Real Church Unity

So growing up in North Carolina, not too far from the coast, I’ve always had an interest in pirate history. For vacation over the last few years, I’ve been taking my family to a place called Topsail Island, which has all kinds of history related to the pirate Edward Teach, who was known as Blackbeard. 

And I gotta be careful because I can really nerd out about this, so I’ll go ahead and tell you that the best pirate ship name I’ve ever heard of was a ship named The Fancy. 

That was the name of the ship led by the pirate Henry Avery back in the year 1695. Henry Avery started as a member of the British navy, and then he became a merchant sailor, and eventually he was promoted to be the first mate of a Spanish trading ship … but then he convinced the entire crew to commit mutiny and become pirates. They took over their trading ship and he renamed it The Fancy — and by July 1695 he was attempting the single greatest pirate heist in history. 

As the story goes, Avery had learned about a huge convoy of Indian ships sailing toward Mecca on the Arabian Sea. There were 25 ships total, owned by the emperor of India, and it’s most prized ship was carrying what would have been around $300 million dollars worth of cargo. 

And Avery decided he’d capture it … but he was insanely outnumbered. His solution was to recruit other pirate ships to help him. Basically, Avery organized a coalition of pirates, and together, with their own ‘pirate armada’ they pursued this convoy over several months, and by September 1695, they had destroyed or hijacked the entire fleet, they stole all the treasure, and Avery escaped and was never seen again. True story. 

Henry Avery became a nightmarish legend within his own century — he and his crew were notorious for being cruel and vicious; they had a reputation for torturing their prisoners; Avery himself did barbaric things — 

He and his crew were known for these things …

But do you know one fact about them they were not known for?

Their unity.

These were united pirates. They started by uniting together to commit mutiny. For months they united together to pursue this Indian fleet. Somehow, Avery convinced other pirates to unite together with his crew for the attack. 

There was a lot of pirate unity going on, so then why are they not known for their unity?

Because they were pirates.

They were the terrorists of the 17th century, and nobody admires the unity of terrorists. 

Unity for What?

I wanna start here by getting clear about something. Over the next couple of weeks in the Book of Philippians we’re gonna be looking at the topic of unity, and right away I want us to know that unity itself is worthless. 

Unity for the sake of unity — like everybody just agreeing together and being on the same page — that does not count for anything. In fact, it could be a terrible thing! It could be destructive.

The question is always what is the unity for?

What matters is not agreeing together, but it’s what you’re agreeing together about. Being on the same page together is good only if what’s on that page is good!

This makes sense to us, but it’s important for us to nail down because in our day “unity” or “being united” is a little bit of a cultural buzzword. And if we’re just listening to the world around us, we can make the mistake of thinking that unity by itself is a virtue, but it’s not — not even within churches.

The apostle Paul in the Book of Philippians is concerned about a certain kind of unity — we’re gonna see that next week in Chapter 2, but here at the end of Chapter 1 is where we see why this unity is so important for the local church. 

In today’s passage, Paul gives us at least three defining marks of what real church unity is — and this is relevant for us because if our church will experience real, biblical unity, it’s gonna be marked by these three things. So I’m eager to to show them to you, but first, let’s pray again:

Father in heaven, thank you for the Holy Scriptures and for your Holy Spirit who speaks and works through your Scriptures according to your will. In this moment, by your grace, please accomplish in us what magnifies your glory. In Jesus’s name, amen. 

Three marks of real church unity. Here’s the first:

1) Real church unity is Holy Spirit unity.

This first mark is more like a foundation.

Look again at verse 27 (we focused on the first part of verse 27 last week). Paul says, 

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit …”

And let’s just stop right there for a minute and look at those three words “in one Spirit.” Y’all see those three words in verse 27? — “in one spirit” — if you see it say ‘got it.’

Those three words, “in one spirit,” is another way to talk about unity. And the “Spirit” here in verse 27 is the Holy Spirit — the NIV makes that a capital “s” in Spirit, and I think that’s right. In other places when Paul uses that phrase “in one Spirit” it’s pretty clear that he’s talking about the Holy Spirit. For example, in 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul says,  

“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

Paul’s talking about the Holy Spirit, and he’s making the case for unity in the Holy Spirit. 

In Ephesians 2:18, after Paul has been explaining how Jesus has broken down the wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles, he says, 

“For through him [Jesus] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

Again that’s the Holy Spirit. Paul is saying that whatever our differences are, as Christians we have unity in the Holy Spirit. 

See, Paul couldn’t care less about generic, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along unity. Paul’s concern is that local churches are united in the Holy Spirit. This is supernatural, divinely-created unity.

The foundational mark of real church unity is that it’s Holy Spirit unity.

And Holy Spirit unity is doing something. 

