Philippians 4:1 Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends! 2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
1. Why all the effusive language in v.1? Why not just say, “Therefore, beloved brothers, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord”?
2. What can we learn about the way we are to love one another (the various components of love) from Paul’s description of his love in v.1?
3. The phrase "in the Lord” is used 3 times in these 5 verses. It must be important. What is the meaning of "in the Lord?" Why is it so important here?
4. Whose job is peacemaking?
5. Why does Paul mention that these women were fellow workers with him, and their names were in the book of life? What does that have to do with the purpose of the passage?
Introduction
Would you agree that for the majority of people, most of the pain you experience in life, and the worst kind of pain, comes from broken relationships? Conflicts with your kids or parents, problems with coworkers, roomates, fights with your spouse – what has caused you more anguish in life than broken relationships? And not only do they cause pain, they also do catastrophic damage to the church. It’s the primary way that Satan destroys healthy churches. In a healthy church, where people really take the Word of God seriously, Satan can’t usually destroy a church like that by introducing heresy or worldliness, and so he usually goes after healthy churches, like the church in Philippi, by attacking their unity. When all the people take God’s Word seriously, the people are passionate about their beliefs. And when people are passionate about what they believe, that’s when disagreements can shatter the unity of the church.
That’s what was starting to happen in the Philippian church because of a conflict between two prominent women. Hopefully you’ve all listened to the message on vv.1-3 (preached 5 months ago). But just to remind you of the context, Paul, who is in a prison 800 miles away, hears about this conflict and writes to the church with some instructions, because this is a big deal. And he tells these women what needs to happen in four Greek words.
Philippians 4:2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to have the same attitude in the Lord.
Have the same attitude. Your Bible might say “agree with each other.” That’s a misleading way to translate it, because that makes it sound like the goal is to adopt the same opinions. The point isn’t that they have to agree in their opinions. The point is that in their disagreement, they need to have the attitude that Paul described in ch.2 – humble, selfless love that seeks the interests of the other person and considers that person more important than yourself. If both women had that attitude, then they could disagree all day long on their opinions , and it isn’t going to harm their friendship or fracture the unity of the church.
Now, does Paul think that he’s going to solve this whole crisis just by saying four words: have the same attitude? No. If it were that simple, these two godly women would have worked things out a long time ago. Paul doesn’t expect that they are going to be able to reconcile just because of what he has written in the letter. In fact, he doesn’t expect them to be able to reconcile at all without some outside help.
Whose Job is Peacemaking?
The Yokefellow 3 Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow, help these women
Paul knows they will need help, so he commands this yokefellow to step in. There is a ton of debate about who this guy is. There are all kinds of theories: Epaphroditus, Mark, the lead pastor, Paul’s wife, some unknown leader in the church. One theory is that it was actually a guy named Yokefellow. I’ll tell you who I think he is in a minute, but first, let’s just make sure we catch the significance of the fact that, whoever he was, Paul was calling on a third party.
Be Willing to Be Helped
That’s important to understand because it teaches us the biblical protocol – when you can’t reconcile a conflict, you need to bring in some outside help. Most conflicts you can handle just between you and the other person, but once in a while you get one of those situations where you try to work it out, but the more you talk, the worse it gets. That can happen sometimes even when both parties are godly people. Euodia and Syntyche were both godly women, and yet Paul still calls for outside help.
Sometimes you are so close to a conflict, and so emotionally invested, that you just can’t see what an outsider can see. Especially when you’ve been hurt or offended. That clouds your ability to think objectively about the situation. And not only that, but the other person will be able to accept things from a third party that they can’t accept if they came out of your mouth. I do marriage counseling, and I can say things to the wife that she will take to heart when I say them, but if the husband tried to say those exact same things, she would start throwing things. I can say things to the husband that he thinks is brilliant, and the wife has been telling him that exact same thing for years, but he just couldn’t hear it from her.
It’s just silly to say, “No, I won’t accept any help. We’ll handle this on our own.” And not just silly, but sinful. Jesus said that if you are at odds with a brother, set your worship aside and go reconcile and then come back and finish worshipping. That’s how urgent it is. It’s more important than your pride.
A lot of times people won’t seek outside help because of pride – you don’t want anyone to know you’re having trouble. Or you don’t want to admit you need help. “I can handle my own marriage – I don’t need some yahoo from the church to come in and tell me how to interact with my own wife.” There’s no shame in needing help. There is shame in imagining you can do everything yourself. Refusing help in repairing a broken relationship is like a guy who needs to get his engine block out of his car to work on it, but he says, “I’m not going to use the a lift, because that would be to admit that I don’t have the strength to do it on my own,” and so he just tries to wrestle it out with his arms.” That’s not macho; it’s just dumb. Use the lift.
