Live in Harmony
Tom Shrader walks through Philippians 4:1-3, focusing on Paul's commands to stand firm, live in harmony, and rejoice — each grounded in being 'in the Lord.' He draws on Ephesians 6 and a detailed list of Satan's tactics to show why spiritual vigilance is essential for the believer's life and the church's unity. The account of Paul and Barnabas splitting over John Mark in Acts 15 illustrates how even mature believers struggle to live in harmony, making Paul's exhortation to Euodia and Syntyche both honest and urgent.
“We don't need to fight to obtain the victory Christ won — we need to hold it. That's the whole idea Paul has in mind: stand firm.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Philippians
Recorded: 2008 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 35 min
Themes: harmony, unity, conflict, rejoicing, spiritual warfare, standing firm, friendship, peace, navigating conflict, struggling with forgiveness, church member, longtime believer, friend in conflict, women in ministry, feeling divided, spiritually discouraged
Scripture: Philippians 4:1-4, Philippians 1:1, Philippians 1:3, Philippians 2:5, Philippians 3:2, Philippians 3:20, Ephesians 4, Ephesians 5, Ephesians 6:10-17, Acts 15:36-41, Acts 16:11-12, James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:8, 1 Peter 3:8, 1 Corinthians 1:10, 1 Chronicles 21, Romans 12:2, Romans 14, 1 John 2:15, 2 Timothy 4, John 17, Revelation 2
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual vigilance, ecclesiology, union with christ, spiritual warfare, pauline epistles, church unity, perseverance
Full Transcript
Paul's Love for the Philippian Church
As we look at chapter 4, verse 1, I want to remind you that I was not here last week. I was at West Valley Bible Church, a church that honestly considers itself to be a plant of ours, though it is not. We have had a lot of input into their whole structure. Their senior pastor is a gentleman by the name of Skip Ast, and his father-in-law was Larry Wright. I have known Skip a long time, and we have invited him to come and use any of the resources we have.
Every year on their anniversary Sunday, they invite me out to teach. I want you to know where I was, and I want you to know that you are part of that as well. One of our corporate core values is to be an influence beyond this campus and beyond this generation. That has been on paper and in our heart, but it hasn't really fleshed itself out to the extent that it is now, and we are really pursuing that.
I want you to own that, and you need to rejoice when God is allowing us to use our resources of time, energy, and people — because you are part of that team. West Valley Bible Church considers you to be a birthing church for theirs, and they are so glad you allow me to be there. If you have friends on the west side looking for a place, their website is wvbconline.org. And thank you to Tim for filling in and finishing out chapter three last week.
An Overview of Chapter Four
Tim just touched briefly on verse one of chapter four — the final chapter of this book — and there are some great topics ahead. When you talk about practical, put-skin-on-it teaching, we find it here. Look at verse four: the idea of rejoicing, which is the theme of the entire book. We see it again — "Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say rejoice." Verse six addresses anxiety: don't be anxious about anything, but pray about everything. So we will talk about worry, and we will talk about prayer as well.
Verse seven introduces the peace of God — a peace that passes all human understanding — and that rolls us into verse nine, where Paul speaks to something like one-on-one discipleship and pouring into lives. Then, my personal favorite: verse eleven, "I have learned to be content." I love to teach on contentment. I personally believe it is the missing ingredient in many lives. We have some great practical material ahead of us.
Today is practical as well. I spent a lot of time in the first hour on verse one, but verses two and three address a specific problem going on in that church. So let me read verses one through three, make some comments along the way, and then we will come back and get into them further.
Standing Firm, Living in Harmony, Rejoicing in the Lord
"Therefore" — the moment we see that word, we know we need to make a connection. "Therefore, my beloved brethren whom I long to see, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord, my beloved." The first thing I notice is that Paul uses the word "beloved" twice in that single verse. That word tells us something about how deeply he loves this church.
