In the sermon titled 'Humility Keeps Us Unified,' delivered by Kelly Jennings, the focus is on the essential role of humility in sustaining unity within the church. Drawing insights from the book of Philippians, especially chapter 2, Jennings emphasizes that while the church at Philippi was a model of a stable and well-functioning biblical church, no congregation is immune to disunity, often caused by pride. Unity is a recurring theme in Paul's letters, underscoring its importance. Jennings stresses that unity without the Holy Spirit's work is incomplete and highlights love as a choice, not a feeling, as vital for unity. The sermon explores examples of humility and unity through Timothy, Epaphroditus, and ultimately Christ, who epitomizes humility. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to prioritize others' interests over their own, following Christ's example, to maintain unity within the church.

Good afternoon. Will you pray with me? Oh gracious God our Father we thank you so much that you are our God and Father we gather here to honor and to worship your holy in your righteous name. Father will you get the glory that you so deserve. Father that you will move me out of the way and that your Holy Spirit will work through me, both the will and the work for your good pleasure.

And ask this in Christ Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Well, it's a blessing to be in the presence of believers again here on the Lord's day. And as you are all aware, that we've been going through a series on the church and what both our lives individually and collectively as a body should look like.

Now there are many gifts and talents and responsibilities given to us as believers and as a body. When asked to prepare a message this afternoon on the church, I was hard pressed not to talk about unity. It has continued to surface in some form throughout the entire series that Mr. Scott has been doing. But another thought tends to follow when I think about unity, and that is, how do we remain unified?

I think we know what unity means, and I think we have a general idea of what it looks like. But how do we go about doing it? Ultimately, any answer to that question is incomplete without the work of the Holy Spirit, which Brother Scott will also touch on and flesh out a little bit more next week. But what I thought I would do, and I thought it would be a good idea, to take a look at the church at Philippi as somewhat of a visual of what unity looks like, when it looks like within a well-functioning body of believers. And therefore an example of what we as believers are to model ourselves after if we are to remain unified as a body given our different talents and spiritual gifts.

Now when you read through the book of Philippians, you see that Paul doesn't address a lot of doctrinal issues that you see addressed in his other letters to other churches. And theologians believe that this was because the church had not turned away from what they first received or what they first believed. They believe that there are no theological corrections or moral deviance going on amongst that body. I think when you sum up this letter, you can say that the church at Philippi was what I would call a stable, well-functioning biblical church. The church at Philippi was a church of many great qualities.

I would describe Hope Baptist Church in the same way. It's a church of many great qualities. And when you read through the book of Philippians, you see that Paul thought highly of this church, and that Paul had a special place in his heart for them, and they had a special place in their heart for him. So with the time that I do have here today, I would like to do a brief flyover of the book of Philippians with the concentration on chapter 2. So if you have your Bibles, can we look at, let's look at chapter one starting at verse three.

Philippians chapter one, verse three, we're gonna go three through five. Says, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always and every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel, in the gospel from the first day until now." And then let's look down to verse 8. It says, "'For God is my witness how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ." Again, Paul had a deep affection for the body and they had a deep affection for him. This is found throughout every chapter in this book in Philippians. But there is one overarching theme, I think, that Paul is also addressing in his letter and that theme is unity.

Unity is something that you see him address in some shape form of fashion in all the letters of the New Testament. I think you see it in Romans chapter 12, Romans chapter 14. You see the topic of unity in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 10, 2 Corinthians chapter 13. You see it in Galatians chapter five and chapter six. Also you see it in Ephesians four, which we heard about this morning.

On and on and on in each letter, that theme of unity just continues to poke its head. Unity is a very important theme in Paul's letter. And why do you think that is? I think it is because no church body is immune to disunity. Think about that.

No church is immune to disunity. In all the things that this church is doing well, Paul has to make sure that he reminds them to stay unified. Hiding deep within us all is that evil thing called pride. We heard a little bit about that this morning as well, it has torn down congregation upon congregation throughout the ages. And I believe that it is obvious from this letter that even the best churches must be on guard against this unity.

