Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast.
I'm Alex and I'm here with. Hello, Kehlani.
And where are we right now? We are in my parents backyard.
I thought you were going to say Kawaii I.
I was like, maybe that's what he wants me to say, but or maybe he
wants me to be very specific. We are in her parents backyard
which we used to live in this house and we filmed.
When I was setting this up, I was thinking of the Amen Church
Live episode that we did back here with Chad Smith.
It's a lot of fun. But we're back here years later
in the Stressless Philippians series.
And today we're talking about Unity.
And I guess I'll just start off telling a little story.
Like one of our favorite trilogy's is The Dark Knight
trilogy. And you remember the part with
Joker when he puts the whole city in this like moral dilemma,
the social dilemma, and he puts them half the city or a bunch of
people on the city in one boat and then all the criminals on
another boat. And do you remember what the
situation was? Vaguely, yes.
They had to like, choose. They both had detonators.
Yeah, they had detonators. So they had to like choose to
basically kill everyone on the other boat.
And if they didn't come to a decision in 30 minutes or
something like that, he would kill both boats.
So it was like sacrifice the other boat and live or both.
Everyone's going to die. Yeah, it's like lose, lose
basically. And yeah, they both had
detonators on their boat. And like she said, like if, if
we, if I'm on the people boat with all the people of the city
and I hit my detonator, it'll blow up the other boat, but I
get to live. And then the criminals of course
have their own detonator and everything like that.
And neither side hits the boat and it kind of backfires on
Joker. And I thought about that because
today's text is about unity. It's the first 4 verses of
Philippians chapter 4 or chapter 2 and it's all about unity.
Paul is like writing to this little church in Philippi and
he's like, I want you guys to just have the same mind and the
same heart and have the same love for each other.
And unity is the goal. And Joker wasn't expecting that.
He wasn't expecting the the the Church of Gotham, but the city
of Gotham to be unified and be on the same level.
He expected them to divide and conquer.
That pride would take over and like we deserve, we didn't do
anything wrong. They're criminals or they're
criminals to be like we're in here already.
We might as well be criminals more and kill everybody.
So could you read Philippians chapter 2 verses one through 4?
Yes, I'd love to. So if there is any encouragement
in Christ, any comfort in from love, any participation in the
Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by
being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full
accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition
or conceit, but in humility. Count others more significant
than yourselves. Let each of you not look only to
his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
So I just want to talk about like how to be unified.
Like as we look, do you see a lot of disunity in your world
today or in our world today? And if so, like, where would it
be? Or we can even just keep it on
the church. Like, do you see a lot of
disunity within the church? Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And I think, yeah, it's just going to continue to have to be
something that the church makes a priority to work on.
Yeah, just because the world wants to continue to
compartmentalize or separate us. And so I definitely see it
within the church. And a lot of the ways of the
world can bleed into the church just totally.
We are imperfect people at different areas on our journey
with the Lord. And so the world can influence
the church, which is not, I believe it's not God's
intention. I believe he wants the church to
influence the outside world, but that requires the church to
function as a healthy body and not just one person leading that
charge by themselves, but everyone collectively working
together, you know? There's something that you
brought up earlier today that I want to share later, but let's
get into the first verse because I thought it was so good.
But so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any
comfort in love, any participation in the Spirit, any
affection and sympathy, He's not saying like if there is these
things he's saying, because I know you are comforted by Christ
and encouraged by Christ, shouldn't we share that with
each other? Like there's a comfort that we
get from Christ and knowing that he's taking care of our sins,
He's went to prepare a home for us in heaven.
And if that is true, then we should share that comfort care.
Comfort is something that's meant to be shared, right?
When someone comes to your house, you want them to be
comfortable because you're comfortable in your home when
people are not there. But also encouragement.
We're encouraged by Christ and participating in the same
spirit, having the same affection and sympathy.
Those are two different words that mean tenderness and
compassion. Like being tender and
compassionate should mark a Christian.
