Servant king Philippians 2:1-11 May 21, 2006
Servant king Philippians 2:1-11 May 21, 2006
If you were God for a day have you ever thought about how you might use your powers?
I’m sure our imaginations could run wild here…
In the movie, Bruce Almighty, Bruce played by Jim Carrey gets to be God for a time.
Bruce uses his new powers to walk on water, to beat up a gang that beat him up, get a better job, give his girlfriend a more sexy body and to help everyone in his hometown win the lottery…
In Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi he gives us a picture of what kind of person God decided to become when he became a human being. In giving us this picture God gives us a window to the essential nature of his character.
Paul is writing his letter to the church at Philippi from prison.
He knows that there are a couple of people in this congregation in conflict over something that apparently is not worth fighting over.
And Paul urges them to take on and live out the character of the one they’re united with—the living God.
This morning we’re going to explore what it looks like to become a person who bears the character of the living God.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Philippians 2:
Paul writes:
Imitating Christ's Humility
1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Paul asks the Philippians a series of questions designed to get to think how about how their life has been influenced by God…
He writes:
1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
The assumption as he writes to the church at Philippi is yes, yes, yes, yes…
If you are in Christ, connected to an infinite pipeline of love--your heart will fill and overflow with the love of God…
If this is the case, which Paul’s assumes is true for the people at Philippi THEN…
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. But, rather in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Paul says, If you are connected to God’s love, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility value others above yourself.
If you are plugged into God’s love, Paul says don’t try to prop yourself over other people…
Pride has traditionally been considered the worst of the seven deadly sins. C.S. Lewis, the Oxford scholar points out in Mere Christianity people aren’t proud of being rich or good looking or smart--they’re proud about being richer or better looking or smarter than others.
Pride is essentially competitive and if we regard the people around us as those we are going to beat out we’re not going to love them well, we’re not going to be united to them…
Paul says, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others…
WHY? Because Jesus Christ was like this…
Paul says:
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
In some of the older translations vs. 6 reads that Jesus who being in the very form of God did not consider equality with God something to be “grasped,” but emptied himself…
Some people taken from that verse that when Jesus became a human being, he gave up his status and he emptied himself of his divinity… or that he gave up some of the attributes as God when he became a human being…
But the TNIV renders the text in a way that is more consistent with the better scholarship…
Jesus who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used or exploited to his own advantage…
But rather he made himself nothing…
NT scholar Gordon Fee, explains the idea here is not that he emptied himself of his nature, but that Jesus pours himself out like water (use a prop to illustrate) and becomes a servant or as the Greek is likely better translated slave… (in the context the slave would be a better rendering than “servant” because it’s a slave or a political insurrectionist who would be crucified).
And the text tells us that Christ becomes obedient to death, even to death on a cross…
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
This passage gets to the heart of God’s true character…
God could come as any human being he wanted to….
If you or I could back--as any human being who would we come back as?
Would we come as someone with the privileges of a head of state or the ceo of a fortune 500 or an A-list movie star or a world class professional athlete or as some whose job was to lie out on a secluded beach in Tahiti.
When God become a human being in Jesus Christ, he decides to come as a servant, as a slave…
What this shows us is that fundamentally what it means to be like God is to be a servant…
New Testament scholar Tom Wright says, “The only God there is, is a servant.”
The “gods” of the ancient world were capricious, vindictive, and self-serving, but the true God serves.
In John 13, we see that Jesus is one who does only what a servant does--he washes the feet of the disciples…
Jesus said, I have come not to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many…
Jesus serves… he empties himself in service for others…
Darrell Johnson says that Jesus’ self-emptying is the sign of his divinity…
We are most like God when we empty ourselves in love for others…
We are most our most our true selves, when we serve…
The most fulfilled people are not those living for themselves, but those who serve others…
When I think of the word servant—one of the people who comes to mind is Mother Teresa…
My wife, actually a number of years before she became a follower of Christ had a chance to meet Mother Teresa. People who meet mother Teresa describe as her as being a woman of luminous joy….
When we serve we become like God, we become our true selves, in emptying ourselves we are fulfilled…
Happiness and fulfillment don’t come from trying to making it our life goal to be happy and fulfilled—no people who try too hard to be happy are the least happy… like people who try too hard to have friends don’t have any…
If we don’t make it our goal to be happy, but to serve we experience joy as a byproduct…
I along with a small group of people was recently interviewed for a book that is being written about a leader, identified some years ago by TIME magazine as being of significant influence…
We talked about how this leader has impacted us and others. Someone said he never regards himself above others, but he always put the others person above himself. With no personal agenda, but he pours himself out for others.
He’s a person of luminous joy.
And it’s in serving, we become most like God… it’s in becoming a servant that we become our true self…
Phil 2 tells us that it is as we serve that we become like the one is whose image we’ve been made…
As I’ve crossed onto threshold of middle age (40)… I’ve become more reflective of the meaning of my life… I recently wrote words in my journal 4 things, that I want to focus on… Someone last week who heard me share these 4 things asked me is there a pattern in these 4 words? I said, yes, not that I structured it so there is a pattern, but 2 are about wanting to know God and 2 involve wanting to serve…
I want my life to be about these things… knowing God and serving….
What about you?
Let take a moment to pray…
If in your heart your saying, I want to become a servant and want to pray God make me a servant, if you’re able to this physically quietly kneel as an expression of your desire to become like the God who kneels at feet of disciples as servant and washes their feet.
