Jan 21, 2010

Series on Philippians #9

By the Power of the Holy Spirit, Be Like Christ
Philippians 2:5-11

Let’s Pray…

Last week we went over this:

Now, I ask Monica (my wife) what she thinks of the sermon each week just to get an honest evaluation. Last week she said it was a good sermon, but, very convicting. Believe me, I understand how she felt. There are times when, even as Christians, we don't like what we see when the light of God is shined on us.

When we ask the questions of, “Am I operating out of pride or humility in specific areas? And, Are my actions thoughts and words motivated by selfish or self-less intentions of my heart?” We usually see many areas where we still cling to sin.
And like we said, those times of discovery and illuminations are hard to digest. But they are pivotal to our growth in this new Christian life.

Now if you remember, after the seeming flood of reasons to feel bad about yourself, we ended with the key to it all. Remember, what did write on the other side of our paper?

We wrote “But, God...” In other words, Ken, you are still far from the perfection and Christ-likeness that you've been called to. And Ken, there are still a lot of times when you are tragically selfish and prideful.

BUT, GOD knows you, knows your faults. He has always known what you would do and when you would do it, both good decisions and sinful ones, but God sent His son to die for you anyway.

And that is where we are camping out tonight. If you reviewed this week like I asked you to, or if you saw your condition last Wednesday during the service and didn’t want to do any more soul searching – either way — if you felt convicted last week, I pray that this week will be a time of healing and growth toward God for you (for us, because I need it too).

As I've said before, we can't come close to grasping the goodness of God – including His mercy, and grace and love, unless we first see how far we are from Him without the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ.

So here's what we are doing. We have seen what we've been called to be in Philippians 2:3-4 (Humble and Self-LESS).

And by reviewing the last year during the service last Wednesday (and I hope during your personal time this week); we discovered how we haven't been humble or self-LESS in several areas of our lives.

So we know where we are. This week we're going to dwell on the “But God” aspect. The “Good News” of the Gospel. We are going to read this next passage in Philippians 2:5-11, in what we call the Hymn of Christ, which Paul wrote to remind us of the humility and self-LESS nature of Jesus.

And before we read it, let me stack the deck. Let me tell you what I see here because it is beautiful and helpful. I pray that this passage will bless you in a few different ways.
— First, I hope you see the Gospel in this passage. It's there, I pray that you see it and are filled with joy by it. As Christians, as Spirit filled Christ followers, there is something in us – something in our hearts — that should respond when we hear the Gospel message, even traces of it. (The smoke detector in my kitchen is overly sensitive. If there is even the slightest change in temperature from the stove or the toaster, the smoke alarm goes off. Our hearts should be just as sensitive to the Good News). I pray that it never gets old for you. It’s our life. It’s our joy. It’s the power of God which can save us all from our sins!

That’s the first thing I hope you get out of this passage. Holy, overwhelming JOY from the Gospel. But there’s a second piece to it.
— Secondly, I hope you see that Jesus is not only our wonderful Savior; I want you to see — I believe Paul desperately wanted us to understand — that Jesus is also our perfect example. Remember, to be a Christian is to follow the way of Christ.
— Third, I pray that you see that there is a benefit to following Jesus, even in the areas that might not seem as immediately beneficial as other things that we might be doing. Let's read it and then we'll unpack those three areas.

First another prayer… Father God, focus our hearts. Aim Your Word in a way in which it hits right on target of where we are — as a body of believers and where we are individually. I pray that Your word would not come back to You void this evening. Holy Spirit, help us to understand and discern Your truth, in order to build us up and to point all the praise back to You. Amen.

Here we go:


First, this passage should fill us with joy. This is a reminder of what God did for you, and for me and for anyone else who believes. If you read this as a newcomer to our faith, you might ask “WHY?! Why would God become so lowly?”


If you are just kicking the tires on Christianity, you might look to this and just scratch your head. You need more information. I’ll give you that in a moment.

To those of us who are in the faith, I said earlier that this should cause our hearts to respond — to leap — in JOY. Why, because when we hear this, it is a reminder of the promise of God in the Old Testament being fulfilled in the New.

See, God created everything perfectly in the beginning and He gave the first man dominion over all the earth. Over the creatures and plants — it was great.

But Man, and his wife, sinned against God and caused a break in all creation, their sin caused the peace and the tranquility to shatter. Sin broke the relationship between man and wife, man and self, and most importantly. It fractured the relationship between man and God.
But God didn’t leave everything broken, He immediately promised a redeemer. He promised that one would come to set things right. Only one was able, only God, in the flesh.

So with all of that back-story filled in, we see this passage in Philippians 2 and we get the answer to why.

Why would God take the form of a human servant to live a life of humiliation and degradation? To fix what was broken by sin. To absorb the wrath of God that was due to us as a punishment for the sin that we were born with and the countless sins we commit in our lifetimes.

He came, lived a sinless life, died on the cross, was buried and rose again on the third day to conquer sin and death for all who believe.

This should be a reminder of the beautiful and familiar passage in John 3:16-18.

This passage in Philippians 2 should remind each of us that although we are far from the perfect plan of God, and (as we discovered last week), we live lives that are still not perfectly lined up with His design for us – even though all of that is painfully obvious and true, His love for us is not contingent on a fault-free life. His love for us is based on faith alone.

So, we can take what we discovered about ourselves last week and mourn over it and repent of it. We are called to repent, so don’t hold back from doing that.

