Unity and How to Get There

Well, Michael Jordan has been in the news again of late, at least around the first of the year when they released the Air Jordan 23, 23rd edition of his famous Nike basketball shoes. He was in the news again. That was kind of a lot of hype about that because it corresponds to his legendary number 23. Michael Jordan was in many people's estimation the greatest basketball player to ever play in the NBA. Led to Chicago Bulls to six. NBA titles was just a legendary player. Had tremendous games, one of which was on March 28th, 1990, when the Chicago Bulls beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 117 to 113 in an overtime game. In that game, Michael Jordan scored 69 points. It was his career high in number of points, although for his whole career, average over 30 points of game. This night scored 69 points, just an amazing game. And after the game, reporters were crowded around him, talking to him about this amazing game. Not only had he scored 69 points, he had 18 rebounds and six assists and four steals. I mean, just dominated the game. Well, one reporter stuck a microphone in the face of Stacey King, who was a rookie center for the Bulls that year. King had gotten into the game for a couple of minutes and scored one point on a free throw. And so the reporter was asking him, tell me what you think of Michael Jordan's awesome performance tonight. And Stacey King very cleverly said, I will always remember this night as the game that Michael Jordan and I combined for 70 points. I love that response, which although it's kind of tongue in cheek makes an important point. And that is, without the rest of the team, that game would not have been won. There were 58 other points scored in that game other than what Michael Jordan did. And without the contribution of the rest of the team, there would have been no victory that night. Same thing is true of the church. Without teamwork, we cannot win spiritual battles that lie before us. Without teamwork or what the Bible calls unity or being of one mind. Now we're in the book of Philippians on Sunday mornings and we find ourselves this morning in Philippians chapter 2. Unity and teamwork is something that Paul has already talked with the Philippian church about. In fact, in this most favorite of his churches, I think it might even beat out Thessalonica for his favorite church. It's just such an endearing church to him. In this favorite church of Paul's, there seems to be at least one thing in this thank you, love letter that he writes to them, at least one thing that he deals with that seems to have been somewhat of a problem in the church at Philippi. And that is unity. We saw last time we were in chapter 1 that Paul deals with unity where he talks about the fact that I hope whether I come and see you or just hear about you, that you will stand firm in one spirit and contend as one man for the faith of the gospel. So he talked about unity there, but he really nails down that topic in chapter 2. Really the first 11 verses are all about unity. We're only going to look at the first four verses today. We'll save the great example for the kind of quality that leads to unity. The great example of the Lord Jesus will save that for next week. That's a whole message in itself. We're going to look this morning at the first four verses. And so I invite you to follow along as I read those four verses and then we'll look at them and see what they teach us about unity and how to get there. Verse 1 says, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Introducing this concept of unity and teamwork to us, Paul, in the first two verses lays before us, the goal. The goal set before us is quite clearly in these verses unity. That is the goal set before us, unity. Now Paul begins in verse 1 by describing the reasons for unity. He gives us several reasons why we should have unity in the church, in the body of Christ. Notice how he lists them in verse 1. He says, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, four times he uses that little expression, if any. It's a particular construction, a particular kind of subjunctive mood in the Greek that means basically sense. There's no doubt here in Paul's mind. Basically saying, if, as I know is the case, you have these things, or since you have these things in Christ, then you should have unity. What he's describing here is four reasons why we should be unified in the church. Four things that we have in common. Four things that all of us who know Christ as our Savior share together. What are those four things? Well notice, he says, first of all, if, as is the case, or since, you have any encouragement from being unified with Christ. Now he's just finished chapter 1 by talking about suffering. So you have to understand this comment kind of in line with that topic of suffering. He knows that they are going to suffer. He has already suffered for the cause of Christ. So he says, in light of this, if there's any encouragement in your life from being united with Christ, and there is, there is. If you are united with Christ, if you know Christ as your Savior, have come into union with Him, have been united with Him by faith in His death for you on the cross. If you've been united with Christ in that way through saving faith, then there is encouragement in that. Regardless of what you're going through, and Paul's in the context you're talking about, they're suffering. Regardless of what you're going through, there's encouragement from knowing that you're in Christ. Let's face it, if you're in