Our Great Need & Our Great God

Introduction

One of the histories in the Bible that has always been most gripping to me is the story of Peter walking on water.

I grew up on the coast in Oak Island, NC and on multiple occasions as hurricanes bore down on our coast I stood on the shore witnessing the power of wind and waves. And on one or two occasions found myself in a boat when I wished that I had not been. The ocean is immensely powerful!

So when I read about the disciples in the boat in the middle of the storm and I read about Jesus walking to them on the water. I can hear the wind whipping making the disciples shout to each other because anything else will be lost to the ear. I can feel the boat churning under their feet as they fight for balance. And I can taste the salt water in the air.

So when Jesus tells Peter to come out to Him on the water—I feel the impossibility of that task. My mind races thinking of everything I know about water and its inability to hold people up on its surface. I think about sinking underneath a powerful storm and seeming certainty of that outcome. What kind of command is this from Jesus?

Our passage today is Philippians 2:3-11. If you have your Bibles you can go ahead and turn there. And in our passage this morning we have commands given to us that are in the same vein as Jesus telling Peter to walk on water. It’s connected to what our brother Dave preached two weeks ago on living a life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Our passage today speaks to the kind of life that is worthy.

And I don’t want us to miss the difficulty of these things. My goal for us this morning is for us to see our great need and the greatness of the one that we need.

When you walk away this morning, my hope is that you will see the monumental difficulty of what we are called to and the monumental greatness of the one who calls us to do it. That’s my goal.

Towards that I am going to break the passage up into four parts. I. Hear the Command (3-5a), II. See the Way (5b-8), III. See the Need (5a), and IV. See Our Lord (9-11).

Let’s read the text this morning together.

Philippians 2:3–11 ESV

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.

Now as we jump back to the beggining let’s not miss the command.

I. Hear the Command (3-5a)

We heard it once but let’s hear it again.

Philippians 2:3 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”

And this command comes to us in a negative in a “don’t”. In this passage verses 3 and 4 are do not’s while 5-8 are do’s. So God through Paul, wants you and I to know what not to do.

And that is that you and I would “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit”.

And immediately, even if you are the least selfish and conceited person in the room know that you are not never selfish or never conceited. But that is what God says to us here in his Word.

Do nothing. Never act out of selfish ambition. Never be driven by conceit.

Immediately we can see that his is a hard command to receive. But if we are to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ it is a necessity. If we are to love as Christ loves then we must fight against selfish ambition. We must be on the look out for and be killing conceit.

These things are highly destructive to other people and as we will see they are nothing like Christ.

The second part of verse 3 tells us what the problem with selfish ambition and conceit are. Paul says, “but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.”

When we are selfishly ambitious or conceited we count self as more important than others.

This flies right in the face of what Christ told the disicples and us many times. One of those times is in Matthew 20:16 “So the last will be first, and the first last.””

When the disciples were fighting over who would be greatest in Christ’s kingdom—Jesus said I’ve come to be a servant and you all are fighting to be served.

Illustration: You see this in lunch rooms all over the country in public school systems. If you are teaching or subbing a class that is right before lunch you see this pre-lunch ritual for all those who eat from the cafeteria. The bags are packed, the shoe laces are tied tight. Eyes feverishly dart back and forth from the clock on the wall to the door.

Because when that bell rings a horde of hungry boys will race, shove, and fight their way to be first in the lunch line. To get first pick of the food. They fight to not waste a single moment of precious lunch time standing in line.

And we laugh (hopefully) but often times you and I can be the same way in our own lives. We fight to be first in traffic. We fight to be first at home. We fight to be first at work. We fight to make sure that first and foremost we are taken care of, as it should be, because friends in these moments we are the most important person in the room.

And this morning God is saying to you and I—don’t do that. Don’t think of self first. Don’t be selfishly ambitious.

Instead be ambitious for the good of others, like Jesus.

Our text doesn’t cast a negative light on ambition, but on selfish ambition that seeks to elevate self at the expense of others. Christlike ambition elevates others often at the expense of self.

