PHILIPPIANS #7: THE GLORY OF HUMILITY

0:00Okay. Welcome to Clear Bible. We're a ministry of life together churches, New Joy Fellowship, and me, Tom Hilpert. And we're in the book of Philippians. And this is Philippians part seven. Philippians sermon number seven. And we're in Philippians chapter two. So we're going to read verses two one through ten. Sorry. Yeah. Chapter two verses one through ten. Let's pray. You ought to pray that you would come right now and speak in me and through me so that you can speak in and through all of us. Pray that you'd make your your message really clear to each one of us who's listening. Pray that we would hear your word and be blessed by it and be made more like you through your word. And that you would equip us through this to to be a blessing to others. We pray to Jesus name Amen. All right. Philippians chapter two starting at verse one. So

1:08if there's 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. That 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 taking the form of his servant, being bored 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. Therefore God has highly exalted him and be stowed on him a name that is above every other name so that at the name of

2:09Jesus every nation 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. All right, so this verse and particularly Philippians 2 6 through 11, the second half of what I just read, is very significant for Christian theology about Jesus Christ. And a lot of commentators will point out that at least some part of this appears to be some sort of an ancient hymn and in Greek for sure the words in verses 6 through 8 create kind of a rhythm and they appear to be very deliberately chosen and balanced to cross each, you know, balanced against each other to kind of create a poetic feel. But commentator is actually disagree on where the hymn starts and ends. There's a lot of folks who would say that, you know, the only verses 6 through 8 are really the hymn and then

3:11you move on, you know, 9, 10, 11 are something else again. And the text also of course tells us some really important things about Jesus, especially that he is God and that he came to earth as a man and there have been volumes and volumes written about this, fleshing out all the theological implications of this text. But as I've been working on this text, really hard have been been really trying to dig into it. And this has been a hard sermon for me to prepare. But I've felt like what I needed to do is take it the way Paul intended it to the Philippians. And yes, the Holy Spirit through Paul intended all these theological implications and maybe the ancient hymn and all that. But clearly, the first thing that the Philippians were meant to understand is not that Paul was writing a hymn or quoting a hymn. We don't know which he wasn't creating a theology of Jesus, you know, not mainly.

4:15Certainly, the Holy Spirit did create, you know, the basis of a theology for Jesus. But Paul was urging the Philippians to be humble and practical and loving and inspirational ways. That that was his point. His point was, hey, guys and gals. Look, this is this is the situation. This is who you are with each other. This is how you should behave toward one another like Jesus. So if we back up in context, remember, Paul has been encouraging the Philippians to live as citizens of the gospel in a way that shows that Christ is worthy above all. And also remember, of course, that this letter is addressed to a group of Christians. And so then Paul now begins to explain, you're not just individual Christians who happen to go to church together, you are called to communal life together in unity and humility and truth. And the way that you are to be with one another, communally is deeply connected to the part about being citizens of the gospel of Christ. And so Paul begins this section, the very

5:22first part of it, the first free versus of chapter one, he has kind of a rhetorical way of speaking. But the point is that we have been given so much through Jesus Christ. In him, we have encouragement. We have comfort from love, participation in the spirit and sympathy. And we have those things not only as individuals, but also as a group of Christians with one another. And that's important, especially today's world and the Western world, especially we Americans and probably Western Europeans are tend to think of all of this individually. And it's true we have these things from Jesus individually, but we also have them together with our fellow believers. So let's look at these things that Paul mentions. If there is any encouragement, he says, the word encouragement in Greek is literally coming alongside. The idea is that Christ comes alongside us through the Holy Spirit to comfort us and encourage us. But not only that in Christ, we are members of the church with one another. And we

6:27too come alongside one another with the encouragement of Christ. And this is real. This is practical. You know, I don't want to get all conceptual here. Many of you who are listening to me now have come alongside my wife and my daughter and I and our family as my daughter has been dealing with cancer. That's a really practical thing. I have a friend who has chronic pain in his head. And right now he's going through a terrible time. And I am coming alongside him in prayer and just standing with him, letting him know that he's not alone. So then Paul says, any encouragement, any comfort from love, I kind of like the HCSB in that it says consolation of love. And the Greek word for the comfort or consolation means to speak tenderly alongside. So one picture I've got is maybe a father with his arm around, you know, his five year old daughter is her beloved pet hamster is just died. And the father sits there with his arm around her, comes along

