on this, but I won't. I must first ask myself this, in any conflict, okay, it doesn't matter, you can't get along with your kids, you can't get along with your parents, you know, it's the, how do you keep the in-laws from becoming the outlaws? The boss, whoever it is, it's Bill, it's Sean, No, it's Dwight or Randy, you know, it's Dan or Corey. Let me just say, in any relationship, I must ask myself this, is my focus on my happiness and pleasing myself or is my focus on exalting Christ? And this is the way one person put it. If both parties are intent on exalting Christ by honoring his word of truth and living for each other's highest good, then there is a solid basis for resolving conflict. That's a mouthful. And thus in any conflict, two questions, I must first look to my relationship with Christ. Am I motivated by his love for this person? And secondly, you ready? Then I must look to my attitude. Am I oriented toward love or toward my own way? And then he gets to it. And I thought I could go home on this one. do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. And the selfish ambition means to like have a party spirit or to campaign for office. Somebody said, have you ever noticed when the elections come around, they try to dig up dirt on their opponents? Well, they're trying to make themselves look what? Good, and the other person look terrible, right? And so, why is there no place for selfish ambition or pride in the Christian life? It's because of who we follow, who we follow. And did he humble himself? Yeah, that's the whole point. Now, I thought this was funny. We could go into much more in that, but have you ever heard of Salmon P. Chase? Okay, I have money in the Chase Bank, but that's what's named after him. And so he ran an unsuccessful campaign against Abraham Lincoln in 1860. But Lincoln, here's the key that's funny, Lincoln selected Chase as his Secretary of the Treasury considering him the best man for the job. The irony is that Chase continued to believe he was the best man for Lincoln's job. True story. And so he remained ambitious to replace Lincoln even while serving in his cabinet undercutting him to prop up his own chances of replacing Lincoln. Now, we can just leave it at that and you go, oh, the guy's a jerk. Wait, there's more. Two things. First, Chase was a church-going, Bible-believing, morally upright man. Now, if you're a really disciplined person, you're not gonna like what I'm gonna say, but here it is. He read Scripture and prayed every day. He faithfully attended evangelical church. I'm at the church every Sunday. We're glad you're here, amen. Okay? In many ways, he was qualified as one of the good guys. That's the first thing. Secondly, Chase somehow remained clueless about his own selfish ambition. And in his journals and letters, he repeatedly cast his actions in noble, virtuous terms. And he was convinced that he sought the good of the nation while he ardently pursued his own selfish ends. Sadly, he could never seem to smell the foul odor of his own selfish ambition, but everybody around him could. Imagine that, something stinks. Chase would go, I don't smell anything. And it's who? It's Chase. Chase's life, listen, serves as a cautionary tale for Christians. And what is it? That selfish ambition can infect the heart of those who show signs of genuine spiritual life. We can remain in the dark about the dark side of selfish ambition. And so it's dangerously easy for me to convince myself that I'm pursuing Christ's glory while I'm really advancing my own selfish ambitions. I love this, more than one commentator pointed this out. Someone's liking conceit to a balloon, and the larger it stretches on the outside, the bigger the emptiness on the inside. And I thought, if I blow it up, guess whose hot air it's full of? Mine, right? Let me ask you this question, and you know the answer is so simple. Who did Jesus have the harshest words for? It was the religious leaders, the Pharisees. Here's how Oswald Sanders put it. He said, nothing is more distasteful to God than self-conceit. This first and fundamental sin is, in essence, aims at enthroning self at the expense of God. He said this, pride is a sin of whose presence its victims is least conscious, least aware. If we are honest when we measure ourselves by the life of our Lord who humbled himself even to death on a cross, we cannot but be overwhelmed with the tawdryness and shabbiness and even the vileness of our hearts. Now here's what's fascinating to me. The word there for conceit, ready, is vainglory. It means to be puffed up with a sense of our own importance and to think that we're really great. And you know how this shows itself? Okay, let's say you're really mad or you're offended or you're upset or you're really sad that nobody's acknowledging what you do. You're not getting the accolades. Nobody told me that was a good sermon. Maybe it was a terrible sermon. Do you want me to tell you that? Okay, but over here, I've been hurt. And I want to be really cautious here. You've been sexually abused. It