Philippians 2:1-11

Have a mind to suffer for Christ, by speaking the Gospel and serving each other in humility
Intro:
People throughout the history of the world have tried to answer the question of what is the goal of life? To the ancient philosophers like the stoics, the most you could hope for in this life was to bear up under all the external hardships and difficulties that happen to you with a sense of self control, with a sense of decency and integrity, their philosophy was you can’t control these events but you can control your response to them. This was thought to be a virtue, which is called stoicism.

Whereas today it seems our pop culture approach, our philosophy of the goal of life, is about finding self fulfillment. We don’t try to just accept the things that happen to us, we try and dictate terms to the events so that we will get what we want. We have a philosophy of trying to make things happen, to be proactive and not victims, or at a bare minimum we have a mantra to turn the quirky things that happen to our best advantage, these things only exist to make us stronger.

And oddly enough Paul in his letter to the Philippians is saying that both these ideas have hit upon something of a truth. Firstly, you can’t always control events that happen in your life, but you can control the way you respond to them. And secondly, life is about being fulfilled. But as is usual with Paul, he will radically and fundamentally modify these ideas, as he brings the Gospel of Christ to bear on their view of reality. As usual Paul offers a radical critique of the world, but he writes it from a very personal perspective.

Paul wrote this famous letter to the Philippians from a Roman jail cell which we learn from chapter 1:7. And he writes it to the struggling believer’s to encourage them to stand up for Christ and his gospel, by facing the two pressures that they are experiencing. The first pressure they are facing is an external pressure from Pagan opposition in the Roman Empire to not speak of Christ. And this is a very real and serious pressure for them. Paul is in prison for no other reason than preaching Christ. But Paul wants them to draw courage from his example and to speak out for Christ.

And secondly the believers in Philippi, are facing internal pressures of pride and self-centredness. And Paul is calling them to serve each other in humility and unity.

Paul wants the believers to live a life that is worthy of the Gospel of Christ and in their situations it will mean two things for them; Firstly, to speak! to speak the gospel and; Secondly, to serve; to serve each other in humility.
1. Be Like minded in unity and humility, because of Christ
NIV Philippians 2:1
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,
2 then make** my joy complete
by being like-minded,
having the same love,
being one in spirit and purpose.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition
or vain conceit,
but in humility
consider others
better than yourselves.
4 Each of you should look not [only] to your own interests,
but [also] to the interests of others.


Paul’s main point in this section is that all the believers should be like-minded in humility towards each other because they are in Christ.

Paul starts verse one with four questions that flow on from the context of verse 27, where he asks them, and compels them, to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. These four questions are really rhetorical questions because by asking, ‘if you having any encouragement from your union with Christ’, what he really means is, ‘since you have already these things’. And by reminding the believers of the good they have received he is going to go on and give them a command as to how they are to live, now that they have received these good things.

For Christian believers being united ‘with Christ’ (which is another way of saying in Paul’s theology to be ‘in Christ’) is to have all these great riches of Christ towards us. It is to have the comfort of his love, is to have the fellowship of the spirit, the holy spirit, and it is to have tenderness and compassion from God.
We have this great reconciliation between us and God in Christ, and we know from the power and fellowship of the spirit that our debts toward God have now been paid.

The security of our relationship ‘in Christ’, (where all that he has becomes ours) is the grounds on which Paul can compel us to live a life of obedience in response. We have received comfort from God’s love ‘in Christ’. We have seen the tenderness and compassion of God towards us, and we experience it in this deep relational fellowship with the holy spirit, in whom we commune with all of God himself, father son and holy spirit. And because of this we can now obey.

So in verse two Paul gives his commands that they are to make Paul’s joy complete, literally they are to make his cup overfilled with joy, and they are to do it through having the same love and spirit and purpose, and to be one in heart, soul and mind. It’s about having a total conviction as Paul did for others because of Christ.

This whole section of chapter 2 is about having a mind, and attitude that seeks after the things of God. The mind in the sense that Paul seems to be using it is this place where the intellect and will meet, where what we know to be true and our desire to carry it out connect, and shape our life and behaviour. Throughout this passage Paul is calling for us to have a mind that seeks after the things of God, to have a mind like Christ.

And it seems in this section that the Philippians are facing their internal pressures which are tempting them to not follow Christ, they are tempted we learn through V3 to do things from selfish ambition, or vain conceit, and considering themselves better than others. They are attempting in three different ways, to look after number one.

