A Call to Unity | Dave Sloop

Good morning everyone. Well, I'm excited to introduce some friends to you that we've had staying with us this week. The Fetzer family has invited some of their friends from China and they are here. So if you guys could raise your hand—there we go, that's from the back. That is Apple. Yeah, let's give them a hand.

There's Apple and Eva and Amy and Wendy and who's left? Lefty back there. We're so glad that you guys are here. It's been a fantastic time. So meet them after church if you can.

As many of you know, I grew up in Young Life. I began my career on Young Life staff. But in the early 2000s, I started to notice this trend when we would be required to travel for Young Life. I would get to the connecting airport, and Fetz, land, and Ellie—all of you that are on Young Life staff, I probably missed some people—you will know this phenomenon. You will get to your connecting airport in Charlotte or Atlanta or wherever and you'll just kind of look around and you'll go, "That's a Young Life staff person. That's a Young Life staff person."

There was an outfit. I mean, back in the early 2000s, it would be like a button-down shirt, a fleece vest, a new jean bottle, a carabiner hanging from your backpack (which was buckled right here), Chacos. It was a very identifiable uniform that we Young Life staff would wear. I would be looking and thinking how silly that guy looks as I'm wearing the exact same outfit. But you just kind of could tell.

But it wasn't just the outfit. My Young Life leader was a man named Joe Harsell, and he invested so intentionally and thoughtfully in my life, and so consistently, that I began talking like Joe. Just his mannerisms, the inflection that he would use saying certain words. Sometimes I would be in a particular place and someone would come up to me and say, "Were you Joe Harsell's Young Life leader?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, he was," because you just sort of absorb certain things you're not even aware of it.

Just yesterday, some of you girls over there—Sydney, Libby, my daughter—got back from Young Life camp. One of the first things they told me, they were like, "Daddy, Joe Nelson was our speaker and he was just like you." I was like, "Was it good? Was he better than me?"

Joe Nelson and Eric McHoff and David Gray became close friends when they were students at Virginia Tech. We met every single week together, and for four years, every single week during the school year, Joe would hear me speak. And apparently some of that my daughter experienced when he spoke. I'm sure he's much better than I am. They said it was the best they ever heard. It's fine anyway.

The point is: culture is contagious. It just rubs off on you. You can tell. You see it. And for better or worse, the ethos, the DNA of Young Life rubbed off on me and contributed tremendously to who I am today.

A Citizen of the Gospel

We're shifting here at the end of chapter one in the book of Philippians, and Paul is going to tell the Philippians what they are supposed to look like. He's been talking about his affairs. He's been talking about what prison has been like for him as he suffers for them. At the beginning of the chapter he prayed for them. He's telling about how he's been suffering for them. And now he's going to turn his attention to them and talk about how things are going in Philippi.

Here's the opening verse:

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. — Philippians 1:27

He says, "Only let your manner of life." And that word for life is an interesting word in the Greek. It's actually the word for citizen. They would have understood instantly the point that he was trying to make because Philippi was a Roman colony in Greece. They were there as proud Roman citizens even though they lived in Greece. That status had been conferred upon them. And this was part of what was called Romanization, where through military conquest Rome would take over a particular place. They would confer citizenship, and then what would happen is they would bring commerce, infrastructure, governance. Latin started to spread throughout the West. And culture became contagious.

But Paul here says you are a citizen of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, your life is supposed to look a certain way because of your incorporation into the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What I want to do this morning—this is uncharacteristic for a sermon for me.

I prefer walking through verse by verse. What I'm going to do is look at this passage with a broad sweeping glance at this entire section, which begins in verse 27 and goes all the way to 2:18. We're not going to talk too much about 2:1 through 2:11 because Tim already preached our opening sermon in this series on that passage. But I want to show you from Paul's perspective what it means to be a gospel person. What does the gospel life look like?

The Gospel Life: Four Characteristics

First, the gospel life is a conforming life. By saying that you're supposed to live worthy or live up to a certain standard—there is a pattern that we are supposed to measure our lives by. What is that pattern? He says it explicitly later in chapter two:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ — Philippians 2

That is who we mirror our lives after. And we will never perfectly line up, but we are to spend our lives seeking to conform to his image. It is the conforming life.

