Joy #18 - Doing Life Together

Philippians 4:1-3

Paul is addressing tension between two church members. His first appeal is toward relationship – to live in harmony and work together.

The more spiritually mature you are, the better you should get along with others. Spiritual maturity yields relational maturity.

We have to learn to get along and work with other people. If you want to do something great, or be something great, you have to get along with others.

Euodia and Syntyche are two great people in the church, but their problem is that they don’t get along with each other. We all have people that we clash with, people who rub us the wrong way. The key is to find a way to continue working together.

This passage gives us four keys to doing life together:

1. Stand firm in the Lord

The roots for building great relationships are found by standing firm in the Lord. Your relationship with the Lord is your firm ground on which you can build all the other relationships in your life. You will be a better spouse, co-worker, sibling, parent, because of your relationship with Jesus

2. Live in harmony

Paul’s appeal to Euodia and Syntyche is to live in harmony in the Lord.

Harmony is the combination of two or more different notes in the same key. You can still be yourself and sing your note, just make sure you are in the same key, working in harmony with others.

Everyone brings their unique qualities to the table. Together, we can produce a sound that neither of us could produce alone.

3. Share the struggle

Life involves struggles. When we find ourselves in a struggle, we can often find our best friendships by seeing who is willing to share the struggle with us.

The cause of Christ is a struggle. Building the church is a struggle. We are all sharing these struggles. Church is not a meeting you go to in a building - it’s a body of people joined together in the struggle of the cause.

4. Work together

Being face-to-face is great. Working shoulder-to-shoulder is even better. Small groups are great for face-to-face interaction. But, serving on a volunteer team is even better because you’re shoulder-to-shoulder, doing life together.