2) Real church unity shows our common treasure.

Here again, for this second mark, we’re still at a high level. I just want you to see the connection between “your manner of life being worthy of the gospel” and “you standing firm in one Spirit.” 

If you like to draw lines and circles in your Bible, you can underline or bracket “let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ” and then circle “standing firm in one Spirit” — and then draw a line connecting the two.

Paul is saying that if this church is living worthy of the gospel, it will be displayed in their Holy Spirit unity. If A is true, then B will be evident.

Holy Spirit unity within a local church is the manifestation of that church living worthy of the gospel.

And again, like we saw last week, if we zoom in more on what it means for us to live “worthy of the gospel” it does not mean that we deserve the gospel, but it means that our life together fits with the gospel. The way we live lines up with who Jesus is. 

So for our church to be worthy of the gospel it means that our church’s life together in this world witnesses to the all-satisfying value of Jesus. 

And one way that is seen is through how we endure suffering (we saw that last week in verses 29–30); but another way that’s seen is through the church’s Holy Spirit unity that Paul describes here.

Paul knows that if this church is treasuring Jesus above everything else, they will have Holy Spirit unity — they will have real church unity — which we can see is not unity for its own sake. It’s unity that points to something else. It shows our common treasure — and Paul is either gonna see that for himself or he’s gonna hear about it. 

But now here’s a big question: how does this real church unity look? 

What exactly does Paul want to see or hear in verse 27?

This is where Paul is gonna give us some more details about what characterizes real church Holy Spirit unity. So we’re gonna focus in here and spend some time on this third mark.

3) Real church unity is ready for battle. 

We’re still in verse 27 (verse 27 is a long verse)!

In the second half of verse 27 Paul describes for us how he hopes to find this church (or hear about this church), and he tells us three things. We’ve already seen the first. He hopes to find this church …

First, standing firm in the Holy Spirit.

Second, with one mind be striving (or contending) side by side for the faith of the gospel.

Third, to not be frightened in anything by their opponents.

Now, notice that each of these three descriptions are all in the same metaphor. This is a battle metaphor, which makes sense in light of the context. 

Remember that the background to this entire letter is that Paul is in prison. He’s in prison in Rome, writing to a local church that’s in the Roman colony of Philippi. So this whole thing is surrounded by opposition! That’s the reason for their shared suffering. When Paul mentions in verse 30 that the Philippians are engaged in the “same conflict” he’s had, he’s talking about them facing the same opposition, most likely from the Romans.

Paul first mentions “opponents” in verse 28, but they’ve been there the whole time, and what’s why he uses this battle metaphor. And this tells us right away that real church unity is not idealistic. This is not rosy, posh unity, but it’s embattled unity. It’s unity not only for when things might be going their best, but it’s for when things are at their worst — this is unity that’s ready for battle. And that means three practical things I want you to see. Real church unity ready for battle means:

First, we hold our ground.

That’s in the idea of “standing firm” in verse 27. “Standing firm” is actually the main verb in the second half of verse 27 — it’s the main thing, you could say, that Paul wants to see or hear about in this church’s unity. And it’s a defensive image. It means you’re digging in your heels and maintaining. You’re holding your ground. And to do that means we avoid two things: we neither change our message nor retreat our witness. 

These are two mistakes that have been made in church history, and we can see examples in America over the last 250 years. 

Consider theological liberalism. Going back to the early 1800s, Liberal theology started to be a thing, and a big driver behind it was the fear that Christianity would become irrelevant to modern minds. The thinking was that the way to make Christianity appealing to more people is to make it fit with all the new theories of science and Enlightenment philosophy. So they watered down biblical authority, they played ‘cut and paste’ with certain parts of Scripture, and eventually what they ended up with was an entirely different religion. 

Theological liberalism basically invented,

“A God without wrath who brought a people without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a Cross.” (Richard Niebuhr). 

They changed the message, see — but remember that Christianity is, fundamentally, a message — it’s good news — and so when you change the message, you don’t actually have Christianity anymore. Don’t do that.

But the other mistake is to retreat our witness. 

In this mistake, Christians might still hold on to the truths of Christian doctrine, but they withdrawal from society and barricade themselves in isolated communities. And you might immediately think of examples like Amish communities, and that’s one example, but this is broader than that. This retreat way of thinking can be in any church and community, and maybe more common is how we think this way as individuals. Anytime we as individuals “hide our light under a basket,” we’re doing this. This mentality is the flee mentality; it’s the “get away” mentality. It’s retreating our witness. Don’t do that. 

Real church unity means we hold our ground — we neither change our message nor retreat our witness.

Second, we fight for gospel advance. 

We see this at the end of verse 27, where Paul is explaining more of what it means to stand firm in the Holy Spirit. We are, “with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.”

