PHILIPPIANS | The Mind of Christ | Philippians 2:1-11

We are continuing our way through the book of Philippians, Paul's letter to the church in Philippi. We're going to be considering verses 1 through 11 in chapter 2. So, chapter 2of the book of Philippians, verses 1 through 11. Before we read God's word here, let us go to the Lord in prayer.

Our Father, we come to you in prayer, and we ask that you would be glorified, that your name would be hallowed, that Christ would be high and lifted up, that Christ would increase and that we would decrease. Help us to remember our Lord, to look to Him, to remember how even our Lord Jesus Christ did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Lord, we come to you now also in prayer because we recognize that unless you open up our eyes and our hearts and our ears to hear by faith, we listen in vain. We sit in vain, and so, Lord, I pray that your word would do its work as you have promised it will do, that it will not return void, that it indeed will strike and cut to our hearts because it is sharper than any two-edged sword. So, Lord, as a master surgeon, we pray that you will indeed cut the things out of our hearts that are not yet fit for heaven, prepare us more for heaven.

Prepare us more and more for our bridegroom, as we wait for the day when we will see him face to face. But Lord, as we wait again, we pray that you will help us to be faithful, that you will give us heavenly eyes, that you will help us not to only look to our own interests but also to the interests of others.

In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

People of God, hear God's word for us this morning from Philippians chapter 2, verses 1through 11.

Philippians 2:1–11

[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. [5] Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [8] And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [9] Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, [10] so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

He who has ears, let him hear the word of God. Please be seated. If you would just for a moment imagine yourself in that upper room, the last night, the night when Jesus would be betrayed, and his Jesus and his disciples gather in that upper room. They not knowing that it is their last night with Christ, but they have gathered together to celebrate the Passover. And Jesus will direct them and point to them and institute the Lord's Supper and show that He is the Passover Lamb in front of them, but before all of that occurs, they all enter the room and they gather around the table, and they all have dirty feet. So you have a room full of men with dirty feet, and everyone sees the basin in the corner and the towel, but no one's getting up.

No one's moving towards the basin, and the water, and the towel to clean one another's feet because that was customary at that time when you come in to. Together, usually a a servant would then come and wash everyone's feet, preparing them for dinner. It was a job for servants. It was a job for slaves. It was a job no one wanted to do.

You can almost picture the disciples looking at the basin, then looking at one another, or maybe not looking at one another. Just like when you think your pastor might ask you to pray, everyone just kind of like looks down and looks away.

He's like, "Don't make eye contact with me. And you can imagine maybe that's what's happening here. Don't ask me, Jesus, to do that. You can maybe even imagine the disciples thinking within their minds,"What about Judas? Not even Judas Iscariot, but but the other Judas that no one really even knows. Judas was sometimes called Thaddeus. What about what about James the Less? I mean, it's in his name the less. I mean, he he should do that, or Bartholomew. He doesn't say anything. There's no recorded words of Bartholomew in scriptures at all. Why not that guy get down and serve?

Certainly, maybe not Peter, or James, or John, the sons of thunder, but someone more lowly, more slave-like, more servant-like. What adds to this moment is also, as we read earlier, what the disciples had just been arguing about in that upper room. Who's the greatest?

They're thinking, how can I be honored? How can I be made great? How can my name be hallowed? Which of us deserves the highest place in heaven and in the presence of God, but then John records for us what actually happens next. Jesus rose from the supper. He laid aside his outer garments and, taking a towel, tied it around his waist, and he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. The highest person in that room, by far, takes the lowest place in the room, and Paul tells us in our text, this is the mind of Christ, and Paul is going to take us much farther down than a dirty floor and dirty feet, but going to take us further down to death, even death on a cross by our Savior, our Lord. Paul is going to take us all the way from the glories of heaven down into humanity, down into servanthood, down to obedience, down to death, even death on a cross. Paul gives us here some of the the highest theology, Christology about Christ in all of Scripture. Why does Paul take out the big guns here to address an important issue in the church, an issue that has the ability to destroy or not destroy, because nothing can destroy Christ's church, but to divide the church. It's because people aren't getting along. The issue of unity of God's people is is being threatened. Last week, Paul tells us, "Stand firm in one spirit and one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. But what is threatening that unity? What is threatening striving side by side for the gospel? It is selfish ambition. It is conceit.

