Thinking Like Our Humble Lord (Philippians 2:1-11)
Thinking Like Our Humble Lord
Philippians 2:1-11
Introduction
I want to introduce the main idea of this sermon with five statements. Let me give all five to you up front, then we will walk back through them.
1. The church has been placed on earth to strive side by side for the faith of the gospel.
2. Unity in this side-by-side gospel work produces joy in the church.
3. Spiritual pride and selfishness is antithetically opposed to the unity and joy of gospel work and must be overcome if we are to strive side-by-side for gospel faith.
4. The best antidote to spiritual pride and selfishness is a clear sight of Christ, who was humble.
5. The clearest sight of Christ’s humility is seen in his incarnation and substitutionary death.
First, the church has been placed on earth to strive side by side for the faith of the gospel. One of the greatest misconceptions about Philippians is that it is a book about joy. While Philippians features joy as one of its main themes, Philippians is actually primarily about unity in gospel work. It’s tagline might be found in 1:5: “partnership in the gospel,” and its thesis statement might be found in 1:27: “you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.” We have been placed on the earth for stable, unified striving for gospel faith.
Second, unity in this side-by-side gospel work produces joy in the church. The church is most joyful when it strives together after the common goal of propagating the faith of the gospel among the nations. Thus, Paul describes a very warm relationship between himself and the Philippians. He holds them in his heart, they make his prayers with joy, he yearns for them with the affection of Christ Jesus, he desires to be with them and to serve them. In the same way, in our text, Paul appeals to them to “complete his joy by being of the same mind.” Unity in the church fulfills the joy of pastors and promotes the joy of the whole church. It is a glorious thing when a entire church is single-mindedly focused on striving together for the faith of the gospel. It is a grievous thing to the heart of a church, and especially to the heart of pastors, when division over other, ultimately unimportant issues, creeps into the church, divides member from member, and interrupts the joyful side-by-side gospel work.
Third, spiritual pride and selfishness are antithetically opposed to the unity and joy of gospel work and therefore must be overcome if we are to srive side-by-side for gospel faith. Notice how the one note of sadness in Paul’s description of his ministry is that there are some “who preach Christ from envy and rivalry” (1:15). While he can rejoice that Christ is preached no matter how, it still evidently pains his heart that there are some who would use Christ as a way to get ahead. Disunity, self-exaltation, inflated self-evaluation, and in all things putting the interests of ourselves ahead of the interests of others not only destroys the unity of the church, and throws cold water on the zealous flame for the church’s mission. It also dampens her joy. Spiritual pride and selfishness therefore oppose gospel work, decommission effective churches, and hollow out the joyous, side-by-side striving of the church for the faith of the gospel. Therefore, spiritual pride must be put to death.
Fourth, the best weapon against spiritual pride and selfishness is a clear sight of Christ, who was humble. Sanctification unfolds by beholding the glory of the Lord: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18). It is by seeing Christ that we are inwardly changed. And from such a sight of Christ follows a walk which looks like his. This is why Christ not only came and died in order to save those who believe, but also, as Peter says, to “leave you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21). So, if we are proud, we look to Jesus, and we see the glory of his humility, and we walk in the pattern of his humble life and death. If we are discouraged, we look to the glory of Jesus’ strength and walk in the pattern of his courageous life and death. If we a tempted to lie, we look to the glory of Jesus as the Truth, and we walk in his example of speaking the truth in love. It is seeing him, and diligently attending to and studying his example that we grow to become like him.
Fifth, the clearest sight of Christ’s humility can be seen in his incarnation and substitutionary death. This passage teaches in no uncertain terms that Christ was humble. Jesus Christ, word of the father, God of God, Light of Light, begotten, not made, of the same essence as the Father, the exact representation of the nature of God made visible in human form, was humble. And we see the glorious, shocking, convicting, transforming humility of Christ as he “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself” and “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” We look upon the lowliness of Jesus as he lies in the manger and we behold the humility of the true God.
Thus, here is the point of the text (and therefore, the sermon) — we must foster a spirit of unity and lowliness by attending diligently to the example of Christ. Let’s take that in two halves.
I. Foster a Spirit of Unity and Lowliness (Phil. 2:1-4)
First, we must foster a spirit of unity and lowliness among ourselves if we are to strive side by side for gospel faith.
He begins to lay that out by giving some incentives to unity and lowliness (2:1). Notice the word “if”: this is not a condition but a certainty. It could get the sense across to say, “Since there is encouragement in Christ, since there is comfort from love,” with the added connotation of persuasion.