Think of the staggering level of pride we have in our hearts when we refuse to seek help. We’re saying, “I have so much knowledge and such comprehensive understanding and insight, that no other soul on the planet could possibly have anything to contribute that I haven’t already thought of.” Maybe you are smarter than everyone else on the planet, but even then, other people will still have perspectives that you don’t have, and they won’t be caught up in the same emotions that you are caught up in.
Sometimes one party won’t accept outside help because he’s afraid the mediator will side with the other person, and he can’t risk that. He is more concerned about winning than he is about reconciliation.
Or in some cases, they don’t want outside help because they really don’t want reconciliation because they are angry. They are mad and they want to stay mad.
Or maybe it’s just laziness. Peacemaking is arduous, difficult work. For a complex issue, it takes many meetings, lots of preparation, and it is exhausting work.
Whatever the reason is – laziness, anger, pride, fear, or whatever, it is evil and must be pushed out of your heart before it destroys you and the church and your relationship with God – who loves that other person, and who sacrificed his Son so that there would be unity and harmony and love among all of his children in his household, the church.
Church unity is more important than your pride. Marital harmony is more important than saving face. God hates dissention among his people. Proverbs 6 gives a list of seven things God absolutely hates, and one of them is a man who stirs up dissention among the brothers (Pr.6:19). There were divisions in the church of Corinth, and Paul writes to them and says, If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple (1Cor.3:17). The church is God’s temple, and God will destroy people who destroy one of his churches through causing dissention.
There is just no excuse for refusing help. Whoever was in the wrong to begin with, if one of the parties is refusing to meet with a third party to help reconcile, now that person is for sure in the wrong. And as long as that person keeps refusing, he or she is continuing in sin and must repent of that sin.
So that is what this passage has to say to those who are in the dispute. But what does it say to the one offering the help – the yokefellow? What can we learn from this passage about how to help two parties who are in conflict? Let’s look at who this yokefellow is, so we know whose job it is to step in and help with situations like this, and then we will look at what Paul says to him.
The Yokefellow is You
Let me just cut through all the speculation on who this might be and say this: When you are reading a letter, and it says, “And I say this to you,” who is it talking about? Whoever the letter was addressed to. Who was this letter addressed to? The saints in the church at Philippi (Php.1:1). Paul uses the word “you” 55 times in this little letter, and there’s no question that the other 54 refer to the Philippian congregation. This one is different because it is singular instead of plural, but I think what is happening is Paul wants to say it in a way that puts each person in the church on the spot.
The NIV says loyal yokefellow, but loyal is probably not the best translation. The word has more to do with genuineness. So it should be translated true, or authentic yokefellow. I think what Paul is doing is saying, “Anyone who would fit the description of a true yokefellow with me, (that is, anyone who would be a genuine fellow worker with the Apostle Paul) – anyone who fits that description, it is your responsibility to help these ladies reconcile.” So Paul is saying, “Hey, you sitting there listening to this letter right now (yeah, you), how would you like to be a co-worker in my ministry? How would you like to be my colleague? If you are on the same team with me, then I amasking you, help these women.”
Whose job is it to bring peace to a fight? Whoever aspires to be a partner with the Apostle Paul. Or in the words of Jesus in Mt.5:9, anyone who wants to behave like God.
Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Whose job is it to bring the two sides together? It’s yours.
Remember the Goal
So how do you do that? The starting place is to remember what it is we are trying to accomplish, which we saw last time. The objective is not to get one party to give in. If one side says, “Ok, I give. You win – we’ll do it your way” – that is not necessarily a success. Paul doesn’t tell the yokefellow to help the women with their argument; he tells him to help the women with their attitude. The objective is to get both parties to have the humble, selfless, “you-first because I love you” type of attitude that Christ had in ch.2. If you start working mainly for agreement rather than focusing mainly on attitude, you will not be a good mediator.
Loving “Gossip”
Now, at this point we could do a whole series on principles of mediation and peacemaking. But this passage just focuses on one. And you can see what it is by reading the rest of v.3. The command is very simple:
3 help these women
But the sentence doesn’t end there. Look at all those other words that come after that in v.3. Why is all that there? (That is always one of the most important things you can do when you are studying the Bible is to ask, “Why is this part here?” Until you can answer that question, you don’t understand what the writing is trying to communicate.) So let’s look at the rest of the sentence.
3 help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
What’s the point of all that? There are no commands. All he’s doing is talking these two women up. He’s giving their credentials.
