Death Blows to Vanity

that there were many adversaries. And I think from reading Paul’s
epistles, the most grievous to him were the adversaries from
within. The troubled and often troublesome
saints in the midst of the church that bred disunity. That is our focus. That has been
our focus for the last several weeks. In passages really that
were introduced to us several weeks ago, that of adversaries
from within, disunity breeding inside the church that threatens
the ministry of the church. The thought really goes all the
way back to verse 27 of chapter one. And because of that, I’d
like you to go back there and we’ll pick up and get a running
start at chapter two. Paul had finished his great thoughts
about his own ministry affected by persecution, and his conclusion
there was even though greatly persecuted, his ministry was
greatly flourishing. And he wanted his church to be
likewise. We pick up his thoughts in verse
27 of chapter 1, where he said with this great, almost an umbrella
that would encompass not just these four verses, but the several
verses that follow. He said, only conduct yourselves
in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. And as I said, That
umbrella encompasses not just these next verses, but even chapter
2, verse 1 and following, as you will see. Only conduct yourselves
in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I
come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are
standing firm in one spirit. And there, immediately, he has
introduced the concept, positively here, of unity. But behind that,
there is the concept prevalent in every one of Paul’s epistles
of disunity. And he repeats the exhortation
with a little bit different flavor, with one mind striving together
for the faith of the gospel. Paul desired that the church
be standing as one, putting up a united front, and with one
mind and one purpose, working together for that great, great
cause. Verse 28, “…in no way alarmed
by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but
of salvation for you, and that too from God. The last thing
that they should be in the face of the world is disunified, and fearful. For to you it has
been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but
also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict
which you saw in me and now hear to be in me.” And having introduced
the subject of unity, Paul cannot get out of it. Paul will not
leave the subject because the subject of unity in the church
was so crucial to the ministry of the church. to the ministry
of the Gospel. And Paul picks that theme up
again in chapter 2, verse 1. And we call these, as it were,
seeds of oneness. And that we as a church are called,
just as the Philippians were called, to germinate these seeds. What produces unity? These things
are the seed form of a full-blown unity in the church. Paul says,
if therefore, there is any encouragement in Christ. And we took that to
mean personal encouragement because of the hope of the Gospel. Is
there any recollection in your mind of how dark your days were
before you met Christ? And how hopeful the thought that
is communicated to you because of the hope of heaven, the hope
of Christ, the hope that we have beyond this miserable and dark
life, the hope of forgiveness. If there is any encouragement
of Christ, if there is any consolation of love. And what he brings up
here is the greatest lover of all time, that of God Himself. Have you been consoled in any
way to any degree by the great God, the great Lover of all? God Himself? Is there any consolation
of love? Do you not have any sense that
you deserved no good thing and yet you have been lavished with
not only food and air and freedom and grace, but salvation and
forgiveness and the promise of heaven? Is there any consolation
of love? Is there any fellowship of the
Spirit? Do you have any sense in which
the promised paraclete, the promised helper has come into your heart,
not just alongside of you to help and to guide, but to indwell
you? Is there any fellowship of the
Spirit, the Holy Spirit? Is there any affection and compassion? Those things that naturally spring
from being changed as a Christian. Is there any of that? Paul, basically,
he’s not doubting their salvation. He’s saying if you call yourself
a Christian, this is what Christianity is. To be consoled and encouraged
by Christ and by God, to have fellowship with the Spirit and
to have this overflowing affection and compassion for one another.
