Having the Mind of Christ — Philippians 2

0:00 Good morning. Let's open with a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for this this day and this time we have to gather together and, remember your name and this, this opportunity that you've given us as Christians to be part of a church and to be unified in our worship towards you and our our work in the world. Lord, that you bless our time today. Pray that you would help me to have the words that come from you and that anything that is not from you would be quickly forgotten and that there would be something that would convict the heart of somebody here and would be a blessing to them.

0:33 We pray these things in your name. Amen. So before we get started, I'm going to ask a couple questions, not rhetorical. I am looking for some answers here. And I know that's always hit or miss.

0:44 I'm not a teacher, but I've been a student and I know a lot of times people don't answer. We're just going to figure it out as we go. First question is, why are you here? What are you doing at church on a Sunday morning instead of going to brunch, sleeping in, playing golf? Any of these are valid options.

1:00 Why are you here specifically? Yep. Go ahead. Of believers. To be fed.

1:10 Jesus, classic. That's a good one. Anybody else? Worship the Lord. All these are valid and great options.

1:22 Anyone else want to take a stab at it before we move on to the next question? Andy? The Lord is dwelling with us when two or three are gathered together in his name. Great answer. The second one kind of dovetails on that a little bit.

1:40 It's going be similar, but it's going to be slightly different. It's what do you do when you come here? What do you do? What do you do here? What's the purpose?

1:52 This one might be a little bit more complicated because it involves a little bit more. Mr. Eichele? Glorify God. Remember what done.

2:01 Remember what he's done for us? Participate. It's a great one. Very great now. Anyways, yeah, so these are a couple of questions that I want to be thinking about as we go through the message and hopefully by the end of the message we'll kind of have an answer for both of these questions.

2:18 Obviously it's not a perfect or cohesive answer, but it's one answer of the many that I think is important to look at. I might be turning into Jim Bingham a little bit here because same as last time we're going start off with a little bit of review And we're not going to review the last two months, but specifically, there's two messages I wanted to look at. The first one being Mr. Hilton's message on John 12, where he was talking about God's will for our life. And he asked a couple questions at the end of that message that I wrote down in my notes and I think they're very relevant for the message today and I want to something else that we want to be thinking about as we're going through this message.

2:52 And the first one was how do we engage with the body of Christ? How do we engage with the body of Christ? Second one was what is our perspective on how we treat our brothers and sisters? And then the third one was are we looking to serve them? So all three of these questions kind of looking at what are we doing here?

3:12 What is our purpose in the body of Christ and how can we do that together? And then going back further, have a little, we have Mr. Schroeder's message on Philippians four. Now I wrote it down in my notes, titling it disunity in the body, but if you go to the website, it's titled unity in the body. It goes both ways.

3:29 It's a dealer's choice on what you wanted to call it. But he was talking about Philippians four, the first couple verses there about how there was disunity in the church in Philippi. And even though there was a blessing, was this problem that needed to be resolved. So he's giving them advice on how to do this. And you talk...

3:45 He talked about these imperative commands that were part of that chapter. There was the commands to be... To stand fast, to rejoice always and to be anxious for nothing. I especially appreciated that those two commands there of to rejoice always and be anxious for nothing because our surety is in the Lord. We don't have to be anxious for anything.

4:03 And then he also separated the chapter down into four exhortations These four exhortations were having the same mind, the same master, the same using and the same maturity. My message is not stealing from these two. Is. But I want you to know that I had the idea before I heard these two messages. I want to make that clear.

4:46 Anybody want to take a stab in the dark? What passage I want to reach out to for this? It's not a trick question. It's a good one. It'll be in there at some point.

4:55 But opening up, we're Philippians two one through five. That's where we're going to be to start out. And I'm going to go ahead and read that passage where it says, therefore, if there's any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests but also for the interests of others.

5:29 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And if I had to pick one verse that would summarize today's entire message and you could leave after this if you want. If you want context, you can stick around. It's the verse five there where it says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. But kind of breaking down these verses a little bit, going into it, the first if, therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, it's not a question there.

5:54 It's a it's a rhetorical argumentative He said, if this is true, then this also must be true. And that's kind of the idea here. And it is true. We know that there is these things that are in Christ. The if is the the consolation is the encouragement that we have in belonging to Christ.