· “Encouragement in Christ” – that is, Encouragement flowing from union with Christ and the saints. Encouragement is not merely saying nice things, but a strengthening, an emboldening someone through appeal. He is saying if you are ever emboldened to a course of action by virtue of your union with Christ, let it be to unity and lowliness. Think upon your union to Christ, and therefore your union to one another, and let it lead you
· “comfort from love” – That is Comfort flowing from the love of Christ and the saints. Christ loves the saints, and the saints love Christ, and therefore the saints love one another. And the love of Christ and the love of the saints ought cause great consolation, or alleviation of distress. The same way that a distressed spouse is comforted when their mate sacrifices their time, energy, and resources to love them, so also the church is comforted. Paul earlier had prayed that their love would abound more and more (1:9) and that some preach the gospel out of love for Paul knowing that he was in prison for the gospel (1:16). If there was any desire to alleviate Paul’s suffering in prison flowing from love for Paul, then it should be in walking in unity and lowliness.
· “participation in the spirit” - Fellowship by the Spirit with Christ and his saints. We participate in, have fellowship with Christ and with one another by the Spirit of God. If we have experienced that fellowship with Christ and with his church, then let it bear fruit in unity and lowliness!
· Affection and sympathy which Christ has for us and which we have for one another. Affection is literally “bowels” – the seat of the emotions. If you have compassion for one another, if you are moved in your emotions by the joys and pains of one another, then walk in unity and lowliness. And sympathy is a display of concern over the misfortune of another—the outside dimension of compassion. Affection feels. Sympathy acts. Paul says, “You feel this way toward me, so let that move you to humility and lowliness!”
In other words, the incentive toward unity and lowliness comes from our common life in Christ. Because we are strengthened by a common encouragement, comforted by the same love, participating in the same Spirit, and have affection and sympathy for one another, we have plenty of reasons to walk in unity and lowliness.
Spirit of Unity (2:2)
But look at how he describes unity. It is the “same mind…same love…full accord…one mind.” There is a supernatural unity that must characterize the church. As 1 Corinthians 1:10 said, “You must agree in the Lord, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” In our thinking, in our judgments, in our mindset, there ought to be agreement. Yes, even a sense of sameness. Sameness does not mean we are all identical—God has made us different on purpose. Sameness also does not mean that we all have identical opinions on issues of preference or conscience—those will inevitably differ. But when it comes how we think through issues, and ultimately the judgments to which we come, we need to be unified with one another. If we are thinking the same way, we should be able to come to agreement with one another, like Euodia and Syntyche were exhorted to do in 4:2.
We should be unified in our thinking. “Same mind.” Form your opinions in the same way. Think after the same principles. Base your opinions on the same criteria. Now, of course, we are not seeking for force everyone into the same mold or have identical thoughts or opinions. But there is a genuine sense that a freelance thinker, someone who goes off and forms his opinions completely separated from the church and from pastoral counsel and from the time-tested doctrines of the church is somewhat of a danger. Novel ideas in theology are almost never safe. Thus we are not only to have “the same mind” but also to think “as one”—it is to be as though we think with a common mind. And of course, that mind is the mind of Christ. And remember, Paul is cautioning us against disunity and pride—proud people will often lift up their own ways of thinking against others, rather than subjecting their way of thinking to the standard of Christ.
We should be unified in our love. “Having the same love” – the same desire to benefit one another. The mutual love of the saints is not only a true expression of its unity, but is itself the guard of its unity. Nothing protects against selfish ambition and conceit, and nothing promotes humility and the consideration of others, than the mutual love of the saints.
We are to be in full accord. Literally “one-souled.” One lexicon gave the word “harmonious.” Paul expects there to be the same desires, same passions, same ambitions in the church. It is a comprehensive idea. Those who are one in soul are knit together in every respect.
Spirit of Lowliness (2:3-4)
But the unity of the church ought to drive us to lowliness.
We must divest ourselves of selfish ambition and conceit. It is easy to act in selfish ambition—contentiousness is the idea. It’s that sense of disagreeableness, prone to argumentation, eager to fight and wrestle, being prickly or unwilling to bend that leads to arguments. Selfish ambitions are just lusts leading to fights. James 4:1, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your lusts are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.” Selfish ambition is the cause of much division and lovelessness in the church. Selfish ambition has broken the lines of many a once-thriving church.