He says, if that’s the case, then this logically ought to
follow. Make my joy complete by being
of the same mind. This, Paul begins to lay out,
is what Christian or church unity is all about. These are the elements
of church unity. Like-mindedness. That we are
to be on the same page. And doctrine is important to
that. And we ought to be working together to be on the same page
doctrinally, but we ought to have one goal. And that is to
glorify God. Not only that, being of the same
mind, but in verse 2, going on, he says, maintaining the same
love. There shouldn’t be cliques in the church. There shouldn’t
be groups and factions where we love more intensely one group
than another. There should be a mutual love
that is just felt by anyone who comes in and seen by anyone outside
as being Christian love that goes in both directions uniformly. Paul laid out another element
of unity when he said that a church may be unified, a church that
is united rather is bonded, united in spirit. We are together in
this. We are working together. We have
the same goals, the same purpose. Your gifts may differ, but we
are all on the same team. And to suffer with one another,
to rejoice with one another, we are all together. We are united. And then finally, the church
united as a church that’s focused. When Paul says that we are intent
on one purpose, the one purpose is the proclamation, the advancement
of the gospel, the advancement of God’s kingdom in this earth.
Proclaiming Christ, serving Christ, announcing Christ. But alas,
there are adversaries. Just as Paul spoke of and what
Paul was speaking of, he doesn’t necessarily say that they are
adversaries outside of the church. In fact, as I’ve already said,
the most grievous adversaries to Paul were those inside the
church that tore at the unity and tore at the hearts and eyes
of their brethren that put their own interests above anyone else’s. And regardless of what damage
may be done, that they won was the issue. And as long as they
won, they could care less who lost, even if it was God Himself. And Paul continues in this great
passage to lay out for us a few keys
to overcoming the enemy of self, because that is the chief adversary
to unity in the church. And I would even put that above
the devil himself. There’s no doubt the devil is
against the church, but the devil isn’t in the church, practically
speaking. The devil influences those, but
the devil isn’t a member of the church. He wasn’t a member of
the church of Philippi and he’s certainly not a member of our
church. But Paul wants to give us what
I’ve called death blows to vanity. He’s going to lay out for us
what is the chief enemy, that of self. But he’s also going
to give us some incredibly practical advice, simple advice, but incredibly
practical for making those final death blows to the enemy of self.
Look at verse three, where Paul says, do nothing from selfishness
or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard
one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look
out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of
others. The apostle here goes after with
great intensity the passions that are so damaging, so fatal
to unity in the church, that he also, he doesn’t leave us
hanging. He didn’t leave the Philippians
hanging. He provides the responses by grace to those passions. in order to put them to death.
The church can’t be prompted and initiated and actuated by
some kind of unholy rivalry within her walls by selfish motives,
craving honor and prestige for ourselves. We cannot be prompted
by those things. I shared several weeks ago that
one of the things that tears apart churches are these budgets
that build into them special interests. And then you actually
have people write their checks when they give their giving.
And the amazing thing is that they call it giving. They write
their check to the special interest. I uncovered some rather interesting
language from the secular government years ago that says that those
checks are not tax deductible. Which is an interesting thing.
What you’ve done by writing that check is to take the stewardship
of those things and the leadership of the church completely out
of the equation so that you can donate and dedicate your funds
to your pet project. That’s all fine and good. But
don’t call it giving and don’t call it tax deductible. The church is to be united. The
church is to be united in purpose, not a bunch of special interests. We are to have one goal. We are
to work together for the advance of the gospel. Not to create
some kind of a group and a clique and to go and to lobby for those
to be on our side for whatever it is that we believe is important. Let’s look at these death blows
to vanity. How do we overcome the enemy
of self? There are only two points, but
don’t be mistaken, I will fill up this next amount of time that we have with
these two little points. The keys to overcoming the enemy
of self are these, an inordinate love of self is checked by a
greater esteem of others.” A greater esteem of others. I told you
they were simple. I basically have sought to reword,
gild the lily, if you will, with my own words in describing what
Paul lays out so clearly for us in verse 3. Do nothing from
selfishness or empty conceit. The Greek there, the word, there
is no verb there, it just says nothing. Nothing from selfishness
or empty conceit, and so the verb, in a sense, must be supplied. Some have said that it was the
word doing. Some have suggested that it is
the word thinking. Thinking nothing from selfishness
or empty conceit. Doing nothing from selfishness
or empty conceit. I mean, one leads to the other.
