In the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln once got caught up in a situation where he wanted to please a politician, so he issued a command to transfer certain regiments. When the secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, received the order, he refused to carry it out. He said that the President was a fool. Lincoln was told what Stanton had said, and he replied, "If Stanton said I'm a fool, then I must be, for he is nearly always right. I'll see for myself." As the two men talked, the President quickly realized that his decision was a serious mistake, and without hesitation he withdrew it.
We’re going to be looking Philippians 2:3-8 today, but I’ll be reading verses 1-11.
The tone of the Epistle to the Philippians is exceptionally positive. The words joy and rejoice occur more than a dozen times throughout the letter. Paul is writing an encouragement note to the Philippian church. He’s telling them, “You guys are doing really well, but these are some areas that you can work on.” This is in contrast to his letters to the Corinthians where he’s nailing them to the wall for their deviant behaviour, or his Epistle to the Galatians where the church is being led astray by false teaching. His audience is strong Christ-followers, he’s not writing to people who are spiritually immature here.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 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.
Paul begins with urging the church to action, and then gives his reasoning for this command. And even though he was an apostle, wrote half the New Testament and generally has a good idea of what he’s doing, I’m going to do the opposite here and take a look at Christ’s example first before the practical implications.
The first thing that Paul brings out here is that Jesus was in the form of God. So what does that mean? In the form of God. Throughout the history of the church there have been those who have looked at this phrase and concluded that Jesus was not divine. If He is God, then why use this terminology? This is a problem that we run into in using the English language. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek with a little Aramaic thrown in for good measure. So when we translate into English we often don’t pick up the implications that words and concepts had in their original languages. So occasionally we need to look a little closer at the original language to pick up those subtle differences that can make a passage clearer. In this case, the English Standard Version literally translates the word “morf-ah” as form. However, the New International Version catches more the essence of what Paul was getting at by saying Jesus is “in very nature God.” Morphe describes that which possesses all the characteristics and qualities of something. It is the true and exact nature of something. So in order for one to possess all the characteristics and qualities of God, one would then be God. Especially seeing as God has so many unique and incredible attributes. So Jesus is God.
However, Paul comes right around with something that just doesn’t make sense. “Though he was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” The Lord Christ Jesus, despite being God and deserving of all of the honour and respect due to God, didn’t see it as important to hold onto that. As God, He did not hold onto His position as God to come to earth. This is something that I think we miss when we think of Jesus coming. The writer of Hebrews in his opening chapter puts out a pretty good explanation of who Jesus is:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
But of the Son [God] says,
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”
And,
“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
they will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment,
like a robe you will roll them up,
like a garment they will be changed.
But you are the same,
and your years will have no end.”
Last week we celebrated this God’s coming to earth in a lowly manger, in the most humble of circumstances. He could have come as a king, as the Creator, as master. When Queen Elizabeth II last visited Canada it involved meeting with the Prime Minister, VIP treatment wherever she went, a state dinner and a 21 gun salute to see her off. And that’s what her position demands. Jesus definitely deserved all the stops pulled out for Him, but didn’t get anything. Didn’t want anything. Came in such a way that He wouldn’t receive what His position could get Him as far as honour and respect was concerned. But Paul goes further than just to say that He made himself nothing, he says that the Lord came as a servant. Once again, for the last time, I promise, I am going to make a note on the Greek. The word that Paul uses here that we translate as servant is “doulos”, one of several that are translated into English as such, but all have slightly different meanings. Doulos refers to a person who is in a permanent relation of servitude to another, his will altogether swallowed up in the will of the other. This is who he is, altogether apart from any service to that other. There are words that refer to the services rendered by a servant, but that wasn’t what Paul was emphasizing here. He was emphasizing that Christ had the mindset of a servant. In fact, the same word used earlier to say that Jesus was in the form of God, here says that Jesus was in the form of a servant. His nature was that of a servant. God’s nature, as He came to earth, was that of a servant.
