How can you and I as Christians demonstrate the reality and the power of the gospel to those who are closest to us? How can you and I as Christians demonstrate the reality and the power of the gospel to those who are watching us from afar? If we could ask the Apostle Paul that question he might say, well, one way that you can show the reality in the power of the gospel is by living in unity with your brothers and sisters in Christ. And that's the case that the Apostle Paul is making here as he opens his letter to his friends in Philippi. And in this particular portion of his letter he begins to narrow his focus, he begins to zero in on a key element of unity. And what is the key element for us in order for us to experience unity? Boiled down to one word it's the word humility. Humility. And when we hear that we should immediately have some idea of why we struggle to live in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ, because what is the opposite of humility? It's pride, it's pride. We all struggle with pride. And because our pride causes us so much trouble, the Bible, as you might expect, says a great deal about it.

And we could go to many passages in the Scriptures, but let me just give you two of them from the book of Proverbs. For instance, Proverbs 16 says, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. It's better to be able to lowly spirit with the poor than to then to divide the spoil with the proud." Then Proverbs 11, "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom." So the quicker that we acknowledge our struggle with pride. The quicker that we acknowledge that we have this ongoing struggle, we have this desire, this tendency to always want to put ourselves first. We will always struggle in fulfilling Paul's command here, to put the needs and the interests of others before our own. And the reason that we struggle this way is very simple. It's pride. It's pride. So what's the antidote? What is the cure for pride? Well, Paul, again gives it to us. It's humility. The foundation for our unity that flows from our humility are the four realities that Paul outlined in verse one. Look at verse one again, "So if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy," he goes on to say, "complete my joy."

So our unity, which comes from our humility, is rooted, is based upon these realities that Paul has already shown to them. So these four realities create responsibilities for us. In other words, if these things are true then these other things should naturally follow. If we've received all these blessings in Christ and from Christ, then we are responsible to live to Christ and for Christ. And based upon those realities that he has shown them in verse one, he makes a simple request of them, and that is simply that they would complete his joy. That term “complete my joy” means to make his joy full. It doesn't mean that Paul didn't have any joy in his life, and that they were solely responsible for creating joy in his life. No, he already has joy, we know that. But what he's saying to them is, you can fill up my joy you can enlarge my joy, if you will do these following things. Paul says, since you have experienced these wonderful realities in your union with Christ than you should and you could and you will be able to make my joy complete.

Now you may think that he has his words out of place. After all, he's about to tell them that they need to put the needs of others first and that they need to count others more significant than themselves. But here he begins by asking them to make his joy complete. So what's happening? Is he putting his joy above their interests? Or to be blunt about it, is Paul acting hypocritically here? Is he telling us to do one thing but he's actually doing another? No, absolutely not. Perish the thought. What he's trying to do, he's trying to help them understand that there is a better joy, there is a more satisfying joy than the joy they falsely believe they might experience when they put themselves first. What is the philosophy of our world? Put yourself first and then you'll be happy. Take care of your own needs first and then you'll be happy. Take care of you, look out for number one, and then you will experience joy. But Paul says just the opposite. No, true joy, lasting joy comes when you as a Christian begin to put the needs of others first. The greater joy, the true joy is the experience of seeking the welfare of others. The true joy, the lasting joy comes from helping others grow and mature and become like Jesus Christ.

And Paul says complete my joy. In other words, he's not ashamed to ask them to do something on on his behalf. And we see in the New Testament that there are several places where the scriptures instruct us to make sure that we live and conduct ourselves in such a way that the leaders that God has put over us can experience joy. That they serve you with joy. For instance, in 1 Thessalonians, Paul wrote, "We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work." And then he says, "Be at peace among yourselves." One way that you show your respect for those God has put in a position of authority over you is simply by living in peace with each other. In other words, having unity. Likewise, the writer of Hebrews said, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you."

So your actions, and I really don't know if the average church member thinks about this. Your actions have a direct impact on your pastor. We grieve at your sin. We can be discouraged at the slowness of your growth. We are discouraged when we see you act in a way contrary to the things that you've been taught. But the average church member again puts their own needs ahead of anybody else's, including the pastor's, and they become once again they take on that American spirit. I'm going to do it my way, I'll do what I want to do with little or no regard as to how it affects other people. But Paul says complete my joy. And he doesn't ask this in a selfish way. He knows that his joy will be enlarge. And they will also experience joy at the same time as they do what? As they put the needs of others first.

Again, this is so backwards from what we hear. This is so backwards, this is so opposite of all the messages that we hear in our culture and our society. Sinclair Ferguson writes, "In the most gentle of ways, Paul is challenging them: which is more important your self indulgence are giving me, who brought the gospel to you, the joy of seeing you live mature and gracious Christian lives?" And then he says "At the lowest level, our failures bring sorrow to those who first pointed them to Christ." Wise words from pastor Ferguson. You know, it's apparent throughout Paul's letter to the Philippians, throughout the entirety of the book, that he shared a unique relationship with this particular group of believers. You can see the obvious affection in his words and his attitude towards them. And you can see their obvious affection for him and how they wanted to take care of his needs. They had a unique and special relationship.

You know, he understood as he asked them to make his joy full again, they would be helping themselves. They would be helping themselves to experience joy as they learn to serve others and put others first. You know there's one other thing that I see here, I'll just hit this very quickly. And that is how we act as Christians impacts those around us. How we act as Christians has a direct impact on those around us. How we conduct ourselves as believers has a direct impact on those closest to us. Has a direct impact on our family and our friends. So we need to ask ourselves this question: is my conduct bringing those who I am closest to bringing them joy or pain? Just something to think about, isn't it? So what's Paul's reasoning here as to how they could complete his joy? Well, Paul says, if you have experienced these things, then you should complete my joy. But the question is, how could they complete his joy? And we can boil it down to one word with several components.

That one word is like-minded. If they would be of the same mind and have the same love, that was the beginning of how they would be able to complete as joy. Paul says, be of the same mind. Literally he says to them, be thinking the same thing. We'll see this again in verse five when Paul tells them to have the mind of Christ. So in order to maintain unity in the church, they must be like-minded. He draws a contrast later in his letter to those who think differently in 3:15 , and those who set their minds on earthly things in 3:19 . But Paul is asking them, he says, for the sake of the advancement of the gospel, and for the glory of God, please set aside your differences. Please set aside your quarreling, stop your quarreling and I need you to fix your minds on Christ. But let's make sure that we understand exactly what Paul is saying here. Let's make sure we understand what Paul's asking us to do. He is not telling them that they have to agree 100% on absolutely everything. He's not saying you all have to like vanilla ice cream and you can't like chocolate. He's not saying you have to agree the team that wears scarlet and gray is the best team in the land and not the team that wears burnt orange. Right? He's not saying anything like that at all.

He's not saying that we have to be clones of one another. Have you ever been to a church you felt like you were a member of this movie that was out years ago, Stepford Wives. Nobody knows what that is. Anyway, this was cloning before cloning was. In this little neighborhood you know, they had all th