It is pride. So Paul shows us the mind of Christ that must characterize the church, this colony of heaven, and we're

this mind of Christ that looks to others; second, it looks to Christ, and then third, it seeks the glory of God alone. This mind of Christ first looks to the interest of others. In verse one through four, we see so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any. Affection and sympathy, and Paul will go on. And I just want to note here, when as you see, Paul says, "If he's not saying maybe there is these things, and maybe there is not. The sense is, since these things are true, what are the true things Paul is saying? Since these things are true, that there is encouragement in Christ, there is comfort in His love. You do share in the participation of His Spirit. There is affection and mercy towards you in Christ because these things are true.

Paul continues. Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

When there are difficulties in the church, Paul doesn't start with the congregation and tell them, "You guys just simply need to try harder, get it together, focus, work harder. He starts with look at Christ, look at God, and look what He what He has done for you.

Look what what has been given to you in Christ. You have been loved. You have been forgiven.

You have received mercy. You have been united to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you have received His Spirit. And this is all yours in Christ. Therefore, give to one another what you also have received from Christ.

That's how gospel obedience works. The done always precedes the do. Christ has done it.

Christ has forgiven. Christ has saved. Christ has had mercy.

Christ has had united you to Himself, and so you who are now in Christ, who bear His name, who are filled with His Spirit, who have salvation from God. Now love one another, serve one another, be united together in Christ. The gospel is never do this and live, but the gospel is Christ has done. So now we can do, not because it saves us, but out of much gratitude for what He has done. Paul identifies what threatens the church here in verse three: do nothing, Nothing. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. What is threatening the church? What's a great threat to our church?

Pride. Pride is threatening to destroy the Church, selfish ambition is a hostile enemy to the peace and purity of Christ's church. It's so subtle. It's so very subtle because we don't typically see ourselves as being selfish. We typically just see ourselves of clearly having a better way than their way, right? I mean, my ideas are better than their ideas. I'm not being selfish. It's just better.

Isn't that what we think? Why didn't they ask me before they took action? I have the degree.

I have the training. I have this, and I have that. And yet, they didn't ask me. They should have asked me. Underneath so much of this thinking, though, is the same word: me, me, me, me. What do I want? Why didn't they think about me? Why didn't they recognize me for all of my gifts and all of my ability and how all of I have helped? Why didn't they listen to me?

Sinclair Ferguson makes a searching observation about this passage. He says Paul does not regard an attitude problem as some small thing in Christian fellowship. It's serious enough that Paul brings the enormous riches of the gospel of Christ to bear upon us. You know, a congregation can believe all the right things on paper while everyone quietly fights for his own interests. John Stott once asked an audience, "What is the secret to Christian unity? And his answer, which I believe is

humility.

And that makes sense to us. We you can put two humble.

Christians in a room who disagree, maybe about a great many things, but they can still love and serve one another. They can listen to one another. They can forgive one another. They can say, "I don't have to always get my way. You know, I'm grateful that I feel like our presbytery, that our church is a part of is a good picture of this. You have a bunch of men, and who, by the way, have there are many differences in theology. They are our secondary issues, secondary theological matters. But there's great variety in our presbytery, about men who have various views on well the length of days in Genesis, millennial views, views on theonomy and even Christian nationalism, but there's great peace, there's great unity, there's great love and service there. But you know you can put two proud Christians in a room who agree just about on every single aspect of theology, and you know what's going to happen.

Even though they are lockstep in their theological knowledge, they are certainly unified in the the Westminster Confession of Faith. But over time, what's going to happen is conflict.

They're going to find something to fight about because the problem isn't always the disagreement. The problem is the attitude of, I need to win. I need to be great. I need to increase. Paul continues in verse three, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. This is not looking at yourself and saying,"Well, I'm worthless and I have nothing to offer, and that's not humility. But humility is refusing to make yourself the center of everything. Paul explains it further in verse four.

Let each of you look not only to the interests to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Paul isn't saying that you may never care about your own needs and your own responsibilities. That notice a word also. It doesn't.

It means you can take care of the things of in your life that you need to take care of, but also look around when you think I need help and I need prayer, I need encouragement. Don't stop there, but now also be like, look around, and who who needs encouragement? Who needs prayer?

Who needs help? Where your life is not just revolving about me and what I need and what I want in this world, but looking around at others. How can I serve and help one another?

Jesus didn't simply consider the interests of people, also who were really great or even greater than he was. Because was there anyone greater than Jesus?