That should be a part of When people think of us as a
Christian, they should think that person is tender and that
person is compassionate. OK being so.
That's talking about a fellowship within believers that
is felt. I think that sometimes you can
go to a church or to a Bible, say to a small group, and there
is fellowship happening, but you don't feel it, right?
Fellowship should be felt, comfort should be shared, and
compassion should mark a Christian.
Now sports teams, just to wrap this up, why we need unity in
our life? Why the church needs to be
unified? Because the church is meant to
look more like a sports team when you think about a sports
team. So there's there's non team
sports. Like skateboarding can be seen
as a non team sport. Even though like Adidas has a
team, Nike has a team. Those are technical technically
teams, but it's pretty much an individual sport.
But cross country is a team sport, right?
Low Kelani ran cross country. Oh yeah, it could either be all
your time time combined, like if somebody finished in one hour,
another person finishes in two hours, then they could add that
up, and then it could be whatever the lowest score wins.
Yeah. Or it could be.
I think it's you. Get a certain amount of points
for finishing within a certain time limit.
But I do know it's a team sport, right?
So it has to be combined, right? Why do people do team sports?
It's because this sport brings a certain amount of comfort to
them, like running and cross country gives them comfort.
Football players, they have comfort in it.
Soccer players get comfort in it and they share that comfort
within each other. And they have a that team has a
fellowship that is felt right when they have pizza parties,
when they have championships, when they do long bus rides,
they're feeling this fellowship because they're sharing in this
comfort and they suffer with each other.
That's what compassion is. To suffer with the the suffering
with each other marks that team. Like, you know, that team is a
team because they suffer together and they feel that
fellowship together. They're comforted by the same
sport. That's how it is with Christ.
What Paul is saying is as a church in Philippi, you guys
should share. You should be like a team sport.
You're on the same team. You should suffer together.
You should feel a fellowship, not just do it just to knock off
the list. Like this is what we do, but you
just share in that comfort with each other.
OK. The problem is in verse 3.
So we did verse one and two, but first three it says do nothing
from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count
others more significant than yourselves.
So the problem, the reason why we don't have unity in verse
three-part A is what I read the whole thing.
But why don't we have unity according to Paul in verse 3?
Selfishness. Yep, selfishness, selfish
ambition. This actually means party
spirit. The reason why there's disunity,
the reason why there's divorce, the reason why there's
dislocation within the church is because of there's the party
spirit alive in that church. Philippi was of one mind and the
same mind. And what that means is he's
saying unity is the idea that we all share the same way of
thinking about the world and about each other.
And so there's no division. That's what unity is.
And and it doesn't mean that we won't have little tiny
disagreements or whatever, but it means when I think about
house church, most of us think, no, not most of us.
All of us have the same thinking when it comes to like
homosexuality, right? Most of us, overwhelming
majority of us at house church, we think the same about family.
You know, we think the same about the type of foods that we
should be eating and not eating. That's what makes you house
church such a unified church is because like he says in verse
one and two same mind, same one mind, one love, but he says mine
twice, which means he really wants us to know that who we are
comes from what we think, right? The Bible says as a man think if
so, is he? So Paul is like, if you guys
think similarly about the things of God, things of Scripture, the
things of the culture, you will be unified.
And verse three he says, but the reason why you're not unified is
because of this selfish ambition or party spirit.
It literally translates into party spirit and both of us were
saved out of that past. When you have the party spirit,
you are at these parties for one reason, one reason only,
selfishness. What I can get out of the party,
who can make me feel better about myself, how much
substances I can take to make me feel comforted.
You're there to serve one purpose and you are that
purpose. It's a very selfish way to live.
And Paul is saying that type of party spirit does not exist and
cannot exist, or does exist, but it should not exist in the
church. For me, Lokelani and I were
completely different partygoers, even though we didn't know each
other at the time. I had to be the life of the
party, right? Loki Alani wanted to go to
parties and like disappear, right?