Christ, the worst that can happen to you, death simply means you go into the presence of Christ. And anything else short of that can be used by God to mold you more into the image of Christ. And so there's encouragement, no matter what you're going through, from being united with Christ. If you have that, that's one reason for unity. We all share that. Second reason, verse one, if any comfort from His love. In other words, if when you understand His love for you and what that means, you draw any comfort from that. And Paul says, there's no doubt about that when either. Since you have comfort based upon His love for you, and just think about that for a moment, God's great love for you, and what comfort it brings to know that He loves you and His brought you into His family. John said it this way, in His little epistle of first John, show the verse on the screen. First John, chapter three, He says, how great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God? And that is what we are. You almost feel that sense of exaltation in that position that we have in Christ as His children. That is what we are. We're children of God. And God has lavished His love. He's spread it on thick. He's lavished His port out His love on us through giving His Son. John goes on to say in the next chapter of His epistle, chapter four, verse nine, He says, this is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. You see, there's the bridge. If there's any comfort in His love, Philippians two, then we ought to enter and love one another. If we've experienced the comfort of knowing that God loves us and He's brought us into His family, if there's any comfort in that for you, and surely there is, then we ought to love one another. That's how it leads to unity. Second reason for unity. Third reason for unity in verse one is if any fellowship with the Spirit. If there's any fellowship or partnership with the Spirit. Now, what He's talking about there is the fact that when you get saved, the Holy Spirit comes to live in you. Now that's hard to grasp. It's hard to wrap your mind around that. But the Bible teaches the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit actually maintains an abiding presence, a continual presence in you and with you, every day of your life, every moment of your existence, once you come to no Christ. And you know what? The same thing is true of every other Christian. So if there is that fellowship with the Holy Spirit and that fellowship with each other, because we all experience the same fellowship with the Spirit, we all have the same presence of the Spirit. If we have that, that ought to draw us together in unity. It's a reason for unity. You see, that happens. It's a wonderful dynamic. It happens even in places where you don't know people. But you soon sense that your brothers and sisters in Christ. I've told you this story before, a year and a half ago, when I was teaching at a Bible Institute in Venezuela, on one weekend, I went out to preach in a small village out in the interior of Venezuela. It was not a large city. I was ministering in Puerto Ordas, which was a city of over a million people. But in this little place, just little crossroads, type of town, very small, little church. And they had never had someone from a foreign country in their church, except for the missionary I was with, but they had never had someone come and speak in English and have it translated. And so everybody was a little jittery about this. Plus, I was from America. And you know, a lot of folks in Venezuela have been led to believe that we're all evil. And so they were kind of wondering about this American who was coming to preach. And I could sense some real tension on the pastor's eyes and voice as he greeted me through the missionary. And when I got up to speak, I could tell there was just kind of a coldness in the auditorium. Everybody was looking at the missionary because they'd never seen anything like this. They'd never seen a tag team message where one guy says something and the other guy says it in their language. And then he says something and kind of back and forth. They'd never seen that before. And so there's a little bit of tension there. But you know what happened? I could sense everybody at the beginning looking at the missionary and then they kind of look at me like who is this foreigner kind of guy kind of look on their face. But within five minutes of getting into that message and I began to preach from 1 Corinthians 15 on the rapture, I sensed the whole mood change. People started looking directly at me. A smile came across their face as pastor Darling was communicating that message in their heart language. But they realized what I was saying, what I was preaching is the same thing they hear from the Word of God. And they sensed that there's the same spirit within me as it was within them. I was watching the pastor because it's one of those things where it's not like preaching here. And I don't stop very long doing it. Well when you're preaching like that, you say something sentence or so and then the missionary translates it and so I have a little chance to rest and look around. And I'm watching the pastor and it was amazing. You could just see a warm glow come across his face and his expression. And there was a connection and then two people got saved in the service and afterwards we were back slapping and hugging and rejoicing and it was like we'd known each other all of our lives. Why? Because there was a partnership, a fellowship generated by the Holy Spirit that lived in both of