7:31side her and speaks tenderly to her. And we have that consolation of love from Jesus. But again, this is something that we are supposed to offer one another in the body of Christ as well. And then Paul says, any participation in the spirit, the Greek word participation is coynonia, which means community, a strong sense of fellowship. And so together in Christ, in the spirit, we have fellowship, we have close community, both with the Lord and also with our fellow Christians. And then Paul says, any affection and sympathy, the word for affection, I love this. I've mentioned this before in other sermons, but it's not super common. But it really is intestines. And in ancient Greek and in that culture, the way they use that word intestines was to mean something deeply strongly felt, emotional, powerful. You know, in English,

8:35we have a word for intestines, right, guts. But we use that word in a way that doesn't mean your literal intestines inside your abdomen. We say, if you have guts, you have, you have some kind of courage, right? And my Australian and British friends, if something happens that really, you know, it just deeply impacts them emotionally in a hard way, in a negative way, they might say they're gutted. And that's kind of the way it was in ancient Greek, except a positive thing. I'm gutted in a good way, meaning my guts, I feel it in my guts. I feel the strength of emotion. So, you know, maybe a better way to translate it would be deeply caring. And it's combined with another word here, which means mercy or compassion. I don't love the way the ESV translate this as sympathy, because sympathy comes from a completely different Greek word, meaning sympathy.

9:37So I would call this deep compassion or deep compassion or deep caring, sorry. And so Paul says, have you got any of this through Christ? And the answer is meant to be, obviously, yes. And so then he says, do you have any of these things along with and partially through other believers? He's implying that part, sorry. And of course, the answer is also meant to be yes. And so Paul's argument goes, so then, if you have these things in Christ, if you have these things with your fellow believers, I'll just read the verse, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and in one mind. And you probably heard this too as I read it, but it mentions mind twice. And it is both times the Greek word for mind or for thinking. And I really spent a way too long with this on the Greek and didn't come up with anything super profound. But I think the first mind, you know, being of

10:42the same mind is not really about thinking. It's about a mindset. It's about an attitude. And then the second mind, I think, is more like, okay, I want you to think about these things in the same way. In other words, you know, don't have one person say, well, I think is this and one person think, I'm that. No, you should also have both the same attitude and also the same sorts of thoughts about some things. And what things? What is Paul talking about? What attitude? What mindset? I'm so glad you asked because Paul answers this in verse three. Do nothing. Here's here's the same mindset they should have. This is the way they should all think. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. But in humility, count others more significant than yourselves that each of you look not only to his own interests, but to the interests of others. Now, I bet almost anybody hearing me today, particularly in the Western world, but maybe even

11:42those of you in Africa and other places, you might feel that it is in bad taste to boast or to be conceded. Most people don't respect someone who is boastful or who is conceded. We tend to approve of people who are humble, especially when they might have reasons to not be humble. But that was not true in the world of the New Testament. The world that was everybody spoke Greek and the Romans were in charge. Humility was not a virtue in the Greco-Roman world. The powerful people never got tired of telling everybody else how great they were. Humility was not seen as a virtue. And this is hard for us to wrap our heads around because it's just so embedded in us. Of course, it's good to be humble. But that's just not the way they thought in those days. They thought humility was actually a bad thing. And so, Philippi, this city, this Roman city,

12:44this city that is part of the greatest empire of the world. They are Romans. They are better than all the Macedonians who live near around them. They were Roman citizens. They were better than everyone else. The glory of Rome was their glory. And Paul says, no, the humility of Christ is your humility. Something completely different. The reason almost all of us think humility is something good today is because of passages exactly this passage in the Bible and others like it. We don't even realize how much the Bible has influenced all of us, even secular people. And so, but the point I'm trying to make is this would have been pretty stunning to the first people who heard it. They did not think humility was good. Humility is like poverty. I mean, some people have to be humble. Some people have to be poor. But nobody should want to be. And Paul says, no, you should want to be because that's the way our Lord was. And then,

13:51verses three and four really cut to my heart about, you know, considering others better than ourselves and, you know, having no selfish ambition. I've had selfish ambition in my life. And it dies hard. I almost always had an ambition to be an author and, you know, in a famous author. And mostly I wanted to be famous because it would mean that I had sold lots of books. It would sort of prove my level of competence and success if I was a famous author. And I had that ambition for a long time. And I still struggle because I still do want to sell many, many, many books. And not just for the financial return. I want, I want to communicate stuff to people. I want people to hear it. And I, you know, I want people to recognize how great I am as a writer. And I struggle with this. The other thing I struggle with is, you know, I have such a high

