Humility of Christ — Philippians 1-3

0:00 It's great to be with you. Yeah, very very great to be with you this morning to be back here at Westlake. Glad to have my family here with me as well. What we're gonna do, we're going to continue looking at topic of pride, topic of humility this morning, continuing thinking about these themes, thinking about the negative aspect of pride. Like there's a positive aspect of pride, like we're proud of someone, we're proud of our children, but there's that negative side, that vice, that of pride as a vice that we're thinking about.

0:40 But I was thinking about this the other day and if we take a step back for just a moment, why is pride even a vice? Like what's wrong with pride? And what's so great about humility?

1:00 It's a raising up of yourself. It's essentially the original sin over God.

1:06 Yeah, yeah. 100%. 100%. So I'm I'm being cheeky here. From...

1:13 That's... Like, our whole discussion, and, like, this is the whole point here of our whole discussion that you... We've been... That you've been going through, that we're gonna go through here, is from a Christian perspective. But if we take a step back from a cultural perspective or from a worldly perspective, why is pride even bad?

1:31 Like, we'd say, okay, well, we don't want to be too proud and to elevate ourselves too much, but maybe a little bit is pretty good. There's actually books that are out there, resources that out there, like, yeah, you should have more pride about your life. And, like, we should have a more positive self awareness and, self esteem, but, like, is pride really that bad? And from a Christian perspective, why? Like you said, it is the original sin.

1:56 And when we look here, and I think this passage here builds on that idea of pride being this almost original sin, but then also what is the heart of the Lord? Who is the Lord? Like why is it so detrimental for a Christian to be proud? And what I'd like to do is look at a passage of scripture in Philippians chapter two. So if you'd to turn with me to Philippians chapter two, probably a very well known, familiar passage to us.

2:31 But here in this passage, Paul is describing and dealing with the issues of pride, the lack of humility, the advancement of the self, of the elevating of the self, and this was common in the city of Philippi and in the Roman Empire. It was just part of the normal day to day life. It was expected and, assumed that you would advance yourself, that you would elevate yourself, that you would lay out your resume, if you will, of all of your accomplishments. It's interesting, was reading some resources that there's lots of inscriptions, writings that have been preserved from the city of Philippi from the New Testament period, and it seems like everyone in the city, if you had the ability, one scholar says this, that if you had the resources to, like, to produce an inscription, you listed all of your accomplishments. It was baked into the society in Philippi especially, but in the Roman Empire overall, that you would advance, that you say, these are all the great things that I have done.

3:47 And that's what you should do. That was the positive aspect of it. What Paul will give us here, he's going to give us two commands, and in these he's going to redefine what pride and humility are. Paul redefines pride and humility with two commands, and he's going to do these two commands with the first command is to remember the story of Christ, and then the second command is to live out the gospel. And so kind of Paul's thesis I think here, and what we're going be looking at here is pride is antithetical to the Christian, because God is not proud.

4:43 That he would not be humble, but we'll see that the heart of the Lord is one of humility. And so when we act proud we are going against the very heart and nature of who God is. And so what Paul seeks to do is he seeks to redefine and transform our perspective and transform the people that he's writing to originally, because these individuals, these believers that he's writing to in Philippi, this Roman colony in the Roman Empire, they had some problems in their church. We don't know the exact nature of the disagreement, there's some form of disunity that is going on in the church. There's really two factors that are affecting these believers.

5:29 There's external stressors, they're being persecuted in some way from their fellow Philippians, the unsaved Philippians around them, and then there is internal stressors where they are bickering, fighting, arguing, there's dissension in the ranks. And Paul is writing these believers to address both of these issues. And so he seeks to remind the believers there of their calling as believers and who the Lord is. So what we're going to do, we're going to look at chapter one, we're going to start in chapter one verse 27. Paul has kind of a lengthy, at least for four chapters, he has kind of a lengthy introduction, but the body of the letter begins in chapter one verse 27, and then we're going to read through chapter two verse 11.

6:23 So why don't we read this together this morning. Now I'm reading out of the ESV and it says this, chapter one verse 27, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. So that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. Notice that one language, right? One mind, one spirit.

6:54 Verse 28, And not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for His sake. Engage in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. Chapter two verse one.

7:17 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

8:15 Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We pray the Lord will bless the reading of His word this morning. So when we look at this passage, Paul redefines pride and humility with two commands, remember the story of Christ and to live out the gospel. Now I always do things backwards, so I'm going to try to do something backwards here today. So we're going to do the text out of order.

