Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-059 (Expository Sermon)

THE ULTIMATE EXAMPLE (Philippians 2:1-11)

by Rod Benson

One of the fundamental realities of life is that things tend to move from order to disorder. A wind-up alarm clock will eventually wind down; a steaming cup of coffee will gradually cool to room temperature; the soles of our shoes are wearing out; the cars in the car park are slowly rusting away.

In human society a similar process occurs unless we act to prevent it. Relationships degenerate; the powerful take advantage of the weak; class differences increase and threaten civil order; ethical standards are breached; moral absolutes are modified or overridden.

Harmony and unity are hard to achieve, and harder still to maintain. The maintenance of harmony in an orchestra, or unity among a group of people, requires far more effort than disharmony or disunity – which often occur without any effort at all. Instruments fall out of tune, musicians fall out of time with the music, people fall out with one another.

Unity is hard to achieve, but with it we achieve far more than when we’re divided or alone. Why does the Psalmist exclaim, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity” (Psalm 133:1)? Why did Jesus pray that the church may “be brought to complete unity” (John 17:22, 23)? Why did Paul and Peter urge their readers to “live in harmony with one another” (Romans 12:16; 1 Peter 3:8)?

They all encouraged unity because of its elusive nature and its power to achieve the impossible. In Philippians 2:1-11, the linguistic beauty and the theological depth of the passage sometimes obscure the purpose for which Paul gave the example of Christ: to promote unity within the community of faith. His primary concern is not to teach Christology but to give an illustration of humility and selflessness.

The key to unity, for Paul, is to celebrate what we have in common, and to act toward one another in a spirit of humility and selflessness, demonstrating the same attitude that brought Jesus from heaven to earth, and to the cross, and for which God richly rewarded him. How can we promote this unity?

REAFFIRM KINGDOM VALUES

First, by reaffirming the values of the kingdom. “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose” (verses 1-2).

In verse one, Paul makes four short rhetorical statements about what it means to be united with Christ – to be part of God’s family, the community of faith. Then, in verse two, he says, “If as Christians you share these characteristics with me – these values of the kingdom – then live them! Be one in mind, one in devotion, one in spirit, one in purpose. Build your unity on those values, and commit yourselves to them, as you commit yourselves to one another.

“Hang on,” you say. “How can we be of one mind and purpose when there is so much diversity among us, so many degrees of experience and understanding? Harry Ironside, former pastor of Chicago’s Moody Memorial Church, offers this insight into how the church can achieve unity amid diversity:

Christians will never see eye to eye on all points. We are so largely influenced by habits, by environment, by education, by the measure of intellectual and spiritual apprehension to which we have attained, that it is an impossibility to find any number of people who look at everything from the same standpoint. How then can such be of one mind? . . . the ‘mind of Christ’ is the lowly mind. And, if we are all of this mind, we shall walk together in love, considering one another, and seeking rather to be helpers of one another’s faith, than challenging one another’s convictions. (Notes on Philippians (revised edition; New York: Loizeaux Bros, 1927) 38- 39)

It takes effort, even sacrifice, but those investments are richly rewarded as we enable the Holy Spirit to work powerfully and effectively through us.

REJECT WORLDLY MOTIVES

Second, we can promote unity by rejecting the motives of the world. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (verses 3-4).

This is the flip side of our first point: the kingdom of God is absolutely opposed to the kingdom of darkness and the natural tendencies of the human heart. Paul singles out two examples of worldly motives: first, ‘selfish ambition,’ which stands at the heart of human fallenness, where our behaviour is driven by self- interest and self-aggrandisement at the expense of others.

And second, Paul speaks of ‘vain conceit,’ thinking too highly of ourselves, as exemplified on one occasion by former Australian Prime Minister who, at a press conference at the outset of the Gulf War, said to the assembled media, “George Bush has telephoned me – and other world leaders . . .”

Instead, we should cultivate the uniquely Christian virtue of humility. Ignatius Loyola, Spanish priest and founder of the Jesuits, put it like this: “To give and not count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do (God’s) will.”

REFLECT CHRIST’S ATTITUDE

Third, we can promote unity by reflecting the attitude of the Lord. “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross” (verses 5-8).

Paul has been explaining to the Philippian Christians how to promote unity, and he could give no better example of humility and selflessness in action than Jesus Christ himself. As God, Jesus emptied himself; as man, Jesus humbled himself; and as a result God exalted him as Lord of all.

How did the Philippians know that Christ’s attitude was one of humility? They knew in the same way that we know: they were part of a wider community of faith that valued, preserved and passed on accurate accounts of the teaching and actions of Jesus, which we have today in the four Gospels and in passages such as this.

Here, Paul draws the starkest possible contrast between the pre- existent Christ, equal with God in all the splendour and majesty of heaven, and the lowly Jesus of Nazareth who suffers defeat and shame and death.

To claim, as some do, that Jesus was not the pre-existent Son of God robs the passage of its power, because it rests in this contrast between the One who enjoyed equality with God prior to his “being made in human likeness” (verse 7c) and “death on a cross” (verse 8d). The biblical record leaves no doubt that Jesus was “in the form of God” (verse 6a, NKJV), that is, he was characterised eternally by what was essential to being God.

As our example, and for our salvation, Jesus “made himself nothing” (“of no reputation,” NKJV) (verse 7a). This does not mean he divested himself of his deity or his power, but simply that he emptied himself. He displayed the nature of God in the nature of a servant, not grasping or seizing but giving himself, not motivated by selfish ambition but by selflessness.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” That voluntary poverty took Jesus to the lowest place, and that spirit of servanthood, reflecting the experience of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, led inexorably to death.

It wasn’t merely the cessation of a human life; it was “death on a cross” (verse 8d), the worst way to die, submitted to as an act of obedience to God’s will. Obedience and selflessness go hand in hand. “For just as through the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man (Christ) the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

THE MEANING OF EASTER

As the message of Easter powerfully declares, through his death on the cross Jesus demonstrated that God is love, and that his love expresses itself in self-sacrifice for the sake of those he loves. Just as God appeared in human form to be crucified, so God enables us to live by the principle of humility, and to suffer for his sake. Take the achievement of Christ as your salvation, and the attitude of Christ as your example.

The words of Graham Kendrick’s beautiful Easter song echo the same call to discipleship and devotion: “This is our God, the Servant King, who calls us now to follow him, to bring our lives as a daily offering of worship to the Servant King.”

But the message of Easter further declares that Jesus did not remain on the cross, nor did his body remain in the tomb. Before dawn on the first Easter morning, Jesus rose from the dead, and God the Father gave him the position of highest authority and the name of highest significance, as vindication of his obedience and humility: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (verses 9-11).

Today, those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, confess him as Lord. But there is a day coming when every person will bow before him, not necessarily acknowledging his salvation, but irresistibly recognising his sovereign authority. And every eye will see the risen Lord in his glory, and every tongue will confess that this Lord is none other than the Jesus who “made himself nothing,” who suffered “death on a cross,” but who rose victorious from the grave, who lives in the power of an endless life, and whom Christians gladly worship.

Because of his perfect life, his atoning death and his glorious resurrection, “our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).

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E044 Copyright (c) 2000 Rod Benson. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980).

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