14:55opinion of myself. I have a hard time thinking of others better than me. Some of, some of you, you do humility so well without struggling with it. I'm not that good at it yet. I'm still, still working on it. I find it challenging. I, I, you know, Paul says, put your, put the interests of others above your own interests. And I, I have a hard time with that too. Sometimes I feel like my own interests are not being significantly considered by anybody else. So how can I put somebody else's interests at the same level as mine when mine aren't even getting met? Well, Paul really hits us with what he says next. Verse five, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who though he was in the form of God did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. And he, being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming

15:56obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every other name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should 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. And again, this, that part is a very, very profound passage. It's a foundation for several important parts of Christian theology. But again, today, what I want us to do is put it in context. In context, Paul was trying to urge the Philippians to be humble. And so if I think about it this way, my Lord, my Savior, my hero, if you want to put it that way, was profoundly humble. He was God in the flesh prior to his incarnation. He existed in a form that clearly showed his power and majesty. That's what Paul is saying when he says,

17:01he was in the form of God. He doesn't mean he looked like God, but wasn't really God. What he means is he was in a form that revealed all of his power and majesty. Jesus on earth called himself the Son of Man. If you look back in the Old Testament, the Son of Man appeared in visions to several of the prophets. And he always was shining in this unbearable glory. You could hardly look at him. He was so bright with glory. And so Jesus could have come to earth wearing that glory, so to speak. But instead, he took on a form that no one paid any attention to the form of a human with no additional glory peeping through. And so though Jesus created all things, the rich, the powerful, the ambitious people had no time for him. Jesus had every right in the universe, but he gave up every right, even the right to is to live. He submitted himself to the

18:05most horrific and humiliating form of death, death by crucifixion. Crucifixion is meant to kill and to kill agonizingly. And we've talked about that before about how just how horrific it is, the kind of pain and the, you know, it's, it's being tortured to death. But it wasn't just the agony and the death. It was also intended to humiliate the person being crucified at the same time. You know, in all of our pictures on the cross and in, you know, like the Passion of Christ and movies and stuff like this, whoever is doing this, they modestly cover the private parts of Jesus. But that is almost certainly not how it happened on the cross. He was almost certainly entirely naked. And that is part of the humiliation for all the world to see everything right there, hanging up there right in front of you. And when he died, if not before he died, it's very likely

19:06that his bowels and his bladder emptied. And this is, this is awful to think about. But sometimes it kind of romanticized across and we have to understand this. Not only was it a horrible, difficult death. It wasn't a noble death. It was a humiliating death. The death, death reserved for the, the people that we should most have contempt for. The people who lived in the Roman Empire at that time certainly could not imagine a more agonizing or humiliating way to die. And this is what the most glorious being in existence submitted himself to out of love for you and for me. So let's, let's think about this picture of humility. And I think this is really important. There's, there's a side of this in the passage that we need to grasp. And that is this that humility does not mean thinking badly of yourself or thinking that you're not worth very much

20:08or that you're a poor excuse for a person. Think about this. If Jesus had thought that of himself, he would have been a sin. It would have been a lie. It would have been completely wrong. And Jesus had no sin and he had no falsehood within him. So his humility was not about the way he looked at himself. It was not about his own self regard. It was about what he did. It was about how he behaved towards others and how he obeyed the Lord. C.S. Lewis says this in mere Christianity. Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man, he will be what most people call humble nowadays. He will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person who's always telling you that, of course, he's nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him, it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility.

21:13He will not be thinking about himself at all. And so a humble person in Paul says this is as interested in others as she is herself. She will think what others have to say is more important than what she might say to her the lives of others have as much right to be seen and respected as her own life. And so one key aspect of what Paul is describing here in humility is that Jesus was secure in who he was. He was equal with God the Father. He was in nature God. He had a form in which all of his glory was visible. But it wasn't that he thought that was wrong. It wasn't thought that he, you know, wasn't that he thought he didn't deserve that. He said it aside for the purpose of loving others, for the purpose of bringing salvation to others. And even when he was on earth, he did make it clear who he was, especially if you understand the

22:14the first century Jewish context, the things he said about forgiving sins, about being, you know, everyone being judged based on how they responded to him about his importance over the temple. He clearly made it, he made it clear that he was God. But the only reason he was doing those things was not to jack himself up, not to make himself look better. In fact, it often made him look foolish. But his point was he wanted people to be saved. He wanted to give people an opportunity. And so even in those times when he was revealing himself, it was not to show others that he was better than them, although he was, it was to lead others to salvation. Jesus's own strong sense of self was the stable platform that allowed him to serve others, even if they never recognized him as God, or even as great. And then the other thing is that Jesus, so Jesus, he didn't, he didn't think badly of himself as my point. And so humility is not

