Giving For Love - Philippians 4:10-14 Series

Philippians 1:7 It is right for me to have this attitude about all of you since I have you in my heart.

It’s that selfless, humble, loving, Christ-like, “you-first” attitude that is so essential to church unity. So that’s a central part of his message to the Philippians – he wants them to adopt that attitude toward one another. And to make it clear, he said, “Here, let me show you my example of having this attitude…” Then he said, “Let me show you Jesus’ example of having this attitude…” “And let me show you Timothy’s example, and Epaphroditus’ example, and my example a couple more times…”

And now he’s got one more example they can learn from – themselves! They already know how to have this attitude, because they have it toward Paul.

4:10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your attitude for me.

All through the book Paul keeps saying, “Have this selfless, humble, loving attitude toward one another. Have this selfless, loving attitude toward one another. Learn to have this selfless, loving attitude toward one another.” Then he ends the book by saying, “Hey, thanks for having that selfless, loving attitude toward me.”

If they want to learn everything Paul’s been teaching them about how to have peace and harmony and unity in the church, all they have to do is take the same love and concern and generosity that they had toward Paul, and show that same attitude toward one another. All they had to do was treat each other the way they treated Paul, and the church would be fine.

This is a great lesson for us. When there is disunity in the church (or the home), the solution might be as simple as this – let’s just start treating each other the same way we treat missionaries. Treat the people you live with the way you treat people you don’t live with. You can have a husband and wife in a shouting match, yelling and screaming at each other, all out of control (“You always do that – every time! You don’t care about anyone but yourself and I’m sick and tired of this marriage and…” and the phone rings, “Oh, hello pastor, how are you today? Oh yes, it’s such a blessed day…” They change on a dime – in a split-second. How is that possible?

People lose their temper, and they say, “I can’t help it. She pushes my buttons, and I just lose control.” No you don’t. It’s not a loss of control. The pastor comes to the front door, and suddenly you have all the control in the world. The issue isn’t inability to control your anger; it’s an unwillingness. You can be friendly to the pastor, but not to your spouse or your roommate or whoever it is you’re at odds with – why? Because of your attitude. You’re fully capable of the humble, loving, gentle, “you-first” attitude, but you’re just not willing to have it toward this person.

It happens with people you’re around a lot. It’s easy to have a great attitude toward the missionary overseas. But the people in your house, the people in your church, the folks you’re around week after week – sooner or later those people do something that hurts you. Every person on the planet is a sinner, and so if you have a lot of contact with one of them, no matter who it is, it’s just a matter of time before they get lazy in their kindness and they are rude or insensitive toward you. The more you’re around a person, the more often that will happen – it’s inevitable. And so we build up these bitter, bad attitudes toward the people we’re closest to, because they are the ones that hurt us most often. And we lose our willingness – not our ability, but our willingness to show them the same kindness and respect that we show everyone else.