Cheering > Competing
One of the most unique things about being a Christian is that we (are supposed to) “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility we regard each other as more important than ourselves.” This verse is grounded in what Paul is going to lay out as “the mind of Christ.” As Christ-followers, we are called to follow Christ. We look at him and the way he lived and do our best to live like that. Jesus was the BEST example when it comes to humility.
God came to earth in the form of Jesus, and rather than build a kingdom for himself, he died for the people that would eventually kill him. He died for those that would hurt him and despised him. Philippians 2 says it so well and we get a peek into the mind of Christ: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself to the point by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”
If we lived this way, we would be a beautiful display of Christ’s humility. This is how we’re called to live. It is completely backwards from the way of the world.
GOD’S LOVE VS. THE WORLD’S LOVE
The Philippians are part of the first generation church and you’re already seeing this tendency to consider love to be like the world’s love. Paul is telling them that Christ’s love, and the way we display it, is a completely foreign concept to the world. It is so radical. It’s so different that God became man to show us the love of God. He did not do it in a way we expected. Instead of showing his importance and power, he deferred his importance for our good.
How Does This Play Out in Friendships?
We are all aching for friends that love you, because we’re built to be loved. God loves you like this. He loves you in a way that is complete and sacrificial. When we come to friendships seeking our own good, everything breaks down. That’s not how it was designed to work.
Paul desperately wanted this for the Philippians church because He knew they could never be healthy and run hard together if they didn’t love in this sacrificial way. The world would never see the love of God through them if they didn’t get this right. Paul says in verse two, “complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord and having one mind.”
Can you imagine us being single-minded for the glory of God and the good of people? It should seep into every part of our lives, but it doesn’t. What’s the obstacle? The enemy is strategic and I see a specific form of attack: competition. Among our own people, the church, we are dividing and competing instead of cheering and encouraging.
This is where everything could shift in the way the world sees our love. If we could go from dividing and competing to celebrating and encouraging.
WHO IS YOUR ENEMY
Paul was good at this. He didn’t agree with everyone and what they were doing, he was quick to call them out. But he was also quick to show them the love of God and remember that they’re not his enemy. In Ephesians when Paul is talking about the enemy, he says this: “we don’t war against flesh and blood, we war against cosmic forces and principalities.”
I remember once in our church I was in a big disagreement with someone else. We both felt misunderstood.. I didn’t even know how to resolve this conflict. I read Ephesians 6, and my mindset shifted. I realized this isn’t about her, but this was about my own issues, and there’s an enemy trying to divide us. There’s an enemy warring against us. My enemy is against both of us. He is trying to divide, distract, and rip apart our relationship.
If every believer was united and of one mind on mission together, that is unbelievably dangerous. We would see revival in every city and every country. There would be more kingdom work than we could possibly imagine. So of course the most effective way for the enemy to stop the work of God on earth is to have us devour each other instead of celebrate and work together.
This is why I care about this so much. It’s not just for our happiness and so that we can have friends. It’s so that we can be effective for eternity. It’s so that people would come to know Christ because of our love. That our love would speak so boldly and clearly of Jesus, that it would be contagious. That it would cause other people to want to follow God.
THE WAY TO FREEDOM
I think people are craving friendship. When it’s done right and healthy and not cutting down and divisive, people want to be apart of it. It’s contagious. What Christ wants for us is our freedom. In calling us to think more highly of others than ourselves, in calling us to fixate on him rather than this world, he is trying to set us free. His goal is our freedom. He built us and He knows what makes us most fulfilled. He knows we are built to dwell on him and dwell on others. When we do that, we are most satisfied. It is just true. Our flesh will do everything in its power and the enemy will do everything in his power to make us lovers of self rather than lovers of others.
Here’s my encouragement to you: if you are exhausted by looking side to side and feeling like you don’t measure up, put your phone down. Delete instagram. Delete facebook. Delete twitter. Put your phone in a place where you cannot touch it for a few days, where there is a chance for your soul to feel the pleasure and delight of God again. A chance for retrain your mind.
So how do you know when to confront a friend about conflict?
The Christian friendship requires these hard conversations. I believe they are often avoided. I also believe you can be too quick to try to convict someone. I notice this all the time with high schoolers when they find out they’re supposed to help their friends follow Jesus. They call out everybody and then don’t have any friends. I love Proverbs 27:6: “wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” If someone is following Christ and they want to be following Christ, I think we have to be those that aren’t afraid to bring the wound. To say the hard thing. Who else is going to say it? If you have built a friendship around love, you have a lot of tokens you can cash in to say hard things and make mistakes. Don’t take a new friend to coffee and within your second or third time of hanging out be calling them out on their sin. But if you have an extended relationship with somebody over months or years, that is our job. We are called to make each other better and push each other to Christlikeness. It is so rare to find the friend that will say the hard thing and I will always fight for those friends. We have to be those friends to other people.
