As you all know, the theme for chapel this semester is community. What is Christian community? What does it look like? Why is it important? How do we pursue after it? Well, in our passage this morning, we get a glimpse into Christian community. Real-time, on-the-ground Christian community. Not so much a program for Christian community, but a glimpse of Christian community as it plays out in the mundane details of the lives of God's people. Now, as you know, the book of Philippians is a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Philippi. And as Paul draws near the close of this letter, he does, as he does in several of his letters, he goes through a virtual flurry of topics. He gathers up several things that he seemingly was wanting to write, things very often that pertain to the life of the congregation in question, dealing even at times with specific people within the congregation in question. And he ticks through these things in a sometimes almost staccato fashion. And that's what we find him doing here. If we were reading all the way through Philithians, we would have seen that in chapter 3, Paul has this pretty detailed, finely, closely reasoned argument about justification. Chapter 4 is very different. There's not one long, sustained, reasoned argument. There's a flood of seemingly disconnected items. However, as we look at the verses before us this morning, we find that while they might not be directly related to each other, his words here do form a cohesive whole, presenting in pretty broad scope a comprehensive view of Christian community. You realize throughout the book of Philippians that the church in Philippi faces certain challenges. There's some dissension, false teaching within the church. There's some opposition from outside of the church. The Philippian church has challenges to face. And here in our passage, in a sense, Paul gives different points, different dots, that if you connect the dots, They provide the silhouette of the sort of community that the Philippians must live out if they are to be faithful in the teeth of all of these challenges that they're facing. In our passage this morning, we begin to see something of the sort of life, the sort of community that the people of God need. As we find in our passage, in fellowship with each other, Christians must entrust themselves to God's care as they experience the challenges of life. Now, the first thing we need to see here is that Christians are to press forward in fellowship with each other. And look with me at verses 2 and 3. Beginning in verse 2, we read this, "...I beseech you, Odius, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. And I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of life." Now, these verses are remarkable. In the New Testament, there are 13 letters written by the apostle Paul. Spread throughout those 13 letters, Paul addresses, often quite directly, a whole host of different controversies, disagreements, everything from flagrant, tolerated sin in the midst of a congregation, down to false teaching, coming into congregations. Paul addresses seemingly every sort of thing that could confront a congregation. But Paul very seldom names names. Doubtlessly, everyone in the congregation receiving the various letters would have known precisely who Paul meant at various points. But Paul seldom commits their names to paper, so to speak. And now this. At the end of Philippians chapter one, end of Philippians chapter two, you see that there were competing egos in the Philippian church. There was pridefulness, that pridefulness was breeding division. And here in verse two of our passage this morning, Paul gives the names of two women. Those who potentially, at least, were located at the center of this congregation unsettling dynamic that Paul had addressed at the beginning of the book. Now, Paul alludes here to what must have been this simmering conflict between these two women, Euodias and Syntyche. Now, there's absolutely no indication of what their problem might have been. We only know that they evidently were completely at odds with each other. And Paul exhorts them to put their differences aside and to be of the same mind in the Lord, as Paul puts it in verse two. Paul wants them to get along. He wants them to lay down all of their feuding and be at peace with each other. Now, when you read these two women's names, you consider how extraordinary it is that Paul is singling them out by name, you can begin to think rather negatively of these women. But notice again Paul's instructions to them in verse two. Paul calls on them to be of the same mind in the Lord. Paul assumes that they're Christians, they're sisters in the Lord, and that therefore, in the Lord, they'll be able to find reconciliation with each other. The same assumption that Euodias and Syndice, for all their fighting, are truly regenerate women, crops up elsewhere in the passage as well. In verse 3, Paul reminds the Philippians that these women were among the first members of the church in Philippi. They were of that group who had labored so hard, faced so much dangerous opposition in order to see this church planted, established, And at the end of verse three, Paul includes these two women in this larger group of individuals, as he says, whose names are in the book of life. Euodias and Syntyche are Christians. They're both washed in the blood of Jesus, but they're fighting. They're Christians, but they're not acting like it. How often could that be said of us? But faced with these two warring Christians, Paul calls on the rest of the church, the rest of the Christians in Philippi, to work together to bring reconciliation. Verse three, Paul calls on a man named Clement, most likely a prominent leader of the church in Philippi, and also all of Paul's fellow