6:09 This consolation is comfort that we have in belonging to Christ. Comfort in the love of the father. We know that in him we are secure. And then fellowship together in the spirit. And you kind of see a little role, playing out of the trinity here as well where you have this fellowship together in the spirit and the affection and mercy that is in our hearts from the spirit dwelling in our hearts.

6:27 Now in verse two, we see these these requests from Paul to be these things. And they are like minded, having the same love of one accord and one mind. Now, those sound pretty similar, but there is some differences there. The first one is like minded, and it means to have a similar mind to Christ. It is not a hive mind where, like, you see in these, like, movies where it's like the mega mind, like Queen Mother, and she's controlling her drones, they just can't think or do anything, they listen to everything she says.

6:57 It's more the idea of, like, a football play where there's, like, a quarterback, and they all have this play, and he's the one directing the play, and they all have a like minded goal to accomplish in that play. But each different player has a different purpose, a different plan that they are doing, a different route that they're running to accomplish that goal. So the like minded goal outcome but different actions, different thoughts. And the second one is being of one accord and similar to that, having that same goal, having that same desired outcome that you want to accomplish. And then the third one is the one mind.

7:31 And this shows that we are acting united because Christ is guiding all of us. And it's not the idea that we all should think the same because again if everybody had the same brain as me, pandemonium would ensue. It's not that because if everybody thought the same, then the church would not accomplish most of the things that it needed to accomplish because every one of us is different and has unique contributions and thoughts to add to the meeting and to the service that we do as a church. Verse three is a little bit convicting. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit.

8:07 Raise your hand if you've done nothing through selfish ambition and conceit in the last year. I've been raising my hand and say I've done something through selfish ambition or conceit in the last year. How about the last month? Hand still stays up. Week still stays up.

8:19 Day it's still up there. I mean, it's such an easy thing to do, this idea of like doing things to serve yourself better or doing things because you think you're better than others. And it's very important that we are not doing this. But thankfully they gave us the flip side to do which is also incredibly difficult to do and I don't know that I've done a lot of in the last year either, but it's in lowliness of mind to steam others better than himself. Also very tough to do because I don't know that I could say that I've done that as much as I should be doing it.

8:53 I like this command though because it's not it's not a natural human reaction to esteem others better than himself. You think about like the theories of like the the pyramid of self actualization, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like the top is self fulfillment. It's not self fulfilling others. It's not fulfilling others. It's self fulfillment.

9:10 It's not a natural reaction to think about how we can best serve others and esteem them others better than ourselves, but the command here does come with that command. You are to esteem. It's not a simple letting other people walk all over you. It's not doing what other people want you to do without questioning it because that's not a healthy reaction to these things. It's you have to set boundaries and do what's best for them and say hey, even though you want to do this, it wouldn't be best for you.

9:36 So I'm going to help you do this thing that I think would be best for you. It's not just laying down and letting people walk over though. It's being intentional, caring about the other person and seeing what can you do to help them and esteeming them better than yourself. I've heard that this can be done in the human relationships, but I would argue that without God, is almost impossible. I think the closest I thought of is like either like parent child relationship where you're doing whatever you can to help your child and esteeming them better than yourselves.

10:03 But even then, I've heard there are some limitations to this. I heard in the last week. I'm not gonna say it was, but they said sometimes you just gotta buckle in and do it even if you don't want to. So I'm not gonna say it's perfect. And then the next one is verse four, where it says, let each of you look out not only for his own interest, but also for the interest of others.

10:21 Others should be the focus of our life, especially when we come to church. Our purpose when we come to church is not to get, but it's to give. It's how can we give to others? How can we bless others? And in doing that, we will receive blessings in return but if we only come to church to receive blessing then the church is losing out on what we have to add and then also you're not receiving the full blessing that God would have for you by giving to others.

10:44 And then lastly, verse five. This is the crux of the issue on what unity looks like. And it's, let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. And theoretically, if we all did that perfectly, there would be no problems in the church. Tragically, we do not live in that theoretical world.

11:00 But we can strive to live it with the Lord's help. And that kind of the goal. That's the topic that we want. How can we live our Christian life and be unified by having the same mind as Christ Jesus? And we will look at some practical ways of applying this later on.

11:30 But first I want to look at how did we get here as the church? Because I feel like it's easy for me to take for granted this idea that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins, that we can accept him and that we can believe that he rose again to save us and we can have eternal life. It's something that was not always as available as was now and I mean before the Lord Jesus came, people were under the law. They're with the condemnation of the law and all these different things. So we're going look at Ephesians two eleven through 13 where it says, therefore remember that you were once Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands.