We see him mention unity at the end of chapter one, if you'll look at verse 27 there in chapter one. He says, only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit and in one mind, striving together for one faith in the gospel." Sounds a lot like what we heard this morning. And then we see in chapter, now if you, we'll turn over to chapter four, verses two and three. He says, I implore Euodia and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

Paul wants the church to remain unified So in the first chapter we see that he says be of one mind and one spirit. In the last chapter he says help these women because it is vitally important to remain unified. We must have harmony. It is like unity is a theme, it's serving as somewhat of a bookend for this book to the church in Philippi. Now in the middle of all that we get chapter two, which is where we're going to spend the rest of our time here this afternoon.

So if we could turn back to chapter two and we're going to do a brief flyover of that chapter with our focus being on verses one through four. And I want to highlight what God calls us to individually and what I hope Baptist Church does collectively when it comes to humbling ourselves and remaining unified. This is an ongoing, everyday battle. Every one of us in here thinks more of ourselves than we should. We are all little Pharisees whether we care to admit it or not.

So how do we stay unified in the midst of our differing gifts and our own messiness? And I also want to put a footnote here as well as I talk about the unity here I want to make sure that we're aware that the unity that I'm referring to there are deep theological issues that come up that You know through prayer through certain times There is a time to kind of divide in that but that's not what I'm addressing here this afternoon. This is Bible believers working together within a well-ordered church and what that unity should look like. So let's look at verse 1. He says, therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy.

How many of us know that Paul is kind of plain, if you will, with the words? Paul uses the conjunction if, but in other words, he says, he's kind of saying since or because. So in one sense he's saying, since there is encouragement in Christ, since there is comfort from love, since there is fellowship in the Spirit, and since there's affection and mercy. He knows that each of those things are true. But I like to ask the question, do you know that that's true?

Do you know that that's true of you as a Bible believer, as a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ who is controlled by the Holy Spirit. When you are having one of those days, is there any encouragement in Christ? When your husband or your wife has gotten on your last nerve. Is there any comfort from love? The true love of Christ.

When things didn't quite go the way you wanted, you wanted a hope that they would go here at church. When that church member said something that seemed to rub you the wrong way. Is there any fellowship in the Spirit? And that phrase, fellowship in the Spirit, literally means fellowship produced by the Spirit. So is there any fellowship in you that is being produced by the Spirit?

We see this language of that fellowship that we are to have from Paul also in 2nd Corinthians chapter 2, chapter 2 verse 13 and 14, you don't have to turn there, but he says, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion or fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Is there any participation in the spirit or is your tendency to divide when that person may have rubbed you the wrong way just one more time? And so I ask, is there any affection and any sympathy, spirit producing affection and sympathy for the believers in the room? But because Paul knows that all those things are true for the believer, Look at what he says in verse 2.

And I think we see an accent on unity here in verse 2. He says, Fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. Paul is driving home the importance of the unity of the body. He says, be like-minded, be of one accord, be of one mind. So as Paul's saying that we should all think alike about everything, That no matter what happens, whatever goes on, that we should seek to be of one mind.

Well, my brother or my sister says this or believes that and therefore I should just go along to get along. I think if the verse ended there That may be the conclusion I would walk away with, but it doesn't. So look at what he says in verse 3. So how are we to stay unified? He says this in verse 3.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Selfish ambition and conceit. That sounds a lot like pride to me. Now, Dr. R.C.

Sproul puts it this way. Quote, pride is competitive by nature and tries to lift a person above others. So it divides and promotes conflicts rather than harmony. By contrast, humility accepts a place of service with concern for the needs and interests of others. Love is essential to humility." End quote.

This is how we stay unified. I want to put another footnote here, because Brother Scott has touched on this a little bit in the past, over the past year, but it's around the word love. And I know with our culture and our culture goals we tend to define that word all over the place but I just want to want to hit on this that love is a choice love is not a feeling we heard a little bit about our feelings this morning love is essential for our unity We must rightly define it and know what it is. The minute you think that love is a feeling, you lose the essence of the of the paragraph that I just read. If love is a feeling, then your humility will look a lot like the stock market, up today and down tomorrow.

I mean, think about it. I want to give you a task. Try that love as a feeling thing out on your spouse. For the married people in the room, Just when you feel like it, love them. And just so you know that, when you don't feel like it, it's going to look a lot different, which I think you won't be happy with.

And also, I think you will end up contacting the elders a lot faster than you think, If you go about love being a feeling, it's you know us, okay? It is no different with the members of the body. Love is a choice. You make a conscious choice every day to love your spouse, to love your children. I'm gonna do things to annoy you, I'm gonna do things to offend you, to upset you, hopefully not intentionally.