Conceit is different. It’s vainglory. Conceit is the peacock strut of the self-obsessed. The swagger of an inflated self-assessment. It is the patronizing pretense of the one who thinks he is better than he is. That is why Paul says do not “think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think, but think with sober judgment” (Rom 12:3). Don’t have too high a view of your importance, your sacrifice, your gifts, your capacities, your energy, your role, your holiness. Do not act from these things.
Rather, in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Humility is the sunshine in which side-by-side gospel work thrives. Paul is not saying we should consider every person in every respect better than we personally are. That is simply not true. It would be a lie for the industrious man to regard the lazy man as better than himself in that regard. It is in fact the case that not everyone is equally gifted, equally wise, equally able, equally skilled, and equally holy in practice in the church. What Paul means is that we must allow a spirit of genuine mutual regard and appreciation dominate our fellowship. In other words, we must be quick to find our own faults and quick to excuse the faults of others. We must be severe on our own sins and lenient on the sins of others. We must readily look to what is good in others and be slow to boast in our own contributions. The truly humble child of God knows himself sufficiently that he sounds like the tax collector, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
But such consideration will also cause us to look out for others more than ourselves. Lowliness is not only expressed in our regard of others but in our action toward others. We are to “not only look to our own interests but to the interests of others.” This does not mean we are to be busybodies or gossips, but full of sympathy and Christian love. We should be concerned that others get the credit for what is accomplished, that others are honored, that others are lifted up, that others have the opportunities. We also must be bound up with their needs, whether spiritual or physical, and seek to meet them. This can even look as simple as working to be interested in something you have absolutely no interest in.
Transition: Yet, again, we need a model for such behavior. We cannot simply resolve that we will be this way, or make up our minds and we will suddenly be different. The decisive change happens not just in deciding that we will now be different, but in the spiritual sight of Christ into whose image we must be changed. Thus, we must…
II. Attend Diligently to the Example of Christ (Phil 2:5-11)
If we are to strive side by side for gospel faith, we must not only foster a spirit of unity and lowliness, but we must do so by looking to Jesus, who himself was humble, lowly, self-giving, and considered the needs of others more important than his own.
He has provided an example after which we should walk. His road is our road. According to our remaining sin, we naturally desire to attain glory by lifting ourselves up in selfish ambition and conceit. When we lift ourselves up, we push others down—we count ourselves more significant than others. But Christ’s example provides a radically different template. In fact, Christ’s example teaches us that When we put ourselves under others in order to lift them up, we walk the path of greatness and exaltation. The way up is down. The path to greatness is through humiliation. Lowliness is the crown of the saints.
By walking this path which Christ, Paul draws us along after him, like a cart behind a horse. Paul does not tell us these things for our theological debate—he tells them to us for our humility. 2:5 – his mind is ours in him. As Christ has given his example, so we are to walk with each other.
Christ, before he became a man, was true God of true God. Behold, the exalted state of Christ: “he was in the form of God.” What does it mean to be in the “form of God”? It means to possess his essential nature. In other words, to be in the form of God is to be God. Jesus is God, and he was God even before he became a man. In fact, Paul explains what this means when he says in the next words, he had “equality with God.” Jesus is equal to God. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” (John 1:1). Immanuel, “God with us.” Romans 9:5 says that from the race of the Jews descends “Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever, Amen.” Colossians 1:15 calls him the “image of the invisible God” and Hebrews 1:3 calls him “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” Titus 2:13 calls Christ “Our Great God and Savior.” Everywhere in the New Testament, the testimony is the same: Jesus is God. As the Nicene creed says, “God of God, Light of Light, very God of Very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” This is the exalted state of Christ. Christ himself knew this. He prayed in John 17:5, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
Yet, in such an exalted state of eternal glory, though he was in the form of God, though he possessed equality with God, Christ did not consider his deity a thing to be wielded for his own advantage. That’s what it means when it says, “a thing to be grasped.” The word comes from robbery—the selfish seizing of goods. He didn’t hoard it for himself. He didn’t hang onto it at all costs. He didn’t count it as something to be lorded over those who desperately needed his rescue.
Isn’t it an amazing thing that the highly exalted God would stoop to rescue people like us? Isaiah 57:15: “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’” God’s exalted nature compels him to dwell with the lowly. He looks far down on the inhabitants of the earth, but also is “near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” And therefore, when Christ considered his own deity, he did not regard it as something to be used to his own advantage, he didn’t see it as a castle into which he could retreat from the vile filthiness of sinners in need of salvation. (notice the play on words: Christ did not “count” his equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage, just as we are to “count others more significant than ourselves” (2:3)).
