Executing Joy in Unity 2

The sermon is based on the book of Philippians and focuses on the theme of unity. The speaker emphasizes the importance of having the same mindset as Jesus Christ and loving others sacrificially. The motivation for unity comes from the encouragement of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The speaker urges the church to be unified in thought and action, putting aside selfishness and pride. Real unity is marked by being like-minded, having the same love, being in one accord, and having one mind. The joy of Paul is fulfilled when believers are united in this way. The speaker also emphasizes the need for non-condemning love, just as Jesus demonstrated towards sinners. In James 2, we started this of actual message last week, and we only ended up getting through the first point, so we're going to finish it out this week. It's kind of nice sometimes when you just take a sermon and add a number 2 out beside it and just keep on going there. But we're talking about the book of Philippians is what we're going through this summer. When you look at the book of Philippians, it is about joy. It is about rejoicing in Jesus Christ. It is about having the mindset of Jesus Christ. It's about thinking like Jesus Christ. And so therefore, what we come to in chapter 2, Paul writing to the church at Philippi, says, if there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any vows and mercy, to fill you my joy that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and one mind, let nothing be done through strife and vainglory, but in loneliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves. Father, we just thank You so much for Your love. We thank You for the Word of God today and for Your example that You have given to us and the action that You have called us into. And Father, we just ask You to bless the reading of the Scripture this morning. And use me to speak Your Word in Your most precious name we pray, Amen. We look at this passage of Scripture, if you remember last week, just kind of in verse 1 there, he talks about the fact of this motivation of unity. And he uses the word, if. And he really deals with two relationships here. He says, if there be therefore any consolation or encouragement in Christ, and then, if there be any fellowship of the Spirit. He mentions two parts of the Trinity. We know there's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And so he first of all mentions the encouragement of Christ. And out of that encouragement of Christ, what is the greatest encouragement that Christ has done for us? He gave Himself as His blood for us, right? He covered our sins. He paid the debt for our sins. And He did that because, as John 3.16 says, because He loved us. And so everything that Christ did for us flows out of that love of Who He is. And then he mentions the second one there. He says, if any fellowship of the Spirit. What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit? We know that Jesus Christ, when He cried, It is finished on the cross of Calvary, that all of a sudden, it says that in that temple place up there, the curtain that divided the holy place from the holy of holies, all of a sudden ripped from top to bottom, doing away with pretty much all of the Old Testament sacrificial services and worship and what? He told the people of Hebrews, He says, let us come boldly into the throne room of grace and mercy. Christ paid for that. But how do we get this grace? How do we feel this mercy from them? Well, He gives us the Holy Spirit. It says Jesus Christ ascended to His Father where He is now seated at the right hand of the Father, but He promised His disciples and He promised that early church, He says, I am not going to leave you alone. He says, I'm going to send the Comforter. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. And then out of that Holy Spirit, why do we fellowship with the Spirit? What is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit like? It says it flows out if any fouls and mercies. And what we understand is the Holy Spirit is given to us, and we saw last week that the Holy Spirit, when we don't know what to pray, when we don't know what we need, what does the Holy Spirit do? Out of His love and concern for us, He makes groanings unto the Lord. He lets God know what we need. And He's always given us mercy. Showing us mercy. And so that is our motivation. And when you look at that word, that if, if you remember we talked last week that really the best translation for that would be because of the constellation of Jesus Christ. Because of the fellowship of the Spirit. And so what He's talking about is He's commanding us as a church to come in unity. Here is our motivation. And He gives two parts of a three-part trinity. The Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, and God the Father. What was the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ's job? Jesus Christ said, My job is to always do the will of the Father. My job is to always be obedient to the Father. The Holy Spirit says, I will always point you to Jesus Christ, who is going to point you to God the Father. And so they were in unity. No one took credit. No one is any greater