Being Like Jesus

Reading

Philippians 2:1-16a

Introduction

It will be helpful if you keep your Bible open at Philippians 2 so you can refer to it as we go on.

Paul wrote his letter to the church at Philippi when he was in Rome under house arrest.  We read about this in Acts 28, where we are told he was in his own rented home guarded by Roman soldiers—probably chained to one of them!

While he awaited trial, he was allowed to preach freely and to receive visitors. 

One of his visitors was a man called Epaphroditus, who came to Paul with aid from the Philippian church, and he writes his letter to express his gratitude to them for their practical support and to encourage them.

Whilst Paul seems to have been under no particular duress at this time, his future, from a human point of view was uncertain; he could be tried and released, or tried and executed.  For Paul, however, the future was positive whatever the outcome; 'For me to live is Christ and to die is gain,' he writes. 

His letter is full of joy, contentment and thankfulness.  He seems to have been fairly confident of being released—and we know he was after two years—but at the time of writing, he recognises that the judgement could go either way. 

He doesn't want the Philippians to be discouraged if he ends up dead.  'Whatever happens,' he writes in chapter one, 'conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.'  He wanted them to understand that their continuation in the faith didn't depend on him, but on Christ.

In the passage we've read, there's some practical teaching about what constitutes worthy conduct but before we consider that I want to look at verses 6-11.

The Humility of Christ

It's believed that this section was a hymn used in the early church.  We don't know that it definitely was or who wrote it—perhaps it was a poem penned by Paul himself—but Paul gives it authority by including it in his letter.

It's an important passage of scripture because it underpins our belief in the divinity of Christ and in the Trinity.

Verse 6 shows us that before Christ came to earth as a man he existed with the full status of God; he was God the Son alongside God the Father. 

As God, he had every right to remain where he was.  But he didn't.  He had a mission to accomplish and he put his mission before his status.  The only way we could be rescued from judgement and certain destruction, the only way we could be reconciled with God was for him to come down and do something about it.  And so he did. 

That's our Jesus!

Verse 7 tells us that, by his own choice, he set aside his status and became one of us.  He remained fully God but he became fully human, and chose to be a servant. 

The greek word translated 'servant' is doulos, a bond-servant or slave; someone who had no rights. 

Christ's attitude was very different from people of our time, who demand that their rights are respected.  Christ laid down his rights and served the Father faithfully all his human life.

And he did that for us. 

That's our Jesus!

Verse 8 shows us Jesus stepping down even lower.  Even as a man, we might say he had a certain status or reputation as a teacher and preacher, but his mission involved taking on all of our sins, and suffering the penalty that should have been ours. 

In the Garden of Gethsemane prior to his arrest, with the horror of what lay before him, we see him asking the Father if there was another way to save us.  But there was no other way and he submitted obediently to the Father's plan. 

He humbled himself even further, dying the death of a common criminal on a Roman cross, worthless as far as the Romans were concerned—someone to get rid of; cursed by God as far as the Jewish authorities were concerned. 

But it was our curse he bore, it was our penalty he paid.  He did that for us. 

That's our Jesus!

Verse 9 shows us that the Father was fully pleased with Jesus, which implies that his sacrifice for us is fully effective, and that through faith in Christ we can be fully saved.

In response to Christ's humility and obedience, the Father raised Jesus to the highest place and gave him the name above every name. 

This speaks of his absolute authority.  As Jesus himself says in Matthew 28:18, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.' 

And Paul writes in Ephesians 1, '[God] raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.  And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.'

Jesus lives, and he lives for us! 

That's our Jesus!

Verses 10 and 11 declare that Jesus is Lord and is worthy of our worship.  We, of course, proclaim and submit to his rule willingly but the time will come when Christ returns in power, and no-one will be able to deny his right and authority. 

For those who have not bowed the knee to Jesus before then it will be too late!  Not everyone gets to heaven – only those who surrender their lives to his Majesty. 

Those who bow the knee now are assured of God's love and his full and free salvation.  We can live our lives, here on earth, in personal relationship with our Maker!  All because of what our Jesus did for us!

He:

• disregarded his personal status
• committed himself to the life of a servant
• demonstrated true humility
• put obedience before cost, and now he
• is conferred with all authority, and
• is worthy of our praise.

That's our Jesus!

Worthy Conduct

I now want to link back to Paul's point about conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. 

In verse five, Paul introduced this passage we've just considered with the words, 'In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.' 