laborers, which is Paul's way of referring to all the Christians in Philippi. Paul calls on all of them to help Euodias and Syntyche, to help them find reconciliation, to help them root out the bitterness, the jealousy, or whatever it was that was bringing such belligerence into their relationship. Paul here is calling on the Philippians to act and to live as a family, to live in true, deep fellowship with each other. The church, each individual member included, is to care about this situation and is to love Euodias and Syntyche in the midst of the situation and to work toward a resolution. These women are their sisters. The sin festering in their hearts ought to matter to the rest of the congregation. The rest of the church ought to want to see these two women growing and healthy, not warring out of contentious spirit, not staying out of it so as not to get entangled with an argument, but working to see resolution. But think about what else that involved. The conflict between these women seems to have been poisoning the entire fellowship of the church. Paul seems to have been alluding to that back at the start of chapter two. Perhaps everyone was taking sides. Perhaps this conflict was bringing out old wounds. In some other way, this dissension between these two women was filtering out into the congregation as a whole. In my time in the pastoral ministry, I never handled a disagreement between two people. I handled many disagreements between four people, six people, 10 people. As spouses take sides, friends take sides, old wounds are remembered and sides are joined. Disagreements don't stay between two people. They spread out and everyone gets involved. Perhaps even more, the conflict between Euodias and Syntyche was harming the witness of the entire church. If this group of people, they're known as Christians in Philippi, they're followers of Jesus Christ, and even among themselves, this small group can't get along. They're fighting, they're bickering. What does that communicate to the world about the Jesus whom these people claim to love and to serve? The wrangling of these women is bad. It's bad for them personally. It's bad for the church as a whole. It's bad for the witness of the gospel. And so the church, as a church, is to help them address the dissension that has emerged. And that involves a lot. It involves caring about a situation that could be very tense. It involves repenting yourself. It involves forgiving. It involves trusting again after you've forgiven. And this working together is what the Philippian church is called to do. And as they do so, as they seek to find this reconciliation, The church will show perhaps the most potent form of fellowship. You know, it's one thing to have fellowship together at a cover dish meal or at a picnic. It's easy to have fellowship when things are good and easy and friendly. When everyone is just like you, you're all on the same page, you've known each other your whole life. Then fellowship is quite easy. But it's also because it's easy, it can be, can be, relatively cheap. Anyone can have fellowship then. It's when people hang together and work together and sacrifice for each other. It's when that togetherness is hard and when it's potentially even unpleasant. When it involves inserting yourself into an evidently rather nasty feud to find reconciliation. When it involves you climbing down to repent or to forgive. It's then that fellowship is both incredibly hard and rapturously beautiful because it shows people that you and the church love each other and you care about each other. That you are committed to each other and not even the ugliness of your own sin is stronger than your fellowship one with another. In fact, if we're ready to believe what Paul had written back in chapter 2, it's precisely this self-lowering love that even gives the world a glimpse of the love of Jesus. This is the sort of fellowship that Paul wants to see in the church in Philippi. Christians are to press forward in fellowship one with another. Now, we're a seminary. We're not a church, and at least to my knowledge, there's no division or animosity here in our midst like what Paul is addressing in Philippi. But that doesn't mean that division won't come, that problems won't come. We're all sinners. Satan always loves to tarnish and defame the witness of the church by bringing division into the church, into a place where ministers and teachers are trained. So conflict always is possible. And so the question before us is, are we being a euodius, a syntyche? Are we bringing sin into the community that's filtering out and tarnishing the witness of the community, the lives of our brothers and sisters? What in your heart in your heart towards your brethren and sisters? What, if it got out and filtered into the community as a whole, would make Puritan Reformed a place that you wouldn't want to study, that you wouldn't want to be known as a graduate of that place? What sin are we bringing into the community? How ready are we to forgive? How ready are we to forgive that slight on the soccer pitch or that disrespectful comment that might've been made after a class or that joke that was made at our expense? How ready are we to forgive the sins that have been done against us? How ready are we and how laboring are we toward pressing forward in fellowship and community as Paul is calling on the church in Philippi to be? We, in this place, must be learning and living out the sort of community that we then want to take into the churches to which the Lord calls us in days to come. This life of living together, forgiving wrongs, confessing wrongs, seeking to press forward in fellowship, always, even in spite of the challenges that that brings. Christians must press forward in fellowship with each other. But Paul, of course, goes on to say more. Continuing through the passage, we find that in fellowship with each other, Christians must entrust themselves to God's care. You look with me at verses 4 through 7. Beginning in verse four, we read this. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Now, here you really start to kind of see Paul bounce from one thing to another. There's not a strict progression from one verse to the next. And yet, as we look at what Paul writes, there is a common theme emerging. That theme probably is most clear in verses 6 and 7. Verse 6, Paul calls on the Philippians to pray. Rather than being anxious, rather than being troubled and worried about what lay ahead, troubled by the difficulties of helping Euodias and Syntyche work out their differences, worried about what further heightened opposition there might come from the world outside, rather than worrying about all these things, the Philippians are to pray. They're to bring their requests before the throne of God's grace. When Paul here speaks of prayer, supplication, he's reiterating the same thing to make a point. The Philippians are to give themselves to prayer. They are to pour out their hearts, their thanksgiving, their joy, their concerns, their prayers for each other. They're to pour all of them out before God in prayer. And when God's people do this, Paul tells us in verse 7, they know the peace of God, a peace that will guard their hearts. It'll guard their minds. When all of the anxieties, stresses, worries, concerns, when all these things that are wracking the Christian's heart and mind, when they're all poured out before God in prayer, they're replaced with peace. A peace that rather than threatening to undo the Christian, promises to keep him or to guard her. When we unburden ourselves before the Lord in prayer, we find peace. But notice what Paul says about this peace. He says in verse seven, that it passeth all understanding. It is a peace deeper, more firm, more unshakable than we possibly can comprehend. Now what Paul says here testifies to the infinite perfection of the peace that God brings to his people. A peace so profound that they can't even understand it. They can't see its bottom. They can't grasp its vast expanse. What Paul says here means that. But it also means that sometimes, perhaps more frequently than we would like, the peace that God brings to his people doesn't make sense. Quite frequently, it doesn't make sense that having prayed, God's people would have peace in the midst of their situation. If you pray for God to do X thing and God does it, well, it makes perfect sense that you would have peace from that. That peace wouldn't surpass understanding. It would be a peace in perfect accord with understanding. But if you ask, if you plead for God to do thing X, and God doesn't do it. He doesn't give you what you want. He doesn't remove what you've asked him to remove. And yet you have peace. That, brothers and sisters, is a peace that passes all understanding. And that is the peace that God promises. That's the peace that God very often brings in and through prayer. In my life, some of the hardest things that I've known, some of the most bitter providences I've faced, I've turned over to the Lord in prayer. And the situation hasn't changed. At times I've asked God to change situations and he hasn't changed them. I've asked him to burst open doors and the doors have remained closed. I've asked him to heal and he's let affliction linger. But even in those situations, I've known peace, anxiety, bitterness, all of those things have dissolved and peace has flooded in. How can that be? If you're faced with situation X and you pray about it, nothing changes and yet you know peace. How do you understand that? Nothing has changed. The cause of the anxiety, the cause of the initial bitterness is still there. And so the newfound peace makes no sense. How can God's people know such peace? Well, part of what fuels anxiety, part of what fuels worry, frustration, is the sense that we are at the whim of others. That others, either with malice toward us or indifference toward us, that they are negatively impacting our lives. The sense that things are not as they should be, and the fretful powerlessness of not knowing how to fix them, or even where to begin to address them. We can feel assaulted by the malice or indifference of men and powerless to redress the effects that that brings. That's the root of anxiety. That's the root of fear. But when you're a Christian, you know that the living God loves you. As Paul writes in Romans 8 verse 32, he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? If God loved you enough to give Jesus for you, there's nothing good that he won't give. There will not come a point at which caring for you, delivering you, will become too costly. And you know that God hears your prayers. When you pray for relief, He hears. When you pray for guidance, He hears. When you pray for this door to open or that event to occur, He hears. And so if that for which you pray doesn't occur, if the door won't open, if the affliction won't lift, if the hardship won't change, it's not because God doesn't hear. And it's not because God doesn't care. And it's not because answering that particular prayer would just be too costly for God, but rather it's because what you thought was good for you, God knew wasn't. And what you thought was bad for you, God knew in His wisdom was good. The closed door is pushing you toward a different one that God will open. The protracted affliction is shaping, strengthening you that you might thrive in something that lies ahead or be a consolation to others. You face what you face, not at the hand of the malevolence or the coldness of men, You face what you face at the hand of the God of the universe, who