One is preceded by the other. No reason to argue over that,
of all things. Nothing should be done or contemplated
from selfishness or conceit. There shouldn’t be any self-seeking. There shouldn’t be any sinful
egotism in the church. There shouldn’t be any conceit
or pride which Paul calls vain, without content, because of some
self-imagined excellence that we have of ourselves. Let’s look
at those two little words that he presents to us. Selfishness.
We saw this word once already, even in the epistle to the Philippians. Look back, if you would, to verse
15 of chapter one. In chapter 1, verse 15, Paul
began to describe those who were troubling his own ministry. And
he said, some, to be sure, are preaching Christ from envy and
strife, but some also from goodwill. There was this selfish motive
on their part in preaching. They either were counting, as
we said, notches of converts, or maybe they were building their
own little sub-church within the church. Whatever it was,
it was selfishly motivated. They weren’t in it for God’s
glory alone. And I know that we struggled
with how could they be perceived as being Christians? Well, Christians
all the time, we saw, operate with those kinds of motives where
we want them to be part of our church. And I urged you then
and I urge you now, you don’t preach Providence Bible Church.
Preach Christ. Share Christ. If they come to
Providence, fine. Either way, they come to Christ.
Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife,
but some also from goodwill. The latter do it out of love,
knowing that I’m appointed for the defense of the Gospel. The
former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than
from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. You could almost take these words,
that particular word, selfishness, And just call it factiousness,
because that’s kind of the spirit and the flavor of the word. It’s
factiousness or party spirit. But the word would also go far
beyond that and cover the idea of this individual ambition that
you want to be head of the club. Not only do you want your ideas
and your group advanced, you want to be head of the group.
You want to be known as the leader of this party. You go about it working, as one
said, by intrigue for merely personal ends. You’re totally
in it for yourself. You’re advancing your agenda
so that you can get the credit. The word, as I said, is often
translated strife. But it doesn’t just signify contention
for the love of contention. There are people and we know
them. They love to fight, right? They just love to argue, love
to bicker. You say it’s blue. They say it’s blue green. They
come back at you no matter what it is you say. We all know people
like that. That’s not this. That’s just
kind of a troublesome, pestersome spirit that just loves to be
right and loves to quibble and argue. That’s not this. But this kind of contention really
is the contention that is designed. Its whole goal is to secure preeminence. It is self-seeking. It is, as
one said, the restless battle to be first, no matter what opposition
is encountered or whose feelings or interests may suffer. James warned us about that when
he said, if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your
heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. Stop
pretending to be a Christian if this is at the core of your
being. Stop lying, he says. That’s not Christianity. There’s another word that Paul
uses here to describe this attitude, this spirit that is so destructive
in the church. Not only selfishness, but empty
conceit. It’s a graphic little word. It’s
only used here in all of the New Testament. But in the Septuagint,
which was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, it
was often used to describe the worship of idols as being totally
Folly. Empty conceit. Primarily, it
has reference to vain opinion of yourself or an errant opinion. It’s presumptuousness. It’s pretentious. It’s acting in a way that is
out of accordance with the facts. Remember, as one said one time,
everybody likes a somebody. Some even like a nobody. But
nobody likes a nobody that thinks he’s a somebody. And that is
what’s in focus. You have a nobody that is acting,
running around, acting like he’s a somebody. Like he is the chief
of somebodies. It is a vain conceit, said one,
of possessing a rightful claim to honor. It includes any vain
thinking about oneself. It implies a contrast with the
state of mind which seeks the true glory of God. In other words,
he’s not content to glorify God because he’s too busy glorifying
himself. Its object is vain and fleshly,
something which imparts only a superficial glitter in the
eyes of the worldly-minded.” The Puritans translated this
