Someone once said that more than 70% of problems in the world are interpersonal relationship problems: husband-wife conflicts, parent-child conflicts, conflicts between families, conflicts in the church, and conflicts between nations. The world yearns to live in peaceful relationships. We all crave harmonious relationships, but they seem to be a rare commodity. In today’s passage, the Holy Spirit, through Paul, teaches us the five secrets of peaceful, harmonious relationships. These are secrets that only believers can understand and know; the world has no idea about them.
As Paul opens this chapter, he calls us to unity. It’s like a military officer looking at his new army recruits and saying, “If you have any love for your country, if you have any gratitude to your motherland, if you have any affection for your parents, wives, and children living in this country, show it in your training. Sacrifice your early morning sleep to exercise and train yourselves. Eat a good, balanced diet to keep your body in shape and energetic so you can be good fighting soldiers for your country and defend and protect it.”
Unity is the power of the church. It is to a united church that Christ promises amazing things. No power can stand before such a church, and it is a mighty weapon in God’s hand for the Gospel. So, nothing is more important to God than for us to be united. Paul answers basic questions here: Why should we be spiritually united? We saw that he gave five melting pleas. “Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy.” Because of all that Christ and the Holy Spirit have done for you, if you have any sense of gratitude, you are called to express that in your efforts for church unity.
Next, he comprehensively explains what spiritual unity is. It’s not some kind of superficial, worldly unity where we have coffee and snacks and feel a nice togetherness. We saw the four aspects of spiritual unity: “Fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” It starts with the mind, with the same thinking, with all of our thinking aligning with Christ’s mind. Led by the Holy Spirit and not the flesh, we become instruments through which His love flows through us to others, knitting all our souls together, and we all pursue one goal, one purpose of God’s glory in expanding His kingdom. Those are the four aspects of unity.
Now, it is all so nice to hear and preach, but the practical question is, how do we get this unity? The answer to “How do we become spiritually united?” is given to us in verses 3 and 4: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”
We see five practical principles. The Holy Spirit, through Paul, tells us clearly and practically what each of us is supposed to do. Do you want to express your gratitude to Christ and the Holy Spirit? Do you want to see the church blessed by God and the church growing? This is the duty of each church member. There are five things. They are interrelated. Three of them are negative, and two are positive. There are three things we must not do and two things we must do. There are some things we shouldn’t do that we are doing now, which are hindering unity, and some things we should do that we are not doing, which will increase unity. Each of us has to examine our own hearts to see how we are hindering unity in the church. We must examine our internal process of thinking and motivation. These are the five roots of unity.
The Five Secrets to Unity
- Do nothing out of selfish ambition. “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition.” Wow, people in the world do everything from selfish motives. They never move without a selfish motive. People focus on themselves, meditate on themselves, kneel to themselves, and worship themselves. Paul says the first step to spiritual unity that Christ wants in the church is to do nothing out of a selfish purpose. See how strongly he says “nothing.” Not just one or two things, but nothing. It is applicable to everything we do. It has broad application. It’s not easy, which is why the motivation for this must come from the selfless comfort and love of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.What is selfish ambition? It comes from a proud person who always has a selfish purpose and a selfish, burning motive in everything. He pushes his own plan and tries to bend everything around him for his selfish ambition. It’s the kind of self-seeking goal for which we keep quarreling, fighting, arguing, and contending. So Paul says the first step to unity is to do nothing out of selfish ambition.Why? Because the first enemy of unity is selfish ambition. Galatians 5:20 lists selfish ambition as a work of the flesh. The flesh produces selfishness, and one becomes consumed with his own little enterprise. As one man said, “We have met the enemy against our happiness, and he is us.” Self is the root of a loveless life. The source of all quarrels and conflicts is the self (James 4:1-3). As soon as you become selfish, you are literally at war with everybody else. If we want harmonious relationships, each of us must confront and deny the self.Paul knew that even as believers, we all have this remaining sin with its pride and ugly tendency to be selfish. He says you have to deny yourself for the unity Christ desires in the church. To the extent that we give room for selfish ambition, we cannot see unity in the church.This ambition can cause a person to create divisions in the church for personal reasons. This attitude will never agree with the unity of the church but will create all kinds of divisions in order to have a following. John Calvin said, “Selfish ambition is the mother of all heresies.” This selfish motive comes from pride. Proverbs 13:10 says, “By pride comes only contention.” So Paul says the first step for spiritual unity is to do nothing out of selfish ambition. This is the first poison that stops us even from starting. Spiritual unity is an effort you make with selfless gratitude to Christ and the Holy Spirit. If you think about everything selfishly—”How does this impact me? Why should we go to that brother’s house? Why should I talk to them? Why should I go to that fellowship?”—you will never be able to see unity. The first thing is to do nothing out of a selfish motive.