She wanted to be in the background, right and and feel
comforted by all the things, these false comforts from the
from the party. But I wanted to be.
I wanted the parties to revolve around me, right?
And so you can imagine both of those party spirits in the
church today if she attends church that way, but she's just
in the background. I'm not going to be really a
part of this. I'm just here to get what I can
get out of it and leave, right? Or me, if everything has to be
about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, and I'm the life of the
party. I have to be this and I have to
be that, then that's going to tear up the church, right?
And I, I, this has been something that's been really
weird and hard for me to, to balance because it's very easy
to be like with a church our size, it's very easy to be like,
well, Alex, you're preaching every week.
Is that mean? This is all about you?
It's different because it's a house church and it's my house.
And according to church history, it was the person that, the host
of the house or the person that lived in the house, the husband
of the house that would usually lead the gathering and share the
scripture. And so I have to fight that.
Like, am I being selfish by preaching?
And I realized that preaching is dying, right?
I have to. If I get up there and it's all
about me and this is the stuff I like and the stuff that I want
to talk about and tell some jokes and make everyone love me,
then of course, that's the party spirit.
But then real preaching is dying to yourself, sharing stuff you
don't want to say or being vulnerable.
And so in the church, the party spirit should not exist.
But it does exist. And he's saying, let's kill it
now so it doesn't tear down this Philippian church.
And if you see that in your life, you got to call it out.
Have you seen that in any church you've been a part of or any
Bible study you've been a part of?
And how has it affected that group?
Yeah, I, I think I've definitely seen this.
And I think that when this party spirit exists, it the church
operates a little bit less like a church and more like a social
club. Or I mean, I think it's hard
because you said at the beginning of this fellowship is
felt like it's something that we need, but it could also just be
more of like a. Club OR.
Yeah, yeah, like a. Fellowship or like instead of a
fellowship, it's like a Country Club.
Like, yeah, I think about a Country Club because you got
these like, nice, it's raining. It's raining.
You go to these nice like golf courses and it's like, I know
you guys are friends, but it seems like you just guys just
get around and talk about your stuff and how rich you are and
how powerful you are and how good your golf is.
Yeah. And I think like to your
original question, yeah, like the the party spirit aspects in
certain churches that I have been a part of for however long
the time is. I think what is so interesting
to me is like it's almost like pulling teeth to actually talk
about God. Like outside of the actual like
service that is planned and put on by the leadership.
It's like, OK, the fellowship time, like there's not a lot of
like just not like spontaneous prayer, but just like, you know,
like spontaneous prayer in the way of like, oh, OK, like you're
going through that. Let's pray, you know, like or
just bringing up the Lord or his goodness or like how you see him
working in your life naturally, because as children of God we
should it says the. Word should be on our lips.
Yeah, so he should be on our lips and especially like right
after like worshipping him collectively in the gathering
slash service in America. It's more like a service, but
yeah. And I I find that so
interesting. It does.
And that's like verse 2. It says same mind, same love.
Like we all may have the same mind because we go to the same
church, we think the same way, we vote the same way, we're
conservative the same way or Democrat the same way, but we
don't have the same love. A lot of us are here because we
love different things and that same love is not Christ.
So you can have the same mind but not the same love.
And that's why he's saying in verse 2, I pray that you'd have
the same mind and same love. That way you'll be really, truly
unified, you know, super good. OK, so the solution, what is the
solution? How do we become unified?
The solution is verse 4, humility.
And next week we're going to talk about probably the most
famous passage in the Bible about the humility of Christ.
But this week, just a little sneak peek.
The humility is the way to be unified.
If we're going to be unified, we have to be humble.
We talk about God. Why?
Because we love God. We love God because we need God.
We don't talk about God. It's because we don't love him
and we don't love him. It's because we feel like we
don't need him. You have to have the humility to
realize we do need him. Every hour.