I hope not, I don't try to if I have anybody just know that that was not intentional. But we're human beings, we're fallen beings, so it tends to happen. So because love is a choice and you choose to love me regardless of my faults because I'm a brother in Christ, And Christ is our example, not our feelings. I always love this quote, this way when I think about love, or think about our feelings. It goes, our feelings make great foot soldiers, but terrible generals.

Another way, our feelings make great Indians, but terrible chiefs. Be on guard that you are not allowing yourself to be led by how you feel. And so, it says, therefore, you count me more significant than yourself with the emphasis being on the word count. Some translate this Greek word as esteem. Again, just an example, you may be smarter than me, you may be stronger than me, you may have more money than me, you may know more theology than I do.

Those are all things, you know, that are great qualities that you may have. But one commentator puts it this way, and I agree. He says, instead of fixing your eyes on those points in which you excel, fix them on those in which your neighbor excels you. This is true humility." There are qualities and gifts that you all possess that I wish that I had. And that is where we are to keep our focus on those great qualities of our brothers and sisters.

But because of our sin nature, we tend to focus on the blemishes. They just they tend to stick with us and I've actually this has actually come to light in my own life recently where for example in my mind I have an image of my father Now I want to say this on the side, I grew up with my dad, I'm thankful that my dad was around. It made all the difference in my life. But when I think back to my relationship, there are so many things where I'm like, I wish you'd have done this, I wish you'd have done that. He wasn't around for this, he didn't come to my games.

I have all these things in my brain. And so ultimately when I just think back on history, it's kinda like my dad wasn't there, even though he was. And so when I was getting married, Fritzie and I, basically we had to call our parents to say, well, you send us pictures of us growing up throughout the years. So I called my mom, can you send me some pictures? She sends me the pictures, we're going through this thing, and something jumps out at me looking through these photos.

Guess who's in just about every one of those photos? My father. And I'm like, but that's not how my brain is calculating that and like, why is that? Because I think I've allowed all those little things, those few, I won't say few, it could be many, but definitely was not more than the good that I would say that he did in my life and being present. But I allow that to completely overshadow the good things.

And if we're not careful, that is you and I, even amongst the body, where those little things that annoy us tend to be the thing that leads out front and all in our minds that we can think about is those negative things which then you know the feelings that come along with that so I bring that up just as a reminder to be careful and to seek to think about the other's great qualities, not the negative things. With that, let's look at verse 4. He says, he says, let each of you, let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Instead of trying to explain verse four, I am gonna let Paul show us what it looks like by the way of the examples that he gives us in this chapter. I'm gonna look at three examples.

I'm gonna look at Timothy, Epaphroditus, and last but not least, look at Christ himself with the time that I have left here as I close. So if we look down to the verse 19 here in chapter 2 of Philippians, Paul says, But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly that I also may be encouraged when I know your state. For I have no one like-minded. Other translations say for I have no one like him who will sincerely care for your state." Paul says that the things that sets Timothy apart from everyone else is that he is genuinely concerned for their welfare and not his own. Verse 21, for all seek their own not the things which are of Christ Jesus but you know his proven character that as a son with his father he served with me in the gospel Therefore I hope to send him at once as soon as I see how it goes with me, but I trust in the Lord that I myself shall also come shortly." Dr.

Sprouls also says this, quote, this verse echoes the thought of verse four. Timothy's life is a model of the selfless, other serving humility to which Paul calls his readers. It is an image of Christ's own humility, end quote. Are you genuinely concerned for the welfare of your brothers and sisters who sit next to you this afternoon? That's the thing that keeps us unified.

Look at Epaphroditus, verse 25, as another example of what this looks like verses 1 through 4. He says, Yet I consider it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need." So apparently the church at Philippi had sent Epaphroditus to Paul. And he says, since he was longing for you all and was distressed because you heard that he was sick. Did you catch that? He says he was distressed because he heard or that you heard that he was sick.

