LIVING TOGETHER IN CHRIST
Philippians 1:3-11
INTRODUCTION
A. Living together requires more than living in the same house with someone.
1. During the week of Christmas 2001, Christine and I spent a week at her brother’s in Marquette, MI, along with her sister’s family from Oceanside, CA, and her mother.
a. The planning for that week had begun a year earlier, and resulted in 13 of us living in Bud and Lorilee’s home for a week.
b. We had a great time while working around all the coats and snow boots that you need in Marquette at that time of year, and working out ways so everyone could use the two bathrooms.
c. The kids (six of them), who see each other less than once a year, got along fabulously, as did the adults.
d. There was only one negative exchange between the two sisters, their brother, and mother, and that had to do with some left-over feelings from their growing up years – you know how that goes.
e. Otherwise, we attended The Fellowship of the Ring movie together, watched movies on the VCR, some went skiing together, did some shopping together, took a long, grueling trek through the woods on a snowy day to see some ice caves formed by a waterfall (from which Christine’s mother almost could not make it back), attended church together, and did a lot of eating and visiting.
f. You have to make adjustments to live together like that, but even then we could not have lived together that way for long,. The house is not big enough for a permanent arrangement and none of us are geared for that kind of living.
2. I never had any great problem rooming with any of the four or five roommates I had during my college years, although each of them provided their own peculiarities that I had to put up with as they did mine but I did have to work a bit in rooming with one; his name was Bill.
a. You have to understand that I am a neat person, so with all my roommates my part of the room was always neat; Bill was not neat.
b. His room looked like a tornado hit it. That would have okay, but there were a lot of tornados that went through our room -- and always on his side.
c. He had to clean clothes and books off his bed to sleep; I do not think he could study at his desk, because there was no room; his closet was always piled with dirty clothes.
d. You could not exactly say we lived together; we just lived in the same room. To have really lived together we would have had to solve that impasse.
3. When marriages function like that, divorce is the result.
B. Life in the church can be like that.
1. You cannot live together in the church and in service to the Lord without working through disagreements and difficulties.
a. We have not done very well at that at Westwood for the last year or two: we have broken relationships with a former minister and his family, with the campus minister at UW and his family, with other former members who have left us to go to church in a variety of places (often determined by “whose side” they were on in the conflicts), have cut off support from a ministry the congregation had supported since that ministry’s inception, and have left some of us still here wondering how we feel about certain people.
b. Now I do not relate this summary of what has resulted in the congregation to assign blame. It is necessary, however, to learn from what has happened and to learn to live together and serve together in ways that will keep it from happening again.
c. It is also necessary for us to work at restoring broken relationships. I am committed to doing all that I can to make that happen, and we will find ways to make that happen. Some of you will be uncomfortable with working at that, but it should just be the way Christians do things. Some of you will want to leave the past alone, but when broken relationships occur in the church, it is never good to leave the past alone. The whole nature of the Gospel is about reconciliation, first to God and then to each other. If we will not work at reconciling, then we should question whether we have really accepted reconciliation with God.
d. That is why I have determined to preach through Philippians in the coming weeks. It will be one means we will use of learning how to live together in Christ and so to correct our recent problems.
2. Learning to live together in Christ was the greatest need in the Philippian church when Paul wrote them.
a. They had a great beginning in the Lord — Acts 16.
b. They had accomplished much for the Lord; this may have been their means.
c. Now they faced some potential disturbances that could threaten them, unresolved issues that could leave them living on opposite sides of the room.
d. Potential persecution threatened further instability; Paul could not be with them and might not be for some time; Timothy was even unavailable; Epaphroditus had left them to care for Paul, and they were concerned for him; the joy that had been present among them was leaving. What could they do?
3. To me that sounds curiously like the church today.
a. The things that threaten us are not big things, but small.
b. We must resolve them before we can live together in Christ.
C. Such circumstances call for us to live together in Christ.
1. Paul wrote to tell this church that as their faith seemed to fade their greatest days were ahead of them if they would live together in Christ.
2. He would tell us the same: Our greatest days are ahead of us if we will live together in Christ.
KEY STATEMENT
In our text, Paul suggests three means through which we can live together in Christ. They summarize the content of this book.
WE CAN LIVE TOGETHER IN CHRIST THROUGH...
I. ...OUR PARTNERSHIP IN THE GOSPEL — Vss. 5,6.
A. Partnership requires perseverance.
1. "Bird Bumps Flight" illustrates how we often are ready to bail out of the church:
A soaring buzzard gliding over Alabama collided with a turboprop Marine trainer. The collision, spreading feathers and broken glass through both of the trainer cockpits, knocked out the flight instructor and his student. The instructor, regaining consciousness thought the student was dead so he bailed out. The student, coming to, was quick to see that he and the dead buzzard were alone in the wild blue yonder. Although the student had never soloed before, he was able to bring the crippled aircraft to a perfect landing at the airport at Brewton, Alabama.
