LIVING TOGETHER WITH LIKE MINDS
Philippians 2:1-11
INTRODUCTION
A. Spock performing the Vulcan mind meld on Star Trek at the OK Corral, so they would think the bullets were not real.
• We have a better basis for which to have like minds, and Paul gives it to us before he calls for us to have like minds.
B. The Basis for having like minds.
1. Paul lays down a four-fold basis whereby we can have minds that think alike in the church:
a. We have encouragement because we are united with Christ. Paul said, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away; behold everything is new." By virtue of our position in Christ, we have encouragement to maintain our Christian walk.
b. We have comfort because God loves us in Christ. Because God loves us, we can have the comfort of knowing he will stand with us through anything (Romans 8:28); we can thus take the risk of standing together.
c. We have fellowship with the Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit abides in us, we know he will bring us together in unity. We can have like minds because we all have his mind, and he will enable us to think together.
d. We have tenderness and compassion; both words refer to deeply caring about others. We can unite because we really care about each other.
2. Do not get hung up so much today on what those terms all mean (that is for another day), but learn a basic fact about the basis on which we can be like minded: Paul really says "since" you have these things, not "if you do."
a. He makes an assumption that God has already given them all to us.
b. Do you catch the significance of that? By virtue of our relationship with Christ, when we became Christians, we gained each of these qualities. It only remains for us to put them to use by making our minds alike.
c. We have often failed to have unity in the church because we have failed to realize this fact. We have thought thinking alike in the church was something that just happens because people are alike, but it is God who is able to make us think alike.
C. The nature of having like minds.
1. Paul was already experiencing joy because of his association with this church, but this act of being like minded would make it complete.
2. The basic idea, then, consists of having the same opinion, not just on some things, but he is talking about our whole way of thinking being the same.
3. The early church demonstrated this quality:
a. In Acts 1, when they chose Matthias to replace Judas.
b. In Acts 15, when they decided the Jewish question.
c. In both cases, they submitted to each other’s viewpoints and agreed on a decision.
4. Paul further elaborates on the last two phrases of vs. 2, which are intended to define like mindedness:
a. When we have like minds, we have the same love, spirit, and purpose.
b. He is speaking about a church committed to the same task. We do not think alike because we let ourselves put other matters in front of winning the lost to Christ and advancing the kingdom. That is what Paul is challenging the church to.
c. Only God can cause us to think any differently – 3:15.
KEY STATEMENT
Paul discusses two actions that will give us like minds.
WE WILL HAVE LIKE MINDS WHEN WE...
I. ...LOOK TO THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS – Vss. 3,4.
A. We are to avoid selfish ambition and conceit, but are to consider others better than ourselves.
1. Selfish ambition works like cancer in the body, whereby the cancer cell becomes a renegade, stops performing the functions that it formerly carried out for the benefit of the whole community of cells, and begins working only for itself.
"Cancer occurs when a single cell (or a group of a few cells) escapes from regulatory control and is able to bequeath its independence to its descendants through every succeeding generation. The cancer cell exploits his new-found freedom to the utmost. No longer need he stay in place, wait in line for food, nor perform any function for the benefit of the whole organism. He can reproduce at will, building up an immense clone of equally ruthless offspring. Suddenly he and his offspring can travel throughout the body, taking over new areas of territory and, by leaping in and out of the circulatory systems, establish new colonies of equally ruthless aggressors in distant lands. He has acquired the trick of securing the lion’s share of the available nutrients. He may cease to perform the functions that he formerly carried out for the benefit of the whole community of cells. He is the true wayward renegade rebel, creating his own largely independent colony within the corporate state of the human body."
2. There ought to be nothing in the church, if it is to be united in carrying out God’s purpose, that we do just to advance our own interests.