I need thee. Let each of you look not only to
his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
And we're going to talk about what this looks like in Christ's
life. But just a little sneak peek.
Christ was selfless. He had no selfish ambition.
I think about the time where he says I did not come to serve or
I did not come to be served, but to serve and to lay my life down
as ransom for many. He's saying I came to earth to
serve and here's what it's going to look like.
I'm going to use my life as a ransom.
That's how I'm going to serve people.
I'm going to use my life to pay to get you out of the grip of
the devil, the grip of sin and death.
And why does Jesus say I came not to be served, but to serve?
It's because before he made anything, before the earth was
made, before Adam and Eve, before anything, God the Father
and God the Son, God the Holy Spirit had already had a plan.
Knowing that we would break it, knowing that we'd break our
break our covenant, break our God's heart.
He already had a plan to save us.
And so it wasn't like Jesus like in in the middle of Leviticus
was like, oh, why don't we do this?
God, the Trinity already had a plan to come and save us.
And so when Jesus says I come not to be served, but to serve,
he was like, this is has always been the plan that God would
send me to come and serve you. There was.
So what I'm trying to say is never, ever in the history of
mankind or in eternity past has God had an even a sliver of
selfish ambition in him. He has always been selfless,
completely selfless. And the most selfless thing God
can do is to give you himself for his own glory, because he
alone deserves the glory, as sinless and perfect as He is.
So thinking about Christ's beautiful selflessness and how
while we were still sinners, while we were selfish, he came
and selflessly laid down his life that we would be free from
sin. Have a path to follow, a life to
follow, a light on that path, forgiveness of everything, a
future and a hope, a heaven that's filled with the fullness
of satisfaction. If that is where we're headed,
then where do you see unity in your life?
If you look at your life everywhere, you see unity,
humility will be there as well. Humility will be there as well
everywhere. So for example, the Knicks,
right? They're about to go into, well,
Game 5 is already happening by the time this episode posts,
they're about to go into game five.
There is so much unity within the city of New York.
Why? Because for 20, for what, over
two decades? I mean, I'm not a Knicks fan,
but over 2 decades, a long time, they have lost every year.
They have got not gotten a championships since I believe
the 70s. I want to say it's been a very,
very long time. That is humiliating, right?
I think about Spike Lee. He has sat on courtside for so
many Knicks games year after year, loss after loss after
loss. You know the amount of humility
it takes to do that a lot. And that is why there is such
great unity in the city because they share that humility.
They were down in the dirt together and now they get to
rise together. They share in that unity because
of their humility. Where else?
What are some other places that you see unity in the world or in
culture or families or anything? Yeah, well, I see.
I feel like I just because you brought up family, like, I
think, I don't know, I there's not just like one way to do it,
but I'm seeing some of the fruit of like homeschooling and how at
least at this stage with our oldest almost being 11, so we're
not in the teenagers yet. So stay tuned.
No, I'm not. Yeah.
Anyway, I just see a lot of unity within just our immediate
family, you know, because we home school, we're together,
we're not separating the family. Even with church, you know,
obviously you all know if you follow us in house church, the
kids are a part of the service. And so not being separated, I
think has allowed just our ideals and all of that to be on
the same accord. Because we're not getting
outside influence from all these other spaces and then coming in
and trying to like live amongst each other.
And I'm not saying that you should always just stay in a
bubble and be sheltered and only stay with your people and never
learn. We can definitely learn from
people who are different from us or in different situations.
But children, you know, need their parents and they're so
easily influenced. And so I, yeah, I guess I'm just
seeing the fruit from this lifestyle and just how we're,
there's not a lot of pushback right now, at least on the
thing. Like when we talk about the
things of God or the way the world works or all that within
our family. And also because of that, it's
not just our ideals that are aligned.
It's just there's a lot less competition within our family.
Like I was talking to a friend earlier about that, like Sybil
sibling rivalry just doesn't exist.