He continues: "I urge Euodia and Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord." These are two women in the church, and there is some dispute between them. Paul does not give us any detail about what it is. I am convinced it is not a doctrinal issue, but it is an issue that is beginning to affect the church. He calls them to live in harmony — something you cannot do naturally, which is why the only way it will ever work itself out is in the Lord.
"Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice." We do not know who this "true companion" is. We can speculate that it refers generically to everyone in the church, or that it refers to a specific individual — perhaps Epaphroditus himself. We simply do not know.
The Word "Beloved" and Paul's Deep Affection
Now let us go back and dive into this more carefully. I want you to see how much Paul loves this church. He goes out of his way to use the word "beloved" twice in verse one alone — he has a deep love affair with this congregation. When we opened our overview of the book, we looked at what he wrote in chapter one, verse three: "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now." He has a wonderful and genuine love for this church.
He also admonishes them in three ways. In verse one: stand firm in the Lord. In verse two: live in harmony in the Lord. In verse three: rejoice in the Lord. Three commands — stand firm, live in harmony, rejoice — and in every case he makes clear that the only way to pull these things off is to be in the Lord.
What that means is that we have come to an understanding of who the Bible says we are, and who Jesus is. We have come to the point of acknowledging that Jesus is indeed our Lord, our Master, our Savior. There is no way I am going to rejoice on my own — and by the way, that is a command. We looked at this before: it is an imperative. Rejoice. How do you tell somebody to be happy?
and there was this little chihuahua there named Sparky, and everyone was laughing at Sparky. Satan is not Sparky. He is a formidable foe. But we also don't want to underestimate him. He's real. He's cunning. He's clever. He's deceptive.
So back to Philippians four. Stand firm. That's the main idea. And then he pivots to this relational conflict between two women in the church. Euodia and Syntyche. And he pleads with them to live in harmony in the Lord. And I want to talk about that phrase, live in harmony. Because I think we misunderstand it. We think harmony means agreement. It doesn't. Harmony means that two different notes are played together and they make something beautiful. You can have harmony without uniformity. You can have two people who see things differently and still live in harmony in the Lord.
Stand Firm in the Lord
He didn't say be happy. He said rejoice. It's not circumstantial. It's not temporary and external. It is internal and it is permanent. It is based on this relationship of being in the Lord. Stand firm. How? In the Lord. Live in harmony. How? In the Lord.
The only thing we need to make certain is that we talk about it and make sure you understand at least the gospel well enough to reject it. So if you are here today — we just had communion, and you didn't take communion because you are not a follower of Christ — we want to urge you, plead with you, beg you to listen to what the Word of God says. That Word says that you and I are separated from God by our sin, and there is nothing we can do about that. We cannot fix it. That is religion. But we can come into a right relationship with God, and that is something He initiates. He draws us.
So if all of a sudden you are thinking, "This makes sense — this is what I want," that is God bringing you to Himself. And what do you do? You respond. You believe. You come in faith and repentance. It is as simple as that. We looked at that a couple of weeks ago, and by the way, I have had a great two weeks of email, so don't stop now. It has been a great two weeks talking about moving from religion to relationship, and how we tend to turn relationship right back into religion again. There is something very freeing about this: in the Lord, I stand firm; in the Lord, I can live in harmony; in the Lord, I can rejoice.
Therefore: Bridging Everything That Came Before
The very first word of verse one is "therefore." He is bridging, connecting. What is he connecting? At least the things we saw in chapter three, but probably everything he has talked about prior to this. He is saying: because of what Christ has done for us, because of the fact that we can now know Him, because we have been called by the Holy Spirit of God and indwelt by the Spirit of God and our lives have been transformed by the Spirit of God — therefore.
If you go back to verse one of chapter one, he addresses his readers as saints — "to the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi." The people he is writing to are geographically in Philippi, but spiritually they are in Christ Jesus. And because of all of that — because of chapter three, verse twenty, and because our citizenship is in heaven — he says: "You whom I love, you whom I long to be with, you whom I long to see, you are my crown — stand firm."
