“27 Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; 28 in no way alarmed by your opponents—which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God. 29 For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, 30 experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.”
In the South we love football. It is our escape from the realities of life that might be weighing us down. We can seemingly find a way to talk about football, especially college football 365 days a year no matter what else might be going on. It dominates the water cooler talk at work and there are countless radio talk shows in every city that evolves around college football. It is a way of life in the South. There is one thing we can learn from football though, and that is that it takes a team effort to succeed at what ever you are doing. Take for example the offensive line, the left tackle has to trust that the left guard, he has to trust the center, the center has to trust the right guard, and the right guard has to trust the right tackle. This can go in the revers order as well. The quarterback if he is right-handed has to trust the left tackle because when he takes five steps back to prepare to throw the ball to a receiver he hopes he has the time to do so. Same goes for a running back, he is only going to be able to make positive yards if his offensive line works together as a group to block the right guys. No matter how talented you are, if you don’t work together as a team, you are not going to go very far.
Paul alludes to that same idea in this passage in Philippians chapter one. He is challenging the believers there to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. To live their lives in a way that whether Paul is with them or not, their lives are focused on living out the gospel message in word and deed. Paul has indicated earlier in this letter to the Philippians how encouraged he has been by the continued spread of the gospel. Remember, Paul is in jail in Rome but the news of his arrest is spreading and is serving as encouragement for the believers. Paul had to fear that believers in Philippi would retreat just as Peter did when Jesus was arrested. The believers in Philippi though are still doing the work that Paul challenged them to do. Paul knows that this work is hard and over time the believers might start to get weary so he turns his attention to being a cheerleader, attempting to cheer them on or motivate them.
He challenges them to stand firm with one spirit and one mind. Standing firm can be a challenge in its own self. There are things in our lives that we are adamant about that no matter what happens we are not budging. Getting back to the football analogy, we stand firm in our support of our beloved team. Our favorite team might go 1-11 or 0-12 and we will still support them because we believe them. Just because things might not be going our way doesn’t mean we will stop supporting them. It goes back to the idea of teamwork. If we don’t work together as a team, we will not succeed. That is the simple truth. A person might have all the talent in the world but that will only go so far, you have work with others to make progress, to achieve your goal. Paul understands that very well in regards to the church. He knows that there are believers in the church at Philippi who have the gift of teaching, the gift of servanthood, the gift of evangelism, the gift of hospitality, but unless all of these work together in one mind and one spirit, they will never make progress.
It is like a football team preparing for an upcoming season. As fans, we only see what they do on Saturday afternoons on the playing field but that is only a small part of what the team does as a whole. We have to remember that these guys put in a lot of hours in the weight room during the offseason. They had a series of practices and a game during the spring, they did summer workouts, plus all the film study leading up to each game. These guys had to their homework and lots of it to even come close to doing well on Saturday. When you have a team that has say 100 or so players, if only 75 of them are doing their homework while the other 25 are goofing off, then the team will not be efficient at all. We can’t have a “meism” attitude, we have to have a “weism” attitude. That applies for the church as well.
When we develop a “meism” attitude, Satan begins to weave in and out of our lives. He begins to plant seeds of deception and sin and before we know it we have lost track of where we are going. It is like we were driving down the road one day and all the sudden we took a wrong turn and began tracking in the wrong direction. We are not making progress and the venom of Satan is poisoning our lives and relationships. When we work together, we have the ability to not be frightened as Paul says in verse 28. This is a clear sign to our enemies of their destruction and of our salvation. We are working together for the cause of the gospel.
Paul’s next comment might make some believers uncomfortable. He says in verse 29 For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” This idea of suffering probably made some of the believers in Philippi cringe a little. The thought of suffering was not something that they got all excited about or at least I don’t think they did. Following Jesus as Paul found out is not easy because you will face hardships in life. We have to see these moments as opportunities to cultivate our faith and grow stronger in our relationship with Jesus. Because when everything fades away, He is all that we have. He is our hope and joy in the midst of trails and tribulation. For the believer we have to guard ourselves against accepting the comfortable because that could be a direct invitation from Satan that leads to a path of “meism.” We have to guard ourselves against that. We have to work together with our brothers and sisters in Christ and have a one spirit and one mind attitude. That has to be our goal.
Questions to ponder:
Do you have a “meism” or a “wesim” attitude? If so, what is the root of that?
How can we stay focused on the cause of the gospel even if it means suffering?
reflections of a theologian 