But Paul calls them twice to serve, to serve themselves but not others. In verse four he says, ‘in humility’ literally, ‘the lowliness of mind’, they are to consider themselves better than others. Again literally, ‘each of you should not look to your own interests but into the interests of others.’
The whole church is to make Paul’s joy complete by being like-minded in the same love, spirit and purpose (this total heart, whole mind conviction) in looking to the interests of the other and not themselves. Paul calls them to serve in humility for the sake of unity, to be prepared to suffer because of the love and fellowship compassion and tenderness of Christ we experience in the spirit.

Now usually in sermons they recommend you given illustration so that people understand your main point. And typically preaches go for some sort of sporting analogy at this point, (or if they are American something about being a marine!). Well in this chapter we have been spared these two travesties because Paul himself gives us the illustration, and that illustration is Christ himself and his life of obedience and suffering, but we will get to that in a moment when we deal with versus 5-11.


Now in this section of V5-8, Paul’s command in particular reminds us that the Christian life is not an individualist pursuit, we are to serve Christ by serving his purposes and in particular his people. Together we are to be united in our purpose of serving Christ and this will mean looking to the interests of others before yourself. It’s like what they used to teach at Sunday school you may remember, that Joy is about Jesus, others, yourself.

Unity happens amongst the Church congregation when you see humility and service going together. If there is a lack of unity, in may be a real symptom of a lack of humility, or a lack of service. Service of each other requires a genuine commitment to each other. Church life, which is the Christian life, compels us to make choices to genuinely enter the fray, and to invest in each others lives, to support each other and to serve each other for each other’s good.




2. Have the humble and obedient attitude of Christ.
5 Your attitude should be**
the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not
consider equality with God
something to be grasped,
7 but
made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant [slave],
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Paul’s command to the Philippian believers here is that they should have the same attitude of Christ, the humble and obedient attitude of Christ.

And here in verse five when Paul uses ‘attitude’ it is the same word he used previously in verse 2 and 3 to mean ‘the mind’. You are to have in yourself the same mind as Christ. And in this context the mind seems to be the place where the intellect and will connect. The place where we view the world and it enables us to resolve to do what we know to be right.

These verses form such a famous passage, where Paul manages to weave two great strands together for one clear purpose. Paul’s purpose is to move the Philippian believers to have the same attitude as Christ, and he does this by retelling them the story of Christ’s obedient incarnation, his obedient life and his obedient and humiliating death. This story that tells of Christ’s descent of obedience, these actions that display Christ attitude, which Paul uses to profoundly and powerfully convey the reason that they can, and should, have the mind of Christ.

Christ’s very work has formed the grounds by which they can have an attitude like Christ’s, and in the same breath, Christ’s example is the example they are to follow. They are to follow Christ in obedience through humility to be a slave, Obedience through humility to even death, Obedience through humility to even an unjust and shameful death.

And this isn’t some sort of empty rhetoric for Paul and the Philippian believers, as you remember Paul is in jail, and his obedience to Christ will eventually cost him his life.

Paul commands them to have the humble and obedient attitude of Christ. That is the clear first strand of what Paul is doing in this passage, but the second strand of what Paul is doing is to explain the profound and unique nature of Jesus Christ. This passage is one of the high points of what theologians call Christology, the study of understanding who Jesus Christ is and what he has done.

In this passage Paul speaks of the remarkable story of Christ’s descent of obedience, Christ is in his very nature God, and yet he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but instead humbled himself to be found in the appearance of a man. And if you think about that for a moment, the God of all creation, has entered into that creation, he has become part of that creation, he has become man. God in the incarnation of Jesus, humbled himself to be a man, a babe in dirty nappies, and awkward and gangly teenager, a know it all 20-year-old ( which in this case was actually an accurate description of himself!).

But he did not become only a man, even more than that, he was a man who took on the nature of a servant, literally a slave. He did not live to serve himself, but he lived to serve others. In fact he humbled himself not only to being a slave, but to death. God condescended to become part of his creation and experience death himself. God is not foreign or aloof to the suffering of this world, God in the person of Jesus Christ knows what it is like personally and intimately to face death.

Jesus Christ was the one man who did not deserve to die, and yet he humbled himself to suffer death, a cruel and humiliating death, of death upon a cross.


I’m not sure we have an appropriate equivalent of crucifixion around the world today, the only image I could conjure up was one that sticks in my mind from the first Gulf War where the Americans had bombed an Iraqi supply line along the road in the middle of nowhere. And because there was no one there to bury these people when the television crew came through some months later, there was these bodies (all really only skeletons with varying degrees of charred flesh on them), half buried under wind blown sand. And it became such a picture of the futility of war, and it had the appearance of such an un-glorious and un-dignified end. You could feel yourself recoil from this image, wanting to turn your head and have nothing to do with it, to pretend that it didn’t exist and you didn’t see it happen. To feel shame that you knew it did exist and it did happen and you would rather pretend that it didn’t. This is what the cross was like for the people in the first century.


