Let's open our Bibles again to
Philippians 2. A passage Brother Eric just read
for us. I must have read this text 50
times this week. And when Eric read it a few moments
ago, it's like I never heard it before. I just thought, I
can't wait to preach on this passage. Now Paul, chapter one
last week, and he's still on the same subject. He's talking
about how the believer's daily conduct should be becoming to
the gospel that we preach. Our conduct should match the
gospel that we preach. He's showing us that the gospel
is the rule of the believer's life. It's not the law, it's
the gospel. And these verses particularly
deal with our attitude toward each other. How is it that we
can work together better in the furtherance of the gospel, to
preach the gospel to our generation? You know, it's not just the words
that we say, our attitude, our attitude towards the Lord, our
attitude toward each other is very important. But before we
look at our attitude, I want us to look at the attitude of
Christ our Savior. The almighty God did the most
amazing, act of power and love and mercy that could ever be
told. The holy, eternal God saves sinners. I mean, you think of that. Who
could be more opposite of God than us, sinners? And God saves
sinners. Before He created anything, the
Father chose a people to save, a people who would never love
Him first, who would never choose Him first, yet He loved them
and chose them first. chose to save them and gave them
to his son. The son came incarnate. He came
in our flesh and our nature and he paid the redemption price
by his sacrifice for his people, for those people that the father
gave him to save. He satisfied justice on their
behalf by suffering and dying as their substitute, taking the
punishment that they deserve. And the Holy Spirit comes and
he moves powerfully through the preaching of the gospel. The
people in the flesh hate that gospel. They're opposed to it.
It says everything the opposite of what the flesh thinks. The
flesh by nature hates the gospel of Christ. Yet the spirit moves
in power and takes that gospel that the flesh hates and gives
new life and makes that sinner love the gospel. They love to
hear it. They can't wait to hear it again.
They need to hear it again because now they believe Christ and they
love Christ and they want to hear him preached. And God's
going to take all those people The appointed time comes for
this world to end or the appointed time comes for these bodies to
die and take his people to be with him, to be forever with
him. Now that's the most amazing story
that's ever been told. You can't think of anything more
awe-inspiring, more amazing, more soul-thrilling than what
Almighty God has done for his people by sacrificing his own
son for them. And on top of that, when the
Savior came, he saved a wretched, vile people. He did it in such
a gracious attitude. He didn't pay the debt grudgingly. You know, the Lord would be worthy
of eternal praise if what he did is he came and saved his
people from their sin. I want to say this very carefully,
but you know what I mean. But he was a little grumpy about
it. Why do I have to keep doing this for you? He was so patient
with his disciples. Why do I have to keep doing this
for you? Look what I got to do for you. I should have to do
this for you. He never said that. He did it
in such a gracious, loving attitude. If the Lord just, he was a little
grumpy about all of our sin and our failure and our, you know,
and just, but he still yet saved his people from their sins. That
would still be the most amazing story Grace ever told, wouldn't
it? But on top of paying the sin debt of his people with his
own life's blood, the Lord did it in such a gracious, loving,
tender, compassionate attitude for sinners. The worst of sinners
were the people who were always the most comfortable around the
Lord Jesus, always. Now, I wish we'd get a hold of
this. The Savior had such a wonderful, gracious attitude in doing everything
that it took to save His people. He suffered everything that they
deserved. He took their sin away from them
and suffered for it. He did that with such a wonderful
attitude because He loves His people with an eternal, everlasting
love. And the Savior's love for His
people His love for his father, his love for his people, his
love is the foundation of his attitude that he showed in his
redemption of his people. I want us to look at some of
his attitude, some of the mind, the attitude of the saviors.
He went about saving his people. First, let's look at verse six,
Philippians chapter two. The Lord had an attitude of humility
in saving his people. Verse six, who being in the form
of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. but made
himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant
and was made in the likeness of men. Now, when the Lord Jesus
came into flesh, he did not rob God of his glory when he said,
I'm equal with the father. I and my father are one. He wasn't
robbing God of his glory when he said that because it's true.
