Become Less, Free Others

Transcript

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[0:00] Our sermon text today comes from Philippians chapter 2 verses 1 through 11 and I'll be reading from the NLT today. Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. Don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

[0:46] Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on the cross.

[1:22] Therefore, God elevated him to the place of high authority. He was given the highest honor and gave him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Let's pray.

[1:45] Our God, we thank you for your word. We ask your blessing upon it now. Would you speak to our minds and our hearts. And have mercy on us. Help us to do your will. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So there was an argument in the church at Philippi. It was between two women, Euodia and Syntyche. But it seems that it had become a problem beyond them. And it had maybe infected the whole church. And we know how that goes. It may have started with just two people, but gossip happens. And eventually, others will come along. And other people begin to take sides. And before you know it, the whole church has this infection of anger.

[2:34] Both women were deemed faithful servants by Paul. Both were good people who loved Christ. And they both had a common goal, which was to work for the kingdom of heaven. And so as Christians, no matter what time we exist in history, or what our personal story is, our one goal should be the same.

[2:56] As Paul declared in the last passage we looked at last week, to live is Christ. It is his Christ's mission that should be proclaimed throughout our lives, no matter what. But disunity had crept into the church at Philippi. And who knows how it started or what it was about. But we can guess the end result. There were factions. The people were putting their own interests and their own desires first. They were no longer seeing the needs of their brothers and sisters. And what's worse, it was impacting the way they lived into the gospel. And the way they preached the gospel. And the way the gospel was then received by others.

[3:50] So a lot of us here may have read, C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. And there's this part in the book where he talks about how children play pretend. They pretend to be grownups in various professions. And as they do so, they become in their minds, those people. So they pretend to be soldiers. And so they act how they think a soldier would act. They pretend to be shopkeepers. And they act how a shopkeeper would act. They pretend to be doctors or firefighters. And they act the way a doctor or a firefighter would act. And by acting as those people, they then learn to become like those people. And so when they're adults, they can take on those roles for real.

[4:46] And that is what we must do as Christians. We must act like we are Jesus. And by acting like Jesus, we will learn more about him and begin to make choices as Jesus would really want us to. And then we become more and more authentically like his character. So as Christians, we have a responsibility to adopt the character of Christ in all areas of our lives. First, as individuals, we are responsible for taking on Christ's character in our own private lives. So that is when nobody is watching us, we still must strive to be Christ-like. And then second, as individuals again, we must take on the character of Christ in every interaction that we have with other people.

[5:43] And finally, third, we must look beyond our individual identity in Christ, to our identity as a unified church in Christ. And there we must take on his character together as we reach out toward the world that Christ came to save.

[6:07] And this is what Paul was asking of the Philippians in this passage. He tells them to put aside their differences and become unified. So they must be unified. They must first acknowledge their unity and their shared goals in life. I find this interesting because most of this passage is about humility.

[6:32] And it's obviously an incredibly important point that Paul was trying to make, but before he even begins talking about humility, he tells them to be unified. Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate?

[6:59] Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and one purpose. So simply put, if you are in Christ, then you are in Christ together.

[7:19] You aren't always going to have the same opinion or the same background, but you are always going to be brothers and sisters in Christ, sharing in the death and the resurrection of Christ. And that, by the way, is for eternity, which is a really long time to have a disagreement.

[7:44] So the sooner we learn to work out the meaning of humility, the sooner we can work out our differences, the better. But most importantly, all of our differences really seem so trivial and unimportant when they're compared to the urgency of the work of God's kingdom. They might seem so big and important right now, but look at that compared to the work of God's kingdom, and everything is actually so unimportant compared to that.

[8:13] Now, conflict is human, though. And it is a big part of us. And progress is made when there is healthy conflict. But this conflict in Philippi was disruptive. Paul had seen it in other places, and the answer in those places was always unity, and the way to become unified was always through humility. So take the church at Corinth, for example. They had incredible conflict. Each person was thinking and acting for themselves and only themselves. They were causing others to stumble by making choices based only on what worked for them. They were hurting others by making a mockery and a show out of the Eucharist. They were fighting over who was greatest in the church and who had the most useful gifts of the Spirit.

[9:10] When we are in unity, we are not striving to win the war. We are striving to win souls for Jesus all on our own. It is not just our own work and our own talents that pave the way to the kingdom. And we are no greater or less than anybody else.

[9:29] We don't hurt others by our choices when we are in unity and humility. In fact, our choices must honor each other, and our gifts mean very little in the grand scheme of things, because it's not about our gifts and talents and who's greatest and who's least, but rather it's about the condition of our hearts and what God can do with the lives that are fully surrendered to him. And that's so different from what the church at Philippi, what the church at Corinth thought. They thought, if I'm the greatest and I'm winning the most souls, then I'm surely going to get the biggest reward. But what God thought is, no matter what you do, it is me who works through you. It is God's work, not our work. What it takes from us is surrender. And that is so different from what the world teaches us. But ultimately, that's humility. It's being fully surrendered to Christ and putting him first.

