Read: Philippians 4:14-23

Philippians finishes with the required closing greeting - bringing Paul's daring thesis on Christian community to a close.

Paul says what some of us know first hand - community is not possible unless we can find a way to navigate through the myriads of ideas and diversity that individuals bring to the group. Paul says the only way to stay together is if someone is willing to lose - at least when it comes to the non-essentials.

No one likes to lose. Yet Jesus demonstrates that you cannot lose if by giving up something, you gain a friend. Paul has tried to emulate this counter-cultural philosophy in his life - in part as a way to love Jesus back, and in part to pay Jesus' love forward. And Paul is urging the Philippians to do the same - as a way to love Jesus back, to love Paul back, and to pay their love forward.

And we can catch a final glimpse of how Paul lives this in his own life - by the people he is in community with. By all account, Paul is a genius. There are likely not many people who are his intellectual and theological equals. Yet Paul has found a way to bridge differences with others enough to be community - including people "in Caesar's household". Paul is not just writing idealistically. Paul is writing what he is living in his own life.

And by attending to the interest of others above his own, Paul found friendships where it is unlikely - just as God made friends with the most unlikey people: us. God did it by Jesus voluntarily demoting himself from God to human, free person to slave, immortal to mortal, sinless to death on a shameful Roman cross. He shows us how to become friends where friendships had not been possible.

It's the different the Jesus makes.

Write
Think about your faith story: what the most unlikely friendships you have had in your life? How did those connection happen?

Looking at your friendships presently - how diverse are the people in your life? What differences are you coping with among your friends? What are you challenged with give up so a friendship can win?

Who are some unlikely people you have the opportunity to befriend? What will you have to give up so you can gain a friend?

What opportunities do you have to pay Jesus' love forward?

Pray
What is God saying to you today?

Talk to God about your experience of diversity in friendship. Tell God about the ways you have grown as a person because of the unlikely friendships you have had in your life.

Talk to God about the friendships in your life presently, and the struggles you are having with differences in personality and opinions. Ask God for the courage and boldness to attend to your friends' interest before your own - to lose so a friendship can win.

Pray about the people in your life with whom you have not thought friendship is possible. Ask God for the opportunity to befriend these people to pay Jesus' love forward.

Pray for an experience of God's love, grace and mercy as he helps you overcome differences in your friendships, and as he enlarges your ideas about how he loves through the diversity of your friendships.