And if that wasn’t enough the Bible tells us that anyone who was hung on a tree was cursed by God. Christ’s descent of Obedience took him from the throne room of heaven to the depths of hell, it seems there is no experience for man which Christ has not already personally experienced. Christ’s descent of obedience means he went from the heavens, to being part of the creation as man, and not just any man but as a slave, and not just as a slave but to death, and not just death but death upon across.

Mankind owes a debt to God for their disobedience towards God. Mankind needed to pay the debt, and mankind did in the man Jesus Christ. Sin came through the first Adam but reconciliation came through the second Adam Jesus Christ. Jesus the man, lived a perfect obedient life before God. But if Jesus was only a man, and not God, he could only be an example of the perfect life for us to follow.


But Paul explains what is going on in the cross is far deeper and greater than that. Jesus is God. God in mankind, in the person Jesus, God is paying the debt that mankind owed to God. God is reconciling man to God in himself. Christ’s death is not just an example to follow but primarily and crucially, it is atoning for our sin. His death is essential to paving the way to allow us to be obedient and not just presumptuous before God. Like Romans 5:8 says God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us. God is the only person who could pay a debt that mankind owes to God, and he did it justly in the God man Jesus Christ.

But then all Christians are called to follow their master, and follow his example, not grasping at their rights, but emptying themselves for the sake of Christ and his gospel and the sake of others.

And what was the outcome of Christ’s descent of obedience? well we see in verses 9-11 that God the father exalted Jesus to the highest place. Christ’s suffering ended in glory. This alone should be a reason for us rejoicing.
But Paul goes on to strengthen the Philippians believers, by implying that in the same way as Christ suffered here on earth and was exulted, their suffering here on Earth for Christ will also result in them sharing in their Lords exaltation and glorification later.

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
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
So God the father exults Jesus Christ to give him an authority and a place above all other things.

Now when he says exalted its not as though Jesus when he came to earth he was something less than God. Of course Christ was God in the beginning before any creation was brought into being, He was God in his incarnation, and clearly is God in his exaltation.
Christ’s exaltation is not a change in his status or nature, but it is God’s action to reveal the truth of who he is to all people. And that reality is brought out in the two aspects of application that Paul puts forward in versus 10 and 11. God exults Jesus so that firstly at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and secondly that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now these actions of bowing the knee and confessing with the tongue, isn’t some sought of happy reunion either, it is a day of reckoning, so the final day of judgment as we know it, where God calls all things in creation to realise the reality that Christ is Lord over all. He has the name that is above all names, he is the Lord. Jesus is the lord of all creation.

And you’ll note that Christ’s descent of obedience we read about in verses 5-8 from heaven and earth, to death, to the cross is exactly the same path as his exaltation takes, he is exalted in heaven, then upon the earth, and then under the earth.
Christ’s life of humility wasn’t below or demeaning to the son of God, it was entirely fitting for the son of God, that he may be exalted and revealed in all the glory that is rightful to him as Lord of all.

Even in this we see the humility of Christ. All he has done, even his exaltation, ultimately brings glory to the father. Christ is at his very heart, the servant king.

You see in an analogous way as Christ suffered in this world and was glorified at the end, we share in Christ’s suffering now in order that we may share in his glory later, and this is entirely appropriate because he is the lord.

And the application Paul brings from this passage, is that at the end of time people will confess with their tongue that Jesus is Lord, and also bend the knee to him as their Lord. And this ties back into what he’s been asking the Philippians to do throughout the Letter. Paul urges them to plan now to do both those things.

Firstly, they are to speak! They have to confess with their mouths now that Jesus Christ is Lord. And they are to do that in the face of opposition, even if that results in suffering. And secondly, they are to serve! Which is their way of bending the knee to Jesus, they are to serve the Lord by serving each other for the sake of the gospel even if that means suffering now.

Paul is instructing the Philippian believers to have the humble and obedient attitude of Christ. They are to suffer now for the sake of Christ, by speaking of Christ in the face of opposition, and by serving each other, even if it’s difficult. If they are prepared to share in Christ’s suffering now, they will also share in Christ exultation and glory later.

Gods people the church, are people who speak the truth of Christ no matter the opposition, and serve each other with all humility, they are to have the attitude of Christ in themselves because this will bring unity and ultimately glory.