23:20just being down on yourself. And some people, some people confuse those too. And if you're down on yourself, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're humble. Just means you're down on yourself. But humility is thinking of others and entrusting yourself to God. And that's the thing with Jesus, Jesus trusted God to honor him at the right time and the right way. And even now, Jesus is not fully honored for who he is and what he did for the human race, not across the whole world, right? But Paul explains, eventually, every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And I want to take just a moment on this because we could get the wrong impression here, if every knee is going to bow on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that he's Lord, does that mean that everyone's going to be saved? I don't think that's what it is. I think some people certainly will confess that Jesus is Lord and be filled with joy about it. I mean, I've already confessed that Jesus is Lord. But when I see everybody around the world doing it, I will be filled

24:25with joy. This is so amazing. This is so wonderful that all the people who have ever lived now recognize who he is. But I think there will be some people who will confess the truth about Jesus reluctantly, angrily, horrified that they have to admit it, that they have to admit that it's true. And they will admit that Jesus is Lord, that it is true, but that will only make them more angry and bitter and hateful and rebellious. And so again, my point is Paul is not teaching that everyone here who ever lives will gladly welcome Jesus and be saved. Everyone whether they want to or not will be forced to confess who Jesus is, the Lord of all creation, the Savior of those who trust in Him. And those who are being saved will confess it with joy, but those who are not being saved will confess it with savage anger and hatred. And when they confess it will also be an admission that they're wrong in their attitude towards Jesus and they don't want to admit that.

25:25So I just need to make sure that that's clear here. The idea of confessing everyone confessing his Lord is not universal salvation. It's universal like knowledgement that Jesus is who he said he was. So Jesus was able to be humble because he knew who he was, because he entrusted his honor and success to the Father. And so he was relaxed. He didn't have to insist everyone treated him as he deserved to be treated. And Paul says, this is how you guys need to be with each other. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. But this can be daunting, Jesus was secure in who he was. He trusted the Father perfectly with all things. So he could be humble. But what if I'm not quite so secure in myself? What if I do feel the need to look out for my own interest because no one else will? Here's the thing. In Jesus, we have that same security and stability that he himself has. He offers us that when we're in him, the Lord sees who we truly are.

26:32And he loves us. The Lord of all creation, the one and only God who made all things, who caused you to exist and everything else. He sees value in you. In fact, he humbled himself and gave up his life for you. Now, if that's not security, I don't know what is. God himself thinks you are valuable. God himself thinks you are worth dying for. And so maybe we look at ourselves and we don't see any way to be secure. But we can look at Jesus and see the way he looks back at us with love with value and be secure in who we are because God himself loves us. And if that's true, it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks of us. And so it can help us to be secure in ourselves, but it also then helps us to be humble. We don't have to worry what anyone else thinks. We know what God thinks. He thinks I'm worth dying for.

27:36He thinks you're worth dying for. So the next part is like Jesus and through Jesus, we can learn to entrust our own interests to God. Right? For the most part, Jesus did not receive the respect that he deserved during his life on earth. He did not. He was not universally recognized. And yet how are people going to be saved if he's not universally recognized? He entrusted all that to the Father. I mean, he did what he was supposed to do. He trained the disciples. But even then, they weren't in great shape when he left. And yet he entrusted all things to his Father to make everything work out. And so, you know, we too maybe have things. We think we don't get the respect we deserve. Maybe we don't get to have everything that we want to have in this life.

28:37But our lives are bound up with Jesus. And we will be part of the whole thing that happens when the Father makes the name of Jesus known. When every need bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord, we're going to be a part of that. And because we have received him gladly as Lord, we were caught up in that. His honor comes down to us as well. So he will look after our own interests. But part of that, I think, is living in the light of eternity. Jesus didn't have everything in this life. He will, he has everything again now and will have everything when the earth is made new. But he could entrust, he didn't have to have it all right here and now. And so the same as us, we can look out for the interests of each other because we don't have to have everything that we want here and now. We don't have to have it all

29:37in this life. Here's a little thought to about humility and getting what you deserve or getting the respect you want or all that sort of thing. And that is this that we live. And Paul is going to point this out later. Everything we do is not for ourselves. It's not for the recognition of others. It's for the Father. Several years ago, before we transitioned to house church in our congregation here in Tennessee, I preached like many other preachers. I preached every Sunday morning and live in person. And one week, I was really excited about what the Lord had been showing me in the text. And I was eager to give the sermon. I was excited about it. I was like, I can't wait to share this with people. So many people need to hear this. This is going to be great. Well, it was a holiday weekend. I had forgotten about that. It was a holiday weekend. So there were some people missing because of that. And then the weather was awful. And so I found myself