The truth is this whole-hearted obedience will touch every area of your life. It's going to touch your thought life, the way that you speak to people, the way that you move into relationship with people. How I interact with my wife and my children—it's going to impact the way that I do my job. Both in that I want to bring my all to it, I want to serve as unto the Lord, but also there might be times in your career where you're going to be challenged ethically, and you are to bring your gospel citizenship to your place of work. The gospel life is the conforming life.

Secondly, the gospel life is a consistent life. Twice in this passage Paul is going to say: "whether I am absent or present with you, I'm expecting your obedience." He says whether I'm here or whether I'm away, I'm expecting that you obey. Here's the deal: to be a gospel person is someone where their inside matches their outside. Whether I'm in public or I'm in private, you get the same me. When I'm at work and I'm at home, you get the same me. Because my obedience is not a performance—it's who I am. I have been transformed. It is something that comes from the inside of me.

I've got a quote. This is one of my favorite quotes from a guy named Chris Voss, who actually was an FBI negotiator. I talked to Bob Blacksmith this morning and I'm pretty sure this guy used to work for Bob, but listen to what he says:

When the pressure is on, you don't rise to the occasion. You fall to your highest level of preparation.

Here is the point that he is making: We don't rise to the standard when temptation comes or when you're challenged at work or when you're dealing with a difficult person—and they're everywhere by the way; you might be one. When the pressure is on, you don't rise to some ideal standard that you have in your mind. Do you know what happens? You fall to your greatest level of preparation. In other words, the real you comes out. The cover is off when the pressure is on. We are conforming people and we are consistent people.

Third, we're committed. It is the committed life. Listen to some of the verbs that Paul uses here: standing firm, striving, not frightened, poured out, work out your salvation. This life to which we are called takes effort, hard work, sweat. You are going to need to kill your sin, to take every thought captive, to hold your tongue when you're angry. It is a difficult life. And to become someone who consistently conforms to the image of Christ, it is going to require tremendous effort.

This flies in the face of what some people might think. Paul says here:

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling

And that almost sounds a little bit like works righteousness. But listen, he doesn't say "work for your salvation." He says "work out your salvation"—in other words, what God has put into you, exercise effort to work it out into the real parts of your life. It will require work.

And here's the good news. This is one of my favorite quotes from Dallas Willard:

Grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning.

We don't earn our salvation, but as we put forth effort, we begin to access the power that Paul says is already in you. It is God that works in you both the will and to act according to his good purpose and pleasure.

That's the third thing. But the fourth thing is this: we are commissioned people. It is a commissioned life. He says:

Striving side-by-side for the faith of the gospel.

I love the way the NIV puts it—contending as one man for the gospel. We aren't just a people who behave a certain way. We have a mission. In the same way that Roman citizens were seeking to proliferate Roman culture throughout the Western world, you and I, the church in Philippi, were to proliferate gospel values throughout the world—both in sharing a message and by living out a certain kind of life to which we are to live worthy of.

And then here's the fourth—or fifth one. I lost count. Thank you. The fifth one is the cross-bearing life. This isn't too fun, is it? But Paul says it has been appointed: not only that you believe in him, but that you suffer for his sake. Gospel people are not just willing to suffer and sacrifice—later Paul's gonna say, "I've been poured out. I've been poured out on the offering of your faith." We're not just willing to suffer and sacrifice. We expect it. We know that it's part of the deal.

Our master Jesus told us, "In this world, you will have trouble." Now, there is a sense in which, because we live in a fallen, broken world, we're going to have hard things happen. But I think what Paul is talking about here is suffering precisely because you have taken a stand for Christ. At work you might be asked to do something that challenges your ethical, moral guidelines because of your citizenship to the gospel. You might be tempted to say something or gossip about someone, but you—that's not who we are.

The Communal Life

So it is the cross-bearing life. Now there is one more. But to just say that there's one more would be to betray the point that I think Paul is trying to make here, because this next one is the whole point. We are all those things, but this next one binds all of them together.

This shows up in verse 27, verse 2:3, 2:4, and 2:14. There's a theme here. Let me see if you can catch it. He says: "one spirit," "one mind," "side-by-side," "same love," "same mind," "full accord," "one mind," "count others more significant," "look to the interest of others," "stop grumbling and complaining against each other."