[10:41] Humility, or surrendering to Christ, though, means a few things. First, it means that we become less so that others can become more. Now, Paul put in here a very beautiful passage, and there's some debate over it. Whether it was a hymn that existed before Paul ever used it, and he simply put it in there to remind them of doctrine, like Christ's humanity and divinity, maybe reminding them that they had a responsibility to be unified in the cause of Christ and therefore should be humbled as a result.

[11:23] Or whether it was a piece of poetry that Paul himself wrote, and it was highlighting the example of humility that Christ was for all people. Now, I tend to think it's actually the second option, but whatever it was, the point is that Paul deliberately put it in there to remind them of the fact that Christ was for all people. And he literally inserted it into this exact place in his letter because it served to show the Philippians that there was an example in Christ. And this was Christ's example. So look at verses 6 through 8.

[12:00] Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave. And was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on the cross. Now, normally, I love the NLT translation. It's one of my favorite translations. But there are a few phrases that could have been better translated here. So first, verse 6 says, something to cling to. And other translations really aren't that much better. They say something like something to be grasped. But the word in Greek literally means something to gain advantage from. So Jesus had the greatest advantage that has ever been had in the history of the world. But he didn't take advantage of it. He refused to exploit the power of his real position. If he, being equal with God, refused to take advantage of his power, then we, being mere humans, must humble ourselves accordingly. In fact, verse 7 says, he took the position of a slave. Someone equal with God took the position of a human slave. So what should we as humans take the position of?

[13:38] We tend to think we're too good to be lowly. But God himself was not above those things. Now verse 7 also says he gave up his divine privileges. And other translations say he made himself nothing. But the Greek literally says that he poured himself out. He emptied himself until there was nothing. And he did that so that we could be made whole and so that we could be filled. He was emptied so we could be filled.

[14:16] He experienced a horrible criminal's death so that we could have eternal life. He served as a slave so that we could have critical understanding of what it means to be humble. He became less so we could become more. And that is our example. We must become less so that others can become more. This is how we serve people holistically.

[14:48] There seems to be an understanding of mission work or of charity work that says that we do things for people and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. But God's true mission is that we humble ourselves. That will allow us to not think of ourselves as greater than the ones that we serve but rather we'll find ourselves walking alongside others. Learning from them, growing alongside them, making ourselves less in ways that will help them to become empowered.

[15:23] And here's a little plug for Merge Ministries which we support, the work that Dale Lust does. This is exactly the type of work that they do. They help others to gain this healthier mindset toward mission in which we are humbled and we humbly walk alongside others and learn and grow with them.

[15:45] Now our whole lives are actually meant to be spent as missionaries. And so if we think of our whole lives as missionaries who must humbly walk alongside those that we serve and empower themselves so make ourselves less so that they can be empowered, that's a lot of work.

[16:07] Because we are taught from the time that we are born to take care of ourselves, to desire power and to want what is more or what is better. In fact, in a lot of ways this is instinctual. A toddler fights with their siblings over toys or they fight with their siblings over their fair share of their parents' affection and you don't see a two-year-old saying, it's okay to pay more attention to my brother because humility is counterintuitive to humanity.

[16:45] But it also needs to take precedence in our lives. If we are to be missionaries every moment of every day, we must put our wants and our needs last so that we can put others first. And here's a real-life application.

[17:05] Or here's time for a real-life application. And you can answer out loud. If you're joining us on YouTube, I actually, I turned off YouTube. If you're joining us on YouTube, go ahead and answer in the chat and I will read those out loud.

[17:23] But if you're here, you can answer out loud if you want to. I'll go first. Is there ever a time in your life or is there one place in your life, whether that's work or school or family or friends or activities, is there one place in your life that you can put yourself last in order to put somebody else first? And I'll answer first. I'm a very, very anxious person in social situations. I'm both an introvert and I'm incredibly shy. So social interaction, sometimes just makes me physically sick. But I do love my friends and I even love my extroverted friends. But they absolutely need to process their day by talking to somebody else. And my roommate happens to be one of those people that she really needs to get things off of her shoulders by talking them out. And I really need to de-stress my day by highlighting my day. I'm hiding myself away.

[18:31] So I can humble myself by being intentional for her sake. It's especially hard for me after a long day of interacting with people. But that's when it's especially hard for her, too. She needs to de-stress that.

[18:48] So I certainly don't have to harm myself by burning myself out. But what I can do is be a lot more intentional about being emotionally available. So that's one way to humble myself. I don't see any on the chat yet. Are there any from the congregation? A way that you can practice putting yourself last to put others first?