than the other. It took all three parts. The Father's love. The Son's love and willingness to obey. And the Holy Spirit's willing to convict us and to give us salvation. It takes all three of the trinity in order for us to experience salvation and to have salvation. And He says because of that trinity. He says because of their unity. He says we ought to be unified. We ought to be unified. Pretty simple, right? It's easy to be unified, right? It's easy to come into unity. And so as He mentions these things, that's the motivation. Because Christ was able to do it, because the Holy Spirit is able to do it, you and I, if we are born of Jesus Christ and we have the Holy Spirit within us, then guess what? We should be able to be in unity also because there's one God, there's one Savior, there's one Spirit, and we are all in that Spirit. So their unity brings us into their unity and so we ought to be unified together. And so what does unity look like? And that's where we want to focus today. We want to see the mark of unity. What does real unity look like? Well, notice what Paul says in verse 2. He says, Fulfill you my joy that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. He mentions four things here. First of all, he says, Fulfill you my joy. Remember, what is the joy of Paul? He goes all the way back into chapter 1 and he starts talking about this joy that he has. This joy that comes not based upon our circumstances and our situations, but the joy that we have in knowing that Jesus Christ not only saves us, but He sanctifies us and secures us and He is creating for us a place to dwell with Him for eternity. That's our joy. No matter what happens here today, guess what? It's temporary. But what I do with Jesus Christ and what He's doing for me is eternal. It will last forever. And so Paul says, This is my joy that you be all like-minded. Who are we trying to be the mind of? Who are we trying to be like-minded in? And he goes back into verse 1. If there's any consolation in Jesus Christ, and he's going to tell us that when we get to verse 5 of chapter 2. What was the love of Jesus Christ? He taught it not robbery to be equal with God. Right? But what did He do? He made of Himself of no reputation. Can you imagine God making of Himself no reputation? And then you have us that are humans, that literal translation of Adam is that we are literally dirtlings. We are of the dirt. We are earthy, right? We are from the dirt. When you die, what happens? The preacher used to say, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, right? We came from the earth and guess what? Our body is going to return to the earth. And yet we see in life today that this earthly dirtling, this person from the earth, what do we do? We want to glorify ourselves, right? We want to make ourselves look great. We want to make ourselves look wonderful. Matter of fact, we have a lot of people today that are seeking to be their own God, to make their own choices, to do their own thing, right? And yet, this is the reverse of the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ said He thought it not of Himself of any recognition to take upon Himself the form of a man, a dirtling. He became us so that we could one day be with Him. And so He says be like-minded. Have that mindset. Folks, listen, it is not about you, and it is not about me. It is about the will of God. It's about obeying God and doing what God asks us to do. And so He says here is My joy and as you become in unity, the first thing is you are going to be like-minded. We are all going to be thinking, what do you think would happen to Kentucky Missionary Baptist Church if every single one of us woke up every single day and asked God what and how do You want me to do it today? What do You want me to do and how do You want me to do it? Do you think our church would be different? Do you think our community would be different? Do you think our jobs would be different if we were thinking and had the mindset of Jesus Christ? What was His mindset? His mindset from the time that He was born was what? To die on the cross for our sins. His mindset was for others, not Himself. He didn't want to worry about His reputation. Whose reputation was He worried about? The Father's reputation. I think sometimes we worry more about our reputation and our church's reputation than we worry about God's reputation. And that's what He's saying. We need to be like-minded. But not only like-minded, but notice what else He says there. He says we need to be loving. We need to give love. He says there in verse 2, fulfilling you My joy that you may be like-minded, having the same love. What kind of love did Jesus Christ have? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus' love was a sacrificial love. But it also tells us in John 3, 17 and 18 that it was not a condemning love. When we look at churches today, when we look at people today, we have a condemning love, don't we? We condemn people. Man, that person is such a sinner, they're just going to die and go to hell. But guess what? The same Gospel that saved us is the same Gospel that can save them. We ought to have the love of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ never looked at anybody with condemnation. You remember the woman caught in the act of adultery? What did he do? She was guilty, right? She was caught in the act. I mean, that's definitely guilt in the act. She's drugged before Jesus Christ and they say, ok, here she is. She is guilty. Now, the law says we can stone her. Alright? And what did Jesus do? Jesus said, you have the law, but then He squatted down. But then He squatted down and He started writing something in the sand. He didn't even speak it. And none of us know what He wrote in the sand. But what He wrote in the sand was obviously something that changed their hearts from condemnation to at least to walk away. It may not be fully forgiveness, but at least it avoided the deal of them stoning Him, right? And when Jesus Christ looked up, He asked the woman, He says, where are your accusers? Nobody's left here, Lord. And what did He tell her? He didn't condemn her, but He said, go and sin no more. Go and sin no more. That's love. That's love. We want to condemn people and we want to put people in hell and forget about their salvation. Forget about what Jesus Christ can do to them. Forget about what Jesus Christ has done for them. And so He says, here is unity. Here's where we should be as a church. We need to be thinking on the goal and the purpose of Jesus Christ and we need to be loving like Jesus Christ. Love is never about ourself. Love is always directed at others. And then He adds this phrase. He says, be of one accord. Be of one accord. What does be of one accord mean? What He's referring to there, if you go back up and you look at this parallel in verse 1 and verse 2 with the four things that He mentioned in verse 1, and then you look at the parallel of the four things in verse 4, how are we to be in one accord? Through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. See, the Holy Spirit is what brings us together. The Holy Spirit is what makes us in unity. If we take all of these people, every one of us is from a different background. Every one of us is from a different education. Every one of us is from a different skill set, education. Everything culturally, there's some differences. We are all individuals, but when we come together, we're all one because of what? The Holy Spirit. That's our fellowship. That's the tie that binds all of us together. That's the tie that equips all of us together. And so He says that here's my joy that we be all of one accord, that we look at that relationship and understand that it is the Holy Spirit that guides us into truth. It's the Holy Spirit that disciplines us when we step out. It's the Holy Spirit that works through the Word of God. Right? And so He says we need to be of one accord. But then the last thing He mentions is be of one mind. You go back up to verse 1. One of one mind. He says the outflow of being in the fellowship with the Spirit is the vows and mercy. You remember what we talked about last week with the vows? That is that innermost. Have you ever had that experience where you may have received some bad news or something and it just kind of kicks you in your guts? You know, you just kind of in your guts. You just feel it. You don't want to eat. You don't want to sleep. It just weighs upon you. There's a weightiness. There's a heaviness there that happens in your gut that ends up just flowing throughout and overtaking your entire body. He says we ought to be in that mind. That we ought to care. Remember what the Holy Spirit did? The Holy Spirit is always there to make intercession on our behalf. The Holy Spirit cares when we're hurting. The Holy Spirit cares when we have needs. And so what does He say? He says be of one mind. Can you imagine just for a minute and hopefully it's not just an imagination. Hopefully it becomes a reality. But could you imagine what Kentucky church would be like if every one of us hurt when someone else hurt? When every one of us was happy when someone else was happy? When all of us knew enough and was involved enough in each other's life that we knew what was going on? You know, how many times do we say it? I didn't have any idea that was going on in your life. Why? Because really, I haven't been interested in your life, right? And so if we're there and we're interested in people's life, we're going to know what's going on in their life. Just like the Holy Spirit is always with us, ever present, living inside of us. He knows when we hurt. He knows when we have a bad day. He knows what we need, right? And so this is the mark of unity. If we are in unity, if we are all together, then we are going to be like-minded. We are going to be giving love. We are going to be of one accord and we're going to be of one mind. And so when we become unity, notice the movement in verse 3 and 4. Notice the movement. This is what it's going to start looking like. In verse 3, he says, Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves. Look not every man on the things his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Three things. If we are in unity, if we are in unity together, three things is going to flow out of that. Number one is harmony. Harmony. What is harmony? You heard harmony just a few minutes