UNITED IN HUMBLE SERVICE

Introduction

-{Philippians 2}

-Purple Sunday recognizes that in God’s sovereignty He blesses us in so many ways. That doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen. That doesn’t mean we won’t go through trials. But it does mean we see His goodness in so many ways in our life.

-I have my own testimony of God’s goodness. On January 21st of this year I got the call that parents dread—our daughter Kenzie called and said she was in an accident. While driving on I-65 in Mobile, a tire came off of a car heading in the other direction, the tire jumped the median and hit Kenzie’s car head on (you can see the damage in this photo). That looks bad, but by God’s goodness and grace the tire did not hit the windshield and she was not injured (just badly shaken up). And then, by God’s grace and goodness, we actually were able to get the car fixed.

-But we don’t want to only recognize and testify about His grace and goodness (although that is a form of worship), we also want to respond by being conduits of His grace and goodness to others. And this is a calling that the church (local and universal) needs to be united around—doing good by humbly serving others.

-We have been studying the book of Philippians and its call to the church to grow in our faith and live that faith out. To give some context: Paul is imprisoned awaiting an audience with Caesar. While that is obviously a trial in his life, he recognizes that God is still using that trial to spread the gospel message of Jesus Christ. That is his biggest concern: the Christ would be honored in his body. With that in mind, he tells the Philippian church (and us by extension) that we are to live lives worthy of the gospel by standing firm and striving for the gospel even if it leads to suffering.

-The passage we read today expands on this a bit further. And what we learn from this passage is that honoring Christ and living worthily includes being united in humility for ministering to others. God has been good to us, we ought to be good to others.

Philippians 2:1–4 ESV

1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

-{pray}

-Today, we see three points that Paul touches upon that leads us and encourages us to be united as Christians in humbly serving others. In the first part, Paul talks about:

1) Our motivation (v. 1)

-In v. 1 Paul talks about four different blessings that we receive that motivate us to then turn those blessings around to minister to others. Now in most English translations it says if there is {this} and if there is {that}. It almost sounds like it’s doubtful or conditional. But in the original language, it’s syntax actually assumes the truth of these things. So, we might could translate it: Because of the fact there is {this} and because of the fact there is {that}. There is no doubt about these motivations.

-And what Paul lists as motivations are truths of life experiences in Christ. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, these are spiritual blessings that are yours. And because God has been so good to you, this ought to motivate you to do good to others. So, what is it that Paul lists:

-First, Paul talks about the fact that we have encouragement in Christ. That word for encouragement talks about a source of comfort and consolation, but it also carries with it the sense of giving an admonition or exhortation. Because you have been comforted in Christ, you are admonished to do the same for others. I guess one way that we could state it is that because you are encouraged in Christ, you are encouraged to share that with others.

-How has Christ been an encouragement? First, and most obviously, while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Jesus took on humanity, died on the cross for our sins, rose again, and through Him forgiveness of sins is offered. We are encouraged that we have eternal life and no longer need to fear God’s wrath or judgment.

-But another encouragement that may have been on Paul’s mind is that during our trials, Christ does not leave us or forsake us. Even when you suffer for the sake of Christ, for example by being imprisoned for the faith like Paul, He is with you and will help you through it. We are motivated because we are encouraged in Christ.

-Then the second motivation he lists in v. 1 is comfort from love. If you are a Christian you are an object of the unconditional love of God. God’s love first and foremost was demonstrated through Christ, because God so loved the world that He gave His only unique Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

-But then when you are in Christ, God is your Father and then like a parent to a child He loves you with an everlasting love that cannot be take from you. Human love can be so fickle. We hear about people falling in and out of love. That is not God. Once you are an object of His love you are forever an object of His love. Just because you mess up, He doesn’t stop loving you. And that is the comfort—God’s love for us isn’t based on our performance or personality. God loves us because He has set His love on us through His Son, and that motivates us to humbly minister to others.

-The third motivation he talks about is participation / fellowship in the Spirit. When you believed in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit took up residence in your spirit and you share that experience with all of your brothers and sisters in Christ. But that doesn’t mean that we each individually only have portions of the Spirit. It’s not like I have a bit of the Spirit, you have a bit of the Spirit, and all these other people have bits of the Spirit. We all share in the same Spirit and we all have been filled with the fullness of the Spirit.

-That means that we each are temples of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that we are sealed by this Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our eternal life. And it is by this Holy Spirit that we each have been gifted and empowered to live and serve Him in whatever ways that He sees fit. And because we have been gifted and empowered, that motivates us to use those gifts.