12:06 That at that time you were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So this is a good reminder that we were without hope in God in the world. We were strangers. None of this, what I've been saying so far, was applicable to us without the saving power of Christ who brought us near to God, who took us as strangers and aliens out of the world and made us sons of daughters with God.

12:40 And there's this idea, and it was more common historically, but it's also been popularized by pop culture references, of this idea of a life debt. And it's this idea that somebody saves your life and so you owe them a debt of gratitude. You promise to serve them for the rest of your life. I don't know if there's Star Wars fans in here, but Chewbacca Han Solo relationship where Han Solo saved Chewbacca's life at one point and then Chewbacca promises and is his friend and works with him for the rest of his life. Any Robin Hood enjoyers in here?

13:08 The 2018 adaptation of Robin Hood, which is the worst I've seen. I don't recommend it. But there is the idea of Robin Hood saving little John's life and little John promises a life debt to him. Says I will serve you for the rest of your life for however long until the debt is repaid. For us as Christians we can't repay that debt because Jesus did the work.

13:27 And Paul uses the analogy of a bond servant, which I think is very similar to this concept here of someone who voluntarily chooses to serve their master for life out of love and gratitude and not because they have to. And so it's this idea of we are bond servants for Christ. We are part of the church now. And so what is our role here? What is this?

13:48 What is our mode or what is our purpose here? Because we have the motivation. We have the reason. And now what is our purpose here? Now the next passage we're going look at is in Ephesians two as well.

13:57 So if you stay there, that is great. Honestly, most of the next passages are from Ephesians. So lock in. Ephesians two nineteen-twenty two. Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners.

14:08 So, again, we went from aliens and outcasts with no hope to... We are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole body being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. So here we see one reason, one purpose for the church. We are being built together for a dwelling place of God and the spirit similar to what Andy said with this idea of where two or three are gathered together in my name, they're mine in the midst of them.

14:45 The church is a very unique building in the sense that it is always growing and it is constantly changing based on people that are added to the church, how it functions, and it will never be destroyed, which the old temple didn't have a great track record with never being destroyed. They really went through it a couple times with getting wiped out. But we are the new temple, the new dwelling place for God, which will never be destroyed and will be preserved for eternity. And God made that promise to us. Another important distinction is it's not the inner...

15:12 It's not the outer courts. It is the holy of holies that we are dwelling place of God. It is the inner sanctuary where God's spirit dwelled and it is dedicated to God for his sacred purposes. Somebody made the, I can't remember who, but somebody made the analogy or the point that when you come to church, you're here to worship. And that's exactly what our worship is, is it's a sacrifice to the Lord.

15:31 So this idea of us being a temple is when we give our worship, it is a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord. So we're not sacrificing animals anymore, but we're giving him our worship as a sacrifice. And then in verse 22, we see this idea of we are a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. And historically, we were Gentiles. We were foreigners.

15:52 Historically, when Gentiles or foreigners came into contact with the holiest of holies with God's spirit, invariably, result was instant death. They would always be killed. They couldn't stand to be in God's holy presence. But now we have boldness to come into his presence. We can access him directly.

16:07 And what a blessing that is that we go from somebody who would be immediately smited down at the presence of God to being the dwelling place of God as his holy church. The next passage we're going look at as for why we're here is Ephesians three:nine-eleven. And that is, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So a second reason that we are here as a church is we are an example to the heavenlies. We are an example to principalities and powers in the heavenly places as a demonstration of God's manifold wisdom, his plan, how he accomplished everything that he set out to accomplish.

17:02 And I think it's really important to note going through this passage is how much of this was done through the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. We saw in the last passage how Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone. We see in this passage how all things were created through Jesus Christ and how he accomplished all these things in Christ Jesus our Lord. But we see this amazing plan that God accomplished in the church of how he triumphed over sin for his glory, how he sent heaven's best Jesus Christ to die on the cross for earth's worth, earth's worst which is us. How he's preparing us as the church as a bride for his son and then the blessings we have received from the Lord and how Satan was defeated and Christ was made victorious all through these plans.

17:40 This is an incredible testimony to the people around us. We as a church can be an example to the world but also God uses an example in the heavenly places as well. And the question is, do we want to be a good example or a bad example? Because we hear in Revelation examples of different churches who are struggling with various things and it's they were not being a good testimony to those around. And do we want to be known as those churches who are a bad example or do we want to be seen as a good example, a good testimony to the heavenly places and also to the world around us?