Now, if you and I would ever dare to say that, well, we'd
be robbing God of his glory because it's not true, but it's true
when Christ said it. I said this in the lesson and
I told you I like saying it, so I'm going to say it again.
The Lord Jesus Christ is God. He's not a lesser version of
God. He's not God 2.0, God light. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. Mary's baby, born Bethlehem's
manger, is the mighty God, the everlasting father and the prince
of peace. I mean, we just can't tell the
glory of Christ too high. You can't exaggerate His glory
too high because you and I can't even begin to start to imagine
how glorious He is, how much higher above us God is. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ
in the flesh. He's God. And here's why I love to say
that. Since the Savior is God, He's got all the power of God.
He cannot fail to do what He came to do. He came to save His
people from their sins. And brother, He did it. Whatever
he came to save, they're saved, they're redeemed, because he
can't fail to do what he came to do. And this high and lofty
one, God himself, when he came to save his people, you think
how he humbled himself to appear in our flesh, with our nature. The eternal son, whom the heavens
cannot contain, humbled himself to be an embryo in Mary's womb. He humbled himself to be born
as Mary's baby boy, a poor woman in a manger. She had lame in
a cow trough. God Almighty, who has all power
to do all things, nobody can stay his hand, came in the flesh. And when he
did, he limited himself to the flesh. He limited himself to
do in the flesh what you and I could do. Do for himself. He would use the power of God
to heal and to save and to do those things for others, but
not himself. When he was thirsty, he had to
ask a sinful woman for a drink. The same man who asked that sinful
woman for a drink told any sinner that's thirsty, come to me. Out
of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. But when he
was physically thirsty, you think about that. He had to ask a sinful
woman to give him a drink. When he was hungry, he couldn't
turn the stones into bread. He couldn't do that to feed himself,
because you and I can't do that for ourselves. But when he looked
at that crowd who was following him, his heart was moved for
them in compassion. He looked at them as sheep not
having a shepherd, and he took a boy's lunch and fed every one
of them. Oh, he was so gracious and kind to the needy and the
sinners, But He wouldn't use that power for Himself. He took
on Him the weakness of our flesh and limited Himself and limited
His power because He came as the representative of His people.
He could only do for Himself physically what you and I can
do for ourselves. And He had to come in the flesh to do it.
He had to limit Himself to be in the flesh to do it. God Almighty
can't be our representative, can He? He's Spirit. God is Spirit. God can't die. God is life. He is life. God can't be sacrificed
for sin. He has no body to be sacrificed
because he's spirit. God cannot be our representative
because he's got a different nature, but a man can. Man can be our representative.
So God's son humbled himself to come into flesh, to have a
body that could be sacrificed, to have a body that could die
in the place of his people. God's son humbled himself to
live in that holy body that the father prepared for him. for
this reason, so he could go to the cross and give it up. So
he could go to the cross and be sacrificed for the sins of
his people. How he humbled himself. Can you, we just can't even begin
to imagine how far it was he came down. We just, we can't
imagine it. And all of us have some idea
of what it feels like to be humbled, doesn't it? To be embarrassed,
that, call that feeling. The Lord Jesus Christ endured
a constant feeling of shame, humiliation at appearing in our
flesh, in the weakness of our flesh. He lived about 33 and
a half years that way. And if that wasn't humiliation
enough, the Lord humbled himself even further. He humbled himself
to take the sin of his people. The holy son of God humbled himself
to take the sin of his people and he humbled himself to die,
to die in their place. And when he died, he wasn't just
laying in his bed, this soft glow, you know, around him, the
disciples, you know, around him, and he laid in his bed all and
died. That's not it. He died a painful,
humiliating death on the cursed tree. He died on the cursed tree
because he was made a curse He was made sin for his people. He suffered the humiliation.