-And then the fourth motivation is that we have received affection and sympathy. The word for affection literally talks about compassion that comes from the gut. In modern culture we often talk about emotions coming from the heart, but for the Jewish and Greek culture of the day, strong emotions came from the gut. If you have ever had any sort of strong longing or feeling for something, you didn’t feel it in your chest, you felt it in your gut. And Paul says that God has such strong longings for His people, He feels compassion for them from the gut, which then leads to acts of compassion.

-And then the word in the ESV translated sympathy in others is translated mercy or compassion. It talks about pity that someone has for another because of their suffering. God sees us wallowing in the suffering of this world, and He has pity on us. The way He shows His pity or sympathy might not be what we expect or in our timing, but God always has pity on His people. And these motivate us to show the same to others and to serve others.

-Sometimes we need that motivation. A few weeks ago I went to the doctor for my annual checkup and overall am good, but heard the normal things about losing some weight and eating better (yada yada yada) the stuff you normally hear and let go in one ear and out the other. But then my blood work came back and I was a bit on the edge of some things, so that motivated me to watch my diet a little better and start to exercise more. It wasn’t until there was true motivation that I acted.

-God has so blessed us, and that is our motivation to then pass those blessings along to others by humbly serving them. But if we are going to do it right, we need this next point, so secondly he talks about:

2) Our mindset (vv. 2-3a)

-In v. 2 into the first part of verse 3, after having given the motivation, Paul says it would complete his joy if the church had the right mindset to humbly serve others. What does that mindset entail?

-First, Paul says that they are to be of the same mind. It literally says to think the same thing. It is not calling for everybody to be some sort of robot and have all the same programming and to agree on every single issue that there is in life. But it is a calling to think alike—or as the NIV says to be like-minded.

-This like-mindedness is above and beyond having the same doctrine. Now, having the same doctrine on the important issues is very important. We need to agree on the issues of the gospel: Jesus is God come in the flesh, born of a virgin, died on a cross, rose bodily from the grave. We need to think the same things on these types of issues, otherwise we really can’t have a true Christian fellowship together. As much as we talk about the Bible saying people shouldn’t be unequally yoked in marriage, you can’t have an unequally yoked church either.

-But this like-mindedness goes above our doctrinal statement, it’s talking about attitude and disposition. Maybe we could say it means that we all need to be headed in the same direction. We need to agree and be in harmony about what it is that Christ has called us to do, and then be determined to do it together.

-But then the second mindset Paul mentions in v. 2 is to have the same love. It’s talking about having the same agape, sacrificial love for one another that God has shown us through Jesus Christ. Christ said that people would know we are His disciples by the love we have for one another, and Paul calls us to have that love for all the brothers and sisters in Christ.

-This is not a call to force or fake some sort of emotion, rather it is a call to action that we will be united in loving our church and fellow Christians with the same love given to us by Christ. Paul put it elsewhere:

Romans 12:10 ESV

10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

-It’s a devotion where we are determined within ourselves that we will demonstrate love to all of our brothers and sisters without favoritism or prejudice.

-And then Paul says that we are to be in full accord (according to the ESV). Other translations say we are to be united in spirit. The word literally means we are to be joined together in soul. You hear of people finding their spouse and call them their soulmate. Or you hear of people being so close that they call each other soul-brother or soul-sister.

-What Paul is saying is that Christians are to not just have a surface-level of agreement, but we are to be harmonious down to our souls. We are deep within ourselves in agreement about our ambitions. And this is fleshed out with the last phrase in v. 2 where in the ESV it says being of one mind while other translations talk of having one purpose.

-The unity of Christians should be so deep that they have the same focus and intent. And that focus and intent is the same as Paul’s mentioned in this epistle. We want to honor Christ in our bodies and live worthily of the gospel. And this in turn leads us to serve Christ by humbly serving others.

-But then going into v. 3 Paul mentions attitudes and mindsets that we are to avoid. You will not be able to have the same mind and same love and united in soul with one purpose if you have these negative attitudes. So, what does he say we are to avoid?

-First, Paul says that we are not to do anything from selfish ambition. We are not to have self-interest and self-aggrandizement as our lifestyle. We are not to look at other people as stepping stones to further our own agenda—which is mainly to further ourselves.

-To get an idea of what it’s warning against, the term was used by the philosopher Aristotle to describe politicians who would do anything or mow over anyone in order to gain a position. It talks about someone who did not serve in government in order to serve the people, but to gain honor and wealth for themselves. I know this surprises people…politicians only in it for themselves and the power and the prestige that comes with it (wow, how shocking). And not a whole lot has changed in the 1400 or so years since Aristotle. But Paul says you can’t be united with one mind and love having this selfish ambition. You can’t be serving yourself and serving others.

-And then Paul warns against conceit—other translations will call it vain or empty conceit. It’s talking about having an exaggerated evaluation of yourself. We would say it’s when someone thinks more highly of themselves than they ought. We all know those people who think they’re all that and a bag of chips and they have no reason to think that and it bugs the stew out of us. Paul is telling us to not be those people. None of us are as big and important as we think we are. Yet, amazingly, we are the apple of God’s eye, and the focus of Christ’s saving grace. And that doesn’t lead to ambition or conceit, but humility.

-So, if we are to have the right mindset to do good to others because of the good God has given to us, we have to be united in that cause. That needs to be the church’s thought process—and that thought process leads to action, which quickly is Paul’s final point. So, third Paul talks about:

3) Our ministry (vv. 3b-4)

-At the end of v. 3 going into v. 4 Paul describes this humble service that we share with others. We have a ministry of, first, humbly considering others as more significant than ourselves. We look at others as having a surpassing value more so than ourselves, and then let that guide the ministry that we offer to them. It literally says that we are to consider others better than us.

-That is a huge difference from the empty conceit that Paul warns us against. Not only are you not to value yourself more highly than you really are, you actually value others more highly than yourself. It is the principle that Jesus taught us:

Matthew 23:11–12 ESV

11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

-What seems to come natural to us is to compare ourselves to other people and come away with a pretty good assessment of ourselves. We don’t seem to be as bad as other people, so we start having a bit of a superiority complex. But you don’t really know what’s going on in other people’s hearts. But you know what’s going on in your heart, and it ain’t pretty. Jesus said:

Matthew 15:19 ESV

19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

-He’s talking about you. And he’s talking about me. We have nothing to boast about. Yes, we’ve been saved by Christ from all that, but there’s no room to think we’re too good to minister or serve anyone.

-And it’s a warning not only to individuals, but also churches. It sickens me, but I have heard first hand accounts of churches that would not serve certain types of people—whether it was based on race or economic status. I also have seen churches and people in those churches think so highly of themselves that only certain people can be part of the in-crown—you have to meet the standard like it’s a country club or something. God help them. God help anyone who would not minister in the name of Jesus to someone else because they think they’re better than the other people.

-Paul says that you are actually supposed to think just the opposite. It doesn’t matter who the other person is. It doesn’t matter if they are different from you. It doesn’t matter if they’re from the other side of town. It doesn’t matter if they have more or less money and stuff than you. It doesn’t matter if the melanin in their skin is higher or lower than yours. You consider them as more significant than you, and you serve them like they are more significant than you.

-Paul concludes the passage in v. 4 saying not to just look out for your own interests, but look into the interests of others. Don’t be so wrapped up in yourself that you neglect the needs of the people around you.

-Now, Paul isn’t saying that you should completely ignore things in your own life to serve others. He isn’t saying to ignore your job to the point of getting fired. He isn’t saying ignore your family duties such that you grow apart. He isn’t saying to fail in school because you’re too busy helping others. What he is saying is that on top of the things going on in your own life, do not ignore the needs of others. If you were in their same situation, what would you want other people to do for you? Or as Jesus put it:

Matthew 22:39 ESV

39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

-When we were first married, Trish, who grew up in the south, met me in the north. And she made an observation about us northerners. She said that they were unto themselves. Meaning that they were just so wrapped up in their little lives they had no consideration for what was going on in the lives of the people right in front of them. I can’t disagree with her. I was one of them.

-Paul says don’t be so unto yourself. Make sure you consider others more important than you and see to their interests. Minister to them wholeheartedly.

Conclusion

-I’ll close with this thought. Today on Purple Sunday we celebrate God’s sovereign goodness in our lives. He is good to us in big ways and He’s good to us in small ways. Anything good happening in your life comes from Him, because every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above. But God isn’t good to you just so you can store up His goodness like a squirrel stores up its acorns for the winter. God is good to you so you in turn can do some good for other people.

-Christian, come to the altar and pray about how you can do some good and humbly serve others. And pray that we as a church would be united in that venture.

-Maybe you are looking for a church home where you can do some good. Come join our family.

-But maybe you haven’t received God’s greatest good—His Son Jesus died to save you. Come and believe in the Lord Jesus today...