ago when the Magars sang. If you listen real carefully, they weren't singing in unison. They were singing in parts. And all these different parts. One was singing soprano. One was singing alto. Some were singing tenor. Some were singing bass. And what happens? All of that. They're singing different notes, different things. But what happens? Every bit of it is unified. Every bit of it was in unity. Nothing stood out. Nothing was different. As a matter of fact, when you look up the word harmony in the dictionary, it says there is an agreement, an accord, a harmonious relation that's there. A consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of the parts. And I think that's what, you know, sometimes when we talk about the arguments between contemporary music and hymns, I think that's one of the things. I like the hymns because I like the parts. I like the harmony. I like to hear the different things. On Sunday nights when we pull out the smaller book that has some of the old stuff that really has different parts, there's nothing greater than hearing everybody singing their line and their notes, but yet it sounds so good together. It all fits and ties in to unity. There is a structure. And you know, that's what God wants us to do. He doesn't want you to be me. And He doesn't want me to be you. But what He wants us to do is all in unity doing our thing, doing what God has called us to do. But guess what? It is in harmony. It is specifically constructed around Jesus Christ to accomplish a task. That is what the church is. That's what the church is supposed to be. We are supposed to be a unit. We are supposed to be in unity with Jesus Christ. And if we're in unity with Jesus Christ, then guess what? We're going to be of one accord. We're going to be loving. We're going to be filled and concerned about each other and caring about each other. And so there's going to be harmony. There's three words that sound very similar. The word unity. And unity is what we want. We want unity. But there's another word that's being thrown around today. And that word is union. Union. And union sounds a whole lot like unity. It has the same basic type idea. But union is when you take and you join two different things together. In other words, not every marriage that is joined in union, right? Not every one of them work out, do they? There's some bad marriages, right? A union, you can take two cats. I'll give you this illustration since you don't want to agree with me on the marriage. Take two cats. Let's tie their tails together and throw them over a wire. We have a union, right? Them two cats are connected. They're in union. But are they getting along? Probably not. They're tearing each other up and everything else up, right? And so that's not what we want. We don't want to come to church and say, no, we're all in union, right? We're united around this doctrine and we all believe this. But what are we doing? Internally, we're fighting, we're scratching, we're clawing. There's disagreement. Some are making themselves better than others. You remember what Paul said in chapter 1? There was some that was preaching Christ out of envy and strife. There was others that were preaching Christ out of goodwill. They were union, right? They were a union, but they were in opposition of each other. They wasn't together. But what did Paul say? Paul didn't praise them for what they were doing. He praised them that they were all preaching Jesus Christ. So that's the unity. That's different than union. The third word that kind of sounds like them that we hear a whole lot today is uniformity. Uniformity. A lot of churches today have uniformity. What we mean by uniformity is this comes from without. And uniformity is when everybody says the same thing. When everybody does the same thing. When everybody acts the same way. You ever been in a church where there's uniformity? And it's like everybody, you ask them, what do you believe about baptism? And what do they do? Well, Brother Donnie says it's this, right? It's the same statement. It's the same fact. It's the same thing. And the church begins to look like each other. And then what happens? When there's uniformity, if you don't look at and talk like them people, you're not welcome in that church. And we see a lot of churches of uniformity today. And I get so upset with it and it just breaks my heart because we have churches today and I'm not trying to offend anybody. I'm just trying to get you to think. We have motorcycle churches today. And what is the uniformity of it? Everybody in that church usually owns and rides a motorcycle. We have cowboy churches today, right? And the cowboy church, and I understand they're trying to reach a person, but what are they doing? They are trying to get people that look alike, that act alike, that has the same desires, the same things so that we can all look alike. That's not church. That's not unity. Unity in what Christ does is He calls all of us with every different idea, individualism, all of us as individuals, and He does what? He brings us all together to look like Christ. So we're not doing something here on the earth. We're not uniform in the church. We all look like Jesus Christ. You