He's one with the father. He suffered the humiliation of
his father turning his back on him, separating his gracious,
loving presence from his son. He suffered the humiliation of
the father taking the sword of justice and plunging it into
his very soul. It wasn't, it wasn't bad enough
that the people hated him. The father poured out his holy
anger upon him. Oh, he suffered humiliation.
You think of the Savior hanging there on the cross, stripped
naked, people making fun of him. And we can imagine the humiliation
and embarrassment of what it would be like to be naked in
front of a bunch of people. Everybody has the dream, at least
I think they do, about waking up in science class or math class
naked. We can imagine what that might
be like. But we can't imagine the humiliation
of the Son of God appearing naked before his father. We can't imagine
the humiliation he suffered when he was made sin for his people
and the father would pour out his wrath upon him, would not
look on him in love. And he did that so that his people
would be redeemed from their sins. The Lord and master of
all. Remember the disciples talking
to his master. The disciples said, you call me Lord and master
and you say, well, for so I am. Yet he humbled himself to be
a servant. He humbled himself to be the servant to his father.
Now he's equal with the father, but he gave up his rights and
became a servant to his father. He came in the flesh to serve
his father and to obey his father's law, to establish righteousness
on the earth. the righteousness that the father
demanded so that his people would be saved. That's one thing for the savior,
the son of God to submit himself, become a servant to the father.
And I mean, the father is glory. Oh, the father, our savior humbled
himself even further. The Lord and master humiliated
himself to become a servant for his people. He came not to be
ministered to like the big boss. He came to minister to his people
by giving his life a ransom for many. And when he took the sin of his
people and he went to the cross and he suffered everything that
he was suffering, as he was suffering, he did it in an attitude of delight,
of delight, looking forward to the joy that he would have in
redeeming his people. Oh, how humiliation he suffered. Willingly called it his delight.
Number two, the Lord had an attitude of obedience when he came to
save his people. Verse eight, and being found
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. You think about who the
Lord Jesus Christ is. He's the one that appeared to
Moses on Sinai. It was the finger of Christ that
wrote those 10 commandments and those tables of stone and gave
them to Moses. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
law giver. He's the judge of all of the earth. Yet he humbled
himself to come into flesh and obey his own law. You know, kings
give laws and typically speaking, they don't have to obey him,
do they? Everybody else does. This king gave the law and nobody
could obey it. So he came in the flesh to obey
it. As a child, as a baby boy born and growing to a toddler
and a child, you think how he was obedient to his parents,
who were his creatures. They got life and breath from
him. They were completely dependent
on him, yet he obeyed them. The perfect child. He was obedient
to his own law. He was obedient to the ceremonies,
all the ceremonies of the Mosaic law. He was obedient to those
ceremonies, even though they'd been defiled by men. I mean,
you just think how defiled just the high priest was. It was not
a lifetime appointment that, you know, the high priest died
and his son became high priest in his place. And it was such
a solemn thing to represent the people to God and offer the sacrifice. This was an elected thing. I
mean, they just, you know, offered bribes. I'll be the high priest
this year. You'd be the high priest next year, you know. They
defiled it. But he was obedient to it. He was obedient to a very
imperfect people. And then his obedience went even
further. Paul says he was obedient unto
death. The father said, son, you must
be made sin. for my people, you must suffer
and die to put away the sin of my elect. It's the only way my
holiness can be satisfied. It's the only way my justice
can be satisfied. It's the only way I can be both
just and justifier. You must take the sin of my people
and put it away by your sacrifice. You've got to suffer and die
to do it. And the son readily and obediently gave himself to
be sacrificed for the sin of his people. He looked forward
to it, his whole earthly ministry, didn't he? And he said, now my
hour's come. They didn't drag him kicking
and screaming. When that mob came to take him, he came out
and stepped out in front of his disciples and said, boys, who
do you see? He wasn't hiding. When they beat his back, he didn't
try to run away. He didn't try to take his back
from them. When they blindfolded him, punched him in the face
and said, prophesy, tell us, you're a prophet, tell us who
hit you. He didn't turn his face. They went to pluck out his beard.