8:55 I hope that's okay, I went back and forth on it, so we'll see if this works or not. So we're gonna do this slightly out of order. We're gonna start with the second half of this passage first, and then do the first half second. Maybe. Okay.

9:51 And so he reminds them, he reminds us and he calls on us to remember the story of Christ. And so notice what he says here in verse five, the way the ESV reads is, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Or as the New King James says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. What we have here in verses six through 11 is a very rich and deep passage about the nature of who God is, of who Christ is, as him being both 100% God and 100% man. And it's a super wonderful, beautiful, very deep theological passage.

10:38 And I think a lot of times when we look at this passage, we only think of it and read it through that theological lens of, like, how do we know that Jesus is God, or that He was God and man at the same time. At least that's how I've typically thought about it. And Paul is giving us that theology, but he's using that theology for the purposes of reforming our ethics. For reforming our personal ethics and our communal ethics within the church. And so he's calling on to remember what Christ has done.

11:16 And so we can break this up into kind of two sections. The first part in verses six through eight is Christ's humility, and then in verses nine through 11 is his exaltation. And so he begins here in verse six by describing Christ's humility, And what he does here, Paul is a clever guy. He's a quick guy, unlike myself. And so what he does here is he takes the sort of typical way that the Romans would advance themselves, that they would present their resumes, their CVs if you will, and like, all right, here's all of the accomplishments that I have done in ascending order.

11:58 I started out real small, and then I got a little bit bigger, then I got a little bit bigger, and then I became this type of individual, and isn't that just grand? Aren't I just this really important person that should be honored and have great prestige? This is like the typical way the Romans would interact with one another. And so what Paul does is he takes that idea of that stepping stone of going from, I just started out kind of small and I became really great, and he flips it in describing the life of Christ. Where Christ starts high, he starts in the very form of God, and he goes down, and he suffers, and he takes on all of these ideas of shame.

12:43 And so he reminds us here, notice how he begins here in verse six, who though speaking of Christ, let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. And so here his focus is on Christ's identity. That he was, when you looked at God or when you looked at Christ, he looked like God. That's the idea of this word form. That when you looked at him, there's no doubt about He is God.

13:16 And in this identity of Him being God, you looked at Him and you saw Him as God, He doesn't go like, you know what, I am God and I deserve everything now. I deserve all the praise. I deserve all of the accomplishments. I deserve all the things that you can give me. Bring them on.

13:37 That is the Greek gods. Paul is dealing in this like contrast with the Greco Roman world. The Greek gods were exactly that. They they created humans, as some of the myths go. They create the humans so that they would provide all the stuff for them.

13:54 They even could... There's some texts that talk about how the gods would whine and complain about how the humans are being too noisy, and then they gotta go down and throw some lightning bolts at them to shut up, and then they can provide more food to them. And it's just like an ugly version, a more powerful version of humanity. That's the Greeks conception of who God is. That is not the God of the Bible.

14:18 The way that this... There's several ways that this particular phrase can be translated, but I really like the way that maybe a better way might be to take this final line, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, has this idea that he did not count his equality with God as something to be exploited. He doesn't see His idea, His identity of Him being equal with the Father, as Him being 100% God as something from which He was to gain. I am God, that does not mean I get stuff out of this. That's not his conception of who He is as God.

15:00 His idea of what does it mean for Him to be God is to give. It's a total different conception of who God even is. And so here he... Notice what happens in verse seven, is that we have this like stepping stone, not of going up of all of these accomplishments of what... Of all these great things that Christ has done, and then we honor him, but of all these shameful things that he has endured and he has taken on willingly.

15:51 Is that the right word?

15:52 Yeah, alright, stratified. Getting some nods. Yeah. There you go. Yeah.

15:58 And so you'd have the upper elite, like the 2% of it, and then pretty much like everyone else. But within that, you have different rungs, if you will. And the very bottom of society, despised are slaves. Christ takes on the identity of the most despised social category in the world, and he takes it on willingly for me and for you. That is the heart of our God.

16:29 It's not like, Oh, really? That's what I gotta do? It's like we gotta eat lima beans. You like lima beans? I don't like lima beans.

16:39 If you do, that's great. But the Lord has not called me to that, I'm sorry. But it's not just like, oh, just gotta eat these and just kind of muscle them down. Lord willingly wanted to take on that lowest place of becoming like a slave. In the social world, they would just thought like, you are an absolute nothing.