Authorities at the Pensacola Military Base where the buzzard-bumped flight originated had nothing but praise for the young student pilot who brought his unplanned solo flight to a successful completion. Although nothing was said in the news release of the instructor who had chosen to bail out, the absence of comment may say much of official displeasure with the instructor’s jumping ship before determining whether the aircraft could be saved.
When the church has difficulty, we often are ready to bail out like the instructor. Sometimes, though, the flight can be saved with someone remaining at the controls and guiding the flight to a successful completion.
2. It had been that way in Philippi, so Paul thanks God that they have participated in the Gospel, but he wants them to continue to do so; they apparently were ready to give up, not sure they were willing to live together in Christ anymore.
a. Paul knew what it was to be in that condition because he faced it himself in prison in Rome.
b. He had remained true to his calling, though so that the Word was heard throughout the whole palace guard from him, because preaching Christ was more important to him whether he lived or died.
3. We have been partners in the Gospel, but are you ever ready to give up, to quite living together in Christ, did you give up on some people last year?
a. We need this commitment to partnership in the Gospel. Going to church is not enough; living together for Christ requires a partnership, working together for him.
b. The word for partnership is the word for fellowship, one of the most exciting words in the N.T.
(1) Paul uses it to refer to our fellowship with God.
(2) Here it refers to our fellowship with each other (see 2:1-4, 14-18); he is not even talking about their fellowship with him primarily.
(3) This is what we require in our perilous times together, not just going to the same church, but joining together in Christ’s work.
(4) Paul tells about Timothy and Epaphroditus in chapter 2 because they had done this.
(5) Paul is calling for us to forget our conditions and go to work.
c. How do you serve as partners like that? Paul says he begins with prayer.
B. Partnership results in preservation.
1. Paul was confident the Philippians would take on such partnership, because he saw the result of it.
a. He was not so much confident in their ability, as he was in God.
b. God had begun the work in them on the day Lydia was converted at the riverside; God would bring it to completion when he presented them whole before God.
c. Paul saw Jesus as the center of this partnership; he had been made complete on our behalf, and so we ought to have that same attitude — 2:5-11.
2. Such is the confidence we can have in God when we decide to live together in Christ as partners.
II. ...OUR SHARING IN THE GOSPEL — Vss. 7,8.
A. We share in God’s grace.
1. Caring enables us to share in God’s grace:
From 1986 to 1990, Frank Reed was held hostage in a Lebanon cell. For months at a time, Reed was blindfolded, living in complete darkness or chained to a wall and kept in absolute silence. On one occasion, he was moved to another room, and, although blindfolded, he could sense others in the room. Yet it was three weeks before he dared peek out to discover he was chained next to Terry Anderson and Tom Sutherland.
Although he was beaten, made ill, and tormented, Reed felt most the lack of anyone caring. He said in an interview with Time, "Nothing I did mattered to anyone. I began to realize how withering it is to exist with not a single expression of caring around [me].... I learned one overriding fact: caring is a powerful force. If no one cares, you are truly alone."
2. I do not particularly like the word share, because we use it often too glibly in our day, sharing superficial things in "sharing" times.
3. Paul gives the word a deep significance. It is a form of the word for partnership, but it cuts even deeper to a partnership with one another in the deepest concerns of life, that is the questions of salvation and matters of eternal significance.
4. Paul is particularly concerned about our sharing in God’s grace.
a. He could feel this way about them because he had them in his heart.
b. This concern was at the center of his life and thoughts at this period of time — Ephesians 2:8,9.
c. Paul knew that nothing they did in Philippi or that we do here will make any difference unless we live and work with each other on the basis of God’s grace. His condition made no difference.
d. Paul used his own life as an example of this in 3:9.
e. Only by sharing the deep concerns of life on the basis of God’s grace could the Philippians or can we perform anything significant for the Lord.
5. It is more important that we understand and practice this sharing together in God’s grace than it is that we agree with each other on how to do things. There are only a very few Biblical doctrines and no opinions on how to do things that are worth severing a relationship with another Christian over.
B. We share in the confirmation of the Gospel.
1. Paul is not finished yet, though. He has told them why we must get this matter of God’s grace in proper order; here is why he feels about them the way he does: We share in confirmation of the Gospel. The Gospel is at stake if we do not live together as sharers in grace.
2. Paul had preached freely and openly in Philippi and elsewhere, but now he was in prison. It made no difference, though; the Gospel still needed to be confirmed. It is for that reason that they were to live their lives together by sharing in God’s grace.
3. Booker T. Washington was born a slave. Later freed, he headed the Tuskegee Institute and became a leader in education. In his autobiography, Up from Slavery, he writes:
"The most trying ordeal that I was forced to endure as a slave boy...was the wearing of a flax shirt. In the portion of Virginia where I lived, it was common to use flax as part of the clothing for the slaves. That part of the flax from which our clothing was made was largely the refuse, which of course was the cheapest and roughest part. I can scarcely imagine any torture, except, perhaps, the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused by putting on a new flax shirt for the first time. It is almost equal to the feeling that one would experience if he had a dozen or more chestnut burrs, or a hundred small pinpoints, in contact with his flesh.... But I had no choice. I had to wear the flax shirt or none.... My brother John, who is several years older than I am, performed one of the most generous acts that I have ever heard of one slave relative doing for another. On several occasions when I was being forced to wear a new flax shirt, he generously agreed to put it on in my stead and wear it for several days, till it was ’broken in.’"