[19:24] As a parent, that's it. Putting yourself first. Was that Karen or Krista that said that? Oh, Krista. So Krista said, as a parent, putting your children first. Yes. I think at the end of the day, putting yourself first or mentioning about different things is usually your rope by the end of the day. So not taking a fact that you think of, not feeling that it's an attack on you, but that it's just an expression of what's happened, and not taking things personally, but allowing the other person to get things off her or his mind. Yeah. Michael says, as someone married, putting the other spouse first and not taking what they say is an attack under stressful situations, but just allowing them to vent what is on their mind.

[20:45] All right. Oh, Steve. I'd just like to report kind of a need of a whole group together as opposed to individual needs or thinking about what is a whole team, and how do we work together to make it work? Yeah, absolutely. Steve says that in places of work, being able to put the needs of the whole team together instead of one person's individual needs.

[21:12] Are there any others? Wendy. As a teacher, it's kind of putting myself in the shoes of the audience. So trying to think of, the kind of illustrations that make sense to them, even if in fact I have to like investigate places and issues that I wouldn't normally sit in or thinking through what questions they might be asking. Always, yeah. Wendy says, when teaching, putting yourself in the shoes of the audience, which means more work for you and investigating situations that you wouldn't normally be in so that you can help them understand.

[22:03] That's excellent. Well done. So I said that surrendering to Christ meant a few things. So first it meant making yourself less so others could be more. And it also means being obedient no matter what the cost. So Jesus was obedient.

[22:25] Even obedient to the point of death. And not just death, but like a torturous death. And that is our example. I said before that humbling oneself means putting aside your wants. But sometimes it also means, and sometimes also putting aside your needs.

[22:46] And the reason we can do this is because we can trust in God to provide our truest needs. But that still doesn't mean that obedience is easy. So did you know that I once told God that I would go absolutely anywhere that he sent me?

[23:06] And I meant it, but only sort of. I applied to churches anywhere he would send me in Minnesota. And I was sort of accidentally placed in a church. I was placed in contact with Hans Eric at one of our midwinter events. And I knew in my heart that when I said I would go absolutely anywhere, that actually meant anywhere with snow and without palm trees.

[23:39] So preferably within day trip distance from my family. And the first time I was here and I saw a palm tree, which didn't take long, I actually cried. Because it signaled to me that I was so, so far away from home. But after some time when I would see the palm trees, I started to laugh.

[24:02] Because God's really got a great sense of humor. I was putting limits on my obedience and I didn't even think about it. And I had done it without even knowing it. So God pointed it out to me. And when I realized it, I had to humble myself all over again. Are you willing to put, are you putting limits on your obedience?

[24:28] And if you are, what will it take to reach a point of obedient humility? Now there's one more thing to keep in mind regarding surrendering to Christ and humility. And that is that humility will be rewarded.

[24:47] It was not my plan for the kids to take it. I didn't want them to take one package of treats. It was my plan for them to give one package in humility and then be rewarded with two. But that didn't, that very much backfired. I should have actually seen that coming.

[25:07] They are coveted candies. They are. But you will be rewarded in your humility. And this is not the prosperity gospel. I'm not here to tell you that you're going to become millionaires the day after you properly humble yourself.

[25:24] In fact, since humility is life long learning process, that means it will take every day of your life to humble yourself. And you'll have to do it over and over. And you'll learn new things about humility every day.

[25:42] Since it is a life long process, it stands to reason that you will be humble. And you won't see a full reward until you're in heaven. There might be little rewards along the way. Like I think humility is a reward in and of itself. But your actual reward will be in heaven. Matthew 23, 11 says, The greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. James 4, 10 says, Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

[26:19] Luke 14, 11 through 14 says it clearest that our reward will be in heaven. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. He also said to the one who had invited him, When you give lunch or a dinner, don't invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

[27:03] Our rewards are in heaven, and those are priceless. It is hard to be humble every day, but it's worth it. It's worth it here today, and it's worth it here too. And that brings us back to the church at Philippi. Our lives in all things are meant to be lived for Christ.

[27:23] Our goals must then be unified to serve Christ and advance the gospel at all times and in all things. The reward of humility is that we can productively work toward that goal. Our relationships in and out of the church will be far healthier, and our souls will feel far lighter, and our lights for Christ will shine that much brighter. So this is not the prosperity gospel, because those are rewards that we can't put a price on, but they are the kind of rewards worth working toward.

[28:02] So where is your heart today? Are there places in your life where you need to put others first? Are there places in your life where you need to humble yourself to reach unity? Are there places in your life where you are running from humble obedience?

[28:22] Put on that childlike innocence of playing pretend, as C.S. Lewis described. Put on the outfit of Christ. Clothe yourself in his attitude and example of humility and obedience in all things. Let's pray. Our God, we thank you that you became the example of humility that we could never ever live up to.

[28:55] God, thank you that you died for our sins. God, thank you for walking alongside us as we learn this difficult process of life. God, thank you for the grace of being humble and help us to stay this path. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.