Be Humble – The Humility of Unity

I'll just start with a quick testimony and first service.

I was sitting over there and and you know, sometimes any of you

ever get in your own head a little bit, overthink things,

Anybody, just me, OK, Yeah, I'm sitting over there in first

service. And, you know, sometimes the,

the tendency is for a minister to feel like, or a preacher to

feel like there's a lot of pressure on what I do.

And just for service, I'm sitting over there and I'm just

thinking, I just don't know. And I started to pray and I

said, God, please just make this about you and Take Me Out of it.

And both services now people have come to the altar and

responded before I ever got up here to say a word.

It's just a reminder to me that God is good.

And, and if you're here today to hear a great sermon or anything

like that, I mean, you know, I, I hope it's OK, But but more

than that, I hope you walk away from here knowing that God is

good and that he's with you. And I hope you walk away knowing

his word and hearing his word because it's all you need.

All you need is the presence of God and His word and His

guidance in your life. You don't need some, you know,

fancy pastor or fancy worship team telling you anything.

You just need him. And so that's my prayer.

I don't say it in any way. I don't need any of you to come

say anything to me after. Don't unless you're saying God

is good because God is good. We're starting a series called

Be Humble. This is something I think we all

struggle with. Nod your head if you're super

humble, raise your hand and show everyone how humble you are.

Yeah. Now our world really does

struggle with humility, doesn't it?

And just an all, I mean, even for me, I like, I had a, you

know, I was going to open talking about something I saw on

social media, but let me just say, like sitting there thinking

that that my part of this really is that big of a deal is silly.

Yeah, it's a preach the word and I want to preach the Word, but

the truth of the matter is what matters far more than than how

clever or smart I am is the fact that God shows up and God speaks

to you. And so it's tricky.

I do laugh. Our culture, social media

culture, you guys probably know by now I'm not a fan of social

media. I don't post much.

By the way, thank you to everyone that said happy

birthday a few weeks ago. I, I don't, I didn't even post.

I'm so sorry. I'm a terrible person.

I didn't say thank you on social media, but our, our culture

teaches you that, that I mean, did it even happen if you didn't

put it on social media? Did you really take that cool

vacation if you didn't show it to everyone else?

All right, I, I will, I will have some fun here and I might

make if any other pastors are, are watching, I apologize, but

one of my pet peeves is pastors who speak and then they take

quotes of theirs and they post it on social media, but they

don't just put the quote there like they, they have to put

that, they said it. And a lot of times their picture

with it. I, it's come on, guys, like

we're, we're putting some of these athletes to shame when

we're promoting ourselves to that point.

And even at 1.11 church put a thing and it was a quote from

their pastor and it was actually just scripture.

And I thought your pastor didn't come up with that.

That's God's word. What are, where are we at when

we're giving credit to somebody for something that we didn't

even do? And, and listen, I, I joke about

that, but seriously, that's the pressure, right?

And the, the pressure is that we have to look good on social

media. We got to show everyone that

everything's OK. I'm not suggesting that you go

post your deepest darkest hurts and everything on social media.

That won't work out well. But we live in a culture that

that really emphasizes me, promote me, put me first.

We're we're going to do a four week series here in Philippians

2 and it's called be humble guys.

God has given us a different way.

In a world that tells you that you've got to take care of you,

in a world that tells you that you've got to promote, you got

to tell everyone how great you are, they won't know.

God says be humble, be humble. Find your identity and value in

him, not in what you can accomplish.

And so I want to call you to something very countercultural

and listen, this is so deep. It really is.

It's in the church, it's in our world, it's everywhere.

I want to call you something countercultural.

So we're in Philippians chapter 2, but I want to give you

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Philippians is another letter of Paul's to the church at

Philippi. And once again, he's writing it

from in prison. He wasn't going to prison, by

the way, if you can hear me talk, and you're not from the

church and you think, man, this because he's in prison a lot.

That's not the case. He actually was a minister of

the gospel, but he was persecuted and, and put into

prison and, and would find himself in trouble because the

authorities didn't like what he was doing, starting churches and

preaching the word. And so he'd be put in prison.