He didn't turn his face from them. Every lash, every lash of that
cat of nine tails was yours and mine. And he took it. He took it bearing the punishment
of his people. He didn't hide. When they went to nail him to
the tree, he laid down willingly. They didn't have to hold him
down. He wasn't fighting. He gave his hands and his feet to
be nailed to the tree. He was obedient to his father
and he hung there in agony, physical agony and agony of soul, suffering
for sin. He suffered until all the sin
laid on him was put away. And then in one final act of
obedience, he gave up the ghost and died. He died to satisfy
his father's justice that his people would never die. Oh, what
obedience. That perfect obedience. Don't
you love to hear about the perfect obedience of Christ? Believer
does. Because his obedience is my obedience.
His obedience is my righteousness. All his perfect obedience in
saving his people. And now, now it's all done but
to shout. Our Lord is glorified because
he did everything the Father sent him to do. Wherefore, God also hath highly
exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, the things in heaven
and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. Our Savior died, but Christ didn't
stay dead. Because the sin that was laid on him was put away
by his blood. He couldn't stay dead, he satisfied his father.
The father would raise him from the dead. Now remember I told
you I love to say that the Lord Jesus Christ is God. Since he's
God, he did, he accomplished what he came to do. But here
these verses describe him. He's the successful, victorious,
conquering, reigning savior. And since the Lord Jesus Christ
is glorified, since the father accepted him, remember one time
the father turned his back on him. And one time the father
thrust the sword of justice into his soul. Now the father has
accepted him back into glory and said, sit here on my right
hand. God make your enemies your footstool. Since the savior is
glorified, that means everybody he died for, everybody he came
to save is eternally redeemed. And that's the joy, that's the
hope, of every believer. That's the gospel that we love,
isn't it? That's the gospel that we preach,
the gospel that we believe, how that the Lord Jesus Christ completely
accomplished the redemption of his people all by himself and
gives it to his people freely. Now, we who believe on Christ,
we have been saved, saved from our sins, saved from God's wrath,
saved from the anger of God. We've been redeemed by the blood
of the lamb. His blood paid the redemption
price. Our souls have been cleansed from every sin, from even the
stain of sin, the hint of sin, the blood of Christ washed it
away. We've been given eternal life. And I don't know when life
on this earth will end, but every believer can look forward to
when life on this earth ends, they can look forward to glory
with Christ. Being made like him, being with him where he
is. Right now, we know who saved
us, don't we? If Christ saved you, you know it. If God saved
you, you know who saved you. You know how He saved you. As
your substitute. As your sacrifice. We know the
truth of God. By God's grace, I know the truth
of God. I know how God saves sinners. I know that. But listen,
salvation is not just knowledge. Salvation is a heart work. That
salvation that's in the heart, it's going to be shown. in our
conduct, in our attitude. It will be. It will be. I seriously
question a profession of faith that does not include a change
in attitude. I just question that greatly
because whatever it is that's in our heart, truly in our heart,
will come out in our actions. It will. And this is what Paul
is telling us here. Let the attitude of Christ the
Savior, those attitudes that he had in redeeming your soul,
Let the attitude of Christ the Savior be in your heart and let
that guide how you interact and how you treat your brethren.
Let's look back now at verse one of chapter two. If there be therefore any consolation
in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the
spirit, if any bowels and mercies, An apostle says here, if there
be any consolation in Christ, and if any comfort of love, if
any fellowship of the Spirit, if any vows of mercies. That
word if is probably better translated, when, when. If these things are
in the believer, if they are in you, I'll tell you why they're
in you. You've been made a new creature
in Christ and God put them in you. That's the only way they
can be in you. So this is what he's saying. He's talking to
believers here now. Since these things are in you by the new
birth, since God's put them in your heart, see you conduct yourself
according to the gospel. See that you conduct yourself
according to these things. Since these attitudes have been
put in you by the Holy Spirit, the attitudes in you, these attitudes
are in every single believer. And since they're in you, act
on them. First, Paul says consolation.