Stand firm is the main verb in verses one through nine. It is an imperative, a command. It is used often in a military sense, not to describe advancing troops, but a troop that is defending an already-captured area. I believe that is exactly what Paul has in mind when he uses that phrase here and when he uses it in Ephesians chapter six.
The Full Armor of God: Standing Firm in Battle
Turn to Ephesians six. Verse ten: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might." And then verse eleven, which is a huge verse for us: "Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil." Verse twelve: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." "Therefore, take up the full armor of God." And then in verses thirteen through seventeen he describes that full armor of God.
We are not going to unpack all of that, but I want to stay on this idea that Paul is saying to them: there is a battle going on. He has just talked to them in Ephesians chapters four, five, and six about very practical ways of living — wives submitting to husbands, husbands loving their wives, children obeying their parents, love, submission, relationships, speaking the truth, putting off the old, putting on the new. And then he says: you need to understand something. The minute you say those things are important to you, you have an enemy who is not happy.
There is an enemy in this world — Satan. So Paul says: here is what I want you to do. Be strong. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. There are three points embedded in this passage. First, the full armor of God — put it on. And I know we have made this point before, but I love it because it graphically brings everything together.
When I think of armor, I think of a soldier getting ready for battle. He goes into battle, puts on the armor. When the battle is over, he takes the armor off. When he goes back into battle, he puts the armor on again. That is how we tend to think about it — I don't need armor unless I am in a battle. But the way the language is actually structured here, it says this: put on, once and for all, and leave on the full armor of God. So if he is telling you and me to put on the full armor of God and leave it on, what is he saying? We are in battle twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This battle never eases up.
Put it on, and then he says: stand firm. You have this victory in Christ — hold it. Take hold of it. As Jesus says in Revelation two, "Hold fast until I come" — against the schemes of the devil. The word "schemes" implies cunningness, cleverness, craftiness, the deception of the devil. Fifty-two times in Scripture our enemy is called Satan, which means adversary. Thirty-five times he is called the devil, which means slanderer.
Do Not Overestimate or Underestimate the Enemy
Here is the point: we do not want to overestimate or underestimate Satan. We do not want to overestimate him and make him like God. He is not omniscient. He is not omnipresent. He is not all-powerful. But he is a formidable foe. He really exists. He is not like some harmless little mascot. We do not want to underestimate him either. He is real. He is cunning. He is clever. He is deceptive.
The Reality of Our Enemy
Satan is a real enemy who is out to destroy you, and you are in a struggle with him. That is why James writes in James 4:7, "Resist the devil, and he'll flee from you." Peter writes in 1 Peter 5:8, "Be sober of spirit and on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."
John MacArthur lists nine things that Satan does, and it is worth working through them to think about the different ways he comes at us.
Nine Ways Satan Attacks Believers
The first is that Satan attempts to impugn God's character and credibility. In our pastoral staff meeting, we have been working through a book on personal revival, and this week we have been discussing how Satan is the accuser. When I hear that phrase, I tend to think of Satan accusing me before God. But it is also him accusing God before us — impugning God, distorting who He is. He whispers, "You can't trust Him. You can't believe Him." If God loves you so much, why are you having this struggle right now? Why did you lose that job? Why is your spouse not responding? If He is such a great God, why is your heart beating with anxiety and you are not looking forward to going to work tomorrow? That is how he gets in there.
The second thing Satan does is undermine present victories by generating troubles and making life difficult, causing us to disobey, and sometimes even bringing persecution into our lives. I was talking with Susan recently and she said, "This life is so tough." She was reflecting on how, as you get older and have more relationships and more of this, whether it is physical or otherwise, life is just really hard. Sometimes that difficulty can be caused by God, certainly allowed by God, or caused by Satan. But those hard moments can become great opportunities for us to feel abandoned by God.
The third thing is that Satan attacks believers through doctrinal confusion. Paul talks in Ephesians 4 about people who are "tossed here and there by waves and carried around by every form and wind of doctrine." One of the great things Satan does is grab hold of you and say, "You will never get this. This is really complicated. You don't know Greek, do you? You don't know Hebrew. You are not smart enough for this." All of a sudden God's Word feels impossibly distant. But here is the truth: the gospel and how it affects our lives and what God would have us do — that is not that tough. We can figure that out.