But instead of sitting there and and feeling sorry for himself,

he would encourage the church. And so Philippians is another

one of those letters In chapter 1, he gives his purpose.

He says, this is my prayer that your love may abound more and

more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you will be able

to discern what is best and be pure and blameless for the day

of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes

through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

All right, Paul didn't say I pray that you will know more and

more so that you can know what's best so that you can benefit

yourself. He says, I pray that you will

know more and more so that you will know what's best and and

that you can honor God with who you are.

Do you see the difference there? Less of me, more of him stand

with me. We're going to look at chapter

2. We're going to read verse one

through 11 and this is the Christ him.

This is something I've read many, many times or quoted many

times and and it's Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

It says therefore, if you have any encouragement from being

united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any

common sharing in 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 of of one mind.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather in humility value others above others above yourselves,

not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the

interests of others in your relationships with one another.

Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very

nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to

be used to His own advantage. Rather, He made Himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant being found being made

in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, He

humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on

a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to

the highest place and gave him a name, that is the name that is

above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall

bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every

tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of

God the Father. Praise the Lord, Have a seat.

Humility is in short order in our world.

Humility is countercultural. Our culture tells you and

teaches you not to be humble. God's word says be humble.

How can we do that? How can we live

counterculturally? We have a beautiful picture of

it in Philippians chapter 2, that the best way to humility is

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

to know Jesus and to follow His example.

Jesus set the example. Philippians 2 lays it out

perfectly. So over the next 4 weeks, we're

going to study this today. We're just in the first few

verses, but what does it look like to be humble?

It's to follow Jesus, to be Christ like in the way that you

live. And so we're going to look at

chapter 2 and I just want to look at the 1st 2 verses today.

We ended last week all standing around the sanctuary taking

communion and I said we are one in Christ and the 1st 2 verses

talk about our unity in Christ. It says therefore if you have

any encouragement now there's four ifs here, there's four ifs

then there's the word then and then there are three things that

were called to. So it says therefore if you have

any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any

comfort from His love, if any common sharing in 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 one in mind. Guys, humility starts with not

finding our value and identity in our self, but in unifying

being united with the body of Christ and finding our value in

Him. So we have the four ifs and

that's Him. Then we have the call to unity.

It's not about how great of a Christian you can become.

It's about how we can glorify God by joining together with his

body to bring him glory. I love it.

At the end of the Scripture, the Christ him, it says to the glory

of God the Father. This is about his glory, his

praise. So 4 ifs a then and then three

callings. Let's work through it.

The first if is if you have any encouragement from being united

with Christ. Paul says if you have any

encouragement from being united with Christ, the King James

Version says if there is any consolation in Christ.

Now you may read a different version than both of those, but

but the basic idea here is, is that Jesus gives us strength

that that Jesus allows this. This is from a commentary.

It says the term embraces 3 overlapping ideas #1 comfort to

those in distress #2 encouragement that strengthens

resolve, and #3 earnest appeal that calls for response.

So, so #1 any of you going through anything, any of you

need comfort and distress, Any of you have any of you ever gone

through something and needed comfort and distress?

You have 100% Jesus wants to help you through #2 it, it, it

says encouragement that strengthens resolve.

How do we get through those tough times?

How do we get through the situations that we don't know

how to put the, the foot next foot in front of the other?

Jesus gives us strength and #3 the earnest call for response.

Jesus calls us to make it through to, to be faithful.

And so, so #1 if there's any consolation in Christ, I got

good news for you. Jesus is not distant.

The God of the universe is not distant.

We, we live in a world. Once again, if you want to go

see the President, IIA, couple years ago I went to DC for a

football game, but we went to the White House.

And you know how close we got to the White House?

We got outside the fence a long way away.

If you want to go see the president, unless you've got a

lot of money or unless you find yourself in a lucky spot, you're

not getting anywhere close to the president, are you?

If you're a big fan of athletes or sports, back I remember back

in the the 90s, we went to a baseball game.