Jesus was ambitious—he was going to accomplish everything the Father had sent him to do and nobody was going to stop him, but his ambition was to bring glory to God and to bring about salvation for the good of many. His ambition was others focused.

Application: So our application here this morning while not simple, is clear—be selflessly ambitious. And this takes care of the command to not be conceited. Because you can’t be ambitious for the good of others and be conceited at the same time.

And I really appreciate the wisdom of the Bible here. It’s obvious that God knows the hearts of the ones that He’s writing to. Continue with me in verse 4.

Philippians 2:4 “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

The human heart, instead of making minor adjustments, tends to swing the pendulum from one side all the way over to the other. If something is a little bit good then a lot of that thing is a lotta bit good. Right?

So when I hear “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit” I immediately start thinking about how I do this. And I inevitably swing the pendulum way to the other side and off the hinges.

“I’ve got to give all my money away. All of it! We have to sell all comfort items and help others with it! We need to live a box in the woods and eat one meal a week and all the other meals will go to other people.”

But verse 4 tells us here that God is not saying it is wrong to “look after your own interests” but that it is wrong to only look after your own interests.

In other words it is wrong to think that your life is about you and nobody else.

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

In fact your life is not primarily about you at all. It is about God and it is about those that God gives you the privilege to serve and then it is about you. The first shall last and the last shall be first.

It is truse that every relational, marital, societal problem that exists between people is a result of one person or persons exalting themselves over another person or persons.

Having problems at home? Having problems in any human relationship? Odds are one or both of you is being selfishly ambitious and conceited.

So Paul states our command here in the first part of verse 5

Philippians 2:5 “Have this mind among yourselves,

Have this mind a mind that is not selfish, a mind that is not conceited. A mind that puts others first that serves others before self. A mind that will be ambitious for the good of others even at the expense of self. This is the mind we are to have.

Transition: And this is hard. Le’t not be falsely brave here. “Don’t be selfish, don’t be conceited. Spend my life on others.” Got it! I’m good.” This is a difficult command to hear. And as we continue in our text this difficulty is not resolved by the way that we are told to accomplish this. The tension remains for now as we see...

II. See the Way (5b-8)

So God gives us this command and then he points to Jesus as the example to which we should conform. Let’s keep reading in verses 5-7

Philippians 2:5-7 “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.”

The Bible is full of incredible sentences. Divine truths are packed into words. God’s word drips with significance but sometimes we can read right over something truly incredible. If you’ve read the Bible alot you undoubtedly have experienced reading a passage that you’ve read many times to see something amazing that you’ve never seen before.

And of all the amazing sentences in the Bible this sentence here in Philippians 2 might be chief among them. Let us not miss the truth we are being told.

Philippians 2:6-7 “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.”

The humility of Jesus is absolutely incredible. Let’s not miss that we are talking about God himself here. In John 8:58 “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.””

John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.””

And in many places Jesus makes it clear that He is no other than God.

Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn, (the first over) all creation.”

This is the same God in Deuteronomy that if you even touched the foot of the mountain he descennded on you would die. Your sin in contact with His glory, his holiness would kill you. If you touched the ark of the covenant where his presence dwelt you would die. If you went into the holy of holies in the tabernacle or temple and you were not the high priest you would die—and only he could live after taking great care and followed God’s instructions exactly.

This is the God who when Moses spent time with him his face shone golden and freaked people out. He had to wear a veil because his face reflected the glory of God and that was too much for people.

We are talking about the Holy One of Israel. The Ancient of Days. The One who spoke existence into existence.

He took on a tabernacle of flesh, a place that we could meet him face to face and not die. But he never ceased being God!

When Paul says here in Philippians that Jesus was “in the form of God” he’s not saying that Jesus wasn’t God but just in the form of God. The Greek word used for form is “Morphe” and what it communicates in reference to Jesus is that his “outer matches exactly the substance of his inner”. And so what it actually communicates here is that Jesus is fully who He is.