So, Christ emptied himself. Now, by this point, it should be obvious what Paul means and doesn’t mean. He did not empty himself in the sense that he became less God. He did not give up any of his attributes (if he did, he would no longer be God, but something less). He did not give up any of his prerogatives (for to be God is to retain and exercise those prerogatives). He did not give up any of his glory (since glory is one of the attributes of God). Nor does it mean that he gave up the independent use of his divine authority or prerogatives. Jesus Christ at all times in all ways continues as God in all respects without surrendering or altering any of his divine attributes or prerogatives.
So, what does it mean that Christ emptied himself? Since it is contrasted with “counting equality with God as a thing to be grasped,” it therefore means that he treated himself as something to be emptied out for those who are his. He treated his divine, exalted nature not as something to be selfishly held onto and used for his own comfort, but as something to be poured out for the benefit of his people. And he does that by “taking on the form of a servant.” He does not become less God, he becomes something additional—the nature of one who is at the behest of others, a slave, a servant, someone under another.
How did he do that? By “being born in the likeness of men.” What does that mean? He identified with our human nature in every way. He was born like we are. He had a body like we do. He had a human soul, emotions, relationships, needs for sleep and food. He had a family, friends, bought items with money. As Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” He was took on a complete and full human nature in order to save us. The one who was equal with God considered others more important than himself and so emptied himself and became a man in order to save sinners.
Yet it is not only this: Christ gave his life for sinners. “being found in human form”—being God in flesh, the whole fullness of deity dwelling bodily, “he humbled himself.” You may say, “I thought he already humbled himself!” And that he did. But he humbles himself even further. How did he do that? He obeyed. Who? His Father. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Don’t dwell on it too long—you won’t ever be able to fully comprehend what is happening here within the Godhead—yet you can see clearly, Jesus obeyed his Father unto death. Even death on a cross—a death that was considered so gruesome, so horrible, so dehumanizing, that it was illegal to crucify a Roman citizen.
As we sing this season in what is arguably one of the most theologically rich Christmas songs: “Christ, by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord, late in time behold him come, offspring of the virgin’s womb; veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th’incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel” “Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of righteousness! Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give him second birth.” There is no shred of pride in Christ—there ought not be a shred of pride in you. If Christ can descend from glory to humanity, and in his humanity descend into death, then there is no task in the church that is below you. There are no feet you cannot wash.
But here is the great irony: the very glory we seek in considering ourselves first comes on the downward path of putting others before ourselves. When we humble ourselves, we are exalted. Do not miss the incredible force of the “therefore” in verse 9. It is not in spite of his self-emptying, his self-humbling, his death on a cross that he is exalted. It is because of those things. The way up is down. The very exaltation you seek is found in exalting others. As Mary sang, “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1:52-53).
“God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.” He is exalted from the grave back to life, from the earth into heaven—even God’s right hand—and eventually exalted in all the earth on the final day when he will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. For that is why the Father does this: 2:10, “So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” No matter where, no matter what, no matter who, all will acknowledge, willingly or unwillingly, that Jesus is Lord, and every intelligent being will worship him.
Conclusion
At the close I want to simply make two final applications.
First, let us recall our main point: we must foster a spirit of unity and lowliness by diligently attending to the example of Christ. John 13:34, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” If we’re to do what we’ve been put here to do, then we must be one of heart, mind, and soul, striving together for gospel faith. And if we are to be that kind of church, we must always look to the example of Christ. So maybe you see his example and you see the ways that you have not been following his example—regarding yourself as more important than others, putting your interests above the interests of spouses or children or other church members, acting ambitiously to gain what you want whether power or presige or comfort or ease or applause, strutting inwardly in conceited self-inflation as you angle to get what’s yours. Brother or sister, repent. Return to the example of Christ.
Second, if you do not know Christ—see what kind of love he has for you. He did not act selfishly. He did not count himself more important than you—though he is! He did not look to his own interests. Though he was God, equal with him in every way, he willingly set that aside and became a man and humbled himself to the grave that he might save you. He calls you today to repent—turn away from your sin—and believe—trust only and wholly in him for all your righteousness. Come to him, and though you will not be exalted in his place, you will willingly exalt him in that day and forever enjoy the blessings of living under the Lordship of Christ.