3. So Paul says we should in humility consider others as more important than ourselves.
a. Jesus had this in mind in his parable of the great banquet – Luke 14:7-11. He told them to take the lowest seat at the banquet.
b. This was not a popular concept among the Greek and Roman people. The Greek concept of a free man led to contempt for any sort of subjection. The Romans were a proud people and these Roman colonists in Philippi had to thus contend with their feelings in this regard.
c. How Lincoln demonstrated this with General McClellan:
During the American Civil War, General George McClellan was put in charge of the Army of the Potomac, mainly because public opinion was on his side. He fancied himself to be a great military leader and enjoyed hearing the people call him a "young Napoleon." However, his performance was less than sensational.
President Lincoln commissioned him General-in-Chief, hoping this would get some action; but still he procrastinated. One evening, Lincoln and two of his staff members went to visit McClellan, only to learn that he was at a wedding. The three men sat down to wait, and an hour later the general arrived home. Without paying any attention to the president, McClellan went upstairs and did not return.
Half an hour later Lincoln sent the servant to tell McClellan that the men were waiting. The servant came back to report McClellan had gone to bed. His associates angry, Lincoln merely got up and led the way home. "This is no time to be making points of etiquette and personal dignity," the president explained. "I would hold McClellan’s horse if he will only bring us success."
That is how we ought to consider others better than ourselves.
d. Paul would point out, however, that this was the attitude of Jesus – vs. 8.
B. Look out to the interests of others.
1. Paul does not say the key to carrying this injunction out is not taking care of our own affairs, but only to go beyond that to include the affairs of others.
2. That is not easy, for we Americans face great difficulties as Christians in America.
a. Paul Newman has said, "The worst thing about our disposable society is that we can get rid of everything – even people."
b. This has been translated into Christianity becoming extremely self-centered.
3. We can apply this on a level of churches ministering to each other.
a. The church needs to be concerned not just about its own needs, but about the needs around the world through mission giving.
b. The Philippians had understood that in their giving – 2 Corinthians 8:1-5.
4. Paul is speaking even more on the personal level, though.
a. This seems to be where the Philippians had forgotten to put other’s interests in front of their own.
b. Watchman Nee illustration:
A brother in South China had a rice field in the middle of a hill. In time of drought he used a water-wheel, worked by a tread-mill, to lift water from the irrigation stream into his field. His neighbor had two fields below his, and, one night, made a breach in the dividing bank and drained off all his water. When the brother repaired the breach and pumped in more water his neighbor did the same thing again, and this was repeated three or four times. So he consulted his brethren. "I have tried to be patient and not to retaliate," he said, "but is it right?" After they had prayed together about it, one of them replied, "If we only try to do the right thing, surely we are very poor Christians. We have to do something more than what is right." The brother was much impressed. Next morning he pumped water for the two fields below, and in the afternoon pumped water for his own field. After that the water stayed in his field. His neighbor was so amazed at his action that he began to inquire the reason, and in course of time he too became a Christian.
II. ...POSSESS THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS – Vss. 5-11.
A. The great example of humility is Jesus, and here is where we derive real unity.
1. In Isaiah 14:13,14 we read of Satan’s rise to be like God. This is the counterpart to Satan’s desire.
2. This is written not so much as a great hymn about Christ, although it is that, but is written to show the key to real unity.
3. Literally Paul says our whole way of thinking should be like Jesus if we are to have like minds.
B. Look then at the attitude of Jesus that we are to emulate.
1. He did not consider his existence as God his right.
a. He was totally and completely God.
b. Yet he did not hold onto that at any cost.
c. Actually Paul says he did not consider his existence as God as something to be stolen for his own benefit, as something precious that he would go after just because he wanted it for himself.
d. He would not buy it on impulse, as we might buy something because we saw it in a store and wanted it.
e. Interview of job counselor:
A reporter was interviewing a successful job counselor who had placed hundreds of workers in their vocations quite happily. When asked the secret of his success, the man replied: ’If you want to find out what a worker is really like, give him privileges. Most people can handle responsibilities if you pay them enough, but it takes a real leader to handle privileges. A leader will use his privileges to help others and build the organization; a lesser man will use privileges to promote himself."