- Do nothing out of empty conceit. “Nor according to empty conceit.” This is a good way to translate it. “Empty conceit” is a state of mind that seeks personal glory. It is inseparably related to the previous point: your selfish motive comes from being full of empty pride. Empty conceit is to be puffed up with a sense of our own importance, to think that we’re really great. It’s the passion that is purely for personal glory and self-comfort. A person with empty conceit wants to lift himself up.It’s egotism that is intent on advancing itself. It’s a spirit where you want to lift yourself up by bringing others down. We regularly see in politics and elections that one party wins just by attacking someone else, and you fulfill your selfish ambition.He has an erroneous opinion of himself. He is a person with empty pride who, without any basis, thinks he is someone great. Maybe it’s because of a physical situation, worldly convenience, or youthful ignorance that he is proud. “Ah, I don’t want to mingle with low-level people. I have status, prestige, and empty pride.” If you die today, you will stand naked before God. He seeks self-promotion and self-glory. He will fight to prove himself supreme. This is personal vanity. You have people like that who think they know everything and that what they think is right. You can never have unity.This is a great sin that the devil uses to deceive and blind mankind since creation. “The whole aim of Satanic policy is to create empty pride and to create selfish ambition, teaching us that the chief end of man is a selfish purpose, not the glory of God.” Satan’s appeal to Eve was to create empty pride by getting her to think she could be like God. Do everything you do for your selfish motive. So, firstly, do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty conceit. These are two poisons that choke any unity in the church. A church never unites when people are full of selfishness and empty pride.
- Act with lowliness of mind. This is a positive principle. Paul says, “But with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself.” This is the antidote for the two negative principles. Instead of being selfishly ambitious and full of empty pride, which both of those things reflect, you must maintain humility of mind. That’s where unity always begins. Humility is the mother of all unity. Always remember, unity is born out of humility. Paul says in Acts 20:19 that he did all his ministry in humility of mind. It’s not just talking softly on the outside; it’s humility in the mind. It’s having low thoughts about the self. The more you grow spiritually, the smaller the self becomes. You have lower and lower thoughts of yourself.The proud world knows nothing about this. The only thing they know is pride. They see humility as weakness, and they don’t realize that all their problems are because of pride. But this is a great, revolutionary idea that Christianity taught the world. The entire Bible says that one of the most pleasing attributes to God in a man or woman is humility. The Bible tells us that God always chooses humble people for His great works.You regularly read in the Old Testament, in the Psalms and the prophets, that God looks at the humble. He saves the lowly and the meek, and He hears humble prayers. He blesses them and lifts them up. God humbles the proud and exalts the humble. He who humbles himself is exalted. The world teaches us to be completely the opposite—self-confident, selfish, and proud. In their blindness, the world doesn’t see that all their problems in life are because of pride. How much did our Lord teach about humility? Remember, until the last night of His life, He kept teaching His disciples about humility again and again.This is subtle. It is not talking about a man who is very poor, uneducated in society, and rejected, who says, “Who am I? I am a poor person; I am useless.” But that man is full of self-pity and worries about himself. He is a very proud person in his mind because his mind is only filled with himself. Our problem is not that we think too lowly of ourselves. The cause for all excessive worries and tension is our pride and being too self-focused. Humility of mind takes the focus off the self. It thinks, “I am not worthy to think so much,” and its focus is on God and others. That is lowliness of mind. Notice how it expresses itself: “each counting other better than himself.”You see, a humble person is not always self-occupied and filled with self-pity. He is a selfish, proud person. A humble person is one who doesn’t worry too much about himself, but he thinks of others. This means “regarding one another as more important than yourself.” The phrase “more important” could be translated as “superior.” Wow! You may say, “How can I do that? How can I think of others as superior to myself?” We don’t do that very often. In fact, we usually think of others as less than ourselves. We gloat over talking about other people’s failures. How can you consider others superior to yourself?Honestly, how can you do that? “Am I supposed to see myself as a doormat, and all of them are better than me, and I am the worst?” This is a command of the Holy Spirit. Think with me for a moment.Firstly, this can be done by a true believer to whom the Holy Spirit has opened his eyes to see the depravity of his own heart