What did Paul have in mind here? The gospel life is all of those things, but it is also a communal life—that binds everything together. In all of those things that we are, we are necessarily doing them together as a family.

Have you ever considered the fact that to come to Christ is to join up with some other people that have come to Christ? Which can be difficult, because you didn't get to pick those people. He did. But suddenly here you are with them in community, and that can be challenging at times.

Think about when Jesus called the disciples. It says in Mark 3 that he went up on a mountain and he prayed. And then it says he called to himself those that he wanted, that they may be with him. That's one of my favorite verses—the purpose, his primary purpose for the call of the disciples was that they may be with him. But I can imagine that as they got called out of the crowd and now suddenly they're standing there with Jesus, Jesus says to them, "I want you to be with me. But I need you to know that in order to be with me, you're gonna be with them too."

Now we might be tempted to think that this call into community is just sort of an unintended consequence of our call to Christ. But I want to show you something that Jesus says in John 17.

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they also may be one. Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us. — John 17:20-21

And here's the standard of their oneness—just as the Father and I are one. He repeats basically the same thing:

The glory that you have given me I've given to them, that they may be one even as we are one—I in them and you in me—that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. — John 17:22-23

Our oneness was part of the plan. It was not just an unintended consequence. It was incredibly important to Jesus. And as we can tell here in this letter to the Philippians, it was incredibly important to Paul.

Let me tell you one of the reasons it was important to Paul. This was his favorite church. This is the letter of joy—that's one of the themes. But unmistakably, one of the other themes of this letter is their unity. And let me tell you why it's a theme: because in a lot of categories, they were knocking it out of the park. They were willing to take the hit. They were willing to put themselves in harm's way for the sake of the gospel. They were willing to send one of their own to travel at risk of his own life to get Paul's needs met. They were a people who understood what it meant to be a cross-bearing people.

There's not one theological correction in this book. They had good theology. They were generous—the most generous church. They had so many things going for them. But if you look at this letter, one of the themes throughout is: You're not getting along. In chapter 4, he's going to say, "I plead with you, Euodia, and I plead with you, Syntyche—agree with each other in the Lord." And what Paul is doing here is trying to remind them: you need not just to be all of these things individually. You've got to function together as a community. It matters. It matters for us.

So I want to ask three questions about what oneness and unity means. Here's the first one: How do we get it? What is the path to unity? Secondly, what does it look like? What does unity in practice look like? And third, what are its benefits? What does it produce in me?

The Path to Unity

All right, so here's the second one. You ready? Okay, just the path to unity. This is Philippians 2:5. And here's what he says:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 2:5

Paul says there is a mindset that is necessary. It is a prerequisite for unity. Have this mind in you, and then he says that is already yours by the way, because you're in Christ. And here's the mindset:

Who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he made himself nothing, or in the ESV, he emptied himself. He took on the very nature of a servant and was made in human likeness. — Philippians 2:6-7

Jesus, in the face of equality, chose to empty himself. He made himself nothing. The first step in this mindset of unity is something called humility. That you and I, as part of the call to Christ, must experience death to self.

Anyone who would come after me must deny himself. — Luke 9:23

That part of following Christ is taking the attention off of my favorite topic and subject: me. My needs, my wants, my instincts, my preferences.

Let me just pause here. Do you know why unity is so hard? I'm going to give you a hint: It's you. It's you. It's you. And in case that's too offensive, you know the other enemy of unity? I am. It's me. It's us. It's our self-obsession, which corrupts everything. Jesus was the model for you and me of someone who deserved everything and gave up everything on behalf of those that he loved.

Humility. I think there's some misunderstandings about what humility actually is. One of the greatest books that I've recommended to a few of you in this room on this particular topic is a book by Tim Keller called The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness. Anybody read that? You should. You can read it in an afternoon. It's like a 40-page pamphlet.

And this is a quote from that book: "The essence of gospel humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself. It is thinking of myself less." It's thinking of myself less. It's not being consumed with me all the time.

And when we can do that, something occurs. When we take the attention off of ourselves, we're freed up to do the second part of this mindset, which is considering others better than yourselves. You demote yourself and you promote everyone else that you're seeing.