us. We'd never met each other, little skeptical of each other, don't speak each other's language or anything like that. But we were one in Christ and that partnership with the Spirit brought a unity, a oneness that transcended all of those barriers that we had before. Paul saying. If you have that, if you're in Christ, you have that partnership with the Spirit. That should bring unity, the fourth reason for unity, the end of the verse he says, if any tenderness and compassion. Again there's no doubt in his mind. He's saying since you have tenderness and compassion speaking of a tender spirit and a compassion at heart toward other believers, toward one another. You know I've seen this happen so many times in people's lives and you have too, maybe family or friends, only God can take someone that's come from a background that has trained them to be cruel, harsh, rough, coarse, angry and put in their hearts a gentle, tender, loving, compassionate spirit. Only Christ can make that change in a life. And Paul says, if you're in Christ, I know you have this tenderness and compassion for other believers, for one another. And if that's true, that leads toward unity. Those are four reasons then Paul gives for unity. But then he goes on in verse two to describe what this unity is, the description of unity in verse two. If there is anything to being in Christ and there is, Paul says, if you have these four things in Christ and I know you do, then this is what your assembly, this is what your church should look like. He says verse two, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. This really describes the kind of unity that Paul says should exist in a church. And I want to say right up front, it is not uniformity. It does not mean that everybody in a church dresses alike and looks alike and cones their hair alike and talks alike and sounds alike and acts alike and everything, we're kind of a lockstep, you know. Just, right, everybody does everything, thinks everything the same way. It doesn't mean that. It's not uniformity. Uniformity is pressed on you from the outside to make you kind of like a cookie cutter Christian. Everybody looks, sounds, acts, dresses exactly the same way. And that's not what Paul's talking about. He's talking about a deeper kind of unity that comes from within, that is generated by the four things that we just saw, the reasons for unity. And here's what it looks like. He describes it with these three expressions. First of all, it is a unity of direction. Verse two, he says, make my joy complete by being like-minded. Now the word that he uses for like-minded is a word which literally means set your mind on or have the same disposition toward or same outlook on. The idea is that we have the same outlook or disposition toward life, toward values, toward people, the same mindset, the same outlook on what's really important in life. What our values really are, what's important to God, what's important to us. It's not talking about personality differences or other things that we have to try to mesh and be alike. It's not saying that. He's saying that you have a unity of direction, that you have a same mindset on what's important in life and what is important in life is God and His Word and the souls of people and reaching people for Christ and building them up in Christ. You have the same direction, he says, that same like-mindedness. So that's what unity is about and then secondly unity is unity of love. He says that they're in verse two, make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, same love of what. Well, what are the things that we have a mutual love for as believers in Jesus Christ? If we have the description of verse one, if that is true of us, if we are in Christ, then what are the things that we love? We all love the Lord, don't we? And we love His Word and we love the souls of people, we love lost people, we want them to be saved and we love fellow believers and we want them to grow, want all of us to grow to be more like Christ. That's what we love, we have the same love. It's not that we have to love the mountaineers or love the Hokies, that's not the issue. The issue is do you love Christ and His Word and the souls of people and fellow believers? Those are the things that we share in common, we have the same love. That's what unity looks like in the body of Christ. The third description of unity, being one in spirit and purpose, the end of verse two, being one in spirit and purpose. That's unity of purpose. And it's talking about really having a heart agreement in recognizing our purpose on this earth, unity in spirit or heart and purpose. So we have a heart agreement on purpose. What are we here for? What is our purpose on this earth and what is our purpose then as a church? Our purpose is to glorify God and we glorify Him by worshipping Him. Loving and adoring Him. We glorify Him by serving Him. We glorify Him by reaching others with the gospel. Evangelism. We glorify Him by building one another up and helping each other grow in Christ. That's our purpose. That's what we're here for. We're not here to see everything issue in a life exactly the same. That's not unity, that's uniformity. We're not here to say you got to be a part of this political part of you, that group or whatever. We are here to love God and to serve Him and to reach the lost and to build up believers. That's our unity of purpose. And we can come from lots of different backgrounds with lots of different likes and dislikes and temperaments and personalities and educational levels and jobs and