through the Law of God. Until that happens, every person thinks he is a great saint walking on earth, like a Pharisee. An unbeliever is someone who doesn’t know his heart. But when the Holy Spirit opens his eyes, like a publican, he will beat his breast and say, “God, I am a sinner. Have mercy on me.” As a believer, knowing his heart, he knows what a wretched sinner he is. One way to grow in the Christian life is to see the awful depravity of your own heart apart from God’s grace. If you’re not growing to see your own sinfulness more and more, you’re not growing. Being poor in spirit and mourning for your sin are blessed. Apart from God’s grace, I could be a murderer or be enslaved to sexual sin. A believer is someone who knows the depravity of his own heart.But he doesn’t know others’ hearts; none of us know others’ hearts. We can know a little bit when we see some sin they commit on the outside, and we think we know others, but we don’t really know. I can’t really know what’s in their heart. I can’t know what sin torments them. I can’t know what grace is abounding within them. But there is one heart that I do know: mine. And I know my own heart so very well that I know the sin of my own heart.Now, think about it this way. You know more sin about your own heart than you do about anybody else’s, right? So, who is the worst sinner you have ever met with experiential knowledge? Who is it? Who’s got the most corrupt mind you know of? If you’re honest, you will say, “I am the worst sinner I experientially know.” If you constantly know this, if you know what it is to regularly mourn for your sin and be poor in spirit, you can consider others superior to you. Do you understand? That is a practical way to consider others better. A person knows his own heart first. So you have enough information to give yourself a low estimate of what you really are. So do I. If you know your heart, it should not be difficult to look at someone else as superior to yourself, as we don’t know their hearts. I can assume that about all of you. I mean, you come so nicely on Sunday, dressed up like saints. That’s all I know. I cannot assume what is there in your heart. And when I look at my own heart, I know so many things.I think that is how Paul could maintain lowliness of mind. We may say, “Oh, Paul, you’re the greatest Christian that ever lived.” But Paul thought about himself in 1 Timothy 1:15: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am chief, the foremost.” Now, how in the world can Paul say he’s the worst sinner in the world? From personal experience. That perspective ought to help us to look at others with a different view.What about the gifts and grace we have? “I’m a big Christian of many years. I’m a deacon. I’m a pastor. Paul is an apostle. Am I not better than others?” No, we need to recognize that all that we are and have is due to God’s grace. Paul said, “I am what I am because of the grace of God.” I deserved hell; He has shown me mercy. If I have any spiritual sense and truly believe the Bible’s truth of depravity, we realize that all we are is a gift from God to be used for His glory, not for my pride and empty conceit. If I am not enslaved to various sins, it’s not due to me but to God’s grace. If I have gifts and God’s grace, I must use my gifts to help others, not to boast. If I have money, even if I earned it by hard work, it is God’s grace, and I must use it as God’s steward. That lowliness of mind, knowing my heart’s depravity and God’s sovereign grace, will make us see others as better than ourselves.So Paul says discord, divisions, and disunity end in a church where there is no selfish motive or empty pride, but where everyone, in lowliness of mind, considers others better than themselves. In any conflict, I must lower my view of myself and esteem others.
- Look out for the interests of others. The fourth secret is, “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” Wow, this is mind-bending. We live in a society where that’s all anybody cares about—only their own personal interest. We laugh, “My uncle, only me, save me!” We have just changed the name “uncle” and are using “Jesus, save only me.” This is completely opposite to the world’s philosophy.Yes, you need to be responsible for the conditions and matters of your own life, so you don’t become a burden to others, but don’t merely be concerned with that. The idea here is, “Don’t be filled with that, but look out.” The word for looking means to look with full attention. It’s to be constantly paying attention only to your own things. Don’t be like that. Don’t make your focus all about your responsibilities, your life, and your family. Don’t live a lifestyle that is swallowed only by that. You are so consumed with your own mind that you don’t care about anyone else; there is no room for anyone else. Don’t get caught in that particular trap where your life is consumed with your own things. Now you see why this would be such an enemy to unity. If in every situation all you can do is narrowly look at how everything and every decision affects only you—your likes, your dislikes, your feelings, your perspectives, your inclinations, and your sensitivities—can you imagine a church full of people who can only look at their own personal interests and don’t care for others? Unity in that church is utterly impossible.
