The Mind of Christ

Part one of a two-part message on Philippians 2:1-6, and the tenth message in Pastor Robert Rohlin's study of Philippians. Epaphroditus has carried good news and hard news from Philippi to Paul's prison cell - a joyful church with a crack in it, and two faithful women, Euodia and Syntyche, who no longer get along. Rohlin works through the four cords Paul uses to hold a church together: consolation in Christ, the comfort of love, the fellowship of the Spirit, and compassion from the deepest part of a person. He then turns to the mindset that keeps unity - one mind, one love, one accord - and to the two things that kill it, selfish ambition and empty glory. Division inside a church, he says, is more dangerous than any enemy outside it, and it almost always starts over something small. Why listen? Because the little things are what divide people, at church and at home. Rohlin brings in the rowers of Ben Hur pulling to one drumbeat, the church at Ephesus that kept its programs and lost its first love, D. L. Moody quietly shining the shoes of visiting preachers at Northfield, and the man who comforted a young widow by polishing her children's shoes for their father's funeral. You will get a plain definition of humility - not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less - and a test you can put to your own attitude this week. Part two picks up the mind of Christ in verses 5 and 6.