Philippians 2:2-5 
Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. 

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. 

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. (NLT)

“If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.”

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Unity, harmony, and love. You’d think the Apostle Paul would talk about something else now and again, wouldn’t you? 

I wonder why he talked about this issue so relentlessly? 

Maybe because one of the evil one’s favorite schemes is keeping us irritated with one another. Maybe because we keep on thinking we are Top Dog and everyone else ought to roll over when we growl. 

Maybe because, as often as he wrote about it, he found another reason to keep writing about it. 

I visited a pastor yesterday whose eyes and posture declared that he is deeply wounded. His family has taken a toll because of how a handful of people in the church he serves have determined to make their lives a living hell to force the pastor to resign. The pastor’s wife and two of his children have been especially wounded. Those two children never again want to have anything to do with church. 

You get the picture that God is more interested in our kindness and gentleness with one another than with great success in church attendance and building campaigns. 

You get the idea that Paul was going to keep writing about unity, harmony, and love until everyone got the idea that he was serious about this stuff. 

You get the idea that heaven won’t be much fun for people who prefer pushing around others. You might even get the idea that pushy people might not get there. 

Here’s the thing: The closer we draw to Jesus, the more we see things the way he does, the more we see our own pugnacious tendencies, the more we see our own contributions to disunity. 

When we see our own sinful will and ways in the light of our Lord’s loving illumination, we should repent immediately, seek forgiveness where we can, and restitution where necessary. God is serious about this, and we should be, too. 

Unity, harmony, and love should be self-evident for those who call themselves Christians. 

Having been beat up like the pastor I visited with yesterday, I said something in one of my last sermons at that church that every single one of us need to hear. I said, paraphrasing the Apostle Paul, “Christians don’t get to be jerks.”

Paul wrote in verse 5 above, “Think of yourselves the way Jesus thought of himself.” I can guarantee Jesus was never a jerk. Let’s be ever more like Jesus and live jerk-free lives. There is no Jerks for Jesus support group that I know of. Maybe there ought to be. 

Still waiting on that Amen.

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I will stop being a jerk for Jesus. 

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Our Father, remind us as often as necessary to stop acting like jerks. Teach us over and over again how to live lives of unity, harmony, and love. Deliver us from selfishness and pride. Focus us not on our needs alone, but on the needs of others. Grow us into people who share the mind of Christ and live with the attitude he had, and has. Amen.