“If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one  purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Everybody needs community. We hunger for it. Even if we only find it online, we’ll search for it until we have it. Online, of course, is a pale imitation of the real thing, but if our choice is between that and nothing, we’ll take it. All communities, though, are not created equal. If you want to be a part of a healthy community, that’s going to take some work. It’s going to take a particular type of culture. What kind of culture, you ask? Paul gives us an important clue here in the prelude to one of the more important passages on the subject in all of the Scriptures. Let’s check it out.

Fun fact: I meant for this post to go up yesterday. I didn’t preach this past Sunday, which means that I get to write something else instead. I went into autopilot this morning, though, and created a prompt for a future post as I keep studying my way through Philippians. In case you’re curious, I’ve studied through the beginning of chapter four. Being an autopilot personality has its advantages because there are a whole bunch of things I don’t have to think about, but it has its drawbacks too. I’m sometimes (okay, often) slow to respond to changes. In any event, let’s get on with the show.

The last thing Paul was writing at the end of chapter one was to call the Philippian believers to live their lives worthy of the Gospel. This call was made in light of the suffering they had and would yet experience in their pursuit of the Gospel. They were kindred souls with Paul in this who was experiencing plenty of his own suffering. He was inviting them to walk the path toward righteousness in the face of challenges to the contrary right along with him.

This powerful call to Gospel faithfulness sounds good, but it begs the question of how. What does it look like to live like that? How do we do it? A call like this screams for application. It begs to have someone come along to say, “Do it this way.” Well, that’s exactly what Paul gives us as we move smoothly into chapter two.

Look at how Paul opens this next part of the letter: “If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy…” In other words, if you are going to get this thing we have been talking about right. Jesus is going to encourage forward in it. His love is going to carry you through it. The Spirit is going to walk with you in the midst of it. Then there’s this last thing about affection and mercy. Paul here is pointing back to himself and the impact they’ll have on him by getting it right. “Do this for me,” he says.

And what can they do for him? “…make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one  purpose.” So, they are going to make his joy complete by becoming carbon copies of one another? Is Paul talking about following Jesus or joining the Borg?

What Paul is talking about here is the church. Standing firm in Christ Jesus in the face of various persecutions is not something anyone can, much less will, do on their own. On our own we fold and make ourselves just like everyone else so that we don’t have to endure the consequences of being different. The tallest nail gets pounded, and we’re not much up for unnecessary headaches. The only way we are going to truly stand firm in our faith in the face of the trials and tribulations of this world is when we stand with and in church.

But not just any church will do. It has to be a church that is worthy of the title. It has to be a church that is functioning as a part of the body of Christ. Social clubs or special interest groups or activist organizations won’t do. Those are just fine as far as groups to be a part of, but they aren’t the church, they won’t give us the kind of support in standing firmly in our faith in the face of life’s challenges like the church will. And if we confuse the one for the other, we are setting ourselves up for a rough road. If someone tries to convince us the one is really the other, they are setting us up for incredible disappointment, disillusionment, and cynicism, and God will judge them for that.

A real church is united in Christ. That doesn’t mean everyone is the same. There is and indeed should be great variety in the church. What unites the members of the church is not something of this world, but only the person of Christ. Members all share His mind. That is, their thinking is shaped by the Gospel. They share His love. They approach the world around them with the same sense of intentional compassion and care. They are committed to one another regardless of the differences that would otherwise divide them. And they are all in pursuit of the same goal.

Let’s be honest, though: this kind of community is hard to achieve. It doesn’t just happen. It takes work and intentionality. It takes a whole lot of Jesus, of course. But there’s something else still. And this other thing is an essential element in loving Jesus well, so it’s really no surprise that it’s essential for getting the church right as well. What is this other thing? Humility.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.”

In the world, it’s every man for himself. It’s dog eat dog. It’s the survival of the fittest. Yes, you occasionally run into people with naturally benevolent personalities who have been shaped by circumstances and family of origin influence to put others first, but this is often a sign of some unhealthy internal assumptions. Beyond that, we all look out for us and ours before we give thought to anyone else. But in the church, this can’t be the case. As followers of Jesus generally, this can’t be the case.

We are to be driven by His love and His love alone. And the love of Christ is always focused on the other first. It is, in other words, humble. But we have to properly understand humility to get this right. Humility is not simply thinking less about ourselves. It is instead thinking about ourselves properly. It is most fundamentally concerned with honesty. Humble people are the most honest about who God is and who they and everyone else are in light of that.

When we honestly understand who God is, we who understand just how much He loves us and values us. With that knowledge secured in our heart and mind, we are freed to follow His command to extend His love to those around us. That means we are enabled to put them and their interests ahead of our own. We can do that because we trust that God is going to take care of us and ours. We can treat them as if they are more important than us not out of some pathology that undervalues ourselves, but rather because we are so secure in God’s valuation of us that we don’t even have to question it. Ambition and conceit don’t even register for us because God’s will and plans for us are our only goal and we know that those will be achieved.

The result of all of this is a deep-seated humility. When we get this right ourselves, and when we do it in the context of a whole community that is practicing the same thing, we have the makings of a community we can trust beyond any shadow of doubt to support us when we face persecution, to lend us strength when we are weak, to stand with us in the fire. If we are going to seek Christ no matter what the world throws our way, this kind of community, this kind of body of Christ, this kind of church is essential. We won’t manage it without it. So then, do you have a church? A real church? This kind of church? If not, it’s time to find one.