It's the attitudes in our minds that determine how we live our lives.  This verse tells us that God wants us to change our thinking.  We could translate that as, 'In your relationships with one another,' don't be yourselves, … be … like … Jesus! 

The passage shows us what Jesus is like, and the point of it was to demonstrate how we should be with one another.

Let me be clear on this: to 'have the same mindset as Christ Jesus' does not mean to 'imitate Jesus', it means to become like him.  Imitation is never the real thing. 

We walk our dog around the area we live in, and the Hadrian Cycle path runs through it.  On numerous occasions, we've heard the ting! ting! of a bicycle bell behind us and have turned around to see … well, nothing!  Eventually, we realised that some of the birds around us are fantastic mimics! 

But imitating a bicycle bell doesn't make them a bicycle bell—they remain birds; there is no change of nature.  Merely imitating Jesus doesn't make us Christians—that requires a change of nature. 

At the beginning of chapter two, Paul talks about the Philippians being 'united with Christ', and having 'a common sharing in the Spirit'. 

Through the good news of the gospel of Christ, God calls us into relationship with himself.  Worthy conduct is rooted in right relationship with God. 

Worthy conduct is expressing on the outside what God has already done on the inside.  This is what it means when Paul writes, 'continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.'  (Verses 12 and 13.)

God is working it in, we work it out.

Paul puts it in a different way in Romans 12:2.  He writes, 'Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.'

God is renewing our thinking, we need to allow this new mindset to transform us.

Now our transformation into Christ-likeness is an on-going process.  That's why the Philippians needed instruction from Paul, and why we need it today.  Our destiny is to be like Christ but God doesn't impose it on us.  We need to cooperate with him.

It's taken God 47 years to get me to be what I am today, and he hasn't finished with me yet!  There are things about the old me that I don't like very much at all.  I don't want to be the old me.  I wish I'd been more open to the changes he wanted to make.  I wish I'd learnt sooner about how to conduct myself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

What can we do to be more cooperative?  Paul's description of Jesus gives us some insight on how to do that.

Worthy conduct is expressed in unity: Paul writes about 'being like-minded, having the same love, being one in Spirit and of the same mind.' 

There were two women in Philippi who were struggling with this.  We read about Euodia and Syntyche in chapter four.  These were women held in honour by Paul but they've hit a point of disagreement. 

Disagreement, if we're not careful can lead to division, and division to devastation in the life of a church.  I've seen it happen more than once!

We don't know what these women were falling out over but Paul pleads with them 'to be of the same mind in the Lord.'  Was one right and the other wrong?  Were they both wrong but stubborn?  No-one knows. 

Somehow these women had to find reconciliation.  They couldn't achieve that by standing on their rights.  Both would have to find the humility to change their stance.  Neither could insist on her own way.  Both would have to step back and hear what God was saying, perhaps by listening to their fellow believers, who Paul asked to help them. 

The greek language behind verse five gives us a collective responsibility.  We're not called only into relationship with God but also into relationship with each other.  We're to help one another grow in Christ-likeness. 

When we disagree, we have to recognise that unity is more important than our views being right.  People on both sides of the argument have to seek the way forward, listening and showing love, and being willing to discover that perhaps what is in Christ's mind is different from what's in the minds of either party.

Worthy conduct is expressed in humility: there must be no 'selfish ambition or vain conceit.'  People who want a position of authority because it appeals to their sense of self-importance are exactly the people who should not be appointed. 

If status is our goal, we'll be proud of our humility, expect praise for our service, and obey God when it benefits us.  But what did Jesus say?  '… whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of  all.' Mk 10:43-44

True humility is the way forward.  Humility is not thinking of yourself as a worm or a doormat to be misused or abused.  It means having a right view of yourself in relation to others.

We've all heard stories of people like nurses and paramedics who save lives and say, 'I was just doing my job.'  That's a picture of humility.

There are lots of things I am good at, and I can, in all humility, take great satisfaction from a good job well done.   But my being good at something doesn't make me better than you. Our talents are gifts to be used for good, not to make demi-gods of us.

Have a good look at the people around you now.  Paul writes, '… in humility value [them] above yourself …'   No exceptions! 

There's a mutuality about this.  We end up giving proper respect and dignity to those around us, and in return are treated with proper respect and dignity, something that wouldn't happen if we each thought ourselves more valuable than everyone else.

Worthy conduct is expressed in service.  We live in a society that's largely governed by the saying, 'Look out for number one.' 

Now, Paul doesn't say you shouldn't be mindful of your own interests, but he does exhort us to be concerned about the interests of others.  