The fourth thing is that Satan attacks God's people by hindering their service. He opposes their faithful life and effective ministry. The word "service" means minister. You and I are called to be ministers. I do not like it when people divide a congregation into the clergy and the lay people. We are all full-time ministers of the gospel. Some of us get paid for it and some of us do not. You are a minister of the gospel. You may not have a license, but you are. You are a missionary to the world God has placed you in.
The fifth thing is that Satan attacks believers by causing divisions. In John 17, the night before He died, Jesus prays for unity on what I believe are two or three different occasions within that single chapter. He prays, "Keep them in unity." If the church is divided, Satan has accomplished something significant. I remember not long after becoming a Christian, hearing about a church in town where members got into a physical fight in the parking lot over a Christmas tree. Someone had placed a Christmas tree on the platform, others felt it had pagan roots and dragged it outside, the first group dragged it back in, and they ended up fighting right there in the parking lot. On another occasion, after a Christmas service where children were singing and wearing red hats, I had people come to me insisting I needed to remove the hats because I had introduced Santa Claus into the worship service. That is how division works — it can start with something that seems almost silly.
The Enemy's Tactics Against Believers
By persuading them to trust their own resources. If you were to turn to 1 Chronicles, chapter 21, you would find a wonderful story. David takes a census, and as a result, God kills 70,000 people. What is the big deal? The big deal is this: David took the census so he could look at his resources and draw confidence from them rather than from his relationship with God. We would not take a census — we do not have the power individually — but we would look at our financial statement, or we would sit at our desk and look at all those degrees and that education. This is easily done, especially if God is beginning to work in your life. I talked about it a lot in November and December. I think it happened in my life, and it could happen in the lives of many at this church. As God blessed us and we continued to work in so many different ways, we eased Him out a little bit — we do not need Him so much because we can pull this off.
Here is the seventh thing: Satan attacks believers by leading them into hypocrisy. Everybody hates a hypocrite. So if you can say one thing, carry a big Bible, and then live any way you want, that is the attack.
Here is the eighth thing: Satan attacks believers by leading them into worldliness, by enticing us to be squeezed into the mold of the world. That is Romans chapter 12, verse 2. 1 John 2:15 says, "Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." There is that battle, and it is an ongoing one we fight all the time given the world we are in, the culture we are in, and the time we live in. This is especially tempting to us.
And then the last thing, which encompasses perhaps all the others: Satan attacks believers by leading us to disobey God's Word.
I say all of that — and I know that is a valuable eleven minutes — to give you nine concrete ways that your enemy out there, Satan and his demons, the world system, and our flesh, all work together to make us as impotent as we can possibly be for the cause of Christ. His whole mission is to make us ineffective. And to those of you who did not take communion, what he would love more than anything else is for you to stay away and keep staying away, so that you can look around on any given day and see somebody cut you off in the parking lot and say, "There you go — the hypocrites are just like everybody else." That little thing becomes something that keeps you away. That is the enemy you have.
Standing Firm: The Defensive Battle
Now, what Boyce talks about here — let me give you this before we get to verse 2. Paul says that the practical outcome for the Christian is not so much to advance in battle — not "Onward, Christian Soldiers" — but to stand firm. Watchman Nee talks about it this way: God's move was offensive; ours is in essence defensive. He warred against Satan in order to gain victory through the cross. He carried the warfare to the very thresholds of hell. Today, we war against Satan only to maintain and consolidate a victory that was already gained. The ground Christ won He has given to us, and we do not need to fight to obtain it — we need to hold it. That is the whole idea Paul has in mind here: stand firm.
So if you ask what the takeaway is, here it is: you have an enemy that is out to destroy you, and he will come at you in a variety of ways. You have a world system that is contrary to how God thinks, and you have a flesh that is prone to sin. That is not a good combination. If you are not actively engaged in drawing close to the Lord and resisting the devil, he will win — he will defeat you.