The word means to comfort. It means to ease and comfort
the soul. It means take the pressure off
people. And it also means this. I never would have known this
if I hadn't looked it up. It means this. It means comfort someone. Take
the pressure off by calling them near. You can't console somebody
from afar. Do it by calling them near. And
I tell you, if anybody in this life needs consolation as we
trudge through this earth below, it's a belief. In this life,
we're gonna have trouble and trial. That's what the Lord promised
us. We need consolation. And Paul tells us here where
it's at. It's consolation in Christ, in Christ. We don't just
tell everybody, well, you know, it'll be okay and God has a plan
and this, you know, this. Our consolation is in Christ.
Our hearts are consoled. The heart of a believer is consoled. When somebody calls us near and
says, come here, come near. Let's hear the gospel together.
Let's hear the gospel of Christ. Let's hear one more time how
Christ's blood cleansed us from all of our sin. Let's hear one
more time how Christ loved His own. Having loved His own, He
loved Him to the end. Let's hear one more time by His
everlasting, eternal love. If God loves you, He'd never
quit. You might need consolation right now. You might not necessarily
feel God's love. Oh, but let me tell you, God's
loved you with an everlasting love. His love's unchanging.
Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn you, he said. He'll
never fail you. He'll never leave you. All our
souls are comforted through the preaching of the gospel. When
the spirit takes that preaching of the gospel and he applies
the blood of Christ to our hearts. Our hearts are comforted by having
the wine and the oil of the gospel poured onto our broken hearts.
and we're given consolation. You see here, our consolation
is in Christ. Christ is our consolation. He
is our consolation. He's the one that took all the
pressure off. He established the perfect righteousness for
his people. You don't have to obey the law to be righteous.
Christ did it for you. He took all the pressure off,
didn't he? He just gives it to you freely. All of salvation
he gives to you as a free gift. All the pressure's taken off,
isn't it? And when He gives it to you, you can't lose it. You
can't lose it by your sin and your weak faith and your failure.
You can't lose it. All the pressure's off, isn't
it? And we're consoled. The hearts are consoled. Duane, there's not one thing
in this world I can do to ease your pain or take your pain away.
Not one thing I can do. But you know what I can do? I
can preach Christ. And that doesn't take your pain
away. You still lost your brother. But it consoles your heart. That's
the heart thrill. Everything in this life is changing. But he's not changing. He's not
changing. He's not going to cast me away.
See, that's the consolation. It doesn't take the pain away,
it doesn't take the tears away, but at the same time consoles
your heart. Now I know that sounds like a contradiction, and it's
a contradiction only a believer can understand. There's the pain
of the flesh and the consolation of the heart. And the only way
the believer can be consoled is by preaching, hearing Christ
preached. Hearing that he's my all. Now you who believe, God's
put that attitude in you. Your heart is consoled by hearing
Christ preached, isn't it? then act on it and take the pressure
off your brethren. Don't hold your brethren's feet
to the fire and say, you know, they shouldn't do that. They
shouldn't do this to me. You know, the law says they shouldn't
do that. That's not right. And don't hold their feet to
the fire. After Christ, the fire of the law, after Christ has
delivered you from the law, take the pressure off of them. Call them near. Remember, that's
what consolation is. Call them near and comfort their
hearts with the preaching. of Christ, call them near, go
to the worship service with them. That's their consolation. Then
Paul says comfort. And this word comfort means like
the word comfort, like what we think, the way we use the word,
but also means a persuasive address, a persuasive address. And Paul
says this comfort now is the comfort of love. It's the comfort
of God's love to his people. It's the comfort that God's people
have to God. We love him. We love him. And
it's the comfort of the love that we have to each other. Now,
the Holy Spirit is the comforter. That's his name, the comforter,
isn't it? Well, how does the spirit comfort God's people?
