Have you seen the trailers for the new Lone Ranger movie that’s coming out? Johnny Depp is playing Tonto? It looks interesting…maybe not a faithful twist to the old Lone Ranger we grew up on but interesting nonetheless. I heard a story about how Tonto and the Lone Ranger were riding through a canyon together when all of a sudden both sides were filled with Indian warriors on horses, dressed for battle. The Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and asked, "What are we going to do?" Tonto replied, "What you mean 'we,' white man?"
Perhaps one of the greatest sources of church and personal conflict we face when it comes to church is where our independent western spirit resists the extremely relational and interdependence God built into the culture we know as church.
This past Monday a young lady in Durant died. She was 32 years old and worked as a cosmetologist in Denison. She was married and had a young daughter and a step-son. But the reason she died, at least in part is heart breaking. It seems she had juvenile diabetes and her husband had recently been battling cancer. Those of you who have faced cancer know that the expenses related to it such as doctor and hospital visits, medications, tests and treatments can be extremely expensive. Well this young family had some tough choices to make, so in order to pay for the medications her husband needed this wife wasn’t buying her own medications for her diabetes. On Monday she died after going into a diabetic coma.
Now, I bring all that up because it was an unnecessary death. I don’t know if they were part of a church family or not, but God forbid that anything like that ever happen here. If that’s you…tell someone. Give up your pride and independence and ask for help. If it is someone you know…tell someone. Help. Do something. Can I remind you this morning that we are family? If the church in Acts could sell their possessions to meet one another’s physical needs, then there’s no reason that someone in our family ought to go without a medication or any other physical need they have when God has given us all the resources we need right here.
Families care for one another – and many of you are closer to me than my very own family. They say blood is thicker than water…but I think in many cases the waters of baptism bind us together closer than our own kin. And if you’ll think about it…the saying says that blood is thicker than water. Perhaps we need to get in our mind that the blood of Christ is thicker than any DNA blood you have running through your veins – we are bound together as one by the blood of Christ at the Cross of Calvary!
Do you know how close we ought to be to one another? Jesus prayed that we might be one. In John 17 He prayed these words…
(Read John 17:20ff and make a few comments)
To the Ephesian church Paul said “to Him – to Jesus be glory in the church!” Then he called the believers there to unity…one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all...Unity!
But is unity really possible? I mean come on, really? Think about the makeup of any church. You have mature believers and some who are spiritual infants. There is selfishness and pride, people who are in the Bible and those who don’t know any of it. We have all these personalities and differences. Some want to run in this direction and others in that direction.
How can we have unity with all that in play? The word unity is found in your New Testaments only twice, but it comes from the Greek word heis, which means One…and that word is found 272 times in the New Testament. Can we have unity? Can we really, with so many parts and members be ONE?
It’s easy to glamorize the early church and think “Oh, if we could just get back to that then we’d have unity. Oh, if we were like the church of Acts or the church in the Bible then we’d be in good shape. But let me remind you that the churches found in the Bible had just as many problems as we do. The church in Acts faced leadership problems. They struggled with racism and favoritism and had financial struggles. The Corinthian church was plagued with division, open sin, prideful attitudes from people who were abusing their spiritual gifts and more. The Galatian church was practicing works, and it seems the Ephesian church was made up of people who looked and acted like Christians but their lives were empty of the real power that only comes from living in the Spirit.
So if those churches with all their issues could have unity, then there’s no reason that we can’t have it also. The Bible has plenty to say about unity, but today rather than preach some exhaustive message on the subject of unity I want to draw your attention to just one passage in Philippians. We’re going to read Philippians 1:27 through 2:8 and I want to give you 5 facts about unity. Two of them come from personal observation, the rest from our text, but as I give them to you here’s the thought I want you to leave with and have planted in your mind: you and I are not only called to unity, we are called to fight for it. I know it seems unusual to think about fighting for unity, but just like you ought to fight for a good marriage, we ought to be fighting for and defending the unity of our church.
(Read the passage without comment)
Okay…5 quick facts about unity:
1. Every church can have unity. How do I know this? Because Jesus wouldn’t have prayed for us to be one and Paul wouldn’t have called us to unity if it weren’t possible that we be one. I don’t care what problems we face or what issues come up, this church and every other church can have unity.
2. Every church has disunity. Not only can every church have unity, but every church has disunity at any given time. That’s not contradictory. By virtue of the fact that every church is made up of sinful people and no church has every member fully following Jesus every moment of every day every church will have some level of disunity. It may be big or it may be small, but it is always there.
The question here is how it is handled. In my opinion, and this is just my opinion – you can do what you want to with it, but chew on it, the leadership of the church determines whether the disunity is going to be divisive.
3. Unity is rooted in the gospel. Verse 27 calls us to live lives that are consistent with and rooted in the gospel of Christ. When your life or my life strays from the cross then unity suffers.