word, vain glory. Isn’t that an interesting word? And that really is almost a direct
translation of the literal Greek. Vain glory. Kinodoxa. One meant empty. The other word
meant vain. And it was always used in the
sense of to no purpose or utterly futile. And that’s why we said
that the worship of idols was utterly futile, without purpose,
complete folly. But here in this context, it
would speak to this empty pride, this proud spirit that really
was of no benefit, no blessing to anyone. Paul warned the Galatians of
this same spirit when he said, let us not become boastful, challenging
one another, envying one another. There is not to be that kind
of spirit in the church. Certainly not in the leaders
of the church. One pastor went on to describe
this so appropriately when he said, this self-conceit is silly. Indeed, but prejudicial to peace,
even though it’s on the face of it to Christians, it’s absurd. And we would almost laugh at
it if it weren’t so serious and so destructive in the church. He goes on and says, inordinate
self display absorbs brotherly love. Did you hear that? It is like that basic science
class where you have the destructive cells that go about the body,
literally absorbing and engorging themselves on other. But the victim here is brotherly
love. And so as this self display,
this self love, this selfishness grows, brotherly love abates. brotherly love begins to disappear. And we’ll see how in a moment.
But he goes on and he says, what he thinks is soundest, what he
proposes is the best. His reasons are irrefutable. His plans cannot be impugned. To differ from him is evidence
of a lack of judgment. To oppose him must be ascribed
to consummate folly or unpardonable obstinacy. He says to run counter
to this man is to be thought a fool of all fools, because
you don’t agree with him. He must lead. And why shouldn’t he? All should
follow him. That kind of attitude is completely
out of out of sync and contrary to the design and Christ’s desire
for the attitude in the church. To seek itself is to break up
the fellowship, not to unify it. Instead of this kind of a
spirit, everyone in the church should in humility be counting
each other as better than himself. That’s Paul’s remedy. And we’ll
get there in a moment. But I said that there was a descriptive
that is so profound, taken from a sermon from a Puritan some
years ago, and I quote in lengthy fashion, when he said, the great causes
of dissension in societies of any kind, he says, you take whatever
group you want, what’s going to tear it apart is the same
in any one of them. Factiousness, vain glory, and
self-seeking. They are all generally present
in varying proportions. In other words, he says, it’s
already here today in our midst. In a congregation, there is always
some deatrophies who loves to have preeminence, who takes up
a certain position in regard to doctrine, ritual, or general
church administration, And if I didn’t know it to be personally
true in my own experience, I might even mock these words. I certainly
wouldn’t have quoted them. But we’ve seen it and we’ve seen
it time and again. Some, when they’re confronted,
flee. Some will not quit until they’ve
taken their portion, until they’ve gutted the church. In a congregation, there is always
one who takes up a position in regard to doctrine, ritual or
general church administration. Clear evidence may be shown to
him that it is a wrong position and one and the maintenance of
which will certainly produce dissension. Yet. Even if he sees his wrong vanity,
a refusal to sacrifice his reputation for wisdom and firmness and power
of management induces him to hold to it. He will not let go
of his foolishness. In fact, as I began to think
of this, and I’ve run across various kinds and various degrees
of wrong thinking or error in my years of ministry, And I could
probably count on one hand, using only fingers, the number of men
that when they were confronted with the truth of Scripture on
the matter, yielded. They said, you know what, brother?
You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I see
that. You know what? I am so sorry. Let me go about telling the church
how sorry I am for this position that not only did I hold and
influence my family, but I influenced the church. I am so sorry. Fewer
than four. In fact, I really couldn’t even
name more than a few names of humble men, men so moved by God’s
grace that they were still yet sensitive even while holding
error. Most of them just flee. Most
of them throw their hand up and run out of the church. Some will
tear it to pieces. Others join themselves to him
and a party is formed and the spirit of faction begins to act.