Well, he does it by taking the things of Christ and showing
them to us, showing us the redemption in Christ Jesus. Now God's put
that attitude in your heart. If you believe him, God's put
this attitude of love, comfort of love in your heart. Now see
that you act on it. When someone that you know and
love, one of our brethren is in trouble, convince them, give
them a persuasive address and convince them of Christ's love
for them. Our comfort is in Christ's love
for his people. And he proved his love for his
people. He redeemed them from their sins. He loves his people.
I'll tell you, nothing is more comforting to a believer than
this. God loves me. Christ loves me. He proved it
by laying down his life for me. Then it's going to be all right.
He's not doing something unloving and wrong now. I know that. It's
a trial. It hurts. But that don't mean
God doesn't love me. That doesn't mean that God's
quit loving me. No, he loves his people. Nothing is more comforting
than that. I don't understand it, but this is why, even though
I don't understand it, this is why I believe. God loves me in
Christ. Oh, that comforts me. Give somebody
a persuasive address. Convince them they have comfort
in knowing that they love Christ. If you believe you love Christ,
and you think, well, my love's awful cold, it's awful fickle,
Most of the time, somebody can't even, by watching me, they can't
tell I love Christ. And we'd be like Peter. They'd
say, Lord, none of these fellas see it. But Lord, you know all
things. You know I love you. It's not
perfect, it's not what I want it to be, but Lord, you know
I love you. Well, you know if that love is in your heart, you
know why it's there? God put it there. He put it there
in an act of grace. When He gave you life and the
new birth, He made you His child. Oh, how comforting it is to hear.
You're a child of God. If you're God's child, you're not an orphan. You're
His child. Are you going to take care of
His child? Convince somebody. Talk to them. Give them a persuasive
address that you love them. And brother, don't just put it
in words. Show it. Show it. Act on it. Be sure they
know and feel that you're loved for them. It'll comfort their
hearts. Act on what God has put in your heart, and it'll be a
blessing to others. It'll help the whole congregation
work together in what God's given us to do, preach Christ to our
generation. Then next, Paul says, fellowship
of the spirit. Fellowship means to have something
in common, to be partakers of the same thing. And it means
to communicate about what you have in common. I know when we
think of fellowship, we typically think about getting together
with each other, eating lunch, and drink a cup of coffee, and
whatever, you know. And we do enjoy that fellowship
with each other. Absolutely, it's a good thing.
And I tell you one reason it's such a blessing. Whenever we
get together, invariably we're gonna talk about what we have
in common. What do we have in common? Well, probably several
things, but here's the preeminent thing. We've got the same Lord,
the same Master, and the same Savior. And we're just gonna
talk about it. We love the same gospel. We're
gonna talk about it. We have that fellowship around
what we have in common. But Paul here says specifically
our fellowship is fellowship of the Spirit, of the Holy Spirit
of God. The believer has fellowship when
we're all alone. Fellowship with the Holy Spirit
of God because the Spirit dwells in your heart. A believer. has been made partaker, fellowship
partaker. We've been made partaker of the
divine nature. We've been given a nature in
the new birth that's the nature of Christ our Savior. And we
have fellowship with Him. We have fellowship with the Spirit.
When the Spirit talks to our hearts. Now here I am preaching,
but boy I sure hope you hear a whole lot more than me. You
know when you'll be blessed? As the gospel's being preached.
Whoever's preaching it, when the gospel's being preached.
You have fellowship with Christ because the Holy Spirit's talking
to you. The Holy Spirit's communicating with you and showing you the
things of Christ. And you have fellowship. You
have fellowship with Him. Now, you who believe know exactly
what I'm talking about. God's put that attitude in you,
fellowship of the Spirit. Well, see that you act on it.