see the difference? And that's the most destructive thing, this uniformity that we see in our society today. We have churches that even within their church, they have broken their congregations down to congregations that begin to look like each other. We have a traditional worship service, right? And so if you like to sing traditional music, if you like hymns, if you like the traditional of religion, then guess what? We have a service for you. But if you're more on the contemporary side and you're a little bit more cutting edge and you like the new stuff and you like the flash and the glamour, then guess what? We have a service for you. And so what have you just done? You've got two uniform services. And guess what? When I look at that, you know what? I don't fit in either one of them. So guess what? That church just isolated me because I don't like just hymns. I don't like just praise songs. I kind of like a little bit if it talks about Jesus Christ. There's songs that I like that are bluegrass. There's Christian songs that I like that are southern gospel. There's Christian songs that I like that are more of the rock and roll version. There's some that are contemporary that have just been written that are some very good songs about Jesus Christ. So I like to worship Jesus in spirit and truth. So we don't want uniformity. We don't want every one of you looking the same, acting the same, walking the same, and talking the same because God didn't design the church that way. He says we are all made up. In Corinthians, He talks about the body. Right? If every one of us looked like a finger and was the first index finger, then what are we going to be able to do and accomplish? You pick your nose. You might as well pick an ear. You scratch yourself. There ain't a whole awful lot you can do if every one of us was index fingers. Did you imagine the whole church just being an index finger? But guess what? Over here we've got an index finger. Over here we've got a middle finger. Over here we've got a ring finger. Over here we've got a pinky. Over here we've got a thumb. Now all of a sudden, what can we start to do with a hand? Well, now I can pick up stuff, right? Now I can wave. Now I can... And then you add the arm. And can you imagine, you know, you've seen them things on Facebook where the T-Rexes, you know? That's the weirdest looking deal. They have huge bodies, but they've got their hands right here. There's not a whole lot they can do. But man, you add an arm out there, where you can get them hands off of the chest and stuff. You see what I'm saying? We don't want uniformity. We want to take all of these body parts that are different and we want them all to come in harmony. We want them all to sing and do their part. But guess what? We are all doing one thing. Harmony is not real good if all six of them while ago was singing a different song. Harmony doesn't sound real good when they're doing their own song. But the fact that they were all focused on one song and they were all singing their own part, what happened? It was a beautiful special, right? And that's what we're talking about. We want to take individuals in harmony. We want you bassists to sing bass. We want you tenors to sing tenors. We want you servers. We want you serving. Those of you that pray, we want you praying. Those of you that are encouragers, we want you encouraging. Those of you that are cooks, we want you cooking. Whatever it is that God made you and done for you, we want you doing that, but we want to do it in harmony for the same exact purpose and the same exact reason. But then notice the next word that he used. How do we get harmony? Well, he says, first of all, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. Strife. What is strife? Strife refers to a party spirit. And I'm not talking about party as like drinking and getting drunk and all of that, but what I mean by a party spirit and what I'm referring to when I looked up this word, then I had to go and try to figure out what's a party spirit that they were talking about by definition. How many of you are Razorback fans? How many of you graduated from Benton High School? How many of you graduated from Bauxite? How many of you graduated from Bryant? What happened? You have an affiliation to that school, don't you? And all of a sudden, when you get to the salt bowl, right, and you get Bryant and you get Benton playing against each other, guess what? You are going to cheer and root for your party. That's strife. That's strife. That's two individuals that may be best friends. You know, one of the prisoners the other day, they do some woodwork and painting and he had designed an Arkansas and Louisiana and then he did a Razorback and then the boot he did LSU and on it he wrote a house divided. You know, one of the spouses was a Razorback fan, one of them was a Tiger fan. And guess what? Here they were in a union, but what were they doing? They're constantly in strife, right? Me and my brother, he was a big LSU fan, I was a big Arkansas fan. And guess what? When them two played each other, we could tolerate each other when they wasn't playing each other. But when they were playing each other, guess what? There was strife