Fellow Soldiers
First he says they have contended (fought) at his side. These women were warriors – soldiers who fought side by side with Paul in spiritual warfare. And for a soldier - to have the 5-star general vouch for you – that’s not bad on the resume. Paul vouches for both of them.
Gospel Workers
Secondly, they were soldiers in a great cause.
3 who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel
There is no higher calling than that. It’s more important than the work of the President of the United States. It’s more beneficial to humanity than a scientist developing a vaccine for a world-wide plague. It’s more noble than a firefighter running in to a burning building to rescue a baby. Nothing does the people on planet Earth more good than the work of the gospel. And both these women were gospel soldiers.
God’s Chosen
3 along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.
The book of life is a list of all the people God considers righteous (Ps.69:28). This is a poignant way to describe believers. Instead of just saying, “Remember, these women are Christians,” he says their names are in the book of life.
The Importance of a High View of the Players in the Conflict
So all that to say, these two women are wonderful people. Now, back to our question – what is the purpose of all that verbiage in v.3? If these two women are the problem, and they are threatening the unity of the church, why does Paul spend all this time telling the yokefellow how wonderful these women are? Here’s what that teaches us – if you’re going to be Paul’s partner and bring about peace in a conflict, it’s crucial that you have a high opinion of both parties. When people get into conflicts, they very often behave in irrational, selfish, or petty ways. And when that happens, you’ll be tempted to look down on them. This fight is harming the church, someone is in the wrong, and so in the name of protecting the church you suddenly think you have a license to be harsh. We think we have a license to think the worst of those people and to talk negatively about those people and to withhold love from those people and gossip about those people – all in the name of protecting the church and standing up for the truth. But what Paul is showing us here is that yes, these women were hurting the church and they did need to be corrected, but the one who corrects them had better keep in mind these women are servants of the living God. Help them, but when you do, don’t you dare look down on them. Be very, very careful how you deal with someone whose name is written in heaven by God.
Good Gossip
So right while Paul calls these women out by name in front of everyone, he talks them up. He talks to them in v.2, but then in v.3 he talks about them. And everything he says when he’s talking about them is positive. This is something we need to learn from Paul’s example: good gossip. Build people up behind their backs.
And Paul didn’t just do that here for the sake of resolving this dispute. He did it as a way of life. Go back to chapter 2 and look at the way Paul talks about Epaphroditus and Timothy. I have a deep respect for Epaphroditus, and I’ve never met him. The only impression I have of him is second hand information I have from eavesdropping on Paul talking to some other people about him. It’s fine to talk about people behind their back, as long as when you’re done talking, the person you’re talking to now has a higher opinion of the one you’re talking about.
So this is something you might not hear every day in a Bible study but let’s do this – let’s talk about one another. Go ahead and talk about people in your church behind their backs. And when the conversation starts, set a conscious goal: By the time this conversation is over, I’m determined to see to it that this person I’m talking to has a higher opinion of so-and-so than they have right now. My objective is to boost that person’s reputation, and I’m going to get that done in this conversation. Someone’s name comes up in conversation, and you appoint yourself as that person’s own, personal PR firm.
How would you like it if just 20 or 30 people were doing that for you? If just 20 or 30 people in your church paid close attention to your strengths, and the good things that you do, and they just made it their objective to bring the best things about you to other people’s attention. People would like you more, people would trust you more, and people who need what your gifts have to offer would know where to look. And people who struggle in those areas would know whose example to follow so they could make progress. Your example could bring spiritual growth to other people without you ever even meeting those people! Let’s do this. Paul did it, and we are commanded multiple times in this book to follow his example.
Think of the impact that will have on church conflicts. If you make it your business to go around making sure everyone in the church has a really high view of both parties involved in the dispute, no petty church split will ever be able to get off the ground.
Notice the Good
And please understand, I’m not talking about flattery. You can’t just make up random positive things to say about someone – they have to be things that are actually true. And that means you are going to have to be on the lookout for things people are doing right. That’s another thing Paul teaches us by example. Remember back in chapter 2 when Paul told them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling? Look what he said before giving the command:
Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling
Before commanding future obedience, he praises them for their past and present obedience. Paul loved pointing out good things in others. And we can really learn from that – especially those of us in leadership. From listening to some preachers, you get the feeling that all the saints ever do is sin. And some non-preachers – regular church members, are the same way. When they talk about the church, it’s always negative. You get the impression that the church in our day never does anything right. They can tell you how the last 10 churches they were in are totally blowing it, but if you ask, “Of all the hundreds of churches in Denver, which ones are doing it right?” they will stare at you like a cow looking at a new gate.