Act on it by thinking about, by enjoying. You have fellowship
with God, the Holy Spirit. He takes the things of Christ
and shows them to you. Now do that for others. Do that
for your brothers and sisters. When they're in a time of trouble,
I promise you, nothing will reach their heart more than talk about
this fellowship of the Spirit. Fellowship that we have in Christ.
Then Paul mentions bowels and mercies. He's talking about the
very innermost being. It's the seat of emotion where
all of our other emotions come from. Bowels and mercy, love. Now this thing of loving God
is not just lip service. It's from the heart. My heart
is moved toward God when I hear the gospel. This thing of loving
Christ, I believe Him, I love Him, that's not just lip service.
My heart is moved toward Christ the Savior when I hear Him preached.
When I describe what He did for His people and the attitude in
which He did it, did that move your heart? That's love for Christ. Oh, my heart is moved. It causes
me to come to him. I hear the gospel preached. My
heart is thrilled. It's moved toward Christ. That's
not just lip service. And I tell you, this thing of
loving each other, not just lip service either. I tell you, my
heart is moved towards you. When you all hurt, I mean, my
heart aches. My heart is moved towards you. And even in your everyday life,
when nothing particularly seems to be going wrong, my heart's
moved towards you. I want God to bless you. I want
God to be with you. Our hearts move toward each other.
And God's put that attitude in the heart of all of His people.
Now don't just feel it and don't say anything. Don't do anything.
See that you act on it. You've got to put some effort
into this thing now. Act on it. And here's what will
enable you to act on what you feel. Oh my, to think of Christ's love
for me. His love for his people wasn't
just lip service, was it? It caused him to give himself,
himself, everything that he is, body and soul, to be sacrificed
for the sin of his people. Christ's love for him moved,
or for his people, moved him to go to the cross and to count
it a joy. I tell you, thinking about that,
make me have the motivation to put some effort and to show my
love for you. Show your love one to another.
And Paul says, look here, verse two, fulfill you my joy, that
you be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord
and of one mind. Paul said, you give me such joy
if you do a few things for me. You want to give your pastor
some joy, tell you what to do. Show these attitudes in your
actions. Show them. It gave Paul such joy to see
these attitudes and actions in these Philippian believers. And
here's why it gave him such joy. When you see these things in
action, that's pretty good indication there's been a work of grace
in the heart. Because none of this stuff comes naturally to
the flesh. If somebody has these emotions or these things in them,
whatever you want to call them, that's indication God's put them
there. That's the only way they get there. And Paul says, since
you have all these things, be like-minded. Have unity together. Our world looks for reasons today
to separate. It looks for reasons to divide.
It looks for reasons to be offended. It looks for reasons just to
start out a war with somebody, you know? And unfortunately,
that attitude of the world has bled into the church. Now let's
get rid of it. I mean, let's just get rid of
it right now. and have unity, not separations over things that
don't matter. Don't look for things that your
brethren are doing and look for a reason, they offended me and
I'm gonna... Have unity of purpose. Our unity
is unity of purpose. It's the glory of Christ our
Savior. That's our purpose. Our sole
purpose for being here, Hurricane Road Grace Church, is to preach
the gospel to our generation that sinners would be saved,
that God would use the preaching of the gospel to call his sheep
to him, that God's sheep would be fed, that God's sheep would
be encouraged, that they grow in grace through the preaching
of Christ. If we can't have unity of spirit, unity of purpose on
that, let's close the doors and go someplace else. Let's strive
together for this unity. It's unity of purpose, and it's
unity of love. I know we're all different people,
we like some different things, Buddy, we're all in love with
the same person. We're all in love with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then let's do what we can, everything we can for his cause, that his
name would be glorified. If God enabled us to do that,
there ain't gonna be no time for fussing and fighting. If
we're all acting in unity of love for Christ, there's gonna
be no room for fussing and fighting, is there? The father, son, and