could be that somebody really took advantage of you. All the things, the ways that we're sinned against. But at this point, you begin to feel sorry for yourself, and you're wondering why everybody else doesn't feel sorry for you. And this victim idea becomes your identity. Yikes. Yikes. Then you're not using that broken, that be an instrument for God to work through it and reach out to others? No. But true glory, true glory, you see it on the screen? True glory is what? is Jesus coming down from heaven and humbly dying for us on the cross. And so, Paul says what? There it is. But in humility of mind, or in humility, lowliness of mind, you count others more significant than yourself. Now, we were in prayer meeting and someone said, look, could you talk about humility? And Bill had just preached on it. I thought it was funny. Just like I had this happen. Hey, preacher, you never talk about this. I said, man, I just preached on it a couple of weeks ago. What are you talking about? Right? What is humility? Humility is having high thoughts of God, so you have sane and sober thoughts of who? Yourself, exactly. Someone said, you know, remember when you were a kid and you were on the seesaw? Yeah, wasn't that fun, you know? If you were up, the other person was down, okay? God's on one side of the seesaw and you're on the other. If you come up, God's gonna come what? Well, he'll never come down, but he'll come down in your mind, your eyes, your thoughts, and other people. If God is high, you gotta come what? You gotta come low. And so, that's the point. Our problem is not that we think too lowly of ourselves, but that we regard ourselves too highly. Romans straw three. Andrew Murray said this, I love it. He said that a humble person is not one who thinks less of himself. He simply doesn't think of himself at all. That's it, right there. You say, no, I can't do that, Sean, because wherever I go, there I am. I get it, C.S. Lewis, if you haven't read his mere Christianity, I just commend to you the chapter on pride. And this is what he says, he made a brilliant observation about gospel humility. At the end of the chapter on pride, he says this, if we were to meet a truly humble person, Lewis says, we would never come away from the meeting them thinking they were humble, no. They would not always be telling us that they were a nobody, because a person who keeps saying they're a nobody is actually a self-obsessed person. That is not how we naturally think, but it's true. The thing we remember from meeting a truly gospel humble person is how much they seem to be totally interested in us. Isn't that it? Yeah, it is. Because the essence of gospel humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less. And why? Because I'm thinking of Jesus more. Exactly. And this is Tim Keller. Gospel humility is not needing to think about myself at all. not needing to connect things with myself. It is an end to thoughts such as, hey, I'm in this room with people. Does that make me look good? This is so convicting. Hey, do I want to be here at all? How about this? True gospel humility means stop connecting every experience, every conversation with myself. In fact, I stopped thinking about myself. That's the freedom of self-forgetfulness. the blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings. It's not to be puffed up, but to be filled up. With who? With Christ, by way of the Holy Spirit, exactly. That's just amazing to me. Here's a question before we end. How does one become humble? Well, Lloyd-Jones, a man asked him this question. He said, here was his answer. A friend was asking the other day, how can I be humble? He felt that there was pride in him, and he wanted to know how to get rid of the pride. And he seemed to think that I had some patent remedy, and I could tell him, hey, do this, do that, or the other, and you will be humble. I said, I have no method or technique. I can't tell you to get down on your knees and pray, believe in prayer, because as soon as you get up, you'll be proud that you did that. There's only one way to be humble. See, I could talk about this. I could talk about, you need to serve. Compare all your weaknesses with other people's strengths and you'll be humble. Don't look to people at all, look to who? Look to Jesus, watch what he says. He says this, he says, there's only one way to be humble and that is to look in the face of Jesus Christ. You cannot be anything else. When you see him, that is the only way. Humility is not something you can create within yourself. Rather, you look at Jesus and you realize who he is, what he's done, and you are humbled. I can't believe this. I was thinking, here's the way one person put it. Humility and unity thrive where self-regard dies. Okay, and where does self-regard die? Tell me. At the cross. I gotta live at the cross. So I'm reading Lloyd-Jones, and I just thought this is so good. This is what he said. He said, I am told that I am to esteem others better than myself, and there's only one thing that can make me do that, and thank God it