Don't Forget Where You Came From

Intro

Success is a wonderful thing. I think most people would tell you that they would like to find success in the things they put their hands to.

I don’t know anyone that wakes up each morning hoping to be a miserable failure at everything they do. And even if they did, if they could be a failure at everything, then they could claim they were successful being a failure.

In all honesty, we all want to be successful. Now, our definitions of success may look and sound different depending on the person you are asking. But nonetheless we want to find success.

And success, as great of a feeling as it produces, does not come without its drawbacks.

Sometimes, not every time, but sometimes success as a way fo changing a person and not always for the better.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “don’t forget where you came from”?

It is a statement that carries with it the notion that no matter how successful you are, or how famous you may become, or how big of a name you make for yourself, never forget that you weren’t always that person.

Never get a head too big to carry on your shoulders. It is the idea that your success must always tempered with humility.

This morning we are getting back on track with our sermon series on the Gospel; gospel meaning good news. Each week we are asking the question, what’s so good about it?

Today’s message is centered around a letter that Paul wrote to a Church in the town of Philippi.

Paul is writing this letter from prison and he is writing it to a Church that meant a lot to him.

This was a Church that Paul had personally help start and now 10 years later in his time of need they were there sending him both financial resources as well as prayer and encouragement.

If there was one theme we could glean from this letter it would be joy. Paul mentions joy or rejoicing 16 times in the 4 chapters of this short letter.

In this letter Paul is encouraging this Church to rejoice in every situation, good or bad, even as he finds himself imprisoned.

We know that this is easier said than done, and so did they. So it is in this letter that we see Paul explain that this is only possible if we change the way we think.

Paul says that as Christians we have to take on the same attitude or mindset of Jesus.

Power in the Text

Philippians 2:1-4 NLT Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? 2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

Here Paul starts by asking four questions.

Is there encouragement in being a follower of Jesus?

Do you find comfort in experiencing his love?

Has the shared experience of receiving the Holy Spirit brought you together?

Have your hearts changed? Having experienced compassion and grace, do you now offer those same things to others?

These questions are written as rhetorical questions. In fact they could be translated as if to say “since you have experienced......”

Then in verse 2 he says since you have all experienced these things because of the gospel then there should be unity among you.

Philippians 2:2 NLT 2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

As Christians, because we have been changed by the good news of Jesus Christ, then Paul is saying all of us should be united in one mind and purpose.

But how many here know how hard that is? Church people often can’t agree on what color to paint a nursery or what style of worship music to play let alone experience the kind of unity Paul is talking about here.

Paul knew that. That is why he says what he does in verses 3-4.

Philippians 2:3-4 NLT 3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

Here we see Paul bring this to the issue at hand, our way of thinking.

He says stop thinking you are better than you really are. Paul here is battling something that to this day continues to plague the Church and disrupt the spiritual unity he is calling for....spiritual superiority.

There were some in this Church as there are in most Churches that thought and acted as if they were better than others in their Church family.

That they were somehow spiritually superior and it was this superiority that allowed them to gain great influence and be put in positions of prestige within the Church in Philippi.

Paul is saying there is no place for this among God’s people. If left unchecked this conceited attitude would destroy the Church that Paul cared so much for.

Paul had been a Pharisee. He knew where this line of thinking would lead them. The Pharisees had allow a similar attitude to ruined their order and harden their hearts to the place where they didn’t recognize their own messiah.

He didn’t want the same thing to happen to these Christians. So he gives them the solution to the problem and it was quite simple.

Philippians 2:5 NLT 5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

That’s it, think like Jesus. Fortunately Paul didn’t stop there. Instead he gives us one of the earliest creeds of the Christian faith written in the form of a poem or hymn.

Philippians 2:6-11 NLT 6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.When he appeared in human form, 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Most scholars believe that Paul here is quoting from a hymn sung by the early Christian Church.

It is in this hymn that we see what Paul meant when he said to have the same attitude that Christ had.

Jesus embodied humility in ways that we can’t even begin to fathom.

Big Idea/Why it Matters

Jesus by his very nature, being God, having existed eternally with the Father and Holy Spirit chose to leave heaven and empty himself of his divine privileges in order to take on flesh or be born as a human being.

Think about this for a moment and its hard for our finite minds to consider all of this. But Jesus, who we know from Colossians is the creator of the universe.

The one who the Bible says that all thing were created through him, and for him.

The one who put the planets into orbit and created the laws that govern reality itself.

The one who watched as his holy creation rebelled against him and chose sin over perfection in the garden of Eden.

The one who watched as generation after generation that followed that rebellion continue to choose evil and wickedness over his love and provision.

The one whom man has mocked, profaned, and blasphemed against time and time again.

The one who breathed life into our lungs, only to have us reject him over and over.

Yet, despite all of that, he chose to become one of us so that he could save us from our sin because he knew we were incapable of doing it ourselves.

But he didn’t save us like most heroes save people.

He didn’t save us by using his strength and might to defeat a villain or put himself on a pedestal.

Jesus became a hero by dying.

The king of the universe entered his creation in the obscurity of a manger scene.

The one who hung the stars in the sky chose to himself be hung on cross as a criminal because he knew it was the only way defeat the true villain of the story.

It was his sacrifice the defeated the power of sin and death. There was no other way.

What so good about the gospel?

Jesus humbled himself to the point of crucifixion so he could free us from our sins.

Which means we must respond to the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection with repentance and learn to model his humility in our Churches and the world.

Application/Closing

This is what Paul meant when he said we must take on the same attitude as Christ. We must be humble.

Humility is the hallmark of a genuine follower of Jesus.

If the Son of God could humble himself the way he did then what audacity we must have to think we don’t have to do the same.

We learn nearly every skill by watching and imitating another’s example. Think back to your elementary art days. The teacher would show the whole class a step-by-step tutorial of how to draw an animal.

Inevitably, your attempt to draw that animal looked nothing like the teacher’s. Over time, however, you gradually improved your drawing skills. If you stuck with it, you may even have become quite good.

Paul challenges the Philippians to remind themselves of Jesus’s humility and to continue to implement it in their own communities.

Our presentation of the gospel would be much more effective if we followed his advice.

But so often we are so worried about pointing out how messed up the world is as if God doesn’t already know, that we create a wall of separation between us and the ones who desperately need to know the good news.

We view them as a lost cause or somehow not worthy of the Good News.

Or worse, we hope they get what they deserve while at the same time singing worship songs thanking God that we don’t in fact get what we deserve.

We are really good at pointing the finger and playing the blame game. We are like little kids who want to run and tell on our sibling for hitting us knowing full well we aren’t innocent either.

At the beginning of this message I asked you if you had heard the phrase “don’t forget where you came from”.

The Church in Philippi had forgotten where they came from.

May the same not be said of us.

But oh how easy it is to forget where we came from. How easy it is to forget that we once were just as blind and lost as those who don’t know Jesus yet.

If we need to repent of something may it be that...

We repent of thinking are better than we really are and instead model the humility of Jesus.

May we repent for our selfish ambitions and spiritual superiority.

May we repent for not being humble and having that attitude of Christ when it comes to how we treat the lost around us.

God forgive us if we too have forgotten where we came from.