- Look out for the interests of others. “But also for the interests of others.” I really don’t know how to teach this to our church. It’s so important to come out of that self-wilderness and look out, to expand your heart. Most of our troubles come from living in our constricted world, not looking out. We only care about our pitiable, narrow world. “Oh, my problems, my difficulties, my sickness,” as if no one else has any problems. We don’t see the big picture. We don’t even care about others. Paul is not saying, “Don’t care about your personal responsibilities.” The idea is that while you’re busy with your personal responsibilities, similarly be concerned about the same matters in the lives of those around you. As a member of the body, include others’ needs, goals, and growth in your thoughts. Their things should be equally important to you as your own.
So, Paul sets these five secrets of unity before us. If you want the Lord to bless your church with His power and presence, remove selfish purpose in all you do and remove empty pride. In lowliness of mind, consider others better than yourself. That lowliness of mind will remove your focus from the self and allow your humble mind to focus not only on your own things 24/7 but also on the things of others.
Wow, Paul, this is a tremendously high standard. With our remaining sin and selfishness, it’s not easy to be equally concerned about others, but that’s a high standard. If we can live out these things, oh, just imagine what a powerful, blessed church GRBC will be!
Paul knows this is a high standard for selfish people like us, so in the next passage, he writes one of the most wonderful passages in the entire New Testament, telling us who we can look to to show us how to do this. Who is our example to live like this? In verse 5, Paul says, “What I’m asking for is this attitude, because ‘This was in Christ Jesus.'” Christ is our model. To redeem you from eternal wrath, look at Him. He did nothing from selfish ambition. Everything He did selflessly was to fulfill the Father’s will to save us. He did nothing for empty conceit. He allowed Himself to be spit on and mocked, even giving up His dignity and self-respect to redeem you. With humility of mind, He regarded others as more important than Himself, though being God, He humbled Himself to die on the cross. He did not look on His own things. Even in Gethsemane, sweating blood, He could have called 12 legions of angels, but looking to save you, His mind was so filled with others’ needs and so little about what would happen to Him, He allowed Himself to be arrested, scourged, mocked, to suffer and die on the cross to give them life. He is the living model of the principles in verses 3 and 4. We will see the beauty of His example in the next passage. Since He lived like this, if we are His true disciples, we will follow His model in the church. Seeing His model, may the Holy Spirit’s power burn these words of Scripture into your heart.
Applications
- This call to church unity teaches us that only those who have truly accepted the call to discipleship on Christ’s terms can live this way. If you’re not a disciple, you’re not a Christian. That is what Christ said. What is the basic condition of discipleship? “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.” He must say a fundamental and basic no to living on the principle of self-centeredness. He’s got to say no to himself and take up a cross. The cross is for regularly crucifying selfishness and following Christ. The true Gospel call is not just an easy belief. True saving faith is in who Christ is and what He has said. Then, through repentance, you must repent from sin and self and turn to follow Christ.Do you see how no true church unity can be found if they are not truly Christ’s disciples? Prosperity Gospel, “easy believism” churches can never be true Christian churches with unity. Is it any wonder that such churches are filled with disunity and fighting? They are just a club with disharmony today. There are enough problems even when the Gospel message is pure, as it was under Paul. Even the Philippian church had problems with disunity. Imagine all these false churches. The reason Christianity is a mess today is that a defective, false gospel makes unity impossible. Only a cross-preaching church can see this kind of truth and humility because in the next passage, Paul will draw a direct line to the cross for all the strength and motivation for this kind of unity from the work of Christ’s cross. The cross is the source of life for the church. I hope that as long as I am alive, nobody in our church will get tired of preaching the cross. If someone wants to blame us, they should blame us for preaching the cross too much.