30:41standing up to preach in front of my family and about five other people. And I was disappointed that so few people were going to hear this cool stuff that the Lord had been showing me from the text. And I sort of prayed as I was standing there, sort of really Lord, you want me to preach this for five people, this amazing stuff, five people plus my family. And I kind of felt, you know, I don't hear audible voices, but it was sort of a voice within me saying, what if you're only preaching for one person? And I was like, what do you mean, Lord? What do you talk about? It says, what this from the Lord? What if I was the only one you were preaching for? Would that be enough? What if I was only preaching for the Lord? And no other human beings got to hear it. What if I was just doing the best job that I could do? And it was all for the Lord. And he would take care of whether other people needed to hear that or not. And it didn't matter

31:43whether other people, how would I feel if that's all it was? And it occurred to me this that if I was called to preach every week to just one person and that one person was the president of the United States. I would think that's an honor. Wow. That's an honor. I mean, I didn't know it's only congregation of one, but you know, that would be an honor. And you know, get rid of the personalities of presidents, okay? This is just think about the fact that you would be speaking to the most powerful person, you know, more or less in the world. And then the Lord was like, shouldn't I feel even more honored to be speaking in fact to the Lord and master of the universe? That that's I'm preaching at the pleasure of God, of the Lord and master of the universe. And so my sermons are for him. And that's a great honor for me. And I can relax about who all is listening to this. Maybe none of you are listening to this. I don't know. I don't get to see

32:46what's going on on the other side of the internet. But I can relax about that because I can stop thinking about myself. Now, I wish I could tell you I always feel that way. It truthfully is a struggle. But I find that the more that I put my security and my sense of self grounded in the Lord, the less I'm worried about myself and the more appropriately humble I can be. And I'm not claiming to have this down all the time. Those of you who, you know, are part of our church is in Tennessee. You know, I got my issues. But I am learning that I think one of the keys is to be secure in the love that the Lord has for me and in the value that he puts on me, regardless of what I'm doing or not doing or who knows what I'm doing or not doing. Then I don't have to defend myself. I don't have to promote myself. And I have to admit, I find this most difficult as an author because I'm not a particularly famous person. And so most people in the

33:52world have not heard of me. And they won't go by my books because they don't even know my books exist. And they don't read books anyway, right? And I think this is true of a lot of endeavors, you know, whether it's music or graphic art or filmmaking or performing arts. I don't know what to do about it because there does seem to be a thing of part of promoting these. So other people can enjoy them is telling the world about yourself and saying, hey, there's a reason you should come, you know, look at what I'm doing. But I don't have a great answer other than just I consciously invite the Lord in the process of marketing my artistic endeavors. Here's a more positive example, more, I think an example that I can really get behind. And that is my own earthly dad. Over the years, many people that I have known got to meet my dad. And after about the first 10 times that strangers met him and then talked to me about it, I started to get

34:52used to the fact that people were almost always positively impressed by my dad. I can't count the number of times that somebody, you know, somebody that I know when they met my dad for the first time afterwards were like, hey, your dad's a pretty amazing guy, isn't he? And he was. He led a very full and adventurous life. He had so many varied and interesting experiences. He was intelligent. He was well read and he was thoughtful. But I think what really made such an impression on people is that he was truly humble. And he was genuinely interested in what everybody thought. He was interested in what other people thought and interested in who they were and what they were up to. And he set aside his own agenda and his own interests to listen to others and ask some questions about themselves. And he was truly humble in that way. He wasn't thinking about himself. He was thinking about others. So to be humble, we need to trust God with our own needs. We need to let

35:55him take care of our rights, our privileges, our honor, and then we're free to focus on others. And Paul shows us this happens because Jesus himself did that. He did not insist on his own rightful honor. Instead, he humbled himself. Again, humbling himself, not saying I'm bad, I'm not worth anything, but saying I will put the needs of others in front of my own. And he submitted himself even to a humiliating death. And therefore, the scripture says, God, the Father will exalt him and everyone Earth will recognize his greatness and glory. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, will you teach us what you're saying about humility? Will you help us to receive that, teach us to receive the way that you measure our value, to know that we are worth your death? Help us then to be secure enough to put the interests of others, at least on

37:02the same level of our own, to we're even ahead of ourselves, to be humble enough to serve others the way that you serve us. Speak to us now, Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name. Amen.