No. Think again about that upper room when Jesus washed those people's feet. He isn't pretending the disciples are greater than he was because they weren't. He was their creator.

He was their Lord. He was their very God. Yet the one who was truly great made himself the servant of those who were less, and that's humility. And suddenly, I think we begin to understand why Paul is about to take us where he does, because how do selfish people become humble? How do people who are naturally preoccupied with ourselves begin looking to the interests of others? And it's not merely by repeating "Be more humble, be more humble, be more humble. That's not what Paul does. You don't become more humble by staring at yourself.

You become more humble by staring at Christ, by looking to Jesus, and that's what humility does? Humility says, "Look at Jesus. Look at verse five. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

Again, it doesn't say, "Look at Jesus, and good luck imitating him. I hope you do your best.

The Christ Paul holds before you is the Christ to whom you belong. It is yours in Christ Jesus. You are united to Him.

His Spirit dwells within you.

Paul's exhortation rests upon these realities that the believer. Already possesses.

Verse six, who though he was in the form of God, that is before Bethlehem, before Mary, before creation itself, he is. I am the Son of God. Did not begin at the manger. The Son of God is, and was and will always be forever God. That's the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Paul says he existed in the form of God.

This is not that Jesus put on some kind of God costume in some kind of form. What Paul means by that language is that Jesus possesses divine the divine nature everything that makes God God Jesus possesses Paul starts here because we cannot understand the humility of Christ until we begin to understand the height from which our Lord came. You know there are stories that we love, and maybe you have read or watched movies about. Well, try to capture what's happening here in our text. Think of Lord of the Rings, I will. Think of Aragorn, and when you first meet Aragorn, no one knows he's king. He's Strider. You know, he he. You don't see him sitting on a throne in royal robes. You see him wandering around dangerous roads, fighting side by side with little hobbits, risking himself for others. But then, eventually, in the series, you you come to see the hidden king revealed, and he's crowned. We love stories like that, don't we? Don't we love stories like that? The King who becomes humble, who serves and rescues others. Why do we love stories like that? Because they are ultimately all pointing us to what we have been created to love. That is Jesus, and all the stories and movies that we adore and we loved are all shadows of the true reality that the scriptures give us about Jesus.

Even Tolkien's great imagination can only give us the faint shadow of what actually happened. Jesus was not merely a king who temporarily disguised himself like ordinary men. He was God who became man. He took to himself a human nature. Jesus was one person with two natures

God and man.

Paul says, "But he emptied himself, or but or made himself nothing by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Now, Paul's theology and what he's saying here is, when Jesus emptied himself, he isn't ceasing to stop being what he was, but he takes on what he was not. That is, he takes on the human nature. He he takes on the form of a servant. The creator enters the creation. The one who made human hands now has hands himself. The one upon whom everything depends on enters our world in genuine human dependence. And notice again what Paul now says in verse six: He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Did Jesus possess equality with God?

Yes, he did. He was God, but he did not use his divine status for his own selfish ambition.

There's even, I think, a striking biblical contrast here between that verse and when you start to think about Adam. Adam was made in the image of God, and the servant tempted him to be like God, and Adam reaches for it. He reaches upward and he grabs or seeks to grab what isn't his, but Christ, who is truly equal with God, and yet he willingly comes down and humbles himself. Adam grasps while Jesus comes down even to the grave.

The first man, his disobedience brings death, but Christ, his obedience takes him to death.

Paul follows the or. Paul's flow of thought here is Jesus descending down and down and down. If you just look at the text, he's in the form of God.

Now he goes down. He took the form of a servant down, bearing the likeness of men. Further down, humbling himself down, becoming obedient to death down, even death on a cross. There's nowhere lower to go. We hear a cross and we we think of churches and jewelry and Christian symbols, but remember too when the Philippians heard cross. They thought shame. They thought curse. They thought criminal. Crucifixion was designed not merely to kill a person, but to humiliate a person. Paul's movement goes from the highest glory of heaven to Rome's deepest obscenity, that's how low the Son of God went. Why? For you, for us, for your salvation. So you think again about that upper room.

Peter sees Jesus with the towel, and then Peter tells essentially, "No, Jesus, this is beneath you. You shall never wash my feet. And Jesus responds, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me. Peter thought Jesus was merely washing dirty feet, but Jesus was giving them a picture of something infinitely greater. Unless the Son of God stoops down to cleanse us from our sin, we remain filthy. We needed Christ to come down. We needed Him to bear the curse that we deserved.

