When I first began studying this text, last week, I had to chuckle a little. I chuckled a little because I could feel the unique provision of the Lord…
I could feel the unique provision of the Lord, in this particular season (hailed as the most polarized election year in history, historic division in our country around subjects such as Covid19 and masks just to name two) and in light of my introduction, theme and tone of last week’s sermon (I’m a fighter who loves the “W” but the gospel redefines the “W” for believers, in the shadow of the cross, in the doorway of the empty tomb and in the light of the hope of heaven).
So, in light of those two things, the current season and last week’s intro, I chuckled out loud and then I sent a corresponding text to our elder team with some initial thoughts that I’ll work through in the course of this message. But I do find it to be supernaturally providential that we are here in this text today; a text that addresses the issues of disagreement and division in the church.
But before I dive into the text, I want to draw your attention to something I’ve stated often throughout this series. What I have often drawn your attention to throughout this series are the main issues of this letter, the remedies to those issues, and what I take to be the main purpose of this letter. I really want you to remember and I want you to feel the immensity and the weight of the thrust of this letter once again before we dive into the text for today.
You may remember me drawing your attention repeatedly to the three main issues that the apostle Paul addresses in this letter:
Issue #1: Self-Centeredness and Pride (2:3 – 4); Issue #2: Complaining and Arguing (2:14 – 15); Issue #3: Disagreement and Division (4:2 – 3). You may also recall me drawing your attention to the three remedies that the apostle Paul gives for those three main issues: Remedy #1: Put On The Mind Of Christ (2:5 – 8); Remedy #2: Work Out Your Salvation In Christ (2:12 – 13); Remedy #3: Stand Firm In The Joy Of Christ (4:1, 4 – 7).
You may also recall my continual, week-by-week, reminder that I believe that the apostle Paul has a singular theme or purpose threaded throughout this letter to the Philippian church. That singular purpose is Paul’s exhortation to
“live your lives (as citizens of heaven) in a manner that is worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (1:27).
So, now that you have those main issues, those remedies and that purpose in your mind, I want you to think about the strategic nature of writing a letter such as this to someone you love and care for deeply. You don’t just pick up the pen and write whatever comes to mind; not a letter like this anyways; not a letter that has clear purpose and intent; a letter that is designed to address certain issues.
No! You don’t just write flippantly. You take your time. You envision the issues. You identify the remedies. You clarify the purpose and organize your thoughts in a careful and thoughtful manner. And then you write. And then you send it. And then you pray some more. And then you agonize over whether or not your recipient (recipients in this case) will hear what you are saying and put it into action. You don’t write a letter like this and pray that the information is received well. You pray that the information leads to faithful digestion which results in Godly transformation in people’s lives.
With that in mind, let’s look at Philippians 4:2 – 7…
PHILIPPIANS 4:2 – 7…
2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
So, back to me chuckling a little bit when I studied this text last week; you don’t need me to convince you that the culture and times we are traveling through as aliens and sojourners in this world is absolutely ripe with disagreements and division. You probably don’t need me to convince you that the same level of disagreement and division exists in other “big bad old” churches out there somewhere (wherever somewhere out there might be in your imagination or experience).
But you might need me to convince you that we are in danger, here at The Well, of the same, sometimes-invisible, oftentimes-visible, heart corrupting, family destroying, infection of disagreement and division. Well you may not need me to convince you of this, but I think it’s appropriate for me to remind you of this. There are untold amounts of opportunities for the gangrene of disagreement and division to seep through the virtual walls of our little church family no matter how far we socially distance from one another.
So how do we insulate ourselves against this kind of enemy? Where do we run to for protection? Where do we find shelter? Where do we hide? What fortification do we run to? Here’s Paul’s, might I even be so bold as to say God’s answer to those questions. The simple answer is that we find insulation, we run for protection, we find shelter, we hide, we fortify ourselves in the gospel. But what does that look like?
#1: WE FORTIFY OURSELVES IN PEACE (VV. 2 – 3)
When I think about the concepts of insulation, protection, shelter, hiding and fortification, I think of the snow forts we built as kids. We would use anything we could get our hands on to strengthen the walls of our forts; pieces of tin, hay bales, rocks, logs of wood, plywood, anything we could get our hands on.