Partisanship takes the place of brotherly kindness. Sympathies,
which ought to go forth broadly in the church of Christ, are
narrowed down to a little section of the brethren. In other words,
in their own hearts, they’re still acting like Christian,
but they only act like Christians to a special few, those in their
group. One matter after another, almost
wholly unconnected with the original cause of difference, is made
a party matter. And they begin to vote on party
lines and function on party lines. And feeling becomes ever more
deeply and widely embittered. The war spreads to the right
hand and to the left, weakening spiritual life, causing thoughtful
Christians everywhere intense pain and driving the enemies
of God further away from Him. This is serious business to Paul. Paul, I get the sense, is pleading
in the same tone as this gracious pastor for unity in the church. And that’s why I called it a
death blow to self. Don’t let self run away. Don’t
let self drive a faction, a wedge in the church. Don’t let self
take over and take away what Christ has worked into the church. He says, but with humility of
mind, He says, if you’re going to maintain the unity of the
church, then there is an absolute requisite, and that is humility
of mind. And it starts up here with your
thinking. He says, remember who you are.
An unregenerate man, said one, is
proud. The essence of sin is arrogance,
self-assertion against God. That’s basically why there are
so many unbelievers who will not yield their hearts to God.
They are proud to the core. Self-assertion against God, and
it follows most naturally that the sinful heart will be self-asserting
against man also. If we know that he treats God
that way, what makes you think he’ll treat you any less? A soul,
which through pride has broken away from the orbit that God
made it to revolve in, has become a wandering star and cannot,
except through the impulse of the same pride, seek to be itself
the center of a system. He wants to be the sun in the
solar system. He wants to be the very chief
of all. That’s what he wants. Regardless
of what the issue is or what doctrine he advances or what
position he takes, he wants to be chief. This humility, beautiful word,
it implies a lowliness of condition, a lowliness of rank. And in non-Christian
circles, it was an absolutely dirty word. You would call your
worst enemy, you would call the bum in the street humble. It always had, in non-Christian
circles, a bad meaning. Any word in this family was always
used in a derogatory fashion. But this word, the word for lowliness
and humility, is one of the words which Christianity coined. In
other words, this particular word was never even in use until
the day of Christ. Until Christ came, until the
church came, until brothers and sisters in Christ began functioning
one with another and the spirit of unity began to flow through
them. And they coined this phrase to describe what they saw. The word used The family of words
used by non-Christians in an evil sense to speak of cowardliness
and poverty suddenly began to be used in the church to describe
one who is meek and lowly in heart. The New Testament writers scrambled
to come up with a word to describe it, and this was that word. This word For humility of mind
was an outgrowth of the Gospel, said one. It does not occur before
the Christian era. The virtue itself is founded
in a correct estimate of actual littleness, conjoined with a
sense of sinfulness. And there wasn’t a people on
the face of the earth that really had that spirit, that mindset,
until the Christians. Until Christ came. Until the
Holy Spirit came into the hearts of the people. And then we saw
How utterly degraded we are. How utterly sinful we are. How
utterly needful we are of God and His grace. A correct estimate of actual
littleness conjoined with a sense of sinfulness. That’s what we
need. If we’re going to cultivate unity
in the church, If we’re going to do our parts to preserve the
unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, then we’ve got to be
humble minded. And believe me, this humble mindedness
has reference not only to God, but to one another. It’s a two
way street. One described it in these terms.
He said, when grace changes the heart, submission out of fear,
which is what characterized humility up until the Christians. Submission
out of fear changes to submission out of love and true humility
is born. Paul associates this virtue with
those of tender heartedness, kindness, forbearance, long suffering,
meekness. It is the happy condition which
arises when a church Each member counts the other as better than
himself. Paul laid these things out in
passages like Ephesians 4.2 and Colossians 3.12. Those are those
family of grace words. Words to describe the Christian
condition after God had touched him by his grace, after the Holy
Spirit had taken up residence. This humility, said one, is one
of the distinctive features of Christianity. For it rests in
absolute dependence upon God for everything. Some of the brethren,
pardon me, some of the heathen sages might arrive at its meaning
so far as creaturely relations could teach it. In other words,
there are and have been those of philosophy and other circles
who can conceptualize of this ideal. But the meaning is immeasurably
deepened by the aspect of a sinner’s relation to the Redeemer. And
once you see Christ for who He is, and you know yourself for
who you are, everything comes into perspective.