Two Women, One Church, One Conflict
Let us go back to Philippians chapter 1 — stand firm. He loves this church; he has an incredible love for this church. Verse 2: "I urge Euodia and Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord."
Now, here is as close as I can tell from all the study I have done. We do not know a great deal about either of these women or this situation, but I drew three conclusions. First, these are not outsiders coming into the church — they are part of the church, two women who belong to this congregation. Second, this is my conclusion: I do not think that whatever the problem is, it is a doctrinal issue. If it were a doctrinal issue, Paul would have dealt with it — he would have hit it head-on. Remember chapter 3, verse 2: "Beware the dogs, beware the evildoers, beware of the false circumcision." He has no problem calling out a doctrinal issue and stating exactly what it is. I do not think this is a doctrinal issue at all.
Third, I think these two women are not just members of this church — I think they are high-profile people in it. If you go back to the introduction from our first week of study in the overview of Philippians, we looked at Acts chapter 16, verse 11. Paul comes to Philippi, there is no synagogue, he goes out to the river, and gathered there are Lydia and other women. That group of women, along with a couple of men, essentially becomes the launch team for this church. It is possible — maybe even likely — that these two women were part of that founding group.
We have no idea what the problem is between these two ladies. I wish it were doctrinal, because I think that is easier to resolve — if it is a doctrinal issue, you can go to the Word and say, "Here is what it says; you are wrong." But Paul simply says, "Live in harmony." My suspicion is that something is going on between them that is spilling over into the church. I do not know what it is, but there are people now taking sides — saying, "I am following Euodia," or "I am following Syntyche," and "I think she is right." It is not about doctrine. My sense is that it is about something that deals with —
The Challenge of Harmony
Paul's call to harmony in Philippians is not about doctrinal agreement but about preferential and personal differences. We see this in the kinds of tensions that arise: personality clashes, preferences about music, temperature in the room, the way things look. These are the friction points that can quietly divide a community of believers. In Paul's writing, he addresses this directly. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10, he says, "I exhort you brethren by the name of the Lord Jesus that you all agree, that there be no divisions among you, that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment." And in 1 Peter 3:8, to sum it all up, he says, "you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, humble in spirit."
We don't fully know what was at the root of the conflict between the two women in Philippians, so we can only draw out principles from what Paul wrote. The key to living in harmony is twofold. First, it is found right there in verse 2: you have to be in the Lord. Second, it is found in chapter 2, verse 5 of this same letter: "have the attitude in you which is also in Christ Jesus." There is a struggle taking place between these people, and the same thing is going to happen in your life and mine. This is not easy — this is a genuinely hard thing.
Paul and Barnabas: A Case Study in Conflict
To understand just how hard harmony is to live out, turn to the left of Philippians, to Acts chapter 15. We are going to look into the life of the very man who wrote these words about harmony. If you look down to chapter 16, Paul is on his way to Derbe and Lystra, and then in chapter 16, verse 12, he goes to Philippi. So Acts 15 takes place before he ever arrives in Philippi — a few years before he writes this letter telling others to live in harmony.
Acts chapter 15, verse 36 reads: "After some days Paul said to Barnabas, 'Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are doing.'" He is preparing for what we identify as the second missionary journey, wanting to go back and check on all the churches they had planted. Then verse 37: "Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them." That is a familiar name, because Mark had been with them on the first missionary journey — and somewhere along the way, he had left.
Now it is time for the second journey, and Barnabas says, let's take Mark. Paul's response is clear: he kept insisting that they should not take him along, "for he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work." The result is striking. There occurred a sharp disagreement that separated them from one another. Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. Paul took Silas with him and left, committing himself to the grace of the Lord, traveling through Syria and beyond.
Who Was Right?
This is the man who wrote about living in harmony, and here he is in a major dispute with a close partner — and it splits them apart. What is important to notice is that this is not a doctrinal issue. It is really a wisdom issue. Barnabas is saying, listen, there is real potential here. I know the man failed, but failure is not fatal. Paul is saying, this is tough work. I cannot be invested in someone who quit. He did not make it through.