There's definitely moments of selfishness.
There's definitely arguments that happened, especially with
the really little ones because they're learning.
But I'm just blown away just by how for each other the kids are
and how they love to share. They love to just see each other
succeed. And I think that is just part of
like just as being unified as family.
Right. You know, and that's a part of
that first four where he says look out for the interests of
others. Like that is what humility looks
like is being interested in you, not myself, you know, like, yes,
taking interest in other people. And one of the things that
commentary was pointed out was how boring it is to be around
people who only talk about themselves.
Oh yeah, it's not boring. It's a little frustrating.
Yeah, he's saying be the type of church where when you guys get
together, you become interested in the what the people around
you are interested in. So going up to someone and
saying, hey, I heard you went fishing this week.
Like what kind of fish did you get?
Or just taking an interest in whatever, listening to people so
that when it's time to buy them a gift, it's like, oh I know the
perfect gift for this person because I remember this
conversation 3 weeks ago, they talked about this or they said
that this was important to them and taking note of that.
That is how you share in humility, which means your
church will be a unified place. And I think house church does
that really well. I see a lot of people taking
interest in each other. Do you think that's why we have
share so much unity in our family?
What part? Taking interest in each other.
Oh yeah, I think so. You see that with the.
Kids ever? Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, I see, like Amos, like if Lola cries, all of the kids,
like, can I get her? Can I pick her up?
Can I go get her? It's not like, oh, I'm reading
right now or I'm drawing or I'm eating.
It's like I take an interest in my little sister and what she's
going through. Again, also compassionate and to
stop what they're doing and want to help out with that.
That does there's so much humility in that and it does
unify the family. So yeah, grateful for that
picture and all the mini pictures that we brought up
today. But in your life, where do you
see unity or maybe lack of unity and but to remember how powerful
the humility of Christ can be. And with that said, next week
we're going to dive deeper into what the humility of Christ
looks like. He certainly it has that piece
we talked about today where he takes an interest in his sheep.
He takes an interest in the loss, right?
So much so that he would come down and quiet literally walk on
our shoes, share and our experiences tempted in every way
yet without sin knows what it feels like to be human and right
now human 100% God, 100% man on the throne.
Talk about taking an interest in US and looking to the interest
of us. And so he models that for us.
But we'll look at more next week.
And I didn't really say this, but I hope that it was an
implied it was implied. This is the way to a stress less
life. This is a way to a stress free
life. The reason why there's just or
if there's disunity within your church, that's a stressful
church to be a part of. If there's humility in the
church, if there's laying down in your life, if there's look
into the interests of others, that is a peaceful beautiful
church to be a part of. And so yeah, appears to live in
this dress less life and looking forward to next week going to be
good. Yes.
Oh, by the way, if you're watching the video, we are
drinking sweet tea. Yeah, they probably.
Forgot to mention that they're in like little koozies, but very
refreshing because it's been pretty hot here on Kawhi lately.
We're in summer. Summer starts early for us, like
in May and last until November, so.
Yeah, it's a longer. Summer, Yeah.
So just wanted to throw that out there.
But yeah, I'm excited to jump in to next week's episode.
Next week, Yep. Amen. podcast.com to keep up
with us. And you hear us talk about house
church a lot. There's a house church podcast
where I post my sermons from our church that meets in our garage.
And we are in a series called Maturity.
So it's going to pair beautifully with this stressless
series. And yeah, that's a whole other
podcast if you want to listen to those live sermons.
But I also started a series on my channel called the David
series. We look at the life of David and
that's going to be a lot of fun too.
Episode 1 is already out on the Alex Wilson channel and yeah,
there's lots of ways to stay involved with us and follow us
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support.bygivingfinancially@amenpodcast.com/donate anything else you want to say?
Nope, Nope. But we love you guys.
Have a good day and we'll see you in the next one.
Until then, go out and be the church.
Amen.