(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
If you were God for a day have you ever thought about how you might use your powers?
I’m sure our imaginations could run wild here…
In the movie, Bruce Almighty, Bruce played by Jim Carrey gets to be God for a time.
Bruce uses his new powers to walk on water, to beat up a gang that beat him up, get a better job, give his girlfriend a more sexy body and to help everyone in his hometown win the lottery…
In Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi he gives us a picture of what kind of person God decided to become when he became a human being. In giving us this picture God gives us a window to the essential nature of his character.
Paul is writing his letter to the church at Philippi from prison.
He knows that there are a couple of people in this congregation in conflict over something that apparently is not worth fighting over.
And Paul urges them to take on and live out the character of the one they’re united with—the living God.
This morning we’re going to explore what it looks like to become a person who bears the character of the living God.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Philippians 2:
Paul writes:
Imitating Christ's Humility
1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Paul asks the Philippians a series of questions designed to get to think how about how their life has been influenced by God…
He writes:
1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
The assumption as he writes to the church at Philippi is yes, yes, yes, yes…
If you are in Christ, connected to an infinite pipeline of love--your heart will fill and overflow with the love of God…
If this is the case, which Paul’s assumes is true for the people at Philippi THEN…
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. But, rather in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Paul says, If you are connected to God’s love, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility value others above yourself.
If you are plugged into God’s love, Paul says don’t try to prop yourself over other people…
Pride has traditionally been considered the worst of the seven deadly sins. C.S. Lewis, the Oxford scholar points out in Mere Christianity people aren’t proud of being rich or good looking or smart--they’re proud about being richer or better looking or smarter than others.
Pride is essentially competitive and if we regard the people around us as those we are going to beat out we’re not going to love them well, we’re not going to be united to them…
Paul says, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others…
WHY? Because Jesus Christ was like this…
Paul says:
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
In some of the older translations vs. 6 reads that Jesus who being in the very form of God did not consider equality with God something to be “grasped,” but emptied himself…
Some people taken from that verse that when Jesus became a human being, he gave up his status and he emptied himself of his divinity… or that he gave up some of the attributes as God when he became a human being…
But the TNIV renders the text in a way that is more consistent with the better scholarship…
Jesus who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used or exploited to his own advantage…
But rather he made himself nothing…
NT scholar Gordon Fee, explains the idea here is not that he emptied himself of his nature, but that Jesus pours himself out like water (use a prop to illustrate) and becomes a servant or as the Greek is likely better translated slave… (in the context the slave would be a better rendering than “servant” because it’s a slave or a political insurrectionist who would be crucified).
And the text tells us that Christ becomes obedient to death, even to death on a cross…
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
This passage gets to the heart of God’s true character…
God could come as any human being he wanted to….
If you or I could back--as any human being who would we come back as?
Would we come as someone with the privileges of a head of state or the ceo of a fortune 500 or an A-list movie star or a world class professional athlete or as some whose job was to lie out on a secluded beach in Tahiti.
When God become a human being in Jesus Christ, he decides to come as a servant, as a slave…
What this shows us is that fundamentally what it means to be like God is to be a servant…
New Testament scholar Tom Wright says, “The only God there is, is a servant.”
The “gods” of the ancient world were capricious, vindictive, and self-serving, but the true God serves.
In John 13, we see that Jesus is one who does only what a servant does--he washes the feet of the disciples…
Jesus said, I have come not to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many…
Jesus serves… he empties himself in service for others…
Darrell Johnson says that Jesus’ self-emptying is the sign of his divinity…
We are most like God when we empty ourselves in love for others…
We are most our most our true selves, when we serve…
The most fulfilled people are not those living for themselves, but those who serve others…
When I think of the word servant—one of the people who comes to mind is Mother Teresa…
My wife, actually a number of years before she became a follower of Christ had a chance to meet Mother Teresa. People who meet mother Teresa describe as her as being a woman of luminous joy….
When we serve we become like God, we become our true selves, in emptying ourselves we are fulfilled…
Happiness and fulfillment don’t come from trying to making it our life goal to be happy and fulfilled—no people who try too hard to be happy are the least happy… like people who try too hard to have friends don’t have any…
If we don’t make it our goal to be happy, but to serve we experience joy as a byproduct…
I along with a small group of people was recently interviewed for a book that is being written about a leader, identified some years ago by TIME magazine as being of significant influence…
We talked about how this leader has impacted us and others. Someone said he never regards himself above others, but he always put the others person above himself. With no personal agenda, but he pours himself out for others.
He’s a person of luminous joy.
And it’s in serving, we become most like God… it’s in becoming a servant that we become our true self…
Phil 2 tells us that it is as we serve that we become like the one is whose image we’ve been made…
As I’ve crossed onto threshold of middle age (40)… I’ve become more reflective of the meaning of my life… I recently wrote words in my journal 4 things, that I want to focus on… Someone last week who heard me share these 4 things asked me is there a pattern in these 4 words? I said, yes, not that I structured it so there is a pattern, but 2 are about wanting to know God and 2 involve wanting to serve…
I want my life to be about these things… knowing God and serving….
What about you?
Let take a moment to pray…
If in your heart your saying, I want to become a servant and want to pray God make me a servant, if you’re able to this physically quietly kneel as an expression of your desire to become like the God who kneels at feet of disciples as servant and washes their feet.
(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
posted by Shigematsu at 10:36 AM
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