We went to a Reds game in Houston, and we just happened to

stay in the same hotel as the Reds.

And so after the game, they came back and we were standing right

there as Barry Larkin walked right by me.

And I just thought, yeah, that stuff doesn't happen much

anymore. You're not getting anywhere

close to the World Series champion Dodgers or, or LeBron

James or, or any of those people.

I mean, they are in a different place.

Here's the good news, guys. Our God, our Savior, Jesus

Christ is not distant. He's not sitting up in some

comfortable place watching us struggle.

If you're going through it, he's with you.

He's walking with you. He knows what you're going

through and, and he's with you. No matter what you walk through,

you never walk alone because God is with you.

So it says if there's any, any consolation in Christ, if you

have any encouragement strengthening in Christ and, and

listen, the the answer is yes, yes, he's with us.

How many of you would say, yes, God has strengthened me and

helped me through a tough time? All right, If you haven't, look

at all the hands that are up and understand that that's who our

God is. He's with us, He strengthens us,

He helps us through. All right #2 He says if there's

any comfort from His love, love is pretty comforting, isn't it?

Have you ever been having a really bad day and then somebody

does something, shows you love and it comforts you?

I know I've shared the story before I grew up, I wanted to

play basketball my whole life. I really thought I was going to

be a basketball player spent hours every day playing

basketball, dreamed of being a college and pro basketball

player and I'll never forget my last game of high school.

I've been playing for four years in high school I was our second

leading scorer. I'm not bragging guys.

We my team wasn't any good. We really weren't if the fact

that I was a second leading scorer is probably why we

weren't any good. But but my last game of high

school, I had all these dreams. I spent hours and hours

practicing. And I remember sitting on the

bench the entire game watching my team get blown out by 3040

points. And with 30 seconds left, the

coach says, hey, go in. It's ridiculing.

I mean, life. And I mean, I was embarrassed.

I wanted to just hide. I wanted to crawl under the

bench. I didn't want to walk into the

game where we were getting beat by 40.

I just wanted to be done. And I'll never forget, I stood

up and I started to walk off the court and my heart was broken.

And my dad came up and he wrapped his arms around me and

he said, I love you, son. Oh, you know what that does for

you? You ever been there?

Ever. I appreciate you guys.

Every once in a while, I'm having a tough day and it never

fails that that one of you sends me something encouraging and I

and on the flip side, if I'm having a good day, one of you

said, I'm just kidding, you guys are great.

Love is comforting and we serve a God of love and comfort.

And in fact, let me tell you the rest of that story.

My dad gave me the big hug. I didn't.

I felt a little better. I didn't feel all better.

I went home. I felt completely like a

failure. I mean, my whole life I'd been

dreaming of this one thing and it became a reality at that

moment that it just wasn't happening and I felt worthless.

And I'll never forget. God clearly said to me, I didn't

hear it, but I heard it through my sister playing the piano.

She's playing a song that says, child, I love you how I love

you. And I'll never forget.

I knew that God was telling me I love you and your value isn't

found in basketball, it's found in me.

If there's any comfort from His love, guys, if you've never felt

the comfort of His love, you're missing it.

He loves you more than you will ever know.

And some of you may feel unlovable.

Some of you may feel like you've disqualified yourself from being

loved. No, I really believe that if

Jesus Christ were standing here in person, He would come to each

and every one of you. And the most important thing He

would want to tell you today is this, I love you.

Our God is God of love and comfort.

If you have any consolation from Jesus, strengthening,

encouraging, if you have any comfort from his love.

The third is if any common sharing in the spirit.

Now here's I told you, God is not distant.

He's not sitting up in heaven, you know, comfortable while we

are struggling. God has sent his very spirit to

be with us all the time. And so this says Paul says if

there's any common sharing in the spirit, if you as have

accepted Christ as your savior. So we know Jesus walked the face

of the earth that that's that's fact.

Jesus was a man that walked the earth and and he died and he

ascended to heaven. Scripture tells us, but then he

sent us his Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit, if you

are a believer, is with you always.

He's always working, leading you, guiding you.