does make me do that. It is this. When I read the Bible, I see the sinful nature that is in me. I see my failures, I see my shortcomings, but even then, there's a tendency to defend myself. See, the humble person stops defending himself. When people come and say, Sean, you're such a wretch, I say, you don't know half of it. They told that about Spurgeon. You're proud, he said. You wouldn't believe. He said, you see that, all those books up there? Those are books of my sermons. He said, you know, they can't build a building big enough for me, for people to come and preach. And then Spurgeon looked at me, smiled, he said, it's amazing I'm not more proud than I am. I like it. I like it. Lord John says this. There's only one thing I know that crushes me to the ground and humiliates me to the dust, and that is to look at the Son of God, and especially to contemplate the cross. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my riches gained, I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride." And Jones goes on, he says what? Nothing else can do it. When I see that I'm a sinner, I feel lost, or condemned, or helpless, and that nothing but the Son of God on the cross can save me, I am humbled to the dust. Here it is. I say that no one can be worse than I am. I am the chief of sinners, and anyone must be better than I am. It is only the cross that makes me feel that. Nothing but the cross can make me esteem another person better than myself. Nothing but the cross can give us the spirit of humility. We need to see this truth. We need to receive the Holy Spirit. It is only when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts that we'll be able to love and have this tenderness and compassion toward others. That's profound to me. Very, very, very, very helpful. And then he says, look not to your own, let each of you, again, he's saying, into each individual, Not look to your own interest, but the interest of others. So we're not to neglect our own interest or things, but left to ourselves, that's all we'll look at after. This is why one person said it, we are so selfish that we're like fish in the water who don't know they're wet. And I was like, this is true. And he gave an illustration. He said, you ever seen this? When you get married, you know how you were when you were single and you just thought about yourself only? You don't have to think about your wife if you're the husband. You don't have to think about your husband if you're the wife. This guy goes up to the ticket counter and he only buys one ticket. Who's he buying it for? Tell me. Himself. And then when his wife points it out, you know what he says? He, fast, come back. Oh, I forgot about myself completely, honey. Yeah, right. He didn't forget about himself. So Paul, he's not saying that we're to never say no to the demands that others place on us. Jesus sometimes said no to the crowds, right? So that he could spend time alone with his father. Other times he drew away with the 12 so that he could train them. No, no, no. We all have responsibilities that demand our time. So Paul doesn't mean we should let others walk all over us. No. But he does mean that you and I need to think about the other person and his or her needs and interests rather than just about things from our own perspective. You know the golden rule? Think about this, Christian, think about this. This would change everything. I would challenge you this week, if you forget everything that I said, you know what, okay, fine, but just this one. Memorize Matthew 7, 12, okay? And ask yourself, ready? How would I feel if I was him? Ready? How would I want to be treated if I was her? And that's how we need to treat other people. We need to consider others, not just ourselves. Now look at verses six through 11. It's fascinating what Paul does in this text. Jesus relinquished his place. He left glory. That's amazing. And then he did what? He refused his prerogatives. What does that mean? That he said, I am the son of God, but I'm gonna become a man and I'm gonna be completely relying on the spirit. You're to live like Jesus lived. I'm gonna live like Jesus lived, completely independent. And then he renounced his privileges. That's just amazing to me. He could have called the angels, but he didn't, right? Why? He had to die on the cross. And then he restricted his presence. I don't understand this. But before, he's everywhere, right? But now he's in a body. Okay, if you ask me to explain that, we'll have to go to lunch and I'll still be, you'll be clueless at the end of the conversation. Okay? And then he what? He realized his purpose by going to the cross. He accomplished the work, he said it is finished. And then what? He received his promotion. And what you notice in this, he came down and then he went up. That's what they call the V, I could talk about the gospel. He came down and then he went up. But you notice he came down because we can't go up? We can't work our way up to God. That's the gospel, that's grace. And the greatest motivation then for harmonious