And then this is what happens, by the way: The moment you take your eyes off yourself, you can see. There's other people here. They have desires and needs and wants too. You know one of the interesting things about Jesus' ministry? It's how he sees people. Have you noticed this? It's all over the gospels. He saw Zacchaeus. He saw the woman from Luke 7, and it says his heart went out to her. Jesus is constantly seeing people. He saw the man at the pool of Bethesda. He saw the crowds, and they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And usually what happens for Jesus is his heart breaks. It's moved with compassion.

But you can't see others until you stop looking at you.

You know, there's two ways to show up into a room. My wife reminded me of this yesterday. I can show up into a room and say, "Here I am." And there's two ways to do that, by the way. I can show up confidently—kind of like a spotlight on me sort of a guy. I hate people like that. Just kidding. I'm kind of like that. Look at me. Or there's another, more subtle way of showing up that way, where you come into a room and you're sitting there going, "I wonder if anyone will notice me. I wonder if someone's gonna say hi to me. How come no one did this or that?" See, both of those are self-focused. One of them looks more arrogant, one of them looks more meek and humble. Both of them are self-focused.

But here's the other way we can show up into a room: "There you are." Instead of saying, "Here I am."

I am we show up in a room saying there you are. And you can't do that until you've learned to forget yourself to think of yourself less. That is the mindset of unity. That is the path to unity.

What is Unity in Practice?

We're going to fly through these somewhat quickly. The first one is we grow together—a lot of alliteration today, by the way. I hope you enjoy it.

We grow together. Paul says in verse 27:

Standing firm in one spirit with one mind — Philippians 1:27

How do we stand firm? How does unity help us stand firm? Listen, if no one's ever told you this, let me be the first: You will never grow independent of community. It's how we were wired and designed.

From the time I was 14 or 15 years old, I got the opportunity to sit with some other people my age and open this book where we understand the mind of Christ together. And it teaches us to stand firm as four or five of us together who are all joined and bonded together by the same spirit that lives in us. That is how we stand firm. We grow together.

Here's the second thing: we go together. He says:

Standing firm in one spirit, striving side-by-side for the gospel — Philippians 1:27

Sometimes that means proliferating gospel values throughout the Roanoke Valley. Sometimes it means sharing with someone at work that I know desperately needs to know Christ. We go together.

We grow together. What's the next one? We give to each other.

The moment that we're set free from looking at ourselves all the time, we begin to notice other needs. And Paul says:

Don't just look out for your own interest. Look out for the interest of others. — Philippians 2

And what he means here is don't just think about them and notice them, but do something about them.

Do you have somebody in your life that's this way? I do. Anytime there's an issue, it becomes their problem. Whether it requires money or time or a willingness to be inconvenienced—it is refreshing when people notice it. It's this attitude: your needs, I make them my problem. That is the way that we're designed to be in community.

Can you imagine what it would be like if every single one of us showed up here not looking at ourselves, but looking at everyone else and what they might need? I'm telling you, it would transform not only us, it would transform Roanoke. Yeah, the world.

We give to each other, and then finally, we get along with each other. Okay, this is the tough one.

He says this at the end of the passage. He says:

Don't grumble and complain — Philippians 2:14

In fact, I've never noticed this before—it's right after he says, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling," put forth tremendous effort. And the very next thing is don't grumble and complain. Because that might be one of the most difficult things that you have to do.

Why do we grumble? I think this is a nod to Israel in the wilderness—just their constant grumbling. This man at it. God sent down from heaven, tired of it. "I'd like some variety." Just this grumbling and complaining. Nothing's ever good enough for me.

The reason we grumble and complain is because I was offended. They didn't notice me. They took credit for what I did. It's this ease of offense. Grumbling and complaining—we get along with each other. And when we do those things well, there is something that happens. This is the product of unity. This is the benefits of unity: a bunch of people living for real like that.

The Fruits of Unity

What is it producing? The first one is this: the world knows Jesus.

Twice in this passage, Paul is going to say you're exercising unity in each of these areas. It is going to lead to people noticing it. Notice the first verse here:

This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God — Philippians 1:28

Paul says when you live this way, they're going to look at you and say, "They have something I don't have." You know why? Because the world does not get along like this.

See, our unity is our greatest evangelistic tool that we have. It's like in the early church in Acts 2:42. They were together. They were breaking bread. They were studying the scriptures and everybody shared with everyone. There was just this sort of self-emptying love on display, and it said thousands were added to their number. Because people don't do that.