The final point that Paul makes about Christ’s incarnation here on earth is that He was humble and obedient to the point of death. When Christ was killed He was killed by crucifixion. Crucifixion was not simply a convenient way of executing prisoners. It was the ultimate indignity, a public statement by Rome that the crucified one was beyond contempt. The intense physical pain was magnified by the degradation and humiliation. No other form of death, no matter how prolonged or physically agonizing, could match crucifixion as an absolute destruction of the person. It was the ultimate counterpoint to the divine majesty of the preexistent Christ, and thus was the ultimate expression of Christ’s obedience to the Father. Once again thinking back to His position as King and God, he was placed into the most painful and humiliating situation for a human to be. As God He was put there. As God He chose to put Himself there. And He humbled Himself to that lowly level.
Well, as my one professor at school likes to say...So what? What difference does this make in our lives? What difference should it make in our lives? Paul opened up this lesson on Christ with a practical application, so there’s a good place to start.
In verses 1 and 2 Paul asks the Philippian church to complete his joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full and of one mind. What I want to focus on though is the next part. “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”
So Paul begins with a negative. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit. I’m not going to Greek here, but a little history of the context now. When Paul talks about rivalry, the idea is that of a person pursuing a political office, and going about it in an unfair way. In a way that was sure to help them win, but that was low and underhanded. It would have brought a mental picture not unlike the caricatured picture many of us have in our minds of politicians. That wasn’t how Paul wanted the church to operate. He didn’t want the people of God pushing and shoving to be first or to see their own agenda advanced. Instead, “in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” I once read the story of Paedaretos who lived in Sparta in ancient Greece. A group of 300 men were to be chosen to govern Sparta. Though Paedaretos was a candidate, his name was not on the final list. Some of his friends sought to console him, but he simply replied, "I am glad that in Sparta there are 300 men better than I am." He became a legend because of his willingness to stand aside while others took the places of glory and honour. Instead of searching for ways to cut down the men who received this honour, Paedaretos saw these men as more significant than himself. In the spirit of love and unity, that’s what Paul wants from the people of God as well.
Paul advances the same thought in the next sentence when he writes “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Andrew J. Holmes once said “It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.” Christ was looking to our interests when He humbled Himself to come to earth in the form that He did. Christ, as the greatest being, as who my friend Hunter refers to as the ultimate superlative, came and humbled himself to the most degrading death known to mankind. So how much humility would be too much when faced with Christ’s example? Andrew Murray said, "The humble man feels no jealousy or envy. He can praise God when others are preferred and blessed before him. He can bear to hear others praised while he is forgotten because ... he has received the spirit of Jesus, who pleased not Himself, and who sought not His own honor. Therefore, in putting on the Lord Jesus Christ he has put on the heart of compassion, kindness, meekness, longsuffering, and humility." Humility is not something that just comes to a person. The dictionary defines humility as “the quality or condition of being humble” – which isn’t very helpful, but it continues to say “modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance, rank, etc. It is an attribute that needs to be exercised and practiced. CS Lewis had the right idea when he said: “Don't imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call "humble" nowadays: he won't be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who's always telling you that, of course, he's nobody. Probably all you'll think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him, it will be because you feel a bit envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He won't be thinking about himself at all. There I must stop. If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you're not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.” So if the first step is to realize that one is proud, then the second step is to take action counter to that. Listen to others. Develop a genuine care for them. Volunteer to do the chore hated at your home. In this coming week I would challenge you to think of a task or action that you consider to be below yourself and to carry out that action with this thought from Paul in mind.
Christ came as an example to us. He lived a life dependant on the Father as a model of how we are to live our lives. And the last practical part of this passage is that we are to develop the mind of Christ. As we saw earlier today, Christ came as a servant, having the very nature of a servant. So to have this mindset is definitely to see the Holy Spirit working in a believer’s life. However, it also requires action on our part. While Paul’s teaching of Christ here is a great overview of Christ’s life and mindset, the rest of the New Testament, especially the gospels, but really the whole thing, presents a much fuller view of who Christ is. To develop the mind of Christ we need to know what the mind of Christ is, and that starts with consistently immersing your mind in the knowledge of Him. How did He react in different circumstances? What was important to Him? What characteristics were apparent in His life? What we think upon, what we fill our minds with is what shapes us, so let us fill our minds with Christ.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
I’m going to close with this final word – penned by an unknown author. “How do we know if we have a servant’s heart? By how we act when we are treated like one!”
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