17:00 Aristotle, what a great guy in the classical world. He views slaves as subhuman, as human tools. That's a part of Maristotle we won't talk about. But this is not a high value position, and Jesus takes on that identity. And then he takes it one step further.

17:19 He goes one step further, not just the identity of a slave. In verse eight, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The Roman orator and Senator Cicero makes this comment about crucifixion that is so uncouth, so not good manners to even mention, to discuss crucifixion in polite conversation. If you were a Roman citizen, legally you could not be crucified. It was such a shameful thing, it was thought to be a slave's death, was thought to be the most humiliating, shameful way that someone could die.

18:08 And what we see in the Gospels is, at times the Gospels emphasize Jesus' physical suffering, but what they mostly emphasize, especially the Gospel of Mark. Mark especially hits on this. His emphasis is not on Jesus' physical sufferings of the blood that he spilled or his agony on the cross, but on the shame that he endures on the cross. On how all that looked at him devalued Christ. The God who has created the universe, who came as a human, took on this identity, this low identity, and then suffered the most inglorious way to die.

18:52 And he does that willingly. That is the heart of our Savior. That is who our God is. And so Paul's point, and we're... Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but Paul's point here is if this is the heart of Christ, that he willingly takes the low way for the advancement of us, for our salvation that we may be exalted, that we may be honored.

19:23 How can we elevate ourselves? If our God is a humble God, who doesn't think of this world and everyone else is there to serve me, but he goes and he serves others, that must be the heart of his church. And so here we have Christ's humility laid out for us, but then He is also exalted as well. This is what nine through 11 talks about. The Father looks at what Christ has done and he is delighted in it.

19:56 And so this is again a a reshifting, a reframing, a reorientation from how the world depicts how we should live of what that pride is a good thing and humility is absolutely terrible, and it gets redefined from God's perspective in the court of opinion of heaven. God looks at the actions of Christ in him taking on this humility and not advancing himself, and he puts a stamp of approval on it. And so here he responds by Jesus' actions with verses nine through 11. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. The father looks at the actions of the son and he says, yes, that's exactly the way it should be.

20:46 That's exactly my heart. We have the same heart here. And this shows us that this is what truly pleases the Lord, is not a proud heart, it's a humble heart. This is why God is so resistful, is so against pride in our lives, because it is antithetical to

21:08 who he is.

21:40 It is a restoration of that identity that he began with in verse six. When you looked at Christ, you saw that he was God, and now based on him taking this humble way, God the Father looks at Him and gives Him this name, this divine name. It's echoing back into Isaiah of the one true God of Yahweh. He has Yahweh's name, He is Yahweh. And so here, Paul emphasizes heavily this remember the story of Christ.

22:11 How can we be proud and how can we be anything but humble when we look at what the Lord has done for us and as our God. And so that's this first command of redefinition that Paul gives us here. And so if we can jump back to chapter one verse 27, we look at this second section, the second command that Paul gives to the believers there and he gives to us to live out the gospel. So again, we've done this kind of backwards, hopefully this works. But I was just like looking at who Christ is, but now, alright, what does he call us to do?

22:52 He calls us to live the same way. Notice of verse 27, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. He's reminding them that the term that is used here speaks of citizenship. It's very similar to the term that's used in chapter three verse 20 when Paul tells the Philippians, but our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Philippians, whether they were Christians or not, the Philippians, they loved their identity as Romans.

23:30 They had, As a Roman colony, they had the special privilege as being Roman citizens. And they highly valued this. You even see a snippet of this in Acts chapter 16 when Paul is ministering and preaching in Philippi. And several Philippians don't like what he's doing, so they beat the Apostle Paul, and as they're yelling about Paul to the magistrate, they say, we being good Romans will not buy into this. They don't say, we being good Philippians, they say, we being good Romans.

24:02 They love their identity as Roman citizens. And so Paul is again playing off of their political ideology, their political status, and saying, I know that you love your Roman citizenship, its rights, its privileges, its duties, but that's not your true citizenship. Your citizenship is in heaven. And you have rights, privileges, and duties as a citizen of heaven. Live into that citizenship of heaven.

24:35 That's what he means here. He says, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. And this is where he's picking up again what he's just talked about, or what he's about to talk about, what we've already talked about here at the story of Christ. Like, this is who your God is, live into that way of life which he has modeled. And then if we jump down to chapter two, verses one and two, he talks about this unity that having this mindset, this attitude amongst ourselves is what brings unity and he encourages them towards unity.