in the house. And it's funny because mom and dad, you could kind of start seeing where they rooted because they would try to be neutral because they're the parents, right? They love both children. And so they would try to be neutral. And you talk about a tense situation when there's strife because of this affiliation that is there. That's what he's talking about. Let nothing be done through strife. We shouldn't have a party. The same thing with, and I made the statement, I love America. I think there is absolutely no country greater than America. But when I am more attached to America than I am heaven, then guess what? I just formed a party and I have problems. I love Israel, but I'm not more attached to Israel than I am Jesus Christ in heaven. You see, we can't be of a party because guess what? It's going to cause strife. And then he uses the word vainglory. What is vainglory? Vainglory is proud spirit. See, when you've got your party, then what happens? Then you have a proud spirit, right? Because when your team is winning, things are great, right? Things are wonderful. And don't we kind of have a tendency to kind of rub that in and flaunt when our team is doing good, right? I got a preacher friend that's a big LSU fan. Of course, I like the Razorbacks. I grew up watching the Razorbacks from a young child back when Ken Hatfield in the good old days and stuff. And I've kind of been avoiding his Facebook post because Arkansas lost two games in the SEC tournament. But guess what? LSU's playing in the championship until there's strife, right? And I know that his pride, even though he is a preacher, guess what? His pride is going to get the best of them. And he's going to say, look what LSU's doing and look at what Arkansas did, right? And so it gets into this battle. That's what vainglory is. How many of us as Christians promote ourself in our parties? We bring that mentality into our church to lift up our pride. You know, it goes back to that deal of contemporary services, of traditional services, of cowboy churches, of motorcycle churches. What are they doing? They're associating their self to a party and they're prideful about it. Because if you do this, then you're welcome here. I've often asked, I've got a buddy that's actually a member of the cowboy church around here. And I said, if I was an Indian, would I be welcome? Do the cowboys and Indians get along anymore, right? But we have that same mentality today that we're a white church or a black church or a red church, right? We get associated with our party. Christ said, guess what? Paul came to save, or Jesus Christ came to save everyone. He didn't have an affiliation. He didn't affiliate with the scribes and the Pharisees. He didn't affiliate with the Sadducees. He didn't affiliate with this party or this group. No, what did he do? He had a purpose and he had a mission. And that was to honor God and to serve God. The second word that we see here is not only harmony, but humility. Humility. Look at what he says here. Humility, before we look at the verse, means modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank, so forth. So he says, let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but, but is a contrast, right? It's a word. Instead of lifting yourself up, instead of supporting your party, you know, it's amazing at how many people will allow the Razorbacks to destroy their worship on Sunday morning. Right? They're affected by it. He says, instead of that, instead of that attitude, he says, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves. So you know what I've got to do? I got to confess to you. See, the Holy Spirit convicted me just now. I'm going to call my preacher brother in this afternoon and congratulate him. LSU is doing a great job. Right? And it's not about me. It's not about sports. It's not about my party. It's about, hey, how did your services to go today? How many do you baptize today? Hey, did anybody walk the aisle today? See, that's what we're focused on. That's what we're there. And so we need harmony. We need harmony, right? We like the different parts all coming together. But we also need humility. We need people in the church to remember that we are not God. We are not Christ. God has blessed me and honored me with the ability to pastor. Anybody can pastor if God calls them and puts them there. But God chose me to be the pastor here. God chose me to preach His Word. But guess what? I know that tomorrow, God can remove me, right? He did it to Saul. He did it to David, right? And there could be another pastor. And so what are we doing? We're humble with humility. I do what I do because of the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. But then the last word is helpfulness. Helpfulness. Look at verse 4. He says, Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Once we have the attention off of ourselves, we are now ready to focus on others. You remember the acronym I shared with you early on about joy? You want to have joy in your life? You want to be joyful as Paul is joyful? Paul was focused on Jesus Christ. Then he was concerned about others. And then he was concerned about himself last. Jesus, others, and you. Read his letter when he