One Mind, One Love, One Spirit, One Mission

But sometimes, especially in our culture, we think love means I am going to celebrate and condone every action that you do. Love only looks like celebration. Love only looks like me putting my stamp of approval on your life. But that's not Jesus' definition of love. True love loves truth. True love loves truth and the highest truth is the word of God. [00:19:54] (27 seconds)  #LoveLovesTruth

That means I love you enough to call you to a higher standard. Listen, if you came up to me and you're like, you know, I think I was just born to play in traffic. My truth is I love playing in traffic. I just love it. I was born this way to play in traffic. What's not loving is for me to let you get smoked by a bus. What is loving is for me to listen to how you're feeling but then call you to a higher reality. [00:20:47] (29 seconds)  #ToughLoveCallsHigher

Citizens called together for kingdom business. So when Jesus uses this term, he's saying, I am gonna build my assembly. I am building my congregation, calling them out for kingdom business. I want you to hear me, when God saves you, he adopts you into a family. To follow Jesus is to follow Jesus together. [00:09:13] (25 seconds)  #KingdomCitizensTogether

Anyone picking up on a theme here? Jesus cares about unity within his body, us being one heart, one mind. And I think it's important for us to realize that that Jesus did not die to create a bunch of eclectic individuals striving after their own faith in him. He died to create one unified body, a family, his church. [00:07:57] (25 seconds)  #OneBodyOneHeart

Any fellowship with the Holy Spirit should be united in spirit. Have you encountered the person of the Holy Spirit? It should produce a one spirit reality within the body of Christ. And what the bible teaches us is that when God saves us, the holy spirit takes up residence within our spirit. It says this in Galatians chapter four, but when the right time came, God sent his son, born of a woman, [00:21:38] (25 seconds)  #UnitedByHolySpirit

Any comfort from the love of Jesus Christ should produce a one love reality within the body of Christ. I love first John three sixteen. It says this, by this we know love, that he laid his life down laid down his life for us. Therefore, we ought to live our lives for the brothers. If you've experienced the comfort from the fact that Jesus loved you enough while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. [00:15:12] (30 seconds)  #ComfortLeadsToLove

Together individually and then collectively, we love God and we love people. Now here's the caveat, you gotta allow Jesus' definitions of love to become your definitions. See, especially in our culture, we have interesting definitions for what love looks like. Jesus said this very clearly in describing what love for God looks like. He says, if you love me, obey my commandments. [00:16:28] (27 seconds)  #JesusDefinitionsOfLove

So sometimes the most selfish thing that you can do is actually avoid confrontation because it's actually self preservation. The reality is if I love you and I see you living a life that is contradictory to the high call of God, which I believe the word of God is the way to true human flourishing, that means I will love you enough to tell you God's truth drenched in God's grace. [00:20:21] (26 seconds)  #GraceFilledConfrontation

If you love me, obey my commandments. Loving God looks like obeying what he's told you to do. And what this means is you cannot live a life of clear, habitual, unrepentant sin and claim to love God. We cannot live lives that contradict the clear teaching of the word of God and claim that we love God. That's like me telling my wife, I love you so much. And then going out and living a lifestyle of adultery. [00:16:55] (31 seconds)  #ObedienceAsLove

Right? The proof is in the pudding. If you love God, you're gonna obey him. And let me make it a little more specific for everyone in the room. If you love God, to love God means that I will not live a life of unrepentant, habitual sexual immorality. We cannot live lives that are close fisted and greedy and claim to love God. [00:17:26] (29 seconds)  #RejectHabitualSin

We cannot live lives where we are unrepentantly, habitually looking at those on the outside of faith and viewing them judgmentally and hatefully. Those things cannot exist. If you love God, you obey his commands. And he's laid it out clearly. Jesus says, if you love me, you obey my commands. And then to love people. [00:17:55] (23 seconds)  #NoJudgmentOnlyObedience

What Paul is leaning into is if you're gonna have unity, here are the four ingredients, the equal unity in the body of Christ. That's why gonna walk over these today. The first thing he says is any encouragement in Christ, then you should have the same mind. Any encouragement in Christ, if you individually have been encouraged by being in Christ, that should produce a oneness of mind. [00:10:23] (23 seconds)  #UnityStartsWithEncouragement

And Paul writes to the Corinthians, every single thought we take that thing captive. Listen, it's not a UFC free for all in your mind. You gotta take those things and say, is this true? Is this what God has called me to believe? And what Paul was writing to this church is when you are in Christ, there should be a unity of mind where we have decided together [00:13:51] (21 seconds)  #TakeEveryThoughtCaptive

And the reality is it's not the first time, it's not the last time we'll have miscommunication, we're not on the the same page. But, you know, as Paul is writing this letter to this church of Philippi, this church that's gone through pain and suffering, he's saying, hey. God has a high call for your church. God has a mission for you to accomplish, and it is going to take you to you as a church being on the same page spiritually. You need to be side by side for the faith of the gospel. [00:04:34] (32 seconds)  #SideBySideForTheGospel

And so Paul is leaning into this church that's going through pain and suffering. He's saying if you are going to make it, if you're gonna accomplish the high call of God, it's going to take you doing this together. And so I wanna dive right back into Philippians two verse one. We already read this, but there's some keys here we're gonna pick up today. [00:09:38] (19 seconds)  #TogetherThroughTrials

therefore, if there's any encouragement in Christ, any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. I want you to notice in these first three verses that we've read so far, Paul has said one spirit twice, one mind twice. [00:05:11] (27 seconds)  #SameMindSameSpirit

And it says this, the New Testament teaches me to view the church as God's covenant people and family, as the body and bride of Christ, and as the temple where God and Christ dwells by his spirit. In Matthew 16, Jesus is having a discussion with his disciples and he tells them that I am going to build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. [00:08:28] (24 seconds)  #ChurchAsGodsFamily

And the Greek word that he chooses to use for church is this word ekklesia. And ekklesia was a word that was common in in Greek vernacular at this time. Hundreds of years before Jesus showed up on this on the scene, both Thucydides and Demosthenes who are these Greek historians used this term ekklesia to talk about a civic gathering. [00:08:52] (20 seconds)  #EkklesiaIsAssembly

Listen, as the body of Christ, when we've experienced the comfort from the love of Jesus, it should begin to produce a love for God and a love for people that is self sacrificial and it produces this unity. One mind, one love. And it continues on. He has this this third ingredient here. He says, have you any fellowship with the Holy Spirit? [00:21:16] (22 seconds)  #SacrificialLoveUnity