interests and all kinds of things. We can be a lot different in lots of things and be unified because we have a unity that is centered around the purpose God has given us here. So what God is saying, what Paul is saying here is I'm not telling you to be robots in lockstep everybody doing exactly the same thing, looking exactly the same way, feeling exactly the same way about every little issue in life. What are you saying? I'm talking about a group of Christ followers, a group of people who know Christ, who despite their many differences in background, love one another and love God and submit their personal agendas to the good of the body of Christ. That's unity of direction, unity of love, unity of purpose. And that is the kind of unity a church should have. When we lived in Indiana back in the decade of the 80s, a big farming area and they had big county fares, kind of like we have a state fare, each county had its own big fare. It's something like maybe you would find it for each gatherings here or something like that, but big, big fares. And they would always have pools, they would have tractor pools and horse pulling and that kind of thing. And at one such county fare, at one such horse pool, they hooked up one horse to a sled and had these contests, see how much weight they can pull. And one horse pulled 4500 pounds, little over two tons. The horse that came in second pulled about 4,000 pounds. And the owners of those two horses said, you know it would be interesting to team them up and see what they could pull together. And so they did. And when they put them together and those two horses pulled as one, they pulled 12,000 pounds. A difference of 3,500 pounds. Separate, isolated, alone, one pulled four, one pulled three before five. But together they pulled 12. And that's what happens in a church. See if I pull this direction, you pull that direction, somebody else pulling that direction, somebody's going away out here in the left field, then we're going to be able to pull some weight but not near as effectively as if we pulled together. And so unity of direction and love and purpose enables us to pull together and have a much greater and significant impact in the kingdom of God on this world today. That is the goal set before us, unity. But then in verses three and four, Paul switches, is track a little bit. And he turns a corner to talk about the key to reaching this goal. And he gives us one key. Now we've seen the goal, the goal is unity. How to reach that goal is the issue. And that's not easy. It's not easy even in families. And when you've got people to have the same parents, same training, pretty much same backgrounds, they have different temperaments and so forth. But people even in the same family have difficulty sometimes being unified. And so you look at a church and you think of people from so many different backgrounds, different families, different upbringing, different infacies that they were taught about right or wrong or what should be done or not done, all those kinds of lots of differences, different personalities, different temperaments, different education, different backgrounds for all of us, different occupations. When you throw all that together in a church, it would almost seem as though unity would be impossible as a goal. But it's not. It's not impossible. There is however one key, one key, one attitude of Christ that is key to having unity. And we might think, okay, is it love, is it patience, is it grace, all those things are wonderful, but that's not what it is. There's only one time in the Bible that Jesus describes Himself, that He describes what He is like. And we're going to show the verse to you on the screen, Matthew 11, 29, where Jesus said this about Himself, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. And here it is, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. The only time Jesus described Himself in personal qualities and characteristics was this way. I am gentle and humble in heart. Now if I could take those two concepts and put them together in one word, it would be the word selflessness. Selflessness. And that is the key to unity in the church. It's the opposite of selfishness. It means to be selfless. And if we are going to demonstrate selflessness, then there are four things about self that we're going to have to deal with. Pardon me for talking about you all so much this morning. You know, that scheduled you all a long time ago, never realized it would be on a message about self, but we're going to talk about the self today. There are certain things about self that we need to deal with. The first is self-ambition, verse three. Do nothing out of selfish ambition. Interesting word, the word ambition. It's a word that was used in the Greek language by Aristotle. Actually, Aristotle used it of a greedy grasp for public office through any means, whether just or unjust. I thought that was a pretty interesting observation, the way he used the word. But it can refer to any greedy grasp or attempt to gain the upper hand, using whatever means to get there. It can happen in the church. Greedy grasp for the upper hand, for my way or for what I want. Paul has already used this word back in chapter one. You may remember back in chapter one of verse 17, when he was describing preachers who were seizing, grabbing greedily the opportunity to make hey, while he was in prison thinking by their preaching they could gain a few more followers than maybe Paul had. He uses the very same word back in chapter one verse 17, when he says, these people preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I'm in chains. You see what Paul's saying here? It is possible to preach, it is possible to preach the gospel, it is possible to preach Christ and all the time be doing it out of selfish ambition. A greedy eagerness to grasp something, to grasp a higher position, to grasp a claim or recognition or whatever. It's possible to have that as a motive. And I would assume, I don't know for sure, but I would assume if that's possible of preachers, it may well be possible of anybody in the church. That with any area of our church life or our community together, it would be possible for us to corrupt even the good things we may try to do, with a motive of greedy grasping after something for ourselves, selfish ambition. Now not all ambition is bad, there is good ambition, ambition to be like Christ and to be more holy and a closer follower of Him. That's great ambition, ambition to be a good steward of the resources God gives you and provide well for your family. That's a good ambition, nothing wrong with those ambitions. But what we have to deal with in order to have unity in the church is selfish ambition, ambition that greedily grabs to have the upper hand, to get the recognition. That's what Paul warns against. Second thing that we must deal with about self is self-glory. You see it there in verse 3? Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, vain conceit or empty pride, the kind of self-glory, the kind of pride that lifts up myself at the expense of others. I first heard this story from John Ortberg, heard it on a tape of a message that he preached. Story about Mayor Daley in Chicago, and this is not the current Mayor Daley, Richard M. Daley, I believe but Richard J. Daley, his father, who really started the daily political machine in Chicago that's run that city for decades now. The original Mayor Daley was in office, he was known for saying what are called malaprops, just inappropriate things. He would say things that would leave people scratching their heads. For instance, he would say things like this when he, one time when he talked about how the press was writing about him, he says, I have been vilified, I have been crucified, I've even been criticized. It just doesn't make sense. You'll think about that and get it when you go home. But Mayor Daley was famous for those kinds of things. And he had a speech writer, a guy that would write his speeches, and Daley had a habit of just taking the speech and delivering it without ever having previewed it. So he got in trouble a lot because he never knew what was coming next. Sometimes he would start to speak, temperatiously, and get off the speech. And it was terrible. And so he had to speech writer, one day the speech writer came to him and said, I need a raise. I've worked for you for a lot of years, I work hard, I do good work for you, I need a raise. And Mayor Daley looked back at him and said, I'm not going to give you a raise. It ought to be enough for you that you work for me, a great American hero. Okay. Well, a few months later Mayor Daley was speaking at a national convention of veterans. There's the national convention, there's thousands of veterans there. He is the mainline speaker. This is getting national press coverage. And he's thundering on eloquently about his care for veterans as he's reading the speech. And he says, a lot of people I know don't care about you veterans anymore. And what you did in your sacrifice for our country, I want you to know, I care about you. And I believe we should take care of you. And I'm going to introduce today a 17 point outline for how city and state and national government should take care of our veterans. And of course by this time everybody's leaning up on the edge of their seat to find out what the 17 point plan is going to be. And Mayor Daley himself is a little curious about what it's going to be. So he turns the page and he sees this one sentence at the top of the next page. You are on your own, you great American hero. I think the speech writer had already found another job. Self glory will always get you in trouble. Whether it's delivering speeches or in church work, in teaching a Bible fellowship, in working in whatever you may do in the church. Or just in your life as a whole, self glory will always get you in trouble. And Paul says we have got to deal with self glory. And it can manifest itself in a number of ways. You know, glorifying ourselves, the kind of empty pride that lifts up myself at the expense of others can come when I criticize other people. If I have a real critical spirit because simply I'm tearing other people down usually to make myself look better. It can manifest itself that way. It can manifest itself by finding fault with people or something all the time, by picking others apart or just by promoting yourself, projecting an inflated image of yourself. Self glory. Paul says you got to deal with that before there can be unity in the church. You got to deal with self glory. Third, we must deal with self importance, verse three, into the verse. But in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Now we're going to talk about humility next week when we talk about the example of Christ. So I'm going to save that for then. But I want you to really look at the word consider this morning. That's the key word to understanding what he's talking about here. The word consider or esteem means to carefully and honestly weigh the facts. And then come to the conclusion Paul says we should come to and that is that others