started out. How did he start out? He says, Paul and Timothy, the servants of who? Jesus Christ to all the saints. And then he says, Grace be upon you. And then verse 3 says, I thank my God upon every what? Remembrance of you. Where is Paul at? Paul is in prison fighting for his life. He's not sitting down worried about the lawyer. You know, I ain't got time for you at Philippi today because I'm meeting with my lawyer and we're drawing out this deal. No, where was his focus? His focus was on the ministry and the mission and the calling of Jesus Christ. He said in Romans 1.16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So no matter where I'm at, guess what? I'm preaching the Word of God because that's what saves people. And he said, but I'm also concerned about you because you know what? You may not be liking the fact that I'm in prison. You may be scared for your own self. You may be affiliated with this party. So he says, look, not every man on his own things, but every man on the things of others. Now, when we get to this point, and this is the point where we want to get to this morning. When we get to the point of helpfulness, once we are in harmony, we're all singing the same song. We're just doing different parts, right? Not all of us can get into the kitchen here in a minute for lunch and serve. Some of us need to stick around and clean. Some of us can eat, right? Most all of us is going to be able to eat, right? We all have different things, but when everything works together and everybody does their part, what happens? You walk away from it and you're uplifted. Man, it was great to be in the house of God. See, there's people that I love to come to church on Sunday morning because I know they're going to encourage me. I know there's people that when I see on Sunday morning that are going to comfort me. I know there's people that are going to care about me and what's going on in my life. And so you get all of these different ones brought together and you come to church, and all of a sudden, if we are all in harmony and we're all humbled ourselves because it's not about me, it's not about my sermon or whatever, it's about us and each other, then we're going to be helpful. And we're going to be in a place then where we can serve, where we can visit, where we can minister, where we can share and feed and clothe and transport and pick people up and bring to church, where we can advise people, where we can counsel people, where we can teach people, where we can serve people. That's what Jesus Christ's mind was focused on. He was focused on others. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made of himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a man, a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And then listen to verse 9. Wherefore, wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. When we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, and we're in harmony, and we're humble, and we're being helpful, you know what our community will begin to say? Only Jesus could do that. Only Jesus can bring this bunch of knuckleheads together, right? These uneducated, poor, rural people. Only God can bring them together and present Jesus Christ. And that's what we want. We want people not to look at individuals. We don't want them to think, man, this is this type of church or this is that type of church. We want them to see Jesus Christ and say, man, this is a church that loves Jesus Christ, that is living for Jesus Christ. They're not living for themselves or their own deal. That's our goal. That's where we've got to be. And when we do that, guess what? That's when we discover joy. That's when we discover joy. And that's what people want to be a part of. Do you realize, you know, and I've learned this in prison. Some of them guys that I teach in prison have done some horrible things. They have made some very bad mistakes. Some of them weren't mistakes. Some of them did it willfully. Some of them made the choice to do what they did but you know what? When we come together and we don't focus on the negative, we don't focus on the past, but we focus on Jesus Christ, everybody walks out of that class that night doing what? Feeling good and filled with joy because we've been in the presence of Jesus Christ. It's not about me and it's not about you. Have this mind, the mind of Christ, as we stand and have a verse of invitation. Do you know Jesus Christ is your personal Savior? That's step one. Because guess what? If you've never experienced Jesus Christ, if you've never been encouraged by Jesus Christ, then guess what? You're not going to get to this point. It's because of what you've experienced in Jesus Christ. Have you asked Jesus Christ to save you? Have you received the Holy Spirit? You understand the Holy Spirit that cries out for you, that cares for you, that looks upon your infirmities and your problems and the Holy Spirit takes that to the Father who has the power to do something about it. Have you experienced that? And Paul's saying, if you've done that, then here's what you need to be. And the bottom line is we need to be helpful. We need to serve people the way Jesus Christ served us as we sing, what him.