Then we would pack snow all around this hodgepodge shelter to create these fortified walls that we could hide in, take shelter in and find protection in as we insulated ourselves against the onslaught of the war that was coming against us in the form of snowballs hailing down from our opponents. These weren’t fortifications of peace; they were fortifications of war; offense and defense.
The reality is that this is the way we’ve been shaped to do life in the culture we currently live in. Everything we are experiencing right now is alarming; the air is filled with war-time tension. We have an invisible enemy that some of us don’t really believe is all that dangerous while others of us who have experienced it believe it’s a little more dangerous than our brothers and sisters think it is. Some people believe masks are a good safety measure while others believe masks are being forced upon us by our political enemies who just want to take our freedoms away.
And here’s the thing, you don’t have to be in an all-out snowball war to recognize what someone else’s fortification looks like after a few short moments in conversation with them. In those few moments you hear what they long for the most, what makes them complain, what makes them angry, what causes them to run their lives on half-empty as they fight for what they believe is right. And in the midst of the conversation, it becomes really apparent what you don’t like about the way they built their fort and what you are going to do different as you build yours.
In this day and age, we are in desperate need of the fortification of peace. But the problem is that we get duped into believing that when we win the fight, when things go back to normal, when the virus goes away or finally gets proved as a big political hoax, when masks are finally proven to be helpful or not helpful, when our political leader wins, then we will finally have peace. But it’s a false peace because the Bible we read tells us that nothing in this life will satisfy us and that we are aliens in a foreign world who belong in heaven.
And here’s the crazy reality, this is exactly what was happening in the church at Philippi. This is why Paul says “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. So, two Christian women are fighting about something, they’re hunkered down in their bunkers, hiding out, lobbing bombs at each other, well insulated behind their walls of self-protection, taken shelter behind whatever their part of the disagreement was.
This was an all-out war in the Philippian church and it certainly wasn’t the fruit of living your life as a citizen of heaven in a manner that was worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ (1:27). What these women needed was the fortification of peace. Have you found yourself in need of this kind of shelter lately? In need of peace?
Can you imagine being these two women, Euodia and Syntyche? Having this letter read for the first time in the church gathering. You’re excited to hear from Paul who is in prison. Maybe you are expecting to hear him explain how you can armor up and go to war to change the culture or even overthrow the Roman guards; possibly even go to war with those religious heretical nutjobs “the Judaizers” who put him in prison in the first place.
But instead of all that, you hear the letter being read and Paul is talking about living your life in a manner that is worthy of the gospel. He’s talking about self-centeredness and pride and complaining and arguing. He’s given you some basic instructions to put on the mind of Christ and work out your salvation in Christ. He’s described the humility of Christ as an example of what this “gospel-honoring life” should look like. He’s given you some more human examples in Timothy and Epaphroditus and even himself.
You’ve been taking notes about what he has recently said about pursuing the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And then he changes the tone, he’s in tears over the brothers that he’s lost in the journey. He proclaims his deep love for you and his joy in serving you and his longing to see you with his resolute command to stand firm in the joy of the Lord.
And then there’s a long pause. You stop taking your taking your notes. You glance up and for a brief moment your eye catches the eye of the woman across the room that you’re are in a disagreement with; the one you’re walking in division with. The whole church family knows it. You can’t bear the thoughts anymore, so you look at the pastor who was reading the letter because you remember that he paused and that he isn’t reading. Curious, you wonder why he stopped reading.
And you immediately notice that he’s looking at you nervously. His eyes keep moving back and forth from you to her and then he begins to read again and you hear your names “Euodia and Syntyche… agree in the Lord… receive help from those around you… you’ve fought alongside of me for the sake of the gospel with others… don’t fight each other… fight together”. How crazy would this moment have been? How convicting would it be to be confronted personally in front of everyone like that?
Here’s the reality according to scholars, Paul uses a gladiator term when he described these fighting women who had fought alongside of himself; they were warrior-princesses in his mind. But the reality is that these fighting women had begun to fight each other, and their conflict was jeopardizing the witness of the very gospel for which they had fought. You see, those who follow hard after Christ live with tensions and troubles that the uncommitted heart doesn’t know but that doesn’t mean that those who fight hard don’t also fight wrong sometimes.2
Author, Kent Hughes, makes this interesting poetic note:
“To live above with the saints we love, oh, that will be glory. But to live below with the saints we know, well, that’s another story!”