Think about the gospel of Christ…the faith of the gospel. What does that bring to mind? It ought to at least bring to mind the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So what could Paul mean when he says to live lives worthy of or consistent with that? It means that our lives out to be continuously be getting put to death…death of the old man, the old habits, the old ways, the old words and attitudes and sins and treatments of others. The old loves and old little g gods and the old affections. Those ought all be getting put to death…we bury those things daily in the blood of Christ and come up…are resurrected as new Creations…made in the image of Christ.
My life ought to be consistent with that message…my affections should be His affections. My loves ought to be His loves. My attitudes should be His attitudes. My treatment of others should be His treatment of others. My God should be His.
Do you see this? As my life and your life are continually subjected to the gospel of Christ then unity is going to be possible. It’s like a triangle. Here’s you at this point and me at the other point and God at the top point. The closer I move toward God and the closer you move toward God the closer to oneness we have with one another.
4. Unity cannot come without a fight. Now there are two kinds of opposition we’re going to face that will threaten our unity. The first is opposition from outside our family. That’s what Paul addressed in verses 28-30.
(read and discuss and give context)
What are some kinds of opposition we might face from outside our family? Things that might test our unity? Things that we might have to stand firm in and strive together for?
The second kind of opposition comes from within. That’s what was addressed in 2:3-4. In chapter 4 Paul talks about a couple of women in this church that were at odds with one another and he called the church to get it worked out. Understanding that conflict is fundamental to understanding why Paul is saying what we’re studying today.
We’re sinners and we are naturally selfish. I want my way and you want yours. I have my agenda and you have yours. Do you see that here? He’s talking about the most basic things in our sinful nature…our selfishness and self-centeredness. Don’t be that way! Listen, you have a personal responsibility as a member of this family to fight for the unity of this church. And the biggest part of that fight is resisting your own selfish, self-centered ways.
But listen, as members of this family, we also have responsibilities to resist such sinful ways. Oh you see, we revel in disharmony. You say we don’t but we do. Here’s a member over here that gets a little disgruntled. Maybe they didn’t like the music one day and they say something about it. Another member didn’t either and they talk about it. We ought to just say, “hey – I don’t want to hear it. What I’m talking about is you and me defending the unity of our church. It could be any number of things, but the point is that you are responsible to guard your hearts and minds and defend unity, and we collectively are responsible to call one another out on it when we cause disunity.
5. Unity calls us to get out of ourselves for something greater. Remember that unity is rooted in the gospel. So we put to death what comes natural to us and live lives consistent with the gospel.
(teach through 1-8)
Same mind – literally means to think the same thing
Same love – love for Christ, the things of Christ and the same love for one another
One accord – means here to be of one soul – think of it this way…our hearts and affections and souls are so knit together in unity that we are headed in the same direction…the glory of Christ
Humility
Consideration
The mind / attitude of Christ
Now, let’s bring this home…what does all of this mean for us. Remember, the closer we move toward God the closer we move toward one another. We become ONE. Don’t be afraid of conflict. The absence of conflict doesn’t mean unity necessarily. We can have conflict and still have unity.
So here’s your take away today. Here’s what you need to do with this message.
1. Make a decision right now to live for and defend the unity of this church. Stand for it. Let’s strive together for it. Our unity is more important than we know or remember when we get so self-centered. Think about what Jesus said
“I ask Father that they may be one, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
He didn’t say, I ask Father that they might have Life Groups instead of Sunday night services so the world will know. He didn’t pray that we might have this ministry or that one, that we’d sing this many songs or that many so the world would know. He didn’t pray that we’d have this constitution or that one so the world would know. He prayed that we would be in absolute unity…that we would be perfectly one so the world would know. Do you get the impression that our unity is vital to our success in reaching the world? More important than the things that distract us? More important than being right?
So today, make a decision to live for and defend our unity. You can defend it with…
Your prayers
Your words
Your attitudes
Your behavior
Your emptying yourself and being like Jesus to the rest of the body
2. Accept that unity comes at great personal cost. The biggest cost to you is simply going to be letting go of you for the good of the body.
3. Choose to be like Christ…empty yourself of you and take on the form of a servant. Lay down your life in love for the good of the body.
4. Repent of anything responsibility you have in causing or contributing to our disunity. I don’t think a lot of explaining is needed here. Pray and ask God if there’s anything in you that has not been in line with the gospel or faith of Christ and has caused disunity in this body or with any one member of this body. If so, then repent of it. Confess it to God and put it to death.
Can I ask you something? Do we have unity? And if we do, is the world noticing? More importantly, is our world of Whitewright noticing? While we meet and work and debate and do our thing are we reaching our community for Christ?
I read the story about a little child in an African tribe who wandered off into the tall jungle grass and could not be found. The tribe searched all day, but could not find the little boy. The next day the tribal members all held hands and walked through the grass together. This enabled them to find the child, but due to the cold night, he had not survived. In her anguish and tears, the mother cried, “If only we would have held hands sooner.”
What could we do…and who might we find if we could hold hands like that?