I mean, the Democrats can't get along with the Republicans. Musk and Trump don't even get along anymore. It's just a tragic thing. We disagree. It is the way of the world. But when we—a bunch of different people by the way who have no business being in the same room other than our joint common bond in Christ—when we who are different get along in public, it makes a difference.

The world knows Jesus. You can skip that one. Here's the second thing. Let me just share this. We already looked at John 17. I'm going to show you again.

I didn't mention this the first time we read through it, but just look at it twice—Jesus says that the world may know. When you are perfectly one, the world will know. They will know you are my disciples by how you love one another.

Look, this is not some tertiary subject. This is what it means to be his people, gospel people in a foreign land.

The Joy That Comes From Unity

Okay, last thought. The other thing that this produces—it's not just that the world knows Jesus. You know what else? Joy.

Look at the very last thing that Paul says here. In verse 17, he says:

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. — Philippians 2:17-18

What was the cause of Paul's joy? Being dumped out. I'm poured out and I'm rejoicing. And then he says you should rejoice with me too. And you know what I think? The implicit invitation is you should get to rejoicing the same way I do—by laying down your life for one another.

How are we doing? I don't mean individually, although you can take it that way too. But I wonder where you might need to apply this to your life.

Practicing Unity in Community

Are you in a life group? You know, on any given Sunday there's anywhere from like 600 to 900 people here. There's no way we could know everybody. And here's the deal: unity does not always mean intimacy. In fact, one of my friends, Scott McLucas, is probably not the first one to say this, but I heard him say this one time and I've never forgotten it. He said the larger we grow, the smaller we have to become. Because unity is necessary even in this context, and it's probably not gonna happen with all 800 of us. But we need to start experiencing it in a smaller setting.

Are you in a life group? I would implore you: get in one. It is how you will grow, and it is how you will practice and experience this kind of unity.

Here's the second thing: Are you giving your life away? Jesus said this—and this is the crazy thing—we lose our lives, we find it. If anybody tries to save their life, they're gonna lose it. But if you lose your life for my sake, you'll find it.

He says that when we express and practice this kind of unity, Paul says in this passage, you shine like stars. You know what's fascinating about that? If I told you, "Hey, I want you to shine like stars. I want you to stand out in this community," you know what we'd probably think? "All right, I need to work myself up and get out there and try hard." But you know how Paul says you're gonna shine like stars? Empty yourself. Take your eyes off yourself. It's the same pattern—if you will dim yourself, humble yourself, you'll shine. You will shine bright in a dark world because nobody lives that way.

The Strategy of Jesus

I've gone long, but let me just finish this. This is the quote that I want to read to you from a guy named Elton Trueblood. We'll close with this:

Jesus was deeply concerned for the continuation of his redemptive reconciling work after the close of his earthly existence. And his chosen method was the formation of a small band of committed friends. He did not form an army, establish a headquarters, or even write a book. What he did was to collect a very few common men and women, inspire them with the sense of his spirit and vision, and build their lives into an intensive fellowship of affection, worship, and work.

One of the truly shocking passages of the gospel is that in which Jesus indicates there is absolutely no substitute for the tiny loving, caring, reconciling society. If this fails, he suggests all is failure. There is no other way. He told the little bedraggled fellowship they were actually the salt of the earth, and if this salt should fail, there would be no adequate preservative at all. He was staking it all on one throw.

What we need is not intellectual theorizing or even preaching, but a demonstration. One of the most powerful ways of turning people's loyalty to Christ is by loving others with the great love of God. We cannot revive faith by argument, but we might catch the imagination of puzzled men and women by an exhibition of a fellowship so intensely alive that every thoughtful person would be forced to respect it.

If there should emerge in our day such a fellowship, holy without our Christianity and free from the dead hand of the past, it would be an exciting event of momentous importance. A society of genuinely loving souls set free from the self-seeking struggle for personal prestige and from all unreality would be something unutterably priceless and powerful. A wise person would travel any distance to join it.

Would that we would be that kind of fellowship here in Roanoke. It will cause the world to know that Jesus is who he says he is, and it will cause you to experience joy.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. We need it. Might we be transformed by it, in Christ's name, amen.