25:10 He says this in chapter two verse one, so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind. Here his idea of unity is about being focused and equal on the attitude of Christ. What heart did Christ have? We must all adopt that heart. And so then he continues in verse three and four, this is like the crux of his command that he gives here, and in verse three he has this rejection of the elevation of the self.

26:20 But in humility count others more significant than ourselves. We've thought about this idea of pride, and I've always thought about pride as, and even humility, as something that's up here. I am proud internally, or I am a humble person. There's definitely that aspect of it, but it is also an outward mentality. It is something pride and humility are mindsets and actions.

26:54 They are things that we do. They're not just things that we think, they're things that we do. So when we are proud, we are prioritizing us. And when we are humble, we are prioritizing others. So I always get this backwards.

27:12 It's not about thinking of yourself less, like lowering your opinion of yourself. That's what humility. It's not about thinking about yourself less and like, Oh, I'm just not that good. I'm not a good person. I don't know how to do anything.

27:29 But it's thinking of yourself less. I'm messing this up. I should have wrote it down. I always should write things out. But the point is it's not casting the gaze towards yourself, but casting the gaze towards others.

27:45 That's the perspective here. That's the idea of humility. It's an external mindset, not an internal mindset. Maybe that makes sense. So he says, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

28:01 It's not our lives and us as believers and our lives in this world is not a competition of who can elevate themselves higher, who can advance, make themselves look even better. It is an elevation of others. That's saying of lifting up one another in service and in action and in attitude. Notice what verse four says as well, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. So we have this very external aspect, this reversal to the elevation of the other.

28:41 We are not just here for ourselves. We don't have just this relationship with the Lord and that's it. It is us living together and elevating one another, not based on status, not based on what do I get out of this, how do I benefit if I do this for you, then you will think I'm a very good Christian. Or you will give me a quid pro quo. My Latin is really terrible.

29:11 But like, I'll get a kickback off of this. That's not the perspective of Christ, and that's not the perspective of His church. I like this line from one author David Garland, he says this, thinking about when he thinks he's thinking about the story of Christ and the commands that are given to his church. He says this, since he humbled himself, how can we be proud? Since he took the form of a slave, how can we seek to dominate others?

29:49 Since he accepted the greatest dishonor, death on a cross, how can we strive after honors? He calls us, he reminds us to live like Christ, to remember the gospel and to live out, to remember Lord, to remember the story of Christ, and then to live out the gospel. And I think for me, this redefinition changes the whole perspective of how we think about pride, is that it's not just of which one is better. Humility is better, so it gives us more social advantage, because if you're too proud in this world, then people are gonna not really enjoy you. So we have to try to turn it down and try to be humble a little bit.

30:36 It is us embodying the very heart of the Lord. And I think that reframes and reinvigorates our hearts to have the Lord transform our hearts. And I just want to finish with just a couple lines here in Philippians two verse 12 and following. Because like when we read that, it almost seems like impossible, right? But I love how Paul finishes this and concludes this in he verse 12, therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

31:34 For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. He gives us not only the power to adopt this mindset and to live out this mindset, the mindset of Christ, but he even transforms our desires so that we desire to serve others, that we desire to remove ourselves and to elevate others. Like this is the greatest win of all. Like we have the God of the universe acting in such a way as this for our salvation, for showing us of his humility and coming for us, but then also he empowers us to live as him and transforms our hearts to live for him. We have a wonderful and awesome God and He desires that we would be like Him.

32:29 And He calls us to look at His heart, to look at how He acts, and we would follow Him. Why don't we close with a word of prayer? Father, we love you so much and we thank you for your ministry, your kindness, your grace that you have given towards us. We thank you for the work of your son, his suffering, the shame that he endured. We thank you that you are just such a good and wonderful and kind God.

32:58 We thank you that you empower us by your spirit. Father, we we ask for your forgiveness when we are proud. Father, we struggle so much with pride in our hearts, and we pray that you would please help us to see you, your son, and your spirit so clearly that pride would just be... Would just fade away. That we would only see you, and that we would adopt your heart.

33:26 We love you Lord, and we thank you that you are such a good God, and we we praise you, and we worship you. We pray that you would help us to become more like you. We ask all these things in your son's name. Amen.