Four reasons

Paul opens with four reasons for people to live with this humble, selfless unity. “If there is any…”

1. encouragement in Christ
2. comfort from love
3. participation in [which could also read fellowship in or with] the Spirit
4. affection and sympathy

“If there is any,” he says. Is there any? Well, yes. There is encouragement in Christ. We do find comfort from being loved, by God and by each other. As believers, we do have fellowship with the Spirit, and through him with Christ and the Father, and of course with each other too. We do have God-given affection and sympathy for each other, and even for non-believers.

In other words, Paul is using that “if” to quietly point the Philippian believers to a reality. When he asks them to complete his joy if these things are true, he’s saying, “Look, these four things are true.” You do encouragement; comfort; fellowship; affection and sympathy. And just as they did, so do we.

So given those four good reasons, Paul asks them to complete his joy. As he has told them already, earlier in the epistle, he already has great joy—in seeing the gospel go forth. He even rejoices when people preach the gospel in an attempt to make him jealous. But his joy isn’t complete without something else. If these four reasons are the foundation for that completion, the finished building is humble, selfless, unity. But what we might ask: what is the structure of that finished building?

Three ways

There are three. Four foundation stones, and three pillars on that base. Paul told his friends they would complete his joy—they would fill it up—by:

1. being of the same mind
2. having the same love
3. being in full accord and of one mind

(If you’re worried about my counting: affection and sympathy go together, and so do “being in full accord and of one mind.” If you have true affection for someone, you will feel sympathy for her when she is struggling. If you’re in full accord with someone, it’s like you and he share a mind. So: four foundation stones, and these three pillars.)

And what we see in these three pillars is that these three ways are really one way. They’re one structure. And that one way, is to be one. That one way is unity. Joy, for the apostle, and I think it is fair to say God’s joy in our fellowship, is complete when we are truly unified. Not identical, but unified.

But how? How do we have the same mind? How do we have the same love? How can we be in full accord and of one mind? That seems rather abstract. If I sat down my three-and-a-half year old and my 20-month old and said, “Okay, Ellie and Kate, you need to have unity between you two,” they would just stare at me. Ellie, the older one, might say, “Yes, daddy!” just to be good, but they wouldn’t know what to do with it. Kate, the younger one, would probably yell “No!” because she’s a toddler and we’re working on that right now. And wherever you are: whether you’re saying, “Okay…” but you don’t really get it, or you’re saying “No, no way! Have you met these people?” Paul draws us forward. He gives us some help, makes it a little more concrete.

Two contrasts

Paul gives us two pairs of contrasts to help us see a little more clearly what this kind of unity looks like. Capstones to match the foundation, if you will.

³Do nothing [, he says in v. 3,] from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

That’s the first capstone, the first contrast. Not selfish ambition, not conceit, but humility, and counting others more important than yourself. So we see first that this unity is humble unity. It comes becomes I’m valuing you above me. I’m not trying to exalt myself. I’m thinking of how I can make you do well instead.

Verse 4 shows us the second contrast, the second capstone:

⁴Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

This unity, then, is also selfless. When we’re healthy, we don’t just aim to get our own. “Looking out for number one!” No, instead, we help others accomplish their hopes. We give of our time; our money; our sleep; our space – to help others.

So this is the church. This is the kind of building we’re supposed to be. As Paul puts it in Ephesians, we’re being built together into a temple for God—a temple of people known for their humble, selfless, unity—their love.

We have these four foundations: encouragement in Christ, comfort from love, fellowship with the Spirit, and affection and sympathy. We have three pillars of unity: being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. We have two capstones: calls to humility and selflessness.

But you might be asking now, “How? I want that unity; I even want to be selfless and humble, even if that sounds kind of hard. But I don’t know how.” And to that, Paul says, “Don’t worry; I’ll give you an example. In fact, here is the example.” And he shows us Christ—verse 5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus…”

Christ humbled himself

⁶who [Christ Jesus], though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped [—something to be held onto—], ⁷but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

What we see here is one of the great mysteries our faith. God became man. We could take a dozen sermons on this point alone. But Paul has something very specific for us to see from the Incarnation here. Whatever prerogatives we might have—whatever money, whatever fame, whatever position or status—the Son had more. And Jesus Christ lived as a servant. He didn’t hold onto what was his (and it really was his, by right!). He came as one of us. When you read here, “in the likeness of man,” don’t think “he was kind of like us.” Hebrews tells us that he was exactly was we are—yet without sin.

And that degradation goes down and down and down. He became a baby, who needed to be changed. He dealt, like my older daughter does, with younger siblings who tormented him. He was teased by other children. He went through puberty and had his voice go all scratchy. He worked for many years in obscurity. When he started his ministry, he was rejected as often as accepted, loved for his miracles and not for the God he revealed, mocked even by his own family, and wandered around without a home. Remember, the God of all the universe. And ultimately, he died. Died a sinner’s shameful death. He took our humiliation. And through all of it, he did not complain, he just served. So Christ is our model.

A convicting model, at least for me. Jesus, the real flesh-and-blood Jesus who was tempted just like us, is the perfect man. He is what it means to be human rightly. And he served. He’s the rightful king! And he served. Do I serve like that? Do you? Or do we demand our rights?

The Father exalted Christ

Now, as we come into these final verses, we see what at first might seem like a bit of a strange turn. Paul is trying to teach us about this kind of humble, selflessness,—and yes, unity. Hmm. And we were tracking along, as we saw the concrete example of Jesus living and dying selflessly. Feeling conviction, even; I certainly was and am. But then we get to this:

⁹Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is, at first blush, a bit of a challenge. “Okay. I mean, it’s good that Jesus is exalted. But how does it fit? Am I going to be exalted? Am I supposed to serve because Jesus was exalted? What’s going on here?”

There are two parts to this. One of them is, yes, that Jesus is Lord. We are citizens of his kingdom, and if his people lived like that, his people should certainly live like that. So that is one part of it.

But there is something else going on here, too.

And this—oh, this! What do we see here? We see the Father exalting the son. He highly exalted him. He gave him the name that is above every other name. The Father wants every one to say, “Jesus is Lord!” The Father wants everyone to bow down and worship Jesus. And Jesus, the Son—he’s doing all of this, he’s becoming a servant, taking on human nature, dying, on a cross to what end? To the glory of the Father!

We have a little glimpse here into something… awesome. We see the Father, saying to the Son, “Let me exalt you!” And Jesus says to the Father, “All the glory is yours!” And the Father to the Son, and the Son to the Father, back and forth, and back and forth, forever. This is the life of the trinity. This is the eternal life of the triune God: humble, selfless, unity! Love!

And this is what we’re meant to be. This is what the church is for. This is what humanity is for: men and women made in the image of God—humble, selfless, unity.

The life of the Trinity, in the life of the church. This is the building we’re meant to be. This is the temple. This is the mansion.

Paul has taken our question: “How do I live like that?” and he’s answered it by showing us how the life of the triune God took on flesh, and lived among us. Was our servant. Died for us. He says: “How Christ lived is how we are meant to live.” And he reminds us, back there in v. 1: “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit—any fellowship with the Spirit, remember; any affection and sympathy, complete my joy…” We have fellowship with the Spirit. That’s where our unity comes from: not common interests, not shared experiences, not being the same age, or sex, or ethnicity, or social standing, or economic status.

We’re meant to be a little picture, every day, of the Trinity. And the way we do that, is by living like Christ did. We choose, every day, to serve the people around us, instead of ourselves. We choose, every day, not to put ourselves first, but to put others first. We choose, every day, not to make ourselves look great, but to love others.