What Paul is commanding these women to do is to give up their fortified positions; to quit sheltering in their disagreements; to quit hiding behind their agendas; to quit insulating themselves in the midst of the division. He’s literally commanding them to agree and to think the same thing and in so doing they would fortify themselves together in the bond of peace.3
Do you need to hear this today? Do you need to go to someone and make peace and then take shelter in the fortification of that peace? Could I just remind you that in the cross of Christ we are given vertical and horizontal peace? We are given peace vertically with our father and peace horizontally with our brothers and sisters.
The symbol of the vertical and horizontal cross beams are a great reminder for me to chase the peace of Christ and then extend that peace to others so that they can take shelter in my fortress of peace, right alongside of me as we weather the craziness of the culture around us.
#2: WE FORTIFY OURSELVES IN JOY (V. 4)
As we transition to thinking about the fortified position of joy, I think it’s appropriate to ask what has caused you to lose your joy lately? What has your heart and mind been focused on lately that has left you worn out, fearful, anxious, doubting, depressed or angry lately?
I can imagine that the two fighting women in our text were not fighting from the shelter of joy; the hiding place of joy; the insulation of joy; the protection of joy. This is why Paul instructs them to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” This isn’t the first time Paul has rung the note of joy. In fact, this is approximately the fourteenth and fifteenth times he mentions the word.
According to one author, joy in the Philippians is a fighter’s defiant commitment to “nevertheless I will rejoice despite my circumstances”. Yes, we really should rejoice in affliction as it is twice stated for emphasis from the imprisoned Paul. Do you want to be joy-filled in the midst of affliction? Do you want the strength to cling to joy despite your circumstances? Nehemiah 8:10 reminds us that the joy of the Lord is our strength and that joy is found in our salvation.4
In this world of woes, God’s Word commands us to embrace a defiant “Nevertheless I will rejoice always” because I must rejoice and I may rejoice because rejoicing in the Lord is not a luxury it is a necessity; he who rejoices in the Lord always will stand firm in the peace of God even when disagreement and division threaten the gospel witness of the church.5 Do you need to be reminded of the joy of your salvation today?
Look to the cross and the empty tomb and return of Christ my friends; for however long it takes for joy to seep back into your heart. Set your minds on things above and not on this earth and you will be filled with joy gradually as you take shelter in, hide out in, insulate yourself in and find protection in the fortress of salvation’s joy.
#3: WE FORTIFY OURSELVES IN REASONABLENESS (V. 5)
The one thing I know is that when disagreements get out of hand, it’s usually because someone becomes unreasonable. Unreasonable expectations, unreasonable desires, unreasonable presuppositions, unreasonable emotions, etc., etc.
The problem is that we can be very unreasonable people sometimes. We make mountains out of mole hills. We blame our opponents for not seeing through our lenses correctly. We agree with the defense lawyer inside ourselves who tells us that we are right and justified. We also listen to the prosecuting attorney inside our heads that tells us that our opponents are just flat stupid and wrong. Though we have the Spirit of God (who is reasonable) we are not always reasonable.
And then instead of being fortified by the Spirit’s reasonableness we are fortified by our self-centeredness and pride and complaining and arguing. This is why Paul says “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand”.
In other words, fortify yourself inside the walls of a reasonable attitude because the Lord is near, he will return soon and the reality of his nearness and return makes all of this possible to perform. The actual meaning of the word we have for “reasonableness” could be best rendered as “reasonable, soft, gentle, moderation”. Jesus was reasonable, soft, gentle and moderate (even when his temper flared) to the extent that didn’t grasp for or fight for his own rights (Phil. 2:6).
A rejoicing gentle spirit is the healing balm to a disagreeing and divided church, and it is a breath of fresh air for an out of control disagreeing and divided culture. This necessarily calls for the patient bearing of abuse as Christ followers in our culture.6
At the end of the day we must live in the protection, insulation, hiddenness, and safety of the fortress of reasonableness. What keeps me reasonable is the knowledge that God is close (closer than my own breathe inside a mask), and he will return soon. I want to be ready so therefore I want to live in the fortress of reasonable, soft, gentle, moderation.