the Holy Spirit have unity purpose, saving your soul, bringing you
to glory. Then let that attitude be in
us too. Let this be our purpose, that
the gospel of Christ would be furthered. In verse three, let
nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness
of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look
not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others. I pray God give us an attitude of humility and that
we'd act on it. Have an attitude of humility,
not because you're pretending to be humble, but because God's
actually humbled you. Don't do anything for vainglory. All vainglory is, is pride. And there is nothing that destroys
unity and destroys a worship service. The attitude of worship
more than pride. A proud person simply cannot
worship. The only people that can worship
are people who are humbled that God's broken and put down in
the dust. A proud person can't worship. It just destroys the
whole attitude of worship. And the cause of division and
separation every single time is pride. It's pride. I just can't put my pride away
and have unity and worship together. And nothing dishonors God more
Nothing dishonors his gospel more. If the gospel is our rule
of life now, nothing dishonors the gospel more, nothing is more
contrary to the gospel than pride. Because we got nothing to be
proud of. A lot of reasons to be ashamed, but no reason for
pride. Humility, this is the best definition
of humility I've ever heard. It's the right view, the right
estimation of myself, to see myself as I really am. Well,
here's how you put humility in action. Be quick to see your
own sin. Be quick to see your own faults,
but slow to see them in others. That's an attitude of humility.
We should all just assume everybody else is better than me. Everybody
else is more spiritual than me. They're better taught than me.
They're better acting than me. You've got to be. You have to
be. Because I know my heart. And
there's no way in this world you're as bad as me. You have
to be better than me. If we think of ourselves that
way, you know what we'll do? I won't promote myself. I'll
promote others. I'll help others. And I'll tell
you, nothing's going to promote unity more than that. In every decision, let's approach
this thing with some humility. Let's not think about what's
best for me. In every decision we make, individually and as
a group, let's think, what's best for others? What's best
for this congregation? What's best for the individuals
here? What's best for our children? What's best for our old folks?
What's best for our middle-aged folks? What's best for them?
What's best for their welfare? What's best for their learning?
What's best for their salvation? The answer's always gonna be
preach Christ. Then let's do that. Not what's best for me,
what's best for somebody else. And be obedient one to another.
Submit yourself to the needs of others. Put their needs ahead
of yours and do what it takes to fulfill their needs. Be obedient to your pastor. And
that doesn't mean, you know, man, I don't want to tell you
everything to do in your life. I got enough to do, live my own
life. When we're talking about being
obedient to the pastor, it's this. Be obedient to the message
that he preaches. Believe Christ. Trust Him. Look
to Him. Work together now so others can
hear of Him and believe on Him. If God would give us that attitude,
I'm telling you this, it would be a whole lot easier to do what
God's given us to do. which has preached the gospel
to our generation. Meet together on Sundays and Wednesdays and
worship him. Lift up his name, not my name. Amen. I can't think what else
to say but amen. Let's bow together in prayer. Our father, we thank you for
this, your word. Oh, how we thank you for this. the compassion
and the love and the tenderness, the humility of Christ our Savior
that would move him to do everything that's necessary to save his
people. Oh, how we thank you. How we love him, how we believe
him, how we bow before you. Father, I pray that you give
each one of us here this morning faith, God-given faith to believe
in him, cling to him, look to him, make Christ our all and
in all. make him all of our hope, all
of our joy, and Father, make him all of our motivation to
serve you and serve one another. Father, give us these attitudes.
Enable us to act on them, to be a help and encouragement to
our brothers in the furtherance of the gospel. Don't let us be
a stumbling block in the way of Christ for someone, but let
us be a help in bringing your people pointing them to our Lord
Jesus Christ. For his blessed name we pray,
amen. All right, Chris. All right, in closing, if you
would take your hymnal and turn it to 309, and we'll be standing
as we close, please, beneath the cross of Jesus.