Who is right? For years, the answer seemed to be Paul. Then it seemed to be Barnabas. The honest answer is that both conclusions can be right — two godly people, looking at the same situation, can reach legitimately different conclusions. What was not right was the way it was resolved, with an angry split. This is the very situation Paul would later write about: two believers who cannot get along, who need the help of the surrounding body to intervene.
God Redeems the Conflict
Even so, this story has a happy ending — on two levels. First, God used the division to multiply the missionary work. You probably would never have gotten Paul and Barnabas apart otherwise. Things were going well, ministry was moving forward, and you are not wide open to a split when everything is working. Out of this painful disagreement, God got two missionary teams instead of one.
Second, and perhaps more remarkable, is what happens at the end of Paul's life. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4. Paul is writing near the end, and he says that everyone has deserted him. Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted him. Only Luke is with him. He is writing to Timothy, and he says, "on the way, pick up Mark." This is the same Mark he once refused to bring along, the one he called a deserter, the one he would not invest in. Paul says of him, "he is useful for service." The man Paul had written off became, in his own words, useful.
The Role of the Body
There is one more thing in Philippians chapter 4, verse 3, that cannot be passed over. Paul says that someone needs to help these women. These are two godly women in genuine conflict, and Paul appeals to the surrounding community to step in. John MacArthur writes this: "The fellowship and support of the body of Christ is an important factor in developing and maintaining spiritual stability. The general strength of the fellowship becomes the strength of each individual. The more isolated a believer from other Christians, the more spiritually unstable he or she is likely to be. The church should be a place where people can support each other, hold each other accountable, and care for each other."
What we know is that ultimately, Euodia and Syntyche are going to be better off because there are other people around them who can intervene. Even if they are still hurt, even if they are angry, even if they end up going separate ways — there is still a call to live in harmony. That is what Paul says here, and it is what he says in Romans as well. The call does not go away simply because harmony is hard.
Live in Harmony
As far as it depends upon you, live at peace with one another. There are just some realities when you start to live this out — even two Christians can look at the same thing and see it differently. That is okay. It is how you respond to that difference that matters.
That tension is inevitable in any relationship. It is going to happen in business, in church, in a family, in a friendship, and between neighbors. That is simply part of being human. Some of you do not even like yourself — some of you are self-employed and have management-labor problems within your own operation. You have issues all over the place working for yourself. Now add another person to that, whatever the relationship — husband, wife, or otherwise — and we are dealing with people who are human and sinful.
Paul's Own Struggle
So what Paul is saying to us is: as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with one another. Have the mind that is also in Christ Jesus. Live in harmony with one another. But how tough is it? Paul himself could not pull it off when it came to Barnabas. That is not an excuse — it simply reminds us of how human he was, how typical he was, and how hard this is to strive for.
Even as I look at East Valley Bible Church over seventeen or eighteen years, there have been remarkably few instances of serious conflict. And yet they are really hard and difficult when they happen. This is part of life.
The Foundation for All of It
I never have a chance at standing firm, living in harmony, or rejoicing in the Lord if I am not in Him. That is where everything begins.
Now, verse 4: "Rejoice in the Lord always." There is your encouragement. We will pick up right there next week and work down into verses six and seven.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for these words. I am reminded of the enemy, Satan, who is out to destroy us and will do it in so many different ways. He would love to have two women in the church at Philippi arguing with one another. He and his demons must take great pleasure in that kind of division.
God, I pray that we would have people around us — because we need people. Here at East Valley Bible Church, that is what area ministry is. For those here today who are saying, "I need that in my life, I need people who can come alongside and encourage and correct me," God, I pray that You would lead them over to the commons to ask about area ministry this morning.
In our hearts, let us not look at others and begin to evaluate them. Instead, God, let us look at our own lives — standing firm, living in harmony, and rejoicing in You. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.