The Redeemer who died for Him in His state of utter unworthiness
bestows upon Him blessings to which He has no claims. And regardless
if all of his faults maintains this spiritual life within him,
ever unworthy and yet ever receiving, indeed having nothing that he
himself has not received, how lowly the opinion of one should
ever be of himself. Paul said it this way, be devoted
to one another in brotherly love, give preference to one another
in honor. Paul was taking that humility
and applying it practically there in Romans chapter 12. But he
knew who the model was. And the model was Christ. who
said, take my yoke, Matthew 11.29, take my yoke upon you and learn
from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest
for your souls. Be like Christ. There are a lot of virtues that
can be mimicked by the world. There are a lot of character
qualities that can be applied simply by practice One described
that energetic, honest, sober, a man, however he may be in those
things through other influences, which stand connected with the
knowledge of Christ, but the truly humble never. In other
words, you can come to those so-called virtues to a degree
through other means other than the gospel. You can be a hard
worker. You can be honest. You can be
sober, but you can’t be humble. Not without Christ. This element of character enters
only when, in light of God, we see our ignorance and folly and
feebleness and guilt. And we learn also through the
example of the Lord Himself, the sublime beauty and dignity
of humbling ourself in self-sacrificing love. Paul says, you know what?
If you want to preserve unity in the Spirit, there is an absolute
requisite that cannot be overlooked. And that is humility of mind,
where you see your own guilt and you see at the same time
the blood of Christ. You come to acknowledge that
you know nothing of yourself, but you find that you have the
Holy Spirit who teaches you all things. You recognize your own
weaknesses, but you realize that in Christ you can do all things
who strengthens you. That is true humility. Living
in the world doesn’t mean that we cower in the corner and give
up. Humility is how we’re supposed
to function with one another. It is the true and accurate way
of developing an estimate of ourselves. Humility puts away
that pride and self-importance and self-seeking. The very fact that believers,
we know it to be true. The very fact that believers
can reasonably regard and treat one another in such a way essentially
is grounded in the great rejoicing of the variety of talents that
are granted to Christians, to believers, to brothers and sisters
in Christ. To know that we cannot do this
alone, that we are bound by God’s grace. So it’s absolutely humbling to
know that we come in with nothing of ourselves, but we come in
enriched by God Himself along others who are equally enriched,
differently so. And it’s in that spirit that
Paul says, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility
of mind. Let each of you regard one another
as more important than himself.” That’s not an easy thing. Even though we realize that all
of the gifts that we’ve been given, we didn’t earn or deserve. However it is we function in
God’s economy is purely by God’s grace. And it’s in that spirit Paul
says, let each of you regard one another as more important
than himself. Put it all in perspective. He’ll
do us do that for us next week. Let’s bow in prayer. Our gracious God. We believe that you have done
a work in our hearts. We know that it’s purely by grace,
by the work of your own Holy Spirit that you have worked into
this little church a measure of unity. Lord, we can seek to
enhance that or we can tear it to pieces and destroy that which
you’ve created. We thank you, Father, for the
means to begin to put a death blow to this enemy of self, that
of humility. Humility of mind, recognizing
that you are God and that you have given to us everything that
we have, that it isn’t about us. It’s about you and your glory
and the advance of your kingdom. Grant us, Father, humility of
mind before we even ponder and consider what it is to esteem
others more highly than ourselves. Grant us Your grace this day.
It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen.