Philippians 2:5-11: Joy Unrestrained: Christ-Mindedness

Notes:

v2: “Complete my joy by being of the same mind...”

Paul describes this same mindedness in positive and negative terms:

Having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.”

vv.3-4: COUNT others more significant

Looking out for the things of others...

Introduction: Undercover Boss

I can’t say I know a lot about this show. I’ve maybe seen one or two episodes years ago...

But this show came to mind as I was preparing this message.

Typical shows: Bosses sit in their ivory tower COE office and disguises him or herself in the work place

Great Wolf Lodge

White Castle

One of the Owners of the Chicago Cubs even worked selling hotdogs.

You can imagine there’s plenty of drama in these shows, but it’s an entertaining concept, isn’t it?

At the end of the show, the Boss removes the disguise and people are all surprised.

The show concludes with the Boss back up in his ivory tower office with face to face meeting with hard workers getting rewarded, and others getting fired!

This passage contains one of the most dramatic stories of Undercover Boss.

The King of kings and creator of the cosmos becomes one with one of his own created minions. He takes on the lowest position possible, does the most remedial jobs. And then there’s this great reveal at the end where everyone recognizes him as the King.

WHAT KIND OF KING IS THIS AND HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Let’s dive into this beloved and dramatic poem:

The Poem: Humiliation and Exultation

v. 6-11

v. 6: who, being in the very form of God

Form=morphe (‘form’ or ‘shape’): Fee: “‘Shape’ not in terms of external features by which something is recognized, but of those characteristics and qualities that are essential to it. Hence it means that which truly characterizes a given reality.”

“This is not a pipe”

It’s NOT a pipe at all. It’s ink on canvass.

This word means that Jesus not only LOOKED like God, but had all the characters and qualities that are essential to it!

v. Did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

Wonderfully complicated verse:

Verb=Count… Last week: verse 3: “In humility count others more significant than yourself.”

Talked about how we can count others up and down. We do social mathmatics all the time. Paul’s encouragement: COUNT OTHERS MORE SIGNIFICANT.

Well, in this case, in verse 6, JESUS HIMSELF counted something.

“Did not count equality with God...”

STOP THERE: ASSUMPTION: He is equal with God! Quite the statement!

What Jesus counted is worth focusing on though… What did he count:

ESV: Did not count equality with God something to cease, or grasp!

First Sense: Looking for Prominent

Equality with God did NOT mean he looked for Prominence

Equality with God did not mean he looked for ways to increase his reputation or to gain notoriety.

Sense= “Robbing,” “Grasping” or “seizing” “Thus, Christ did not consider ‘equality with God’ to consist of grasping’ or being ‘selfish’; rather he rejected this popular view of kingly power of ‘pouring into HIMSELF rather than ‘pouring out himself.”

Sense: “Didn’t try to make himself look better then others. Didn’t show off his divinity. Didn’t keep wishing he wasn’t hanging out with such human filth. Didn’t desire to escape back to his heavenly throne.”

Wasn’t tempted to keep looking up at his empty seat on the THRONE in Heaven and think, “Man, I wish I wasn’t here. I wish I was back up there. I wish I didn’t have to walk in the dirt and hang out with undeodorized humans.”

Jesus: “You know what guys, you should see me in my heavenly robe. You should see how many angels bow down to me every day. You should see how many cherubim are at my beck and call. Those were the days, when I sat on the throne in heaven glowing like the sun. I just wish I was there and like, no offence, but I didn’t have to deal with human body odour. Or like, guys, no offence, but your cooking has nothing on my cooks...”

Second Sense: Longing to Exploit

“Something to be grasped” Verb

Noun= “booty” or “prey,”

NIV: “Did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.”

Jesus did not count his equality with God something he should use to exploit others.

Did not count his divinity to use or abuse, to take advantage of his power, or materials. In other words, he didn’t do any of the things the Roman gods and goddesses did in Roman Mythology.

Sense: “Man guys, should we just go to Rome and just dethrone Caesar? I could get you guys their in like a snap. Romans think they’re all that and a box of chocolates. I could expand this Kingdom so much faster. We could expand in China, make them our slaves. We could do whatever we want?! I’m God!”

That’s not what equality with God meant.

What does it mean?

v. 7: Rather, he made himself nothing, by taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness.

He made himself nothing

What did he empty himself from? Did he empty himself of his divinity? Did he empty himself of his omniscience, or omnipresence, or omnipotence?

Fee: Wrong question!

He didn’t empty himself of anything. “He simply ‘emptied’ himself.” Fee

“This is a metaphor, pure and simple.”

The text doesn’t say WHAT he emptied, it tells us HOW he emptied himself:

Modifiers:

“[BY] taking the form of the servant”

FORM: “‘Shape’ not in terms of external features by which something is recognized, but of those characteristics and qualities that are essential to it.”

He really, really took on the form of a servant

Servant=SLAVE

[BY] being made in human likeness.

Jesus never stops being God. The focus is not on WHAT Jesus gave up, but FOR WHOM Jesus gave up.

Being in the FORM of God, he took on the FORM of a Slave

He entered not as LORD, but as slave: “A person without advantages, with no rights or privileges, but in servanthood to all.” Fee

8 And being found in human form,

Tension in the passage: Jesus had the form of God, but also had the form of a human.

Being in this state of humility, WHAT DOES HE DO?

He doesn’t count his equality with God.

RATHER, he humbles himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

As a slave, he died a slaves death. He died by Roman Crucifixion.

He gave himself up. He considered his position as God to save us.

He counted his position and gave, gave, and gave. He emptied, poured, and gave his life.

He took the lowest symbol in the Roman Empire and made it the symbol of the POWER of forgiveness, the POWER of resurrection, the POWER of salvation, and the POWER of LOVE!

Cross wasn’t a simple of power. Cross was a symbol not of the conquerer, but of the conquered.

The Poem Part II: Christ’s Exultation

Not as poetic as the first part.

“Everything has changed” in this poem

Poem 1: Christ is the Subject

Poem 2: God is the Subject and Christ is the object

God has highly exulted: “hyper exulted”

Trajectory: Undercover Boss took a page out of Philippians 2:9-11

Jesus decides to go undercover

BUT the Father doesn’t keep his Son undercover, there’s the great REVEAL!

EVERYONE WILL RECOGNIZE HIM!

Summarizing Fee: Bowing not to the source of their salvation, but bowing to God’s sovereignty.

Worldview Flip

“Let your manner of life [citizenship] be worthy of the Gospel of Christ.”

We have already talked about how the Roman Ruler Octavius who would later become Julias Ceasar, granted the Philippians citizen Roman Citizenship.

Now these Christians have been granted Citizenship of the Gospel of Christ.

Dual Citizens

Clark: “Paul is thus urging his readers that they have a responsibility to act as citizens in the public sphere of the polis in a way which is also consistent with the message of the gospel.”

How should Christians do this now?

W. Cotter writes, 'It must have been difficult for the Philippians to find a community model that would allow them to adopt certain offices of civic order without the attending ambitious and worldly behaviour typical of political and civic organizations'.

Worldview Flip: Honor vs. Humility

Rulers:

Acts 16:11-40: Clark: “Paul's kurios; language in the letter should then be seen in deliberate opposition to the alternative of pursuing the imperial cult.”

Clark: “Leadership had become the exclusive domain of the affluent, and any vestiges of democracy were in name only. These leaders were pragmatists whose actions were determined by an over-riding desire for political success and its [resulting] personal honour. It is this picture, so dominant in the Greek cities of the Roman East, which will have crucially informed the understanding of its citizens.”

Philippians used to rulers looking out for themselves, exploiting others, their own reputation. Self-service, moving up the latter, these are all parts of how culture operated.

First Century Emperors:

Caligula was a monster, a sexual preditor

He replaced all the statue heads across Rome with his own

Caligula required people to refer to him as Jupiter

Gruesomely assassinated

Next, Claudius’ wife killed him

Nero killed anyone who was a threat and eventually committed suicide,

Emperor Galba was assassinated by Otho

Otho ended up committing suicide.

Roman Empire’s Model for Leadership:

Scratched and clawed his way to the top.

Exultation then humiliation. Opposite ethic as Jesus!

Worldview Flip: Religion vs. Faith

All of life was religious. Every civic gathering had some religious aspect to it:

Brick Layers Associate: “Ok guys, before we start our meeting about the newest law about adding more concrete to our bricks, ah, why don’t we go ahead and sacrifice a pigeon on top of Fred’s newly designed alter here made out of this new quality brick.” New brick-laying Christian is standing there going, “Ah… So, should I leave? What do I do here?”

Slave:

Slaves

Not permitted to speak publicly

Owned

Punishment could be severe

They had to take out the trash. Their existed for labor.

And here Paul calls Jesus a slave!

Radical concept.

How could this “Equal to God” Jesus

Not try to scratch and claw to remain in that position.

OR use his divinity to exploit others.

Why would he become a Slave? A Nothing. A social outcast?

But this is the Gospel of Christ! One who gave up himself for the sake of the other. This is what equality with God meant for Jesus. To take what he learned from his Father and apply it to our salvation!

I John 4:8: God is Love. God is apape. God is sacrificial love.

I John 4:9 “9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

Jesus took his equality with God and defined for us morality.

Jesus took his equality with God and defined for us morality.

The Paradigm Shift

Going back to the beginning:

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

LIFE IN CHRIST LEADS TO CHRIST LIKENESS

How do we take this paradigm and apply it to our lives.

God is selfless. He gives. He pours himself out. He is a giving and serving God.

Jesus was equal with God, and shows us what it means to be equal with God.

To have God’s mind is to do what Jesus did as one who is equal with God: HE POURED OUT HIMSELF, HE MADE HIMSELF NOTHING BY SERVING AND BY BEING HUMAN

Does the Western Church think this way when it comes to Christian Leaders?

We prop up leaders

Easy for me to say as I stand here on this stage!

But seriously,

A few months ago, I had talked about Preachers in Sneakers?

Illustration of

Some of you may have heard a story told by Shane Claiborne, a Christian activist who lives now in Philadelphia. Years ago he had the opportunity to work alongside Mother Teresa in Calcutta. During worship services there, it was customary to take your shoes off before you entered the sanctuary. Shane couldn’t help but notice how deformed Mother Teresa’s feet were as they entered worship. They appeared so mauled they looked leprous. That explained why she walked the way she did. Of course, Shane reflects that he wasn’t about to go and ask her what happened to her feet, but one day someone did ask him the question, “Do you know why her feet look like that?” The person explained: every once in a while, a shipment of donated shoes comes in for the sisters to wear. There would be enough for every sister to receive a new pair. Mother Theresa would make sure she got to the shipment of shoes first. She carefully searched for the worst possible pair of shoes she could find. She took that pair and put them on. Those were her new shoes and years of that practice led to the gnarling of her feet.

This is not how leadership works!