Just this week I'm sitting at home and all of a sudden the

Spirit said, hey, go do this. I didn't hear a voice, an Angel

didn't show up. I just felt the Spirit leading

me to go do something. That's the work of the Spirit.

If you haven't felt that, guys, open your heart to the Spirit.

God's Spirit wants to lead you and guide you.

He's with you to teach you how to live, to teach you how to

treat each other to to correct you when you're wrong.

The Spirit is with us. If you have any common sharing

in the Spirit. The 4th, if there's any

tenderness or compassion, the King James once again says

affection and mercy. If you if you feel the mercy or

the affection of God, if you feel the compassion of God, none

of us, not one person in here deserves to be here today.

Not one of us is good enough in our own strength and power and

record. Not one of us.

If you put our life real in front of us, we we would all be

embarrassed and ashamed, but through the grace and the mercy

of Jesus Christ, we're made worthy.

I talked about this last week. So we are here together because

of His grace and His compassion, and we're called to have that

same compassion. Ephesians 4 says be kind and

compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as

Christ forgave you. None of us belong here if it

wasn't for the compassion and the mercy of Christ.

So, so Paul says 4 ifs, if, if, if, if, and these are

rhetorical. He's writing it to the church,

but he but he knows God is good. God does give you strength.

God does encourage you. God does give you comfort.

God does lead you and guide you. God does all of this.

Yes, the answer is yes. Let me just say this if you

haven't felt all of those things.

It's not because God's not pouring them out on you, it's

because you're missing it. Open your heart and surrender

and you will feel it. If for ifs they're, they're,

they're given, then. So if God is so great, if God

has done all that, what do we do then?

Make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same

love, being one in spirit and one of mind and of one mind.

And what Paul saying here is in light of everything God's done

for you, that that we should seek to glorify him by unifying

together with the body of Christ.

All right, so the world says look out for yourself, promote

yourself, take care of yourself, make sure you're OK.

God says I've got you, seek my glory, join with the body of

Christ. He says if all four of these

things, and the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, then be like

minded, have the same love, be of 1 spirit and one mind.

How? How can we be unified?

How can a bunch of look around at all the people around you?

Go ahead, take a look around. It's OK.

It's not awkward. Just look at some people.

You probably noticed that we're all a little bit different,

right? If you talk to people in the

room, you would notice we're all different, right?

We all have different taste in music.

We all have different. Some of us like different sports

teams. Some of us don't even like

sports. Well, you don't have to be

hateful. I mean, we're all different.

How can we be one? Well, let me tell you how we can

be 1. Because we all have the

consolation of Christ. We all find our strength and

encouragement in Christ. Why can we be 1?

Because we're all loved by Christ.

We all have the same love in the same grace.

How can we be 1? Because we're all filled with

the same spirit. We're one.

We're brought together in Christ.

Be like minded the unified What does unity look like?

3 things. The then three things #1 having

the same love. We are called to have the same

love. We talked about agape agape

love. We're called to have the same

love. We're not all called to love the

same music. We're not all called to have the

same opinion of architecture or style.

We're not all called to root for the same football teams or any

of that stuff. We are called to have the same

love. In John 13, Jesus said a new

command. I give you love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

By this everyone will know you are my disciples.

If you love one another. I didn't say Jesus didn't say,

hey, if you put a Christian T-shirt on, if you call

yourself, if you sing the right songs, if you do this, Jesus

says the thing that will identify you as a member of the

body of Christ. The thing that people will know

that you're following God is if you love well, how can we all

love the same? Well, we're all loved the same

by God as I've loved. You love one another, guys.

I, I really, I mean, I've got my opinions.

I've got my opinions on music. I've got my opinions on a lot of

things. You know what I care far more

than any of that is that we're a people that love well, that we

know God's love for us and that we love others.

Well, that's what we should be known for.

Have the same love not you have to figure it out.

You have to you know, you have to find your interpretation

because that's what our world says that there's a lot of

different interpretations of what love is.

I mean love is this, but no, no, no, no, as God loved you love

others the same love. It's simple.