are better than me. Consider after careful and honest evaluation and observation consider that others are better than me. Now please don't misunderstand that. Paul is not saying that you should devalue yourself or your own gifts. In fact, Paul and others in the New Testament will talk about the responsibility. Obligation we have before God to nurture and find and develop our own gifts and abilities for Christ. So he's not saying neglect those or always be down on yourself. What are you saying is that your outlook on life ought to be broad enough to be able to look at others and see that there are some things about them that you could learn from. Whoever that person may be, there are some things you can learn from. Things you can do better at yourself, character qualities that they're a little further down the road on than you are in this area. You can learn from them. So what he's saying is you honestly evaluate other people, you focus not on what's better about you, which is very easy and natural tendency of ours. Well at least I don't do that. I may be not, but I don't do what he does. You know it's very easy and natural for us to do that. What he's saying is when you look at others that rather than following that natural tendency of our sin nature that we honestly evaluate people and look for that which we can learn from. Look for that which we can honor in them and lift up as an example of how everybody ought to live. And you know you can find something like that in everybody. I'm not talking about you know there's good in everybody and they can get to heaven by that. No no, we get to heaven only through the grace of God and the blood of Christ and His death for us. But we can look at everybody and say there is something about that person that is better than me and I can learn from. Now if you look real real hard and you can't find anything good about that person then at least say this. The one thing I learned from this person is I don't want to be like that. So I learned that at least. There's something we can learn from everyone about something we can improve that's better than us. And so Paul says deal with self importance because when you take this mindset that I look at this person and there's something about them that I can learn from and I can grow from. That keeps us humble. It keeps the focus off of ourselves and on others. And it just helps organizations including churches to be able to function much much better when we're not dealing with self importance but the importance of others. But then there's a fourth. A fourth thing about self that we must deal with it's in verse four and it's self interest. Self interest. Verse four says each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. The word interest means something that is highly valued and so you pour time and energy into. Something that you highly value and thus you pour time and energy into that. That's your interest. That's something that fascinates you. Some of you have an interest in cars. Some of you have an interest in sports. Some of you have an interest in knitting. Some of you have an interest in cooking. You may have many different interests but an interest is something that's really valuable to you. You value it and you pour some time and energy into that. Now there are three kinds of interests that Paul mentions in this chapter. Two of them in this verse. He mentions interests, your own interests and interests of others. And then skip down to verse 21. Where he says in verse 21, for everyone looks out for his own interests not those of Jesus Christ. So the third kind of interest is that of Jesus Christ. Now I just want to ask you this morning, how do those three things fit into your life? There are things that are of interest to you. They are important to you. They're valuable to you. So you put time and energy into them. There are things that are of interest to others. That's the interest of others. And the Bible is teaching that we should also include their interests. Put time and energy into things that are valuable to them. A lot of family difficulties would be solved if that principle were followed. Not about me and my interest and my goal and my agenda, it's about my family. It's about my wife, about my children. Let's see. And then there are the interests of Christ, which should dominate all the other interests. What is valuable to him? What's important to him? What should I put energy and focus on that is important to Christ? That ought to be the umbrella that covers all the interests, all the other interests. So what Paul is saying is not neglect your own interests. But again, your outlook and life and heart should be broad enough to say, like he says, look not only to your own interests, but also in addition to your own interests, be broad enough in your outlook and love and compassion in life to take in the interests of others and put those interests as a very important value in your life too. And of course, most of all the interest of Christ. I really think God gives us children to teach us this. And for those of you who have not had the privilege of having children, God brings other people into your life to teach you this. You know, children really teach you a lot about possessiveness and what's yours, my stuff and my time and my, you know, all of that. They really do. I mean, I like clean clothes. They don't have to be the newest or the greatest fashion or anything like that, but I like them to be clean. When you have children, you don't have clean clothes. When you have little children. You don't have