When verse 7 says that Jesus emptied himself it doesn’t mean that he ceased to be God. You could says verse 6-7 like this, “Who, though he was God through and through, inside and outside, did not count his rights and privileges as God, a thing to be held onto to, but instead He let go of all that was due him as God and became a man and a servant.

When Jesus walked this earth what was due him was all honor, glory, and praise. It was adoration and worship of the His people that He created. The God who enveloped the mountain in fire was the same God walking among them teaching them, healing them, loving them, and rebuking them. The triumphal entry into Jersuslame where everyone is praising Jesus as the messiah should have been every day but instead

We mocked him, and hunted him, and stuck him. We spit on him and whipped him and we killed him in a way specifically designed to humiliate him as a naked criminal.

And he did not strike us down, but allowed himself to be struck down in our place. He was ambitious for our good even as we nailed him to the cross so that he would receive the wrath of God for our sin.

And this is mind blowing. Friends, I struggled with a title for what this is. I’m labeling this for the purpose of the sermon outline and your notes as gracious humility but that term really falls short to describe accurately what is happening here.

It was by God’s grace that He took on human flesh and became a servant to sinful humanity.

Application: And this is what you and I are called to. We are called to be graciously humble. We are called to lay down any rights, privilege, or respect that is due us and serve those in front of us.

If we are to be selflessly ambtitious for the good of others like Jesus was for us then we cannot “grasp onto” whatever we may be rightfully due.

It was beneath Jesus as God to love us the way that he did, does. But he wasn’t holding onto this when he was with us, because if He had he would not have been able to serve us.

If your primary goal is to get every ounce of respect and honor that is due you because of your rank, position, or experience then you will never be able to love and serve others unless they are more impressive than you are. And if you are conceited there will be few peopel who meet that criteria. And you’ll never be able to serve the least of these.

You can’t serve Christ unless you are graciously humble. The command we see in verse 3 is answered with another to be as graciously humble as Christ Jesus. And again we must acknowledge this is a hard command to receive. Who is adequate for such things?

Transition: But our text gives us another way by which we must walk in pursuit of this goal… Read verse 8 with me.

Philippians 2:8 “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

So we’ve been tasked with gracious humility which really falls short and here we are called to boundless obedience.

Verse 8 escalates obedience to the point where you and I can’t find a way to write this off as though we are acccomplishing it.

Our temptation is to be like the rich young Ruler that comes to Jesus and says, “I’ve kept all the laws of Moses. I’m doing what you say Jesus!”

But verse 8 says that Jesus was obedient to the Father. And we might say, got it. I can do that.

But then it says he was obedient to the point of dying. And even there we might say, I could die for my faith.

But then it says that he was obedient to a painful death, a shameful death, a bad death.

Verse 8 pushes obedience to boundless obedience. There is nothing that Jesus would not do, that the Father asked him to do.

Application: And you and I want to say the same thing, but we do have lines. And often times they fall far shorter than dying on a cross. Often times we won’t cross the street to talk to our neighbor about Jesus. The natural state of our obedience is to come with conditions and justifications.

Transition: So I told you that my goal this morning was for you and I to see our great need and the greatness of the one we need. I hope that you can see this morning how these commands are like Jesus commanding Peter to come out on the water. They are extremely difficult. And it is here I want you and I to acknowledge and

III. See Our Need (5a)

Philippians 2:5 “Have this mind among yourselves,” Paul says have this mind among yourselves.

The picture that Paul paints for us here is that we are to be like Christ. We are to be selfless, and graciously humble, and boundlessly obedient.

And in the face of such things if we are at all even a little honest in the way we examine our own hearts this could cause us to despair.

I will admit that I often fall short of these things. In fact I can’t do these things. I can’t be as humble as Christ. I can’t be as obedient as Christ. I can’t be as selfless as him. I’m fight with my own desires to be first.

Our brother Dave encouraged us to live lives worthy of The gospel. Our brother Noah encouraged us to love like Christ loves. But who is worthy of the good news of Jesus Christ? Who can love like Christ loves?