loves you and who holds all of created reality in the deep of his hand. And so if you pray, and the answer to that prayer is no, or not now, you know that the path you walk, as unexpected as it might be, as undesirable as it might appear, it actually is for good. What you endure, you endure under the watch and the care of the living God. And that brings peace. Peace because you know that even the hardships, they come not from them. They come from Him. And so you know that through them, God is preparing you for glory. He's preparing your brothers and your sisters for glory. That's a peace that passes understanding. because it's a peace rooted not in what we can see and therefore understand, but rather a peace rooted in the sovereign power, the omnipotent love of the God whom we cannot see, but in whom we trust. It's a peace that comes not from circumstances, not from endless automatic yes answers to prayer, but rather a peace that comes from entrusting ourselves, body and soul, to the living God. You see that same dynamic in verse four. There Paul calls the Philippians to rejoice endlessly. But did you notice how they're to rejoice? They're to rejoice in the Lord. Now our rejoicing isn't in what we experience, but in the God who brings us everything that we experience. I know that for me, and I think for most of us, God has been very extravagantly good to us. We have much in which to rejoice. But even then, even when we have wonderful things, we must rejoice foremost in the Lord. Rejoicing because of who he is, the God who controls all things, who cares for us in all things. Rejoicing because he loves us in Christ. In times of ease, we rejoice that God is showing us such ease. In times of hardship, we rejoice that God is using such hardship for His glory. In all things, we rejoice, but not in the thing itself, not in the circumstance itself, but in the sovereign God of all the earth. We rejoice because we entrust ourselves to Him, and we delight to see His hand at work. You know, the same dynamic is in verse 5. Paul calls on the Philippians to be meek, not to always be insisting on their own rights, but to let themselves be known to all people as a people who are gentle and generous. To show that gentleness to each other, to be compassionate and kind, to show a gentleness and a love to Euodias and to Syntyche. And we're able to do this in the midst of a sinful world. We're able essentially to open ourselves to abuse by others because we know, as Paul says, the Lord is at hand. He is right now with us. And at the end of the age, he's coming back in power and in judgment. So we can now be meek. We don't have to wring our hands, expend ourselves to protect ourselves. We don't have to make certain that others don't take advantage of us. We don't have to take such careful care that we're not crushed to make certain that we don't come out on the bottom. God protects us. He's with us. And one day he'll come back and then judgment will come not at the hands of those who might oppress us, but at the hands of the Jesus who loves us. There are many vast blessings that we know. But one of the disadvantages, even of having all these blessings, is that it only feeds the arrogance of self-sufficiency. We want to be in control of everything. We want every decision to be ours. We want everything under our control. We idolize autonomy, that we never feel truly at ease until we think that we ourselves are in control of our situation. Brothers and sisters, we all must surrender that arrogance. If my experience is any indication, certainly if you're called into the pastorate, you must lay down that arrogance. Entrust yourself to God. Bring yourself in your prayers to Him. Find your joy in Him. Find your comfort in Him. Place yourself firmly under his care. You take comfort not in the perfect occurrence of what you want, but in the realization that whatever occurs, occurs under the sovereign control of the God who loves you so much that he died to give you life. That's the peace that passes understanding, that rejoices in the Lord. Pray that the Spirit would create it within you, within your brothers and sisters. Now, we need very quickly to see one final thing in our passage. In fellowship with each other, Christians must entrust themselves to God's care as they experience the challenges of this life. You look at verses 8 and 9. Beginning in verse 8, we read this, Now, we only have the time to address these verses very briefly, but in these verses, specifically in verse 8, you notice that Paul lists off a series of things that are defined by their qualities. You know, things that are honest, things that are just, things that are lovely. And Paul calls on the Philippians to think on these things or to meditate on these things. Paul is telling the Philippians that they are to think about, they are to focus on, they are to bring into the center of the frame things that are good, that are lovely, that are true. That goes hand in hand with what Paul's written already. As the Philippians are laboring together to deal with the filthiness, the hurt of the sin of Euodias and Syntyche, there will be tremendous unpleasantness. There will be much that is undesirable, destructive. As the Philippians entrust themselves more and more to God's care, there's much that could be discouraging, that could be frustrating. They'll face injustices and hardship from outside. They'll face hurt and sin inside. Living as a people for whom God cares in the midst of a fallen world, there will be in any situation, in any circumstance, both good things and hard things. If a man dwells on the hard things, it brings discontent, anxiety, resentment. But if he fixes his heart on the good things, the true things, He's able to discern the working of the God whom he loves and who loves him. And he knows encouragement. He knows strengthening. Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't just positive thinking. This isn't just being an optimist. This is the recognition that God is at work in all things. And so in all things, there are elements that can encourage the people of God. And it's on those things that his people are to meditate. looking upon the God who is at work rather than on the circumstances that swirl about in a sinful world. That's not easy. Notice that Paul is commanding the Philippians to do it. It doesn't come naturally. But God's people are to do it, to fix their hearts and their minds on the good rather than on the disheartening, even in each other. Euodius is a gossip, maybe, but she cares about the sick and the vulnerable. Maybe Syntyche is just really vengeful, but perhaps she also is steadfast in her loyalties to her brothers and sisters in the church. If the Philippians are to knit their fraying body back together again, is it better to think of a gossip and a vengeful spirit? or to consider that they're laboring to see healing between a loving spirit and a steadfast heart. If there be any praise, think on these things. In verse 9, Paul reiterates that the Philippians are to be steadfast in all of these things, doing themselves what they've seen Paul do. And when they do all these things, as Paul writes in verse 9, The God of peace shall be with you. That's such a glorious heightening of what we saw back in verse seven. Paul here doesn't say that the peace of God will be with us, but that the God of peace will be with us. Paul here says that as God's people walk in trust, as they look to him rather than to the things that envelop them, God himself is with them. He dwells in their midst. He fills them, not simply with His peace, but with Himself. What a blessed promise this is. A promise that's made even to us. Yeah, I know that each of you in your lives, there are challenges. There are hardships, struggles, perhaps financial, perhaps emotional, perhaps within your family. You have hardship. You have anxiety about what lies ahead. How will the Lord use me? Where will the Lord move me? But you live in a world that God has made and that God controls, and you live there as one whom the infinite God loves. There are good things. There are evidences of His power. There are evidences of His mercy. Many times they might be nestled deep beneath the surface, but they're there. You must think on these things. There isn't a single inch of your life over which the Lord who loves you has relinquished His control. There are evidences of His working. Meditate on those things. Now, likely that won't be easy. but it's what God calls us to do. And when we do it, when in the midst of our affliction, we fix our hearts on things that are just and that are true, in the midst of our anxiety, we fix our minds upon that which is trustworthy and steadfast, we see the hand of God at work and we know His presence with us. Whatever your affliction, anxiety is this morning, The sovereign Lord is at work in it and through it. I don't know how, but I know that he is. Think on the things that are lovely, that are pure, and you'll know his presence with you as you walk through it. In fellowship with each other, Christians must entrust themselves to God's care as they experience the challenges of life. Now, our passage this morning, as disjointed as it might initially appear, it's laying before us a blueprint for Christian community. Not a program for community, but a glimpse of the mundane day-to-day realities of the community of God's people. In the weeks that have come before, you've heard wonderful truths that shape our understanding of community. Here we see community as it's worked out in the day-to-day lives of God's people, lives of confessing and forgiving, lives of prayerful trust, lives of seeing the best in each other, seeing the best in our situations, trusting that the Lord is at work, and in those prayers praying to be shown his hand at work, in order that we might have peace, in order that we might forgive and be forgiven. These are the mechanics of a life of Christian community. In fellowship with each other, Christians must entrust themselves to God's care as they experience the challenges of life. I pray that precisely such a spirit will pervade us here at Puritan Reformed. and that in all of our lives, all of our trusting, all of our resting in Him, God will get all the glory. Amen. Let's pray. Our great God and Father in heaven, we give thee thanks this morning for the fellowship and the community of thy people. We rejoice, O Lord, that Thou hast been pleased to call each of us even to this place at this time to know each other as brothers and sisters. We ask, O Lord, that Thou wouldst be at work in our midst, that as we live together before Thee, that we would know these lives that are marked by the sometimes mundane, but ever so powerful evidence of Thy Spirit. Lord, enable us to lead lives of repentance and forgiveness, lives that seek after healing and unity rather than division. Help us to lead lives in which we trust ourselves to Thy care and find peace The lives in which we see Thy hand at work in all things, and in that seeing are comforted and encouraged and emboldened to live evermore joyfully. The lives that show the world around us that we worship and serve a good and a merciful God who rules in all and who is at work in all to perfect His people. Our Lord, we do pray that thou would work in us and through us, that even in this place, the glory of the triune God might be seen and men and women might be drawn to him and built up in him all for the glory of thy thrice holy name. Do it all we pray, for we ask it in the wonderful name of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.