Humility: the Intrests of Others

Introduction

Good morning. My name is Pastor Tim Rauser. I am one of the Associate Pastors here & oversee the youth ministry.

If you are just joining us for the first time this morning, we are in the book of Philippians for the month of June, looking at what it means to have the same mind of Christ.

Last Week Pastor Tim Braun brought us through Chapter 1. And what stood out to me from what he walked us through, was the unity that the church clearly had with each other and with Paul.

And that unity was brought about by the church ‘contending together’ which has the idea of a sports team going together for the same prize

Even in the face of the suffering that they incured for the sake of the gospel, they contended together

This morning we will look at Philippians 2 and specifically the theme of humility and the ‘how’ when it comes to having humility

Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, But it’s thinking of yourself less.

And in our text this morning, this is the encouragement for the Philippian church, to think of themselves less and more about the intrests of others.

Beacuse when the church has an ‘others first’ posture, the world takes notice

So as we walk through our text this morning, we will see Paul’s encouragement to the believer’s in the church to be united in one purpose… ‘others first’

We will see the example of Christ’s humility, and from His example we will see the ‘how’ of putting others first

I know it’s a theme that many of us are familiar with, but I hope that as we look at Paul’s encouragemnt to have the same mind of Christ, we can be encouraged and even a bit more passionate to live out the call to have humility in our world

Christian Humility [1-4]

STORY

READ Philippians 2:1–4

CONTEXT

“If then...”

some versions have “therefore” and when we come across a “therefore” we always need to ask, what is the therefore there for?

So we look back on the verses that preceeded

Read 1:27

Live your life worthy of the gospel… stand firm in one spirit

contend together

STORY of Molly’s Soccer

ENGAGED IN THE SAME STRUGGLE

chapter 1 verse 30 talks about having the same struggles as they did when Paul planted the church

From our Scripture reading in Acts, we see that Paul and Silas had been dragged into the market place, into a very public setting where many would listen to the accusers

they were then severly flogged with rods and thrown in prison

Paul says… that kind of persecution is happening now

And there is a tendency under hard persecution to not stand firm

Think about when Jesus was crucified… the church scattered

It’s hard to remain hopeful and to stand firm.

That’s why Paul encourages them to contend together… we know we are stronger when we stand with someone

SAME MIND

And so with that encouragement of unity, he continues.

“if then”… and Paul lists four different appeals, which really could be issues in the church body… lack of unity, lack of love, fellowship & mercy.

All of these things should be part of the body of believers

So he draws the church to consider these important truths by “thinking the same way” and being “intent on one purpose”

Set your minds on that one purpose… humility

Beacuse it’s in humility that the church shows unity, love, fellowship and mercy

And then we get to the ‘how’… how do we show humility. ‘Other’s First’ posture

I like what Paul says in Romans 12:10 “Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another.” The ESV says to outdo each other in this way.

Christ’s Humility [5-11]

Read v.5-11

We know this text well, but let’s see if we can unpack a few things.

This has often been called the “Christ Hymn” and thought to have been used by the early church

This hymn is broken up into 2 parts

5-8 which shows us Christ’s self-giving love & 9-11 which is really the exaultation of Christ because of His self giving love.

Paul shares this Hymn, which clearly reiterates Christ’s act of salvation, not to cause them to only look back on what Christ has done, but to see that Christ continues to work by the Holy Spirit.

SAME MIND

v. 5 Adopt the same attitude. This is the attitude of unity and fellowhip and love and mercy as we saw in v.1-4 and it is the proper attitude to have for those who are in Christ Jesus

and this mindset of humility starts with the mind. Paul uses words like “intent” and “consider” which place the focus on someone else. But he also uses the word “look” when he is talking about others intrests.

And “look” is less like sitting in a mall and watching people pass you by. And more like being in a mall, doing a youth game where leaders are in disguise and you are searching viligantly for them

Christ Hymn [servant]

Let’s look at v 6-8

So verse 6 references Jesus as part of the God head. Which means that He and God the Father and GOd the Spirit are One. Equal.

But even though He is equal with them, he doesn’t consider it something He would use to His advantage

“consider” - lead the way, or go ahead of

He uses the word exploited. In other versions it says “grasped” and I think we miss out a little if we don’t dig deeper.

When he uses the word Exploited - it means to be snatched away violently

In other words, just because Jesus is fully God, he didn’t go ahead of the other 2 equal parts of the Trinity to violently snatch away His divine powers, just so that He could flex His powers on earth

No, quite the opposite. He emptied Himself by taking on the form of a servant, Taking on all the likeness of being a human, which means no flexing powers

THis is not saying that Jesus, being in the form of God, a Person of the trinity gave up His deity when He became man, but rather that Jesus, being fully God and fully man, chose to NOT use any of his divine powers.

Hebrews 2:14-15 says... Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.

Emptied

I want to look at this word “emptied” because this word preceeds the servant part of verse 7 and I think is the ‘how’ that Paul gives the Philippian church when it comes to being unified with the mind of Christ

In the Greek this word means to make void or empty all of its contents.

I think of it this way… I have this cup. and it’s full of water. When I drink the contents of this cup, I will have emptied it

The cup remains a cup. it doesn’t change. and water can return to the cup… but for now, the cup has been emptied

Christ choose to empty Himself so that He could experience all of the likeness of humans

Paul, in 1 Cor. 9 uses the same word when he speaks about preaching the Gospel to others

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 9

15 For my part I have used none of these rights, nor have I written these things that they may be applied in my case. For it would be better for me to die than for anyone to deprive me of my boast!

Paul was a ROman citizen, he was well trained and school in Jews customs and laws, he had a lot that he could boast about or use at his disposal, but he chose to empty himself of certain things in order to reach others.

for the gentile, who was not under the Jewish law, Paul chose to empty himself in a way that he could best reach the gentiles with the Gospels

Hebrews 2:5 talks about Jesus’ humanity. in verse 9 it says... 

But we do see Jesus—made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone—crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death.

For a short time, Jesus humbled himself and became fully human to fully experience everything we experience

Jesus could have flexed His power, he had all the power and authority, Colossians 1 speaks about this.

In Matthew 26:53 Jesuse says

Matthew 26:53 ESV

Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?

but he chose to empty himself and in obedience, gave His life

Christ Hymn [exaltation]

Verses 9-11, the second half of the Hymn “for this reason...”, or ‘therefore’

Because of Christ’s obediance to the Father, He, God the Father, highly exalted Him...

there is a bit of a switch in the hymn, focusing on the work of God the Father now, who raised Jesus from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit and elevated Him to a place of honor.

Again… Jesus, fully God and fully human chose not to flex His powers, but God the Father exalted Him

This is so profound, that Jesus, God the Son, would become as low as a servant, would suffer all the things we would go through, and suffer the angony of crucifixtion… and then be lifted up, exalted and sitting at the right hand of God

And GOd gave him the name above every other name… gave has the sense of giving with favor & joy.

The name of Jesus… who through obeidence to the will of the Father and humility recieved favor. And Jesus, the name that conveys so much to His people on earth, rules on high as Lord

In Is 45:23 God says “By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’”

This was completed by Jesus.

The teaching of humility first and exaltation after is seen through out the New Testament...

Matt 18:4 “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

One might look at this and think, sweet, I will just humble myself so I can get exalted. However, humility is not thinking about your own interests. So when you are practicing humility, you aren’t even thinking about being honored

BE A LIGHT

READ v.12-18

In these verses Paul gives the church in Philipi some practical instructions

He starts by saying therefore… so we consider what proceeded this text… Jesus was obeident in becoming a servant and He was exalted.

And Paul encourages them… in a warm way, “dear brothers and sisters”, to continue to obey as they have been.

Paul says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work...

Awesome words. And often, we look at this passage and make it personal to us. Which yes, there is truth to figure out our own salvation, like why you believe in the gospel and apply the gopel to your daily life.

But in context of this verse, and actually the whole book of Philippians, it was written to the church in Philippi

So when it says you, we should really being saying y’all, like Pastor Braun so elequently stated last week.

y’all should work out your salvation

And the word salvation in greek is SO Tay REE AH, which is the same word used in Acts 27:34 “Therefore I urge you to take some food. For it will give you strength, for not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you.””

The NIV says it this way “… take some food, you need it to survive”

It becomes clear that Paul has the health of the church in mind with this encouragement.

Work these things out. stop the grumbling. the arguing… be a light in this crooked and perverted generation

Be the church you were called to be. Even though you might be fearful and may be trembling because of the persecution around you, contend together. Survive, find strength.

I love v16… this is the ‘how’ for being a light.

The word ‘word’ here means message,or story. Story of life

THis is God’s story of redemption told in verses 5-11. God the Son takes on flesh and the form of a servant, and in obediance, gives his life as a rasom for all that choose to believe

Matt 20:28 “even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””

EPAPHRODITUS

We won’t read all of verses 19-30, you can on your own. but will just highlight a couple of verses

In these last verses, Paul writes about his hopes to send Timothy to be with them

And he intorduces us to Epaphroditus [EP A FRO DIE TUS] who was sent from the church in Philippi to look after Paul while he was in prison

READ 25

It’s clear from the text that Epaphroditus was valued by Paul as a brother in Christ and fellow minister from the church of Philippi

We also see that he had become severly ill and Paul was sending him back to the church

The main thing I want to draw upon from this last portion with Epaphroditus is that he is an example of the health of the church in Philippi.

He was sent to Paul with a gift, we read about that in chapter 4, but he stayed on to encourage Paul while he was in prison. He is the extension of the church, putting the needs of another before his own. Even if it meant getting ill.

CONCLUSION

How do we apply all of this to us today?

Is it enough to just say… be like Jesus, look to others intrests instead of your own?

Maybe. But maybe we should go deeper with our application

SO let’s look back at our text super quick and see how we can come up with a deeper application

Verses 1-4 show us the encouragement for the Philippians “live a life worthy of the gospel” by vigilently looking to serve others

Verses 5-11 show us that as Christ was obdient to the will of the Father and that He was honored and seated at the right hand of God as Lord

Verses 12-18 show us that it is important for the church to be healthy, looking to the intrests of others, not grumling and complaining. FOr the church is the witness to the world