Epaphroditus was not distressed because he was ill, he was distressed because the congregation heard about him and was distressed about it. For the younger kiddos here in the room, I'll use that as an example, something that you could, I think you could relate to. You have Brother Paul Carrington, he and his family there in Turkey, they're serving, and it would be like Brother Paul getting sick and then the church hears about him getting sick and then he becomes distressed not because he's ill and maybe to the point of death but because the congregation is now worried about him and not necessarily exercising those things that the congregation should be focused upon. Apaproditus' focus is not on himself, it's on the other. Apaproditus is a man who is living out verse 4.

Let each of you look not only on his own interest but also to the interests of others. This is how we maintain unity. What do we tend to do though? I'll say what do I tend to do? I tend to, you know, I'm sick.

I wonder if anybody's thinking about me. I wonder if I'm gonna get a phone call. I wonder if they're gonna send me food. Kind of me, me, me. Again, this is just me that I'm talking about.

But that's, again, that's us and that's where, again, these examples continue to point us to in our unity thinking of our brother more than we think of ourselves. Look at verse 27. He says, almost unto death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me. Lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow, therefore I sent him the more eagerly that when you see him again you may rejoice and I may be less sorrowful.

Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness and hold such men in esteem because for the work of Christ he came close to death not regarding his life to supply what was lacking in your service toward me. Epaphroditus risked his life for Christ, completing the work in which the church at Philippi was lacking. So we are to think, so we are to think of the body's interest above our own and complete what is lacking in an effort to keep the church unified. Finally, like I said last but certainly not least, I want to look at Christ with a little bit of time I have left here. So let's look back up to verse five.

Again, example of what verses 1 through 4 looks like. Verse 5. To be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men. In being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Hallelujah, amen, and amen. He is our ultimate example. He did it perfectly. He is what unifies us. If anyone had a reason not to humble himself, you would think that it would be Christ.

The one who knows without a shadow of a doubt that he is above everyone and everything. In verse 6 he says that it was he was in the form of God but did not count equality with God a thing to hold on to. He became a servant. Christ is God. Who is God became like us.

Talk about humbling yourself. You can't get any more humble than this. He took the flesh, this flesh, in order that he might die, that we may have life. Praise God. What a humbling picture.

Like I said earlier, we don't know humility like this. The world will tell you, if you humble yourself, you're weak, you play second fiddle, I don't necessarily wanna be around him because he's not strong and prideful and all these things. But I say to you, humility rightly defined and rightly directed is the most powerful and disarming thing that you have ever seen. I'm gonna say that one more time. Humility rightly defined and rightly directed is the most powerful and disarming thing that you have ever seen.

Brothers and sisters, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interests of others. It has been done for us and Paul is saying by way of the Holy Spirit that we are to do the same. So as we go through this series on the church, I want you to keep your mind, keep your heart, focus and ear out for this theme of unity and what unity is and how it looks within the body. Unity, humility.

Humble yourselves and therefore remain unified. Christ is our ultimate example. Look to him, hold on to him for those in the room who may not know him. You can't know unity like this apart from him, apart from knowing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit working in you and through you. He is our example and I think we get a well model a well picture here in the church of Philippi of what it looks like as we as a church continue to remain unified because there will be things that will come up.

There will be that church member, there will be that family member, but remember the words of Paul to this church in Philippians, do nothing selfish ambition and conceit. Consider your brothers and your sisters more than yourself. If you're offended, go talk to your brother. I want to all...there's no guarantees, but I want to say 99.9% of the time if you think your brother or sister has done something wrong, if you go in humility, it will be reconciled there at that point. Now again, there's church discipline for a reason, there's an order of that, things do happen, but a lot of the time when we humble ourselves, we stay and can remain unified.

Let's pray. Gracious Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you that it is our straight edge. It is what we come back to, Father, when we find ourselves swaying to the right or to the left. Father we can be reminded of the finished work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, of the continuing work of your Holy Spirit working in us and through us and we just praise your Holy name today.

I pray Father God that we leave this place different than we came and Father not as just mumbling words but as the truth that this that your word does what it does cuts the way that it cuts never comes back void thank you for that God thank you for that assurance Father there's nothing else in this world that we can hold on to, think about, exercise, Father, that we have that type of guarantee, that type of assurance. So Father, change hearts and mind for the young people in here. Father, whatever it may be, holding them back, I just pray that your Spirit will quicken them, Father. God, may they know this God that we know. Praise God, hallelujah.

And I ask all this in Christ's name, amen. Amen.