But then, having a clear picture about how badly we need Jesus to help us, we can also re-affirm, or for the first time, trust in the fact that Jesus Christ is not condemning us for those sins.
He paid the price for all of your sins. Past, present and future. He is not mad at you. He has done it all.

It’s the reason He humbled Himself and took the nature of a servant. He did what you and I cannot do for ourselves. He did it to save us.
If you trust His work, His merit, His sacrifice for your salvation and not your own; If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead then YOU ARE SAVED!

When we read this passage, let the truth of your salvation through Christ pour into you and renew your joy. Is there joy in your heart for the love of Christ? I can yell and swing my arms and do all kinds of things, but I can’t put that joy there. I can’t make a non-believer believe and I can’t stir the heart of a Christ follower to this kind of joy.

It has to come from somewhere else; it has to be stirred from the Holy Spirit. I pray in Jesus name that the Good News might stir your heart tonight!

Okay, I said that in addition to joy that I also hope you see that Jesus is not only our wonderful Savior; I also want you to see that Jesus is also our perfect example. Remember, to be a Christian is to follow the way of Christ.
Let’s read verse 5 again:

Okay, so we’ve seen that we are not the best role models for our own lives. We’ve seen that we are not very good at this self-LESS gig. So what, do we beat our selves up and wallow in our own self-pity? No. That would add to our self-centeredness.

Instead, just stop being who you have been, your attitude isn’t working. Instead take on the attitude follow the example, be a disciple of Christ Jesus. Jesus says it like this in Matthew 11:28-29:

And look, what is the benefit of taking on His attitude, for taking on — by the power of the Spirit — a gentle and humble heart? “…you will find rest for your soul(s).”
Would anyone like that kind of rest — rest for your soul? That rest comes when we stop looking out for ourselves as number one and we start looking out for others. And that only truly works if we look out for others for the same reason that Jesus did, to bring them closer to God.

By the way, as we guide others closer to God through our humility and self-LESS lives, we are also drawn closer to God.

But, don’t just do it for those reasons otherwise you’ll be serving out of selfish motives and then I’ll have to preach these two sermons all over again.

What Paul does in verses 5-8 is he gives us a case study in PERFECT humility; remember that’s the point of this whole chunk of the Scripture. Humility.

First off, remember that Jesus didn’t have to come down here at all. He is infinite, powerful, creative, Holy God. He could have simply wiped us off the face of the earth, and would have been justified if He had simply deleted the entire universe and started over.
But not only is He Holy and Righteousness, He also possesses a level and depth of LOVE that we can’t fathom. We can’t wrap our minds around it.

And in that Love, for us – And in order to set all eyes on the glorious grace of God the Father — Jesus thought it nothing to empty Himself of His rights to be worshiped and praised and honored and adored by the angels in Heaven.

And He came down to this speck of a planet and took on flesh and with it, all of the pain, all of the temptations, all of the constraints and all of the suffering that is beyond being beneath Him.

And did He place Himself into a rich family in a palace? No, you know the story. He was born into a poor family, in an outlying town, to a mother who people suspected of being a whore.

And was He honored as who He was, fully God in human flesh? No, He was misunderstood, mocked, slandered, beaten, spit upon and eventually killed — by the people He loved, by the people He came to save.

And was the killing done mercifully? No, it was the most excruciating and humiliating and degrading form of torture leading to death that has ever been devised.

But, He says this is the easy yoke? How? With our eyes on eternity, always beyond the suffering that humility might come with in this life.

We are told to be like Jesus Christ in His humility.

He is our perfect example.
And listen, it’s not always going to be easy. If you’re looking for your “best life now” You might be on the wrong train. Jesus promised that if we follow Him, we will be treated the same way He was in this life. But, like our Lord, like Jesus, there is so much more to the story.

Let’s see what happened after the Jesus’ suffering and death

In another portion of this letter, Paul, who wrote Philippians tells us:

Paul’s not telling us that we will have the same benefits as Jesus. We will never usurp Jesus’ authority. We will not be exalted to the Highest place. That is for God alone. But we will follow Jesus to where He has been raised up to.

The suffering the trails of this life are nothing, the humility that we live out is such a small price to pay for the glory that will be revealed to us.

This is a promise of heaven and eternity with our Lord for all believers.

One more thing and then we’ll be done.

As in so many other passages, we see a call into the mission field. This is what I mean, lets go back to John 3: 16-18.

We love the first part. That God so loved the world…those who believe won’t perish…Jesus wasn’t sent to condemn, He came to save.
But don’t lose sight of WHO will be saved. It is those who believe.

I say all that and then point you back to Philippians 2:10-11
The Bible is clear that one day this present reality that we are living in, all of this right here, is all going to be over. And at that point EVERY knee will bow and EVERY tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.


There are those who don’t believe, and even those people who mock God and mock you for your belief will be there on the day of the Lord’s return. And there will be no argument left, their rebellion will be finished, their knees will bow along with ours. But then, it gets ugly for them, and for you if you did not come to faith before that point in time.

In Matthew 25, Jesus puts it this way:

So, since we know this is true and since we are now going to heed the call of Christ on our hearts and in our lives to care as much about others as we do ourselves, take this truth and hang up your pride and hang up your hang-ups about evangelism and look at the mission field you are in right now and share the GOOD NEWS!

Share the truth that there is a way out of Hell. Share the good news that there is a way to have meaning in this life. Share the good news that there is living water that truly satisfies in a way that the things of the world never can.

Share in humility and selfLESS-ness so that when we are all bowing and confessing in front of Jesus Christ in all of His glory there will be more of us sheep than goats.

Let’s pray…
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