18:50 I have a working theory that each person has their own significant sin in their life that is a reoccurring sin and it's something that they battle with more than others might but it's something that they have to challenge and it's a thorn in their side but through God's strength they can deal with this but also through the encouragement of brothers and sisters in Christ, They can come along and help bear this burden, help encourage this brother or sister to keep going and keep honoring the Lord in their actions. And I know from my personal experience, other the young men from this church, I think about Jeremy and Mason and Logan especially who we started reaching out to each other five or six years ago now and building that relationship and we were able to encourage each other tremendously and exhort one another to love and good works as the Bible says and bear one another's burdens. And it helped me out a ton. And I encourage all of you to share one another's burdens in the body of Christ, to encourage one another and exhort one another. Now I was trying to think about practical examples for how we can do this because we've seen why we...

19:55 We've seen what unity is in the mind, having the mind of Christ, fulfilling the purpose of the church. We saw what the purpose, some of the purposes of the church were in bearing one another's burdens, being an example, and being a dwelling place for the spirit. But it's how can we accomplish this practically? I couldn't think of a better place to go than looking at the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and how he treated the people around him and some of the ways that he acted to take care of the people around him to fulfill this role that we should be fulfilling in the church. And if you want to, the next passages are going to be all out of the Gospels.

20:30 And for ease of simplicity, I did it in not chronological order, but just the order it is in the Bible. So we're starting in Mark, then we'll be in Luke, and then we'll be in John. So first passage is in Mark 30 or six, Mark six verses 30 through 37. And this is the idea that we need to be caring for one another's physical needs and spiritual needs in the body of Christ and we see how the setup for this passage is, is the first verse here kind of, or the first couple of verses is kind of dissimilar to the second couple, but it still fits in very well. Whereas after the Apostles had come back to the Lord, after being out on their ministry journeys where he had sent them out, the Apostles gathered to Jesus and told them all things, both what they had done and what they had taught.

21:10 And he said to them, come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile, for there were many coming and going and they did not even have time to eat. So they departed to a deserted place in a boat by themselves. So here we see the apostles coming back from their journeys abroad, from their teaching. And the first thing Jesus said is, you guys need to physically rest. He's telling them you need to take care of themselves.

21:30 And I would assume he was helping them in this manner, physically taking care of themselves. And then the very next verse, we see even more an example of physically and spiritually taking care of the needs of the others around us and it says, But the multitude saw them departing and many knew him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to him. Jesus, when he came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So he began to teach them many things.

21:59 When the day was now far spent, his disciples came to him and said, this is a deserted place and already the hour is late. Send them away that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread for they have nothing to eat. But he answered and said to them, you give them something to eat. And they said to him, shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat? And obviously, this here is the feeding of the 5,000 where they find the five loaves and the two fish and Jesus is able to turn those five loaves and two fish into food for thousands and thousands of people.

22:29 But we saw where he had these people around him and he saw their spiritual needs. He saw a great multitude and they was moved with compassion for them because they were like a sheep not having a shepherd. So he reached out and he started teaching them and taking care of their spiritual needs, which is very important. We come to church, as somebody said, to be spiritually fed. That is definitely one reason we come to church.

22:50 We also often come to church to be physically fed. I don't know if this is unusual for our church or not, but that invariably happens when we have an event. There is food there as well. But it goes beyond that where we're taking care of other physical needs where if somebody is not able to do something, let's say somebody's in the hospital, you can go take care of their yard, can go take care of their animals while they're on vacation, taking care of the physical and spiritual needs of the brothers and sisters in Christ, encouraging them, exhorting them and we're going to see this a lot in the book of Acts as we go through it, especially early in the church because a lot of that focus early on was how were they providing for the needs of the body and the needs of the early church. We saw some good things that were done in with Ananias and Sapphira.

23:30 We saw how it can go poorly as well. Next passage is going to be Luke ten:one-two and this is another way we can have the same mind of Christ and show unity in the church. It's working together with one another to spread the gospel. Luke ten:one-two you see it says, after these things the Lord appointed 70 others also and sent them two by two before his face to every city and place where he himself was about to go. Then he said to them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few.

