ON TO MATURITY

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, of any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being in one spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking at your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:1-4.

Paul must have been relieved that he did not have to deal with false teaching or misconduct in the Philippian church. These people were a joy to him. Some of the churches he founded were still wading around in the shallows of false beliefs and ungodly behaviour. This group of people seemed to have grasped the truth from the beginning and were moving apace towards being mature in their faith and influential for Christ in their living out the gospel.

Paul was happy to be able to add some polish to their lives by urging them on to unity which was the high tide mark of the true church. The gospel and their faith in Christ had brought them into the realm of the Spirit of God where the values of the kingdom were becoming more meaningful and ever more evident in them in spite of their environment.

Like all the other churches, they were like lilies blooming in the swamp. All around them people lived in the ungodliness of their sinful natures. There were no boundaries to their sinful behaviour because they were living out the nature of the gods they worshipped. But, in the church and in their lives together, the values of the kingdom of God were appearing more and more: unity with Christ, the comfort of His love, caring and sharing among the people in the Body, tenderness and compassion, were all there in increasing measure.

This delighted Paul. It was what the gospel was all about – not just believing in Jesus as a passport to heaven, a free ticket to God’s forgiveness and access to all His blessings. The gospel was about yielding to Christ as their new Master and living in the world by His power and in line with His nature.

All this is moving towards the goal of God’s creation. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God to reflect Him by living in perfect harmony with him with one another and with the world which He created for them. God is one; He made the entire universe to be one, interconnected and interacting as a unit. Sin entered the world through Adam’s disobedience, disrupted the unity and brought death and destruction to God’s perfect creation.

Jesus came to earth, God in person, to restore the universe to its original state and to get God’s purpose back on track. Once the barrier of sin had been removed, God was able, through His Holy Spirit, to set His plan in motion to reunite estranged people to himself and to each other. This was the evidence that Jesus accomplished what He had been sent to do.

Why does the church not understand this? Paul touched the nerve centre of man’s fallen nature – selfish ambition and vain conceit. As long as self rules, the life of that person will be out of sync with God’s intention to reunite everything in Christ as the head.

“For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.” Colossians 1:19, 29, 20.

What is the key to real unity in the church? Paul gives us two simple steps: value others above yourselves and take care of the interests of others above your own. Is that difficult to do? Yes, it is if we are still alive to ourselves on the inside. No, it is not if we, like Paul, have died to ourselves and are alive to Christ and to what pleases Him. It all depends on how we view ourselves, alive or dead.

When we die to our old fleshly desires and appetites, we see ourselves from another perspective – not individuals taking care of ourselves first, but part of a living organism that functions as a unit, each part moving in unity with those around him. The goal is not for selfish benefit but for the benefit of the whole body. That’s when we can begin to experience heaven right here on earth and convince the world that Jesus was who He said He was and that He really came from heaven to restore everything that went wrong in the beginning.

Now Paul invites us to be a part of that!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.