The answer is no one. You and I cannot do what is asked of us here. When we see these commands and exhortations we must see that we are not adequate for the task.

On Tuesday nights we have been trying to understand this in our mens group. How we are constantly in great need of God’s help. How it is truer than true that we can do nothing outside of Jesus. Jesus in John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Friends as we survey all this passage has said to us this morning we must acknowledge that

We are in great need. (Pause)

But friends it is here that we can rejoice! When we find ourselves in great need we should rejoice because in our great need we have a great savior, a great Lord, a magnificent King.

When Noah was told to build an Ark he couldn’t do it, but God could. When Abraham was told to sacrifice his only Son he wasn’t relying on his power, but on God’s. Look at verse 5 again.

Philippians 2:5 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,”

Have this mind, this hard ask, be like Christ is what God says, But then he makes a promise.

It is ours in Christ Jesus. God has long been in the business of asking his people to do what only they can do in His power.

Our great need is meant to draw us to our great God.

And friends what a great God He is! The rest of our text tells us exactly what kind of God Jesus is.

Transition: Let’s now

IV. See Our King (9-11)

Friends, you may doubt yourself in the face of God’s Word here, but should not doubt the power of our God.

Philippians 2:9-11 “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.”

Jesus is the highly exalted one. He fulfilled all that scripture had said of him. From the very beginning God began to speak after that fateful day in the garden, when men fell in their sin, that he would come and restore him people. That the messiah would be born. That the messiah would free the people of God.

Jesus was perfect and kept the law perfectly. He accomplished all the Father had given him to do, he redeemed all God’s elect in all times by the power of his blood, by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. The one who defeated death and removed it’s sting is with you as you seek to live selflessly ambitious for the good of others.

Jesus has the name that is above every other name. There are many great names throughout history, but they all fall away, they wilt at the mention of Jesus name. Every king, every conqueror, every self-proclaimed God, every arrogant human, every angel in heaven above will bow their knee and lower their head in fealty to King Jesus. The immortal savior, King is the one who upholds you by his righteousness. It is on his authority and by His power that you can be graciously humble.

Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He is the exact plan of God agreed upon by the Holy Trinity before time began. He is the Alpha and the Omega where everything ends. He is preeminent among all things. And every tongue that has ever existed will cry out at the glory of Jesus Christ who is the great lover of our souls. The one who calls us friend, who calls us brother and sister, who bled for us and died for us and took the just punishment of sin for us. The one who will receive all praise of every single lip and tongue ever formed is the same one who empowers us to be boundlessly obedient.

Friends this morning we are called to a great task which should make us greatly aware of our need. But the holy Word of God this morning also, in the face of this truth points us to the greatness of our God. These things are ours in Christ Jesus. We only must not rely on ourselves, bit on Him.

Conclusion

Friends we are called to a difficult task this morning. Just like Peter. He stood in the rocking boat witnessing the power of Jesus. God stood on the waters and commanded him to come out.

And Peter stepped out of that boat and did not sink down into the storm. He did not disappear under the weight of an impossible task as long as he kept his eyes on the power of His God.

But when he took his eyes off of Jesus, when he considered the task as more powerful than his God. When the strength of the waves and power of the wind stole his confidence he began to sink. And Jesus pulled him back up again.

Friends, our God is the same God who stood up on the waves. He’s the master of the waves, he’s the captain of the wind. No storm can best him. No situation of life can daunt him.

And when you and I walk into the maelstrom of being a Jesus follower in this world that rages with brokenness and sin and we are called to live lives worthy of the gospel. When we are called to love like Christ. When our text tells us to be selfless, and humble, and obedient.

Know that the same great God that held Peter on the water is the same great God who holds you in his hand! Your God is none other than the great and mighty King of the universe and in Him you can do all things that He has called you to do.

So today as we go out into the sea, friends, fix…your....eyes…on....Jesus…and trust in His strength that will lead you to your good and His glory. Let us pray.