24:01 Therefore, the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into harvest, into his harvest. We are to work together to serve the Lord. There's a great harvest out there and the work we do together as a church compounds to do the work that we do separately. Because we do do work separately. There is a passage in Galatians that says that you should have individual works that you're doing that show that you are serving the Lord.

24:25 And I think this is awesome, incredible thing. But then when you come together as a church serve them together, I think of VBS, we see how we all come closer together as a body, but then we can also accomplish great things in how we can serve the Lord together. The next one is one that is a little bit more of a difficult passage to or difficult topic that doesn't come up as much, but it is just as important for the function of a church. And it's this idea that we should be rebuking one another when we see one another going into sin, that you need to be calling out your brother and sister in Christ. The New Testament lays out very specific ways to go about doing this.

25:00 And I think it's important to understand that when you go into it, specifically, know that if you're going to call out an elder, you need to have two or three witnesses. If you're going to say, as we read in the passage in Galatians six, if you see a brother struggling, you need to make sure that you will not be overcome by that sin if you go and help him. So there are a lot of qualifications around this, but it's an important idea and we see how Jesus did this with his disciples in Luke 22 verses 24 through 27 where it says, now there was a dispute among them also as to which of them should be considered the greatest. And he said to them, the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors, but not so among you. On the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.

25:47 For he... Who is greater? He who sits at the table or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the one who serves.

25:55 Here we see the Lord saw a dispute amongst his disciples about who would be the greater. Their actions and mindsets here were incorrect and sinful. He rebuked them because of it. He didn't just say you're wrong. He said this is not correct.

26:09 Here's why you're wrong. Here's what you should be doing instead. He gives them a good example to follow instead of just telling them they're wrong. He gives a good example of how to correctly rebuke a brother in Christ and how to do that. And we saw what happens if you let things go unchecked.

26:23 We saw at the church in Corinth, there was great sin there. Nobody was rebuking it and how it was causing problems in the whole body. And so why it's important to rebuke a brother and sister in Christ if you see them going the right way. We see the example that Jesus provides here as well. Another one is to be praying for one another and we have this example from the Lord Jesus where Jesus is in the garden talking with his disciples and it says in Luke twenty-two 30 one-thirty two and the Lord said, Simon, Simon, indeed, Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat but I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail.

27:00 And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren. We also see in John 17 how Jesus was praying for his disciples and also for all the believers in the world. Praying for each other requires that we know each other. If I know absolutely nothing about you, I can pray in a generic sense. Can say, Lord, I pray that you would help Andy.

27:18 If I don't know anything about Andy, that's as far as I can go. But if I know Andy, can add more specific requests. I can know the things that he's going through and pray for those things. And one thing I found out about prayer is you can't see God answer your prayer unless you make the prayer. It's incredibly encouraging when you pray for something and you see God answer it.

27:37 And if you're never praying for things and never asking God for things, it's harder to see those answers. So that's why it's important to be building those relationships with our brother in Christ, encouraging them, praying for them. And I like the thing that Jesus slipped in at the end here. It's that when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren. You're not always going to be going through these difficult times.

27:56 There are going to be difficult times where you require prayer. When you finish going through those times and you come back, you've been strengthened, you are to then help your brethren. You are to be praying for them as well. It's a constant cycle of when you're going through difficult times, maybe you have to rely on a brother and sister in Christ. Maybe you ask for prayer.

28:11 Then when you're going through that time you say how can I pray for you and it's this constant cycle of strengthening your brethren when they need it and when you need strength relying on your brethren? Another example we have is and this is more just a human aspect of just sharing in the emotional highs and lows with our brother and sisters in Christ. We are sharing life together. We are part of the body of Christ together. We see this in Romans twelve fifteen where it says, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

28:38 And then we also see this in Jesus's appearance at Lazarus's tomb after he died. And Jesus obviously had a purpose to accomplish here by raising Lazarus from the dead and it was part of the signs that he was accomplishing and his testimony. But you see the genuine sorrow that was in Jesus's heart when he came and saw them mourning for for their dead brother, for their dead friend. And it says in verses verse chapter, verse 33 of chapter 11 of John, it says, Therefore Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her weeping and he groaned in spirit and was troubled. And he said, Where have you laid him?

29:13 And they said to him, Lord, come and see. And Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, See how Jesus loved him. So it's this idea that a lot of our life is shared with our brothers and sisters in Christ and there's going to be high moments and there's going to be low moments. I think of some of these high moments here of coming up of Mason and Moriah, they're getting married.

29:30 This joy that we have to welcome them into the body as a married couple. We saw this with the marriage of Spencer and Daisy. What a blessing that was. But then there's also some of these lower moments. Think of the passing of Mr.

29:39 Eichenauer's father. A very tragic time in his life. It was unexpected. But as a church, we were able to come together and encourage and strengthen him during this difficult time as well. The next one is that we should be serving one another.

29:54 And this is exemplified by Jesus in John chapter 13 and a couple verses there, specifically 12 through 17. It says, so when he had washed their feet in verse 12, starting in verse 12. So when he had washed their feet, taken his garments and sat down again, he said to them, do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord and you say well for so I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash another's feet.

30:22 For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. And here we have the Lord Jesus Christ showing them a true servant's heart and the idea that there is no task low for us. I know that this has been explained in various messages in the past, but this idea of washing somebody's feet was a job reserved for the slave.

30:52 It was for the lowest slave in the household. It was not a place of honor. It was a pretty disgusting task. Walking around all day, sandaled up, dirt everywhere. Not the best thing, but Jesus voluntarily does this and showing them a true servant's heart.

31:08 There's no job in the church or no position that we should be unwilling to assume because we think we're too good for it. And this comes back to the selfish ambition or conceit thing from Philippians two. An example that I think of, the first example that came to my mind was years ago coming to prayer meeting and after prayer meeting every night, mister Dick would be out there emptying the trash cans, taking them out, putting them in the garbage can, making sure every trash can was clean and had a bag and nobody asked him to do this. Nobody... I never said thank you.

31:35 I'll be honest. I don't know if people were thanking him, but just consistently seeing a task that needed to be done and said, I'm the one for this job. This isn't too low for me. Somebody else shouldn't be doing this. I'm the one that should be doing this.

31:47 And these verses also hold spiritual significance as well. There's this idea that when your feet are getting too dirty from walking in the world, are you willing to help each other out by constantly washing one another in the word of God encouraging one another, exhorting one each other or exhorting each other, keeping each other accountable for your actions. And then the last the last action that Jesus did is this idea of we should be encouraging one another. And this is from John fourteen:one where it says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.

32:38 They don't know what's going on and Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. And then in the next couple of verses, he proceeds to give them the encouragement of, seems like things are going bad now, but I'm going to prepare a place for you with me and my father in heaven forever. And while things on this earth may seem like they're difficult, there is rest coming. There is eternal security coming that you could have with me in heaven forever.

33:03 And so it's this idea of sometimes people are just going through difficult times. They need encouragement. They need somebody who can come along and help them and say, hey, it seems like this is a hopeless time, but how can I encourage you? How can I help you? How can I assist you in a way that is Christ like?

33:20 And so, kind of going to conclude some of these things. I asked two questions at the beginning of the meeting and it's we've gotten some answers to those questions and the first question was is why are you here? And to answer that we have seen that God has brought all of us into the church through the saving power of his son Jesus Christ And it's for multiple reasons. And it's we are a dwelling place for God and offer sacrifice to him through our worship. We are an example in the heavenly places and here on earth.

33:52 And we are to help bear one another's burdens as fellow believers. We also answer the second question practically through the examples of Christ where it's what do we do here? What is our purpose here? Where we can support one another by caring for each other's needs, sharing the gospel together, rebuking one another with brotherly love, praying for one another, sharing the highs and lows of life with one another and serving each other and encouraging each other. The purpose here is we have unity in Christ.

34:23 We have the same mind as Christ. We are like minded with Christ. He is our cornerstone and unifying factor. He is the perfect example on how to live the Christian life. And it is up to us to strive to have the same mind of Christ as we are living our Christian walk with our brothers and sisters.

35:01 And it says in verses one through six of Ephesians four, I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bear with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in the hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. Let's close in prayer. Dear Lord, I thank you for this this time that we had to gather together.

35:40 And Lord, I thank you that we are no longer strangers and aliens on the earth without hope wandering in the dark world but that you've brought us into your light. You have saved us as sons and daughters and that you had a plan for us that you created this this concept, this mystery that is the church for us to to work together to be unified, to serve you with Christ as our cornerstone, that we can have the same mind of him and live live a life to those around us, to our brothers and sisters to the world that was exemplified by Christ. Lord, pray that you would help us to do this as go throughout our lives. We pray these things in your name. Amen.