Where does the Holy Spirit want to gut check you today on this one? Would the Lord confirm that your expectations, your desires, your presuppositions, your emotions, your defense attorney and your prosecuting attorney are all reasonable, soft, gentle and moderate as you seek to live in a manner as a citizen of heaven that is worthy of the gospel? Where do you need to grow in reasonableness?
#4: WE FORTIFY OURSELVES IN PRAYER (V. 6)
If I put myself in Euodia and Syntyche’s shoes, I would be quite nervous after getting named for my disagreeing, complaining, arguing, pride and self-centeredness; I’d probably be a little worried. No doubt, the Philippians had just as much to be worried about in their day: poverty, hunger, ostracism, enemies, people provoking them harmfully, heretics and even a “Roman City Hall”.7
But Paul gets right after it, like a good shepherd, he instructs them to “not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”. In other words, they were to fortify themselves in prayer so that they wouldn’t give into worry, doubt and fear. This is an echo of what Jesus says in Matthew 6:25 – 34 where he tells his followers to not worry because to worry is to be like the pagans who cannot pray with thanksgiving (Rom. 1:21; 1 Tim. 3:2). Instead, followers of Christ are to remember how God cares for the birds and the flowers.
Can you imagine the conversations among birds when they observe the worrying that drives our disagreements instead of thanksgiving in prayer?8 What’s got you so worked up lately that you haven’t returned to the Lord in an attitude of grateful prayer? How wonderful would it be to return to the shelter, the hiddenness, the protection and the insulation of the fortress of prayer?
#5: WE FORTIFY OURSELVES IN PEACE AGAIN (V. 7)
Paul’s concept of peace acts like fortified north and south walls of an army garrison. He bookends all that he says with extra layers of peace because he knows that the world, we live in is full of anything but peace. This is why he reminds the Philippians that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.
Notice how he says that “the peace of God… will guard your hearts and minds.” This is a simple reminder that the peace of God is the only thing that will protect, hide, insulate and keep our hearts and minds safe from the war of disagreements and division that lam-blast us daily.
Also notice that God’s peace “surpasses understanding”. There’s not a one of us that can say that we understand what’s going on in our world with complete certainty unless we are self-centered, pride-filled, complaining, arguers who always think we know everything.
By the way, there’s no peace in deceiving yourself into thinking that you know it all. There will always be a voice inside your heart and mind reminding you that you are not God (a little-known fact that would curb lots of disagreements and division)!
God’s peace transcends our understanding. If you aren’t full of peace, it’s because you believe you know it all and lack no understanding. True peace is found in Christ alone. We can be fortified within the garrison walls of the embodied and gifted peace of the cross of Christ (Jn. 14:27; Eph. 3:20).9
So, what lies have you bought; hook, line and sinker lately? What are you so certain you have figured out that really only the Lord could know? Could it be that maybe you would find that fortress of peace once again if you just gave it up and admitted that you really don’t know while trusting that God does know and that he is good?
CONCLUSION AND APPLICATION
The church, especially in this day and age, ought to have a different, otherworldly, heavenly presence. The culture around us is building its garrisons and lobbing bombs all over the place.
It ought not to be so among us. We should not be known for self-centeredness, pride, complaining, arguing, disagreements and division. We should be known for how we put on the mind of Christ, work out our salvation in Christ and stand firm in the joy of Christ as we seek to live our lives as citizens of heaven in a manner that is worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So, here’s the truth my friends, we can find insulation, protection, shelter and safety as we fortify ourselves in the gospel. We fortify ourselves in the gospel by running to the four-walled fortress of peace twice-over, joy, reasonableness and prayer. And we will find this gospel-fortress at the foot of a bloody cross, in the doorway of an empty tomb, in light of the hope of heaven. Amen!
1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).
2 R. Kent Hughes, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon: The Fellowship of the Gospel and the Supremacy of Christ (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, ESV Edition, 2013), 165 – 166.
3 Ibid., 166.
4 Ibid., 167 – 168.
5 Ibid., 168 – 169.
6 Ibid., 1169 – 170.
7 Ibid., 171.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., 172.