- These five secrets of unity are the roots—both negative and positive—for the fruit of unity to grow in any church. These will not come automatically to believers. We have to cultivate this, overcome the natural negative things, and cultivate the positive things. This is important not only in the church but also in the family. I am thinking of focusing my next message on how this is so important even in the family.Today, what areas can we apply these principles? A couple of them, like selfish pride and ambition, can destroy the church.a. Desire to be recognized, lifted up, and even to move to a place of honor or leadership. Nothing must be done in selfish ambition or empty conceit, because the moment any of us acts in a way to become important, there will be a fracturing of our unity. We read a classic example in Matthew 20, where James and John’s mother, like all mothers, had the ambition to make her sons great. Many believe she was pushed by these two men because they had selfish ambition and empty pride about themselves. You know what they wanted their mother to ask: they wanted to sit at Jesus’s right and left hand when He came in the glory of the kingdom. This means they wanted to be the greatest among everyone in the kingdom, a place of honor and authority. This is pure pride and selfishness. We know that the Lord responded that it is the Father who assigns that place. What did it do to the rest of the apostles? Instead of them growing in unity, “When the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation.” This selfishness and empty pride divided their unity. The apostolate was divided: the ten against the two, and the two against the ten.What did the Lord do? I think Paul writes these principles from the Lord’s example. In Matthew 20:25-28, Jesus said, “‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave…’ In Paul’s language, this is ‘in lowliness of mind, considering others better than yourself, not looking to your own self but to others.’ He takes the place of humility and self-forgetfulness in meeting the needs of others. He is like a slave who concentrates all of his energies and abilities to spread the table and to serve those who sit at the table. If you would be chief, if you would rise to the pinnacle of true prominence and influence, then become a bondservant of your brethren.” You know what example He sets forth? “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” He sets the pattern of His own humility and self-forgetfulness as an example.It is a horrible thing to do things with selfish ambition. In 3 John 9, there was a pastor called Diotrephes. We don’t know how he became a pastor. He was a man who, wherever he went, loved to have the first place; he had to be first and at the top. And what happens when that spirit actuates a man? John says he doesn’t allow us apostles to come into your church. Why? Because when we come, he loses his first place. He loves the first place. “I’m John, the beloved apostle, and I have entrance into the affection and confidence of many people. He can’t tolerate a rival like me.” So when John comes to serve the people of God in self-giving love, Diotrephes says, “No place for you in my pulpit.” Because he has to take the first place, people should love his preaching and praise his preaching, saying, “Oh, it’s so profound.” When someone else comes and preaches, and people praise that, he cannot tolerate that. So he will not allow anyone. And if they could rise up in churches under the noses of apostles, what makes us think they won’t rise up today? Nothing must be done according to the principles of selfish ambition—nothing.b. In corporate decisions of the church. When we, as a church, make a decision, don’t always look for your own selfish interests. Yes, you can share your desires and wishes. But sometimes, for the common good of the church, when we make a decision, it may touch upon your particular feelings, your schedule, or your way of doing things. You see, you’re looking upon the things as they pertain to yourself, failing to realize that those decisions have been made to the best of the knowledge of those in charge, who are trying to consider the well-being of the whole flock of God. This means not looking upon your own things but also upon the things of others. There’s that “otherness” mentality in honoring one another. “I’m willing to live with a decision that may not be in my best interest, but if it is in the best interest of the majority of the people of God, Lord, thank you for an opportunity to prove I truly love them, and I will gladly acquiesce to the decision that is in their best interest, even if it is at my expense.”c. Practice these principles in your discipleship group. Don’t just hear and forget these principles. Start practicing them in your discipleship group. Do not do anything out of selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in lowliness of mind, consider others in the group better than yourself. They are sheep for whom Christ has shed His blood; they are more important than you. You are called to serve them, pray for them, and support them in any way possible. Don’t ignore them. “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” Don’t always be occupied with your life, with no time to check on how they are doing. Don’t constrict your mind and heart to your own narrow world with no time even to message them. Always thinking of your troubles and your needs. Please expand your mind to think about others and others’ struggles. Many times, thinking of others’ struggles, we may see our troubles as so small and forget them, and even praise God that we have fewer struggles.I have asked for three prayer requests from each member. Many of you have shared. Pray for those needs and for your group members’ needs as if they were as important as yours. Pray for those needs, talk to them about those struggles, and pray with them and for them. This is how you increase the bond and unity among one another.
See, when we have the same mind of Christ, love for one another, and are knit as one soul, we can achieve all these goals we set with God’s help.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 