2. Instead he took on human form.
a. While remaining God, he also became like man in every way.
b. He made himself nothing or emptied himself to do so. He became empty in comparison to his condition in heaven.
c. We might understand this through the eyes of Mark Twain’s novel The Prince and the Pauper, where a son of Henry VIII temporarily changes positions with a poor boy in London.
d. For Jesus this meant living in a world of impurity and sin. Imagine what it would be like for you to step for an hour into the lowest moral environment you can imagine, and you have only a suggestion of what Jesus did.
e. C. S. Lewis has pictured it another way in suggesting it is like a man becoming a toad.
3. Then Jesus went even further in his humiliation by dying on a cross – not even a death of small magnitude.
a. When we consider that he died innocently, it is even greater magnitude. Yet, Paul says Jesus became obedient to death; that is, he chose to take upon himself the one thing that, without his consent, had no power against him, death.
b. One minister complained that his men were changing the words of the hymn "Take My Life and Let It Be" to "Take My Wife and Let Me Be." Not so with Jesus.
c. At a religious festival in Brazil, a missionary was going from booth to booth, examining the wares. He saw a sign above one booth: "Cheap Crosses." He thought to himself, "That’s what many Christians are looking for these days – cheap crosses. My Lord’s cross was not cheap. Why should mine be?"
d. Medical doctor description of crucifixion.
• All of this is the attitude we are to have if there is to be unity in the church and we are to have like minds.
4. Then God exalted him to the highest place.
a. Notice that in vss. 6-8, Jesus has been the subject, but now in vss. 9-11, God is the subject.
b. Only God could exalt him, and only God can exalt us; that ought to be a part of our attitude.
c. Here God exalts Jesus to the highest position. Literally the verse says he "superexalted" him in a onetime act. The act refers, of course, to the ascension; it represents God making a value judgment about his son: nothing will do but that he should be lifted up to the highest of all. Therefore, before the apostles as witnesses on Mt. Olivet, the Father gave visible demonstration of his estimation of Jesus, that he is Lord of all. Jesus showed his obedience, and God rewarded him.
CONCLUSION
A. You see, it is Jesus who is Lord and thus been exalted to the highest place. That is the essence of having like minds.
1. The purpose of this is so that everyone will bow in acknowledgment of the name of Jesus.
2. The purpose is also that every person will acknowledge openly that Jesus is Lord.
3. One day we will acknowledge Jesus’ sacrifice:
The story of a little orphaned boy who lived with his grandparents: One night their house caught fire. The grandparents died in the fire while trying to rescue the sleeping child. As a crowd began to gather, the boy’s cries for help were heard above the crackling blazes. No one seemed to know what to do. Suddenly a stranger bolted from the crowd and disappeared to the back where he spotted an iron pipe that reached the upstairs window. He vanished for a minute then reappeared with the boy in his arms. Amid the cheers of the crowd, he climbed down the hot pipe as the boy hung around his neck.
Weeks later a public hearing was held to determine in whose custody the boy would be placed. People were allowed to say why they should adopt the small child. The first man said, "I have a big farm. Everybody needs the out-of-doors." The second told of the advantages he could provide: "I’m a teacher. I have a large library. He would get a good education." Others spoke. Finally the richest man in the town said, "I’m wealthy. I could give the boy everything mentioned tonight: farm, education, and more, including money and travel. I’d like him in my home."
The judge asked, "Would anyone else like to say anything?" From the back seat rose a stranger who had slipped in unnoticed. As he walked to the front, deep suffering showed on his face. Upon reaching the front and standing in front of the boy he slowly removed his hands from his pockets. A gasp went up from the crowd. The little boy, whose eyes had been focused on the floor looked up. The man’s hands were terribly scarred. Suddenly the boy cried out with recognition. Here was the man who had saved his life. His hands were scarred from climbing down the hot pipe.
With a leap the boy threw himself around the stranger’s neck and held on for life. The farmer rose and left. The teacher, too. Then the rich man. Everyone departed, leaving the boy and his rescuer who had won him without a word. Those marred hands spoke more effectively than any words.
B. Our desire and every effort in the church ought then to be to lift up Jesus; then there will be unity.
C. You need to decide in your life if he is Lord.