4. In Michael Deaver’s book A Different Drummer, he reflects on his years of service with Governor of California and then President Ronald Reagan. President Reagan had this quality about him. He held his political mission as more important than disagreements with other people, so he often brought people with whom he had disagreements onto his team with a great amount of personal grace.
5. It really makes no difference what the condition of the church or what our personal feelings are: We are to live together on the basis of God’s grace, so the message is confirmed.
III. ...OUR GROWTH IN THE GOSPEL — Vss. 9-11.
A. The requirements of growth.
1. Growth requires love for each other.
a. Love is essential to living together in a growing relationship, so Paul prays that our love may abound more and more.
b. Paul is not talking about their love for him, although that might be included. He is talking specifically about the Philippians’ love for each other.
c. We cannot live together through our growth in the Gospel unless we love one another. We need a visibly deepening love for each other, not a mere existing alongside each other.
2. Growth requires a deepening knowledge.
a. This knowledge is a deepening of one’s personal relationship -- in the Bible it is primarily a deepening of one’s personal relationship with Jesus, a matter Paul is very concerned with in this epistle.
b. We will grow into a living relationship together only when our deepening love grows to form a deepening relationship with Jesus.
3. Growth requires a deepening discernment.
a. Paul is speaking about being able to discern, in love, between true and false teaching.
b. This discernment denotes:
(1) A quality of judgment or perception, very much like an art critic distinguishing the real and a phony.
(2) Spiritual knowledge and discernment as a kind of "sixth sense" — Hebrews 5:14.
c. This discernment, in love, is critical to our living together in Christ through our growth in the Gospel.
B. The result of growth.
1. We become what God wants us to be: pure and blameless, filled with the fruit of righteousness.
2. Two ancient practices provide insight for relating the meaning of pure and blameless:
a. There were slipshod sculptors who would produce statues from blemished, defective stones, filling the cracks with wax and painting over the blemishes. In time the sun would melt the wax, peel the paint, and reveal the glaring imperfections. Thus "sun-tested"-- to be free from pretense and sham.
b. In the shops of the old city of Jerusalem, the bazaars and shops were small and dark. In that setting you cannot properly judge an article of pottery, glassware, or cloth. You had to move out of the shadowed recesses of the shop to the nearest available sunlight to appraise its value, to detect whatever faults or flaws may be in the article.
3. To be pure and without blame means to be able to stand in the clear sun of God’s judgment and the judgment of our sisters and brothers, with no need to hide, or to conceal our thoughts and desires.
4. The words may also have derived from a Greek word which means, "to shake to and fro in a sieve" until all the foreign matter is extracted and the remaining substance is absolutely pure. That is what it means to be purified by God. That is the kind of growth we need to live together in Christ.
5. A modern illustration of how we are to watch ourselves morally:
Dean Niferatos was riding the Number 22 CTA bus in Chicago. The bus brimmed with dozing office workers, restless punkers, and affluent shoppers. At the Clark and Webster stop, two men and a woman climbed in. The driver, a seasoned veteran, immediately bellowed, "Everybody watch your valuables. There are pickpockets on board."
Women clutched their purses tightly. Men put their hands on their wallets. All eyes fixed on the trio, who, looking insulted and harassed, didn’t break stride as they promptly exited through the middle doors.
C. That kind of growth is not painless.
1. My growing pains in my legs the summer I grew so rapidly.
2. C. S. Lewis described it well:
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes into rebuild the house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of -- throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.
CONCLUSION
A. I have found quite a different kind of living in the same place with Christine than I did with Bill. We have had to sort out differences and make compromises. It has not always been easy or fun, but through it we have learned to live together.
B. Learning to says I love you and to live together:
Carol’s husband Jim was killed in an accident. Jim, age 52, was driving home from work. A teenager with a very high blood-alcohol hit him. Jim died instantly, while the teenager was treated and released! It was Carol’s 50th birthday and Jim had two plane tickets to Hawaii. He was going to surprise her. She was asked, "How have you survived this?": With her eyes welling up with tears, she said: "The day I married Jim, I promised I would never let him leave the house in the morning without telling him I loved him. He made the same promise. It got to be a joke among us as babies came along. It got to be a hard promise to keep...
...running down the driveway.
...leaving notes in the car.
...with a mouthful of breakfast.
...with screaming children and a barking dog.
"It was like a funny challenge. We made lots of memories trying to say "I love you" before noon everyday of our married life. The morning Jim died, he left a birthday card in the kitchen and slipped out to the car. I heard the engine starting. I raced out to the car and banged on the window until he rolled it down. ’Here on my 50th birthday Mr. James E. Garret, I Carol Garret want to go on record as saying I love you!’ That’s how I survived, knowing the last words I said to Jim were, "I love you."
C. Let’s learn to live together in Christ like that.