We needed Him to die for the wages of sin that we have incurred, and we needed His perfect righteousness. We needed His perfect obedience given to us. The pride Paul condemns in verse three isn't merely something Jesus came to show us how to overcome or to set a model of humility. The pride that Paul talks about is the very thing by which Christ had to come and die for. Christ had to come and die for you or and my selfish ambition. He had to die for our conceited self of us putting ourselves first over others. My insistence on my own way, my pride, your pride, the Lord, the Son of God, came to earth to die for our sins. He humbled Himself and died on the cursed cross because you and I are proud by nature. We see the immeasurable love of Christ, who devoted himself and his life for us, for our sake? Now we go back to verse three. In humility, count others more significant than yourselves. They started it. Why should I have to apologize first? Why should I forgive again? Why should I take the lower place? Look at Jesus, look at Jesus, look at Jesus who humbled himself. Therefore, and now everything changes direction in verse nine. Humility it leaves the glory to God, and Paul says, "Therefore, God has highly exalted him, who is now doing the exalting. Who is doing the exalting? God. This is God's role. This is God's prerogative to do the exalting.

It's pride that says I need to lift myself up. It's pride that says I need to protect my position. It is pride that says I need to take credit. Jesus doesn't grasp; he gives, he serves, he humbles himself, and the Father therefore says,"Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name-the one who bore the cross receives the crown. The one who suffered is now exalted. Paul says so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. How many knees will bow? Every knee.

Every knee will bow in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

What's interesting too, what Paul's writing here is Paul's not actually writing anything new. Paul's actually writing something that Isaiah talks about in Isaiah chapter. Chapter 45. There, the Lord Himself declares. Yahweh declares in Isaiah 45 to me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear allegiance. And Paul, what Paul's doing here in our text, he takes those words describing the universal worship of God, of Yahweh, of Jehovah, and he applies it now to Jesus. The Jesus who knelt down with the towel is the Lord. Before every knee will bow. The Jesus who was nailed to the cross is the Lord that every tongue will confess?

This isn't merely a coronation ceremony of a great King. This is the universal worship of God the Son. Every angel, every ruler, every nation, every person who has ever lived, every creature, every enemy, every knee, every tongue. Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We don't need to be the center of the story because Jesus already is, and we're united to Him. We don't need to make a name for ourselves because Jesus is the name that will be exalted. Pride asks again, "Will I be honored? But humility asks, "Will Christ be honored? No matter who's watching, no matter who knows, no matter what I do, but will Christ be honored? Will He be glorified? You know, Paul doesn't end the text with us finally seeing now how humble and meek we've become. Paul again ends us with Jesus, every knee bowing to Jesus, every tongue confessing to Jesus, everything ringing and reverberating in all of creation. To God be the glory.

Great things He has done. So loved He the world that He gave us His Son, who yielded His life and atonement for sin, and opened the life gate that all may come in. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord. Let the earth hear His voice. Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord. Let the people rejoice. O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, and give Him the glory. Great things He has done. Remember the room where we started, the basin, the towel, dirty feet all around.

Everyone questioning and looking around. Who's going to get down there? Who is going to do it?

And no one moves. But then, Jesus, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.

begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things are made. He gets down. He takes the towel and washes the filth away.

Jesus, who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, he suffered and was buried, but on the third day he rose again, according to the scriptures, and ascends into heaven and sits now at the right hand of the Father, and he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, and whose kingdom shall have no end, no end, no end. This is your Savior. This is your Lord.

The one who is God Himself, who humbled Himself for your salvation. This is the one Paul tells us, you and me, have this mind Among yourselves, you belong to the one whose name is above every name. Look to others. Look to Jesus. Look for the glory of God alone in your life, and every tongue will confess, Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Let's pray.

Our heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us your Word. We thank you for this rich Christology given to us by Paul.

Lord, I pray that by it, you will not just let us know theological knowledge about Jesus, but let us see Jesus by faith. Let us embrace Him by faith, Lord. By the power of Your Spirit, let us be imitators of Christ, Lord. Let us remember how He did not come to be served when He should have been served, but He came to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.

And so, Lord, I do ask that You will forgive us from our conceit, our pride, our selfish ambition that you will protect us and our families and this church from disunity and division. Let us have the mind of Christ. Let us serve one another as we have been served.

Be merciful, Lord. We pray because of Jesus. Amen.