So this is an active unity. It’s not bunkered down, but it’s striving. That word “striving side by side” means literally that we’re fighting with — we’re fighting side by side, together, on the same team. 

We’re gonna see this word again in Chapter 4, and I’ll save some comments for when we get there, but I want you to see mainly, for today, that this side-by-side fighting is for a common goal more than it’s against a common enemy.

It’s important here that Paul doesn’t define this side-by-side fighting by its opposition — the opposition will take different forms over the next 2,000 years — instead, Paul defines this side-by-side fighting by what it’s fighting for, it’s common goal — and he calls it “the faith of the gospel.” We’re contending side by side for that. 

And this phrase here, “the faith of the gospel,” is unique. This is the only time Paul uses this exact phrase, so there’s some questions about what exactly he means. 

But I think in context we can see that “the faith of the gospel” is a more comprehensive idea than just saying the “gospel.”

“The faith of the gospel” is not only talking about the gospel message itself, but it also includes all the truths and implications of the gospel. One commentator says that Paul is stressing both the communication and the conduct of the gospel. 

Another way to put it is that Paul wants maximum gospel advance. He’s doesn’t just want people to hear the gospel, but he wants everyone to be mature in Christ (that’s what he tells us in Colossians 1:28). He wants as many people as possible to hear the gospel, believe the gospel, and then become like Jesus from the heart. 

The way we’ve talked about that around here is that our goal in gospel advance includes both distance and depth. In other words, we want the gospel message to advance geographically. We want people who’ve never heard the gospel to hear it! We want neighbors to hear it! We want the good news of Jesus to spread everywhere! And so we give and go and labor for that. 

And, at the same time, we want the gospel of Jesus to have its fullest effect in our lives. 

We want the gospel to advance to all peoples and in all of us. And that’s something we fight for, together, for one another. That’s what discipleship is. 

It means that as a local church, we are committed to helping one another follow Jesus, and that’s not easy. We’re gonna have to wrestle through some things together. There may even be times when we don’t all agree on every single detail; there may be times when we have to say or hear an uncomfortable word, but the goal is gospel advance. We want more of Jesus out there and more of Jesus in here!

That’s what we’re fighting for. What I want for you, and what you want for me, and what we want for each other, is that Jesus be our all-consuming passion and all-satisfying treasure. An that doesn’t just happen, you’ve gotta fight for it. Real church unity means we’re fighting for it together. 

Here’s the third detail within this battle metaphor.

Third, we are courageous when it costs.

Paul says in verse 27 that he hopes this church holds their ground, fights side by side for gospel advance, and that, verse 28, you are “not frightened in anything by your opponents.”

A positive way to say “not be frightened” is to say be courageous. It means we’re not hindered by those who would stand against us with their threats. We press on in our witness. We keep going. We’re not surprised by the opposition, and we’re not stopped by it — and all this is much easier said than done until we start thinking about the cost involved.

Courage is only courage if it comes with a cost threat.

Well, what do you think it is? When we’re determined to hold our ground on what the Bible says, when we’re wrestling for gospel advance in this world, what’s at stake for us? 

For Paul, it was literally his life. For the church at Philippi it could have been their lives too — but what about when it comes to our opposition? What cost is threatened by our opponents?

This is different for churches in different parts of the world, but for us, I think the cost is our comfort. 

Those who oppose us threaten to make things difficult for us. It means most basically that people will think badly of you — your neighbors think you’re stupid; you’re co-workers think you’re a bigot. That’s really hard for some of us. The fact that we could be ridiculed or mocked or unfairly criticized — that bothers us.

But the truth is: being a Christian in a 21st-century progressive metro like ours is going against the grain — and that won’t be smooth. It won’t be easy. It’s not comfortable. It requires our courage. 

We Choose Jesus

And the courage we need is the same courage Paul had; it’s the same courage he wants to see in the church at Philippi. It’s a courage that has considered its gain far better than every good thing it could lose on earth, even including life itself. 

See, this is where Paul’s thinking in verses 20–21 is still showing up. To live is Christ, to die is gain.

Whatever the opponents might take from us, Jesus is better and we choose him. The church, together, chooses Jesus no matter the cost.

And so yeah, verse 28 tells us, it’s a clear sign to our opponents about how all of this is gonna go down.

Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against his church; his gospel is advancing and it will keep advancing, and one day every knee will bow — we know the end of the story, and so we can have courage now. 

Real church unity will have this kind of courage.

Real church unity is ready for battle: we hold our ground, we fight for gospel advance, we are courageous when it costs.

Paul wants that for the church in Philippi and he wants that for our church today. And that’s what brings us the Table.

The Table

Look, you don’t get unity by aiming for unity — it’s just what happens when you all want the same thing. And in a word, for us, his name is Jesus.