relationships is the cross. Jesus did not look to his own things, this is the way I would person, but he gazed with love and heartbreak on the things of others, that's us. Look, his own things were a crown and a throne, a position and a name, but the things that he saw in the lives of men and women were sin and sorrow and disease and desperation. And so he acted sacrificially by refusing to hold on to his own rights and exchanging his throne for a stable. and his crown for a cross. And therein lies the basis of our redemption, our salvation, but the principle also for our behavior, the servant's not greater than his master. And I'm gonna ask a question and we'll be done. A secular psychologist did a study in which he asked his subjects to list 10 people they knew and to label them as happy or not happy. And then they were to go through this list again and label each one selfish or unselfish. And using this following definition of selfishness, you ready? A stable tendency to devote one's time and resources to one's own interests and welfare, and unwillingness to inconvenience oneself for others. And the results showed that all of the people who were labeled happy were also labeled unselfish. And this is what he wrote. One sentence. Those whose activities are devoted to bringing themselves happiness are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy. And my only question is, ask yourself, am I happy? It's like saying, am I selfish? Then you're not happy. Am I unselfish? Then you are happy. Jesus said, blessed are you if you do this, right after you wash the feet, right? And so the key to harmonious relationships is not self-esteem, it's not to assert myself, it's not to stand up for myself. Rather, it's to put my sinful self to death by the Spirit to regard others as more significant than myself for Jesus' sake. How do you spell joy? Jesus, J, others, and then you. If I was a betting man, if I asked who's more important, you or me, a lot of you would say, of course, me, I'm more important. And I would say, no, I'm more important. And the only reason you would say you were more important than me, and I would say I'm more important than you, is because Jesus is not the most important to all of us. Ah, and there we're back to the cross. During some unsettled days in Rome, a slave heard that his master's name was on the liquidation list, and he quickly put on his master's coat and quietly awaited the arrival of the political butchers. And when they found the slave dressed in his master's clothing, they killed him, supposing him to be the master. Likewise, the master of the universe, Jesus Christ, took on the cloak of our humanity. The death he endured is the death we deserve. And through his death, we've been spared. That's the gospel, isn't it? Martin Luther, I like Luther, he said he would not think, he refused to think of Christ's suffering and his own suffering on the same day, and why not? Because our sufferings don't even get close to his. And so, here's the question for you. That if unity brought joy to Paul, right? I'm asking, how much more did it bring joy to who? Jesus to Christ, exactly. And so here it is. Listen, ultimately, it's not about Bill's or Randy's or Dwight's or my joy, it's about Christ's joy. For the gospel ministry to thrive, we must have unity, all right? We must be unified, but our visible unity depends on our humility, and finally then, where do we find humility? It's rooted in the cross of Christ. Let me ask this question. It's really a good one. This is the bottom line today. Harmonious relationships are the fruit of the gospel. But then Bill asked me yesterday, it was really good, or Friday, what do harmonious relationships look like at Sunrise Church? And then he got me. I'm like, I don't know. I guess it would look like being like Jesus. No, he said, it's our vision. And I didn't realize, I didn't plan this, by the way, my sermon fits right into the vision. And Dwight said, we got a vision, we just gotta find out more ways to implement it. And I'm like, fine. And here I am doing it without even knowing it. Must have been the right place, that song says, and it was the right time, right? To invite friends, how many non-Christian friends do you have? That's a great question. Bill confessed to me, I love it, he said, I got more non-Christian friends than I got Christian friends. That's convicting to me, to grow in faith with us as what? A community of God's grace. That'd be the gospel being applied, wouldn't it? I'd be humbling myself to make much of Jesus by putting you before who? Me, amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your son. Lord, this is a hard message. We confess that we are full of ourselves. Bill even prayed it earlier. We sin, and we're sinned against. We thank you for your sin. Help us, just Lord, give us grace to go to the cross, not just every day, but often throughout our days. And we humble ourself because of what you did in Jesus. Make us more like him by your spirit, and may you get all the glory. We ask it in his name.