Agree in the Lord

"I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord." (Philippians 4:2)

Brothers and sisters,

My exhortation to you today is short.  I would like for us to strive, with the Spirit's help, for unity.  When we face times of testing, we will face threats to our unity.  We know how it is in our families, when times are tough, everyone becomes frazzled and nerves become frayed and we can begin to snap at one another.  We can lose our patience.  We are at our wit's end.

The same can happen within the family of God.  When we corporately face challenges and troubling times, there will be temptations to seek our own well-being and our own interests.  There will be the temptation to be adamant about our opinions and unwilling to budge.  We can become stubborn and we speak more loudly in the hopes of being heard.  We type in all caps in our posts and user more exclamation points.  Before we know it, we find ourselves arguing among ourselves when what we should be doing is listening and showing deference to a brother or sister.

I'm calling us always, but especially now, to "agree in the Lord." We need to "be of the same mind."  We must "count others as more significant than" ourselves.  Now more than ever we need to "look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others."  This will come out in the way we speak to one another.  It will come out in our posts on social media.  It will come out in how we respond to authority.  It will come out in soft answers that turn away anger.  It takes a great deal of humility to defer to others, but it's what our Jesus calls us to do.  After all, he showed the ultimate humility when he humbled himself, took on the form of a servant and went to the cross.  He came not to be served but to serve and to give himself as a ransom for many.

So I call you, I call myself, I call all of us to "Agree in the Lord."

Pastor Tim