That’s not to say Paul didn’t address problems. Nobody was stronger than Paul when it came to dealing with sin and error in the congregation, but he was just as eager to rejoice in the good things God was doing in the congregation. Jesus is the same way. Just read the letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3. Jesus describes a horrible church, and then praises them for all the good things they were doing. If you get upset with a church, ask yourself, “Am I dealing with this church the way Jesus dealt with the churches in Revelation? Am I praising them for what they are doing right? Am I affirming my love for them?
Loving Speech
What Paul was calling for in Philippi and modeling in his letter was a culture of encouragement, not discouragement. That’s never more obvious than the way he started this whole discussion back in v.1.
1 Therefore, my brothers, my beloved, you whom I long for, my joy and crown, this is how you should stand firm in the Lord, my beloved!
Not only did Paul show love when he talked about people; he showed love when he talked to people.
Raise your hand if you want to make progress in increasing your love for people. If you want to increase your love, one of the best ways is to verbally communicate the love you already have. Verbal communication is one of the most basic expressions of love there is. The more you love someone, the more you communicate. When you are mad at someone, what is the first thing to go? Communication. You give them the silent treatment. You start talking to everyone else instead of the person you are mad at. You don’t tell that person what’s on your heart. You don’t respond to their questions. Communication stops.
But love communicates, and it does so in loving ways. I am always amazed in marriage counseling when a man or a woman will claim, “Oh, I love my wife,” or “I love my husband, ” and yet when you hear them talk to their spouse, there’s not even a hint of love. No warmth, no affection, no indication that there’s even a flicker of love in the heart in the tone or in the words. We try to convince ourselves that we really do love someone because of the actions that we are doing on their behalf, but if it were really genuine love, it would find its way into our speech. And so Paul teaches us by example throughout this book and especially here about how to speak in loving ways.
Written Love
And he does it in writing. I point that out because some people claim that’s not possible. There are people who are anti-email – everything should be said in person, not written communication. And the reason they give is that in an email, you can’t tell the tone or mood. And all too often that’s true, but it doesn’t have to be. You can communicate tone in written communication if you put some effort into it. Recently I have received some emails and texts with incredibly warm, loving, kind tones that were so encouraging that they lifted my spirits and gave me great encouragement.
Would anyone try to argue that you can’t pick up on Paul’s warmth and love in v.1? If you want to communicate a warm tone, all you have to do is refer to the person as a dear friend whom you love. I think if our emails were like Philippians 4:1, people would have no problem at all sensing warmth and love. But that takes some intentionality.
The problem usually isn’t that it’s written communication rather than face to face. The entire Bible is written and not face to face. The problem is usually that we just get caught up in conveying information and we forget to express love. I know I’m guilty of that. But that can happen face to face just as much as in an email. All loving communication requires some effort. But if we put forth that effort and become intentional in expressing love, it will come across regardless of the mode of communication.
Five Components of Love
So let’s take a look here at how Paul expresses his love. This will help us because he gives us five different facets of love.
1) Family Warmth
2)
The first one is family warmth. He starts out by calling them my brothers. He calls them that six times in four chapters. He really does think of them as family. And he goes out of his way to communicate that family warmth. Over and over – my brothers, or in 2:12 my dear friends.
In the Context of Rebuke
It is so important for us to communicate our family warmth and friendship to one another – especially in times of conflict. Paul is about to correct them, and he has more expressions of love here than anywhere else. So often we will have all kinds of friendly language when things are smooth, but as soon as someone hurts you or commits some sin, suddenly all the terms of endearment and affection disappear. Our speech gets all terse and cold and hard. That shouldn’t happen. Times of conflict are the times when we need to express our love the most clearly. “I’m telling you this because I love you, brother.” “I’m telling you this because I consider you my dear sister in the Lord.” “I want to help you escape this sin because we’re family.”
I found this tremendous rebuke to myself as I was studying this. I am terrible at this. I’m a person who really likes bottom line communication – just give me the facts without any extraneous words. And so I tend to communicate that way. I just state the facts, and I just assume they know how I love them. I don’t say anything to affirm the relationship, and the result is there are a lot of people who I dearly love, but they are left wondering all the time where they stand with me. And if you are one of those people, I need to ask your forgiveness. That is definitely an area I need to work on. We must express family warmth to one another.
3) Heartfelt Affection
4)
The next term he uses is my beloved. That’s just a direct statement about his love - “I love you.” It’s amazing how much those 3 words can help in the middle of a conflict. Things start to get heated and difficult, and then someone says that, and it changes the whole direction.
Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you feel like you just need to walk away. The conversation is going downhill fast, and you just need to step away. If that’s the case, fine, but what if right before stepping away you said those 3 words? Instead of, “I can’t talk to you!” – and then walking away, what if you said, “I need to step away from this for a bit. I really do love you, I don’t want to hurt you, I just need a minute”? If a husband and wife get into a big fight, there’s a huge difference between just storming out the door and getting in your car and driving off, or saying, “I love you, but I need to collect my thoughts. I’m going for a drive and I’ll be back.” Saying the words, “I love you” can make a night and day difference.
We joke about the husband who tells his wife, “I told you I loved you on the day we got married 20 years ago. If anything changes I’ll let you know.” That doesn’t work in marriage, and it doesn’t work in the church either. It doesn’t work because saying, “I love you,” is not mainly about conveying information. The reason we say, “I love you,” is because that’s one of the things love does – it expresses itself. It’s like giving a hug, or giving your time, or giving gifts, or protecting the person, or trusting the person – those are all things that love does. When love actually exists in the heart it will do certain things, and one of those things is it will regularly express itself verbally. When 2 people fall in love and they keep on saying, “I love you, I love you,” are they doing that out of self-discipline or out of some kind of commitment? They are doing it because they feel like doing it. That’s one of the things that love does.
Love expresses itself, and when it does, it grows.
5) Desire
6)
The 3rd thing Paul says is, whom I long for. That’s an expression of desire. Genuine love always involves desire to be with the person. “You’re my dear brother in the Lord!” “Do you want to come over to my house for dinner?” “Uh, no thanks.” That’s not love.
If you have a hard time being motivated to come to church, check your love for the saints. Where there is real love, there is longing and desire to be with the people you love.
7) Joy
8)
Number 4, he calls them my joy. He loved them so much that even while he was suffering in a Roman prison, he was happy just because of how much he loved them.
Seek your joy through loving people, not from being loved by people. People say, “I don’t want to cultivate friendships – it’s such hard work.” That’s like a farmer who doesn’t put any seeds in the ground. Someone asks why and he says, “I just find planting difficult. It’s not really my cup of tea. I don’t find it enjoyable.” Farmers don’t sow seed because it’s fun. They do it because they want a harvest. Invest yourself in friendships, and there will be a harvest of joy in your life.
9) Crown
10)
My dear brother, my beloved, the ones I long for, my joy – then one more: my crown. That’s the crown athletes would get for winning first place. So the modern equivalent is, “You are my gold medal around my neck.” They were the rewards of Paul’s efforts in ministry. You use your spiritual gifts to minister to people, it produces spiritual fruit, and you have a great sense of accomplishment. And when that brings you happiness, it will endear those people to you. You tell people, “I’m so proud of you for the spiritual progress you’ve made.”
If you’ve ever had someone you really care about ashamed to be associated with you – that’s painful. But when someone you highly respect feels honored to be associated with you –proud to be associated with you, then you really feel loved. Paul felt that way about the Philippians. And he didn’t just feel it – he told them that he felt it.
Conclusion: Love is the Oil
The bottom line in all this is love. The key to reconciling conflicts is not just figuring out who is right and who is wrong. There’s no real reconciliation until love is restored. When people are angry, peacemaking is next to impossible. But where there is love, it’s amazing how many differences two people can have and still have a wonderful relationship.
In a liberal church, where people don’t really have any strong convictions on doctrine, there isn’t any real friction because when people have different views, it’s like two marshmallows crashing into each other. But in a church where people believe this is the Word of God, and we would die for these doctrines, where there are differences, it’s like pieces of steel grinding against each other.
But did you know that it ispossible for steel parts to rub against each other without causing any damage at all? A whole bunch of metal parts coming right up against each other, and yet everything just keeps moving ahead smoothly, like a well-oiled machine. How can that happen? Oil! That’s why well-oiled machines work so well – because they are well-oiled. If you run your car’s engine without any oil, the friction from metal on metal will destroy the engine in a matter of minutes. But if you lubricate everything with oil, it will run all day long.
In a Bible-believing church, the people are like steel parts (which is good, because gears made out of marshmallows don’t accomplish anything). And the oil that prevents friction and heat and meltdowns is love. When all parties love each other, we can hold strong beliefs, and we can disagree, and we can have all kinds of conflicts without doing any harm at all to our relationships or to the unity of the church.
Benediction: Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Application Questions (James 1:25)
1) Describe two great qualities of two different people in the church.
2) Describe two great qualities of someone who has hurt you badly (don’t mention who it is).
3) Describe two great qualities of someone who has left our church.