any, there's no such thing as clean clothes. I mean, I can remember the times usually I would be at church before Genie, but I can remember times when Genie would be getting the girls ready for church. And you've got your Sunday best on ready to go to church and all of a sudden things come out of those babies, you know, they come out different places. And they just mess up everything. And so she would oftentimes either not be able to come until she changed or come with all of that. More on her clothes. Children teach you that it's not about me. I really, really like nice meals. Doesn't have to be the most expensive or the best food, but I like it on my plate. I like my, you know, my drink and my glass and things set up kind of nice. When you have little children, you don't have that. You got food on the floor. You got drink all over the table. You got noise and a hundred questions during the meal. And even as you're training your children to keep the drink in the glass and the food on the plate and how to have proper manners, it's going to be a walk where they get that. And so you learn a lot about my table and my clean house. And, you know, I like a clean card. Doesn't have to be a new card. Doesn't have to be the best card, but I like a clean card. When you have children, you don't have clean cars. They teach you a lot about what's mine and my agenda and my interests. Because children lick the windows and then do finger paintings all over the windows, you know. They leave crayons in the seat and the crayons melt into the fabric of the seat. They leave M&Ms in the seat and then you sit on them and they melt into the fabric of your clothes. I mean, that's just what it's like to have kids. I like a clean house. Doesn't have to be immaculate. Not everything has to be in its place, but I like, you know, Genie does too. Like for things to be picked up. You have kids. It's not that way. At least as you're training them, they're going to be times. When you get up in the middle of the night, go to the refrigerator to get a drink of water, you barefoot, step on a Barbie doll or a Lego, you know, or a matchbox car. You know, you haven't lived till you've done that. I've got some permanent imprints, I think, on the bottom of my feet. But there's something about having kids that teach you something about, doesn't always have to be my way, my agenda, my, my, my, your interests are expanded to others and training and teaching them. And the same thing is true in a church when a group of individuals or groups in a church begin to demand my way. It's about my class, my ministry, my age group in the church. That breeds disunity. And so what breeds unity in a church is looking not only to my interests, but to the interests of others and everything under the umbrella of the interests of Christ. That's what brings unity. A church is like a family. We must give to be able to work together. Now I realize that some of you may be thinking, why is he talking so much about unity? He talked about it last time, talked about it this time. Is there something going on behind the scenes in this church that's about ready to blow up? You know, that's, he's trying to address and my answer is no. There isn't. So you can be at peace about that. God has blessed us through the years with a great degree of unity. And I attribute a lot of that to the ministry of preacher Jimmy. In his 37 years of ministry here, he was the kind of pastor who focused on the things I've preached this morning about what was important and what was not. And so that set the table and really provided the environment for church that is through the years had great unity. So it's not, it's not an issue that we necessarily face about ready to blow up or anything like that. There are two reasons why I'm preaching so much on it right now. I'm preaching through Philippians and that's where we happen to be. That's the biggest reason. And whatever the text brings out, I want to deal with. Second reason is I believe in preventive medicine. Like the old saying, it's much better to build a fence at the top of the cliff than a hospital at the bottom. It's much better to ward off trouble than it is to try to mop up the mess after it's done. And so it's much better for us to understand upfront that God wants us to have unity of direction and love and purpose because we share so much in Christ. And not to get all out of sorts about things we may disagree on, but keep that unity of love and focus and purpose and direction because unity and teamwork is absolutely essential for effectiveness of ministry. To pull together. It's absolutely essential for the blessing of God and the growth of believers. It's absolutely essential for a testimony to the world that will reach other people for Christ. It is absolutely essential. And that's why the Bible puts so much emphasis on it. What'd you bow with me in prayer? Father, help us to focus upon those things that we have in common in Christ. To be grateful for all that you've given us and not to pull separate directions but together. To first of all humble ourselves under your mighty hand and seek your face, your direction, your purpose. To pull together. I pray, Father, that you would work, especially in the hearts of some who may not know Christ as Savior today. And all those things we describe that Paul describes about what it means to be in Christ, to be united with Him. They really have no clue about that. I pray that you'd help them to realize their need and come to Christ today. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.