Once again we look to Christ the second being one in spirit.

This is another from a commentary.

This expresses the state of being one sold soul as in your

inward soul, a deep inward unity where the affections,

convictions and purposes of believers are harmonized by the

Holy Spirit. It's it reaches past

intellectual agreement and to a shared spiritual vitality

binding disciples together in a common life sourced in Christ.

Have one love everybody love with the love of Christ #2 be

one in spirit. Once again, it doesn't say we

all have to look the same. We all have to act the same.

We have to all have to like the same things.

It says we should all have the same spirit, the same deep

spirit, the same guiding force that we want to glorify God by

building His Kingdom. Be unified in spirit.

The third thing it says is of one mind.

It's probably the toughest 1. I have 4 boys and a wife.

And so if we're driving around and I say where do you want to

go for dinner, guess how many places I get?

And it's sometimes 4 to be honest, because usually two of

the boys will try to band together so that they can have

more than the others. And so four or five.

Every time I say where do you guys want to go eat?

And I get four or five different answers.

And we are not of the same mind when it comes food.

Our staff, by the way, we have to have a system for figuring

out lunch because we don't all agree on where we should go eat

every week. So we have a, a very detailed

system that I came up with for where we're going to go to lunch

because we're not always of one opinion when it comes to lunch.

But I do want to tell you that we are of one mind that we want

to glorify God and we want to focus on him.

We can argue over Panera or Chick-fil-A or any of those

places. We can argue all you want, but

we're to be of one mind. That means one focus.

That means our our focus is on Christ.

You can have different opinions, but we should have one mind

focused on him and his glory. And so if God is good, listen

today, the first half of this message is just all about God's

goodness. And if you're new here, I want

to tell you that God is good, that God loves you.

If you're walking through difficulty today, I want to tell

you that God wants to strengthen you and encourage you and help

you through. If you're hurting and you need

comfort, I want you to know that our God is the God of comfort.

If you don't know what you're going to do tomorrow or how to

approach something, I want you to know that the Holy Spirit is

with you. God loves you, He's good.

So what are we called to? We're not called to all be super

Christians. We don't all have to sell

ourselves. We don't have to be the best.

We don't have to convince everyone that we're great.

You know what we need to do? We need to join together and we

need to glorify God by being 1:00.

Not that we have to always agree on everything.

One of the things I love about our church board, we don't

always agree on everything. I feel like we are of 1 heart

and one mind and one spirit that we want to glorify God.

We're called to humility, we're called to unity worship team,

come up, come up, come on up. I had a friend in college and

high school. I've talked about him before.

His name was Kevin. His dad was a pastor as well and

I've had a lot of friends through my life.

One of the things that I've, I think was very unique to Kevin

and I's friendship is that Kevin and I mostly hung out doing

ministry. I mean, we would hang out and

watch games and do all that stuff.

But I told you last week that I went to visit a guy named Dennis

in the Tribeca Healthcare and, and Kevin would always go with

me and, and we would go visit him and we'd go visit other

people and, and, and the beautiful thing about our

relationship is it wasn't built on the fact that we had all the

same interests. It was built on the fact that we

have the same God, we have the same purpose.

And so today I want to call you to something at the beginning of

this series, be humble. The world tells you, take care

of yourself. Put yourself first, promote

yourself. God says find your value and

identity. And me, trust me, stand with me.

Maybe today God is reminding you of his goodness.

Maybe today He's speaking to you.

I'd invite you to respond to His Word.

If there's a part of today's word that that speaks to you,

I'd encourage you just to respond.

However that is, put your hands up, come to an altar, whatever.

Maybe God's calling you to stop being all about yourself and to

join the body of Christ to seek His glory, not yours.

That's you today. Respond.

The altars are a good place to come and pray.

They're always open. It's not a place of shame, it's

a place of victory. You can pray in your seat, you

can put your hands up, you can go talk to someone, you can pray

with someone. Whatever it is, we serve a good

God and God is calling us to unity and humility because it's

the best way. Father, speak to us, lead us,

help us to respond to you in Jesus name, Amen.