The Attitude, The Example, and The Exaltation

Introduction

What’s up guys.

Today I wanted to start off with an illustration.

because life can be like a ladder.

We are all trying to get to the top.

We want to get higher, be noticed, gain status, get ahead, we feel like we are winning, but a lot of time the more power in the word that we get, the more prideful we are.

Instead Jesus was at the top, he climbed all the way down to earth, and stepped down, and down, until eventually, he reached a cross.

So today we are going to talk about humility and look at Christ as our example of how he lived his life.

so let’s pray and then we can jump right in.

The Attitude Christ calls us to have (vv. 1-4)

Philippians 2:1–4 CSB

If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.

This section of the text tells us about the attitude we are supposed to have.

If you remember last week, we talked about being Citizens of Heaven, so Paul is like hey because you are a Christian - here are 4 things that we should be sharing in Christ.

So he literally could have said anything.

He said here are things that Christians do together.

Like he easily could have made this passage a:

how to be a Christian 101,

went through the spiritual disciplines,

techniques on how to study the scripture,

and why we as Christians should do these together.

But, he talks about 4 things that promote harmony and unity among fellow believers in the Church.

The first is to encourage one another.

Paul talked about how they shared in his sufferings.

That the Philippians knew the persecution that he was going through.

But in the same way, they shared in encouraging one another.

Paul is saying that suffering might come, but to be a citizen of heaven, to be the body of Christ, we are to encourage each other through the difficulties that we are going through.

What does that look like?

Like you guys tell me, what does encouragement when someone is going through suffering look like?

Prayer, being there for them, just going, sometimes your presence is enough.

The second is the Comfort from love.

We should show the love of Jesus to others.

He is the one who brings comfort, his truths can bring comfort in all situations.

It is our job as believers to show Christs love.

Just like we talked about we can do this hand in hand with encouraging them and being there for people.

The third thing that Paul says is we all share the Holy Spirit.

Believers all have the Spirit.

They all have spiritual gifts, which are used for the body of Christ.

But the Spirit is one thing that unites us.

The last thing is affection and compassion.

This care and comfort, this compassion that we can show to others is needed.

To see the feelings of what others are going through and show a compassion towards them.

We are able to mourn and celebrate with them.

But notice about all these things, they are not about us.

We are to encourage others, comfort others, use the gifts we have from the Spirit for others, and show affection and compassion, for other people.

What God pours into you is meant to pour out of you.

These gifts aren’t for self, but for strengthening others.

The same things that unite us to Christ come out because we are meant to serve each other.

Verses 3-4 scream this!

Philippians 2:3–4 CSB

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.

but this is hard.

Humility is so hard.

Pride is something that we all deal with, we all want to be great.

In our lives we see humility are a Christian characteristic.

For them in this context is humility was not a word used in their vocabulary.

The Roman culture was about power and status.

People were wanting power,

It was what you chased,

But the word humility actually translates well to “one of low social rank”

someone who was low, crushed down, insignificant, a poor person, or a slave.

This was not something that you chose.

A slave was expected to put others first

So when Paul says hey we are not to chase power but we are to put others first they would have been shocked.

but we are told that is what we should do.

Because pride will lead us astray, but humility will lead us to Christ.

Paul takes with word that is meant for people associated with shame and turns it into a mark of Christlikeness.

We are going to see Jesus the Son of God is our example,

we will see that he humbled himself as we continue in this passage.

but

Pride is when we desire status and power, but refuse to acknowledge our dependance on God.

We all think of ourselves.

We want to be great at what we do.

but usually we are trying to get places on our own.

Thinking we can be great.

Pride asks: How does this make me look?

Humility asks: How does this help them?

When we live with pride we have tunnel vision - only looking at us.

But when we live with humility we have peripheral vision and start to notice the needs of others.

And when we do that, our eyes start to look at us and not God.

When we do this, we are not looking at others or showing humility like Christ shows us by his life.

but we should, this next section is going to show us…

The Example Christ Gives Us (vv. 5-8)

Philippians 2:5–8 CSB

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.

We see here that Paul tells us exactly what to do.

We are to adopt the attitude of Christ.

We are going to look at Jesus and dive into two things:

We are going to talk about him taking on human form,

then talk about his example of humility.

So Jesus taking on human form.

The passage talks about Jesus existing in the form of God, but then says that he did not consider it something to be used to his advantage.

But this passage is used by people who oppose Christianity all the time.

In looking at it, can anyone take a guess at why?

The main line is that Christ “emptied himself.” and right before that it says that he did not consider equality with God.

So people look at that and God boom look Jesus really was not God, he just acted like God.

So then all these weird beliefs started to come up and say things like Christ was created, or he was not FULLY God (he was only partly God), or Jesus was not God at all (he was just a good teacher and prophet).

But let talk through some of these.

People have said Jesus was created.

We believe as Christians that Jesus is God, so he always has existed.

He was not created.

So lets look at some scripture.

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So we have to ask ourselves then, who or what is the Word?

That leads us to John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

so we see that Jesus (who is the Word) was there in the begining.

Then we see in John 8:58 Jesus claim to be there before the time of Abraham.

So these people can make this claim! But it not a very good one

The problem is they have to play theological gymnastics to get around these verses.

Now another thing us as Christians believe is: Jesus is fully God and fully man.

If we look closely at this passage we will see that Paul says Christ “existing” so Christ was already there.

He just took the role of a man, in the “form of God.”

So with the word existing, that means he was already there, it does not say he was created.

This is not the same as us who are in the image of God, form shows us that he was equal with God, not just looking like God.

Then we see other places like Colossians 2:9 “For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ,”

All of God dwells fully in Christ, yet he is fully man.

We see that Jesus is 100% man and 100% God both at the same time.

So to get to the big question that people ask, “What did Christ empty himself of?”

So when we see Jesus say he emptied himself, he did not stop becoming God.

Rather he laid down his rights and took on the role of a servant, while still being God.

Think of it like this.

There was a king of a giant kingdom.

One day a massive storm came through and destroyed some of the village.

so the king took off his crown, his royal robe, and his rings to go and help the community rebuild.

He worked in the mud.

He helped clean people back up.

and Helped rebuild their houses.

At any moment he would have said “I am the King, serve me”

Yet instead he came to serve them.

He never stopped being King.

He just chose not to use his Kingly privileges.

This is Jesus.

He veiled his deity, he did not void he deity.

he could have used being the Son of God to his advantage, but he came to serve.

As Christians we say everything revolves around Jesus.

But when Jesus was here, he did not focus on himself, he focused on others and the Will of his Father.

To the point where he wanted to save us, and was willing to die on a cross for us.

Jesus’ humility went from taking off a crown of glory to putting on a crown of thorns.

Look at Jesus.

He looked at others.

He humble himself, and humble himself, and humble himself.

To the point of death on the cross.

We see the cross and cannot even imagine in our minds what it was like.

It was reserved for the lowest people.

For the murders, thieves, rebels, violent criminals.

It was so shameful, designed to rip all your honor, status, and worth away from you.

It was against the law for Roman citizens to die on a cross because they would never humiliate their own kind in that type of way.

If they wanted to kill a Roman they had to do it in a different way because they would never despise a citizen like that.

You were held up high in the air for all the people to see, so everyone could mock you.

It was not private, it was public.

They were stripped naked.

They were whipped to the point of near death just to show you were less than human.

And you died this slow death.

It was the most humiliating thing a person can go through.

John 19:28–29 CSB

After this, when Jesus knew that everything was now finished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he said, “I’m thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was sitting there; so they fixed a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it up to his mouth.

Illustration

What Bible nerds think is being described here is a tersorium (tore-soar-e-um).

This is what Roman soldiers would have used in replace of toilet paper.

It was something that was given to them when they enlisted, so many people come to the conclusion that this is most likely the sponge on a branch they are referring to.

So in a mocking way, the soldiers took the thing they used to wipe with and lifted it up to our King and made him drink from it.

No one deserves this, but Jesus did nothing.

He was without sin, yet went through this.

but he was humiliated over and over, then he spoke those last words.

It is finished - the word means paid in full, meaning our sins were fully paid for.

But it took Jesus going through all this to accomplish this task.

And through his death and resurrection, he was no longer a lowly servant, he got lifted up to the right hand of the Father.

so we see the…

The Exaltation God Gives the Humble (vv. 9-11)

Philippians 2:9–11 CSB

For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus did not deserve that, but because he was humble he was exalted.

Because of Christ’s humility, he was exalted.

We see that God honors the humble.

1 Peter 5:5 CSB

In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

God’s favor is shown to the humble.

Jesus did not exalt himself, even though he could have.

He humbled himself and trusted the Father.

Look at this chart.

Illustration

Jesus kept being humble, until the point of the crucifixion.

But now he is the name above all names.

He is on the throne.

highly exalted.

After his extreme humiliation, God exalted Christ to the highest possible position in the Universe, so now he reigns as Lord.

So every knee will bow,

every tongue will confess,

That Jesus is Lord.

and this is so important because it says that every name will say this.

it says those in heaven and those on the Earth and those under the earth.

EVERYONE will see that he is Lord of all.

The thing is…

For some people, it will be too late.

You can do it now, or when you die and see Jesus face to face, you will have to anyways.

My plea to you is that if you have no truly commited your life to Jesus, that you have fully surrendered everything to him that you do.

Because I do not want you to coast through life thinking I got baptised when I was little, I go to church, or I am a good person.

Only the blood of Jesus shed on the cross can save us, so I pray that all of us confess that he is Lord.

Because one day every knee will bow, so we should bow now and help others bow before it’s too late.

This is not a turn or burn situation, but this is a reminder that we need to share the Gospel with people because we are prideful need the reminder.

I heard a story of a christian man who got a new job, this guy would listen to Christian music, he would wear a Christian t-shirt, but he never shared his faith at work.

He had a co-worker that he got close to this co-worker came in one day and told him he gave his life to Christ.

The man was excited, talked about how they can now talk about the Bible, and do this Christian thing together.

Then the co-worked stopped and said, “Do you believe that if I kept going in my ways and did not repent of my sins that I would have ended up in hell.”

And the man said, that is what the Bible teaches, so yes.

and the co-worker looked at him and just asked, “so why didn’t you tell me?”

The man had no words to say.

but thats pride.

We are what people at work think of us.

We care what our classmates think of us.

We dont want to be that guy,

we dont want to be too religious.

If we are not careful, our pride can cause us to look so much at ourselves, that we don’t see our friends on the path to hell.

but when we look at others first, we see their needs, and we will see their need for the Gospel.

So as you go throughout this week remember

The attitude we should have - which is showing humility towards others.

The example we should look to - which is Jesus.

And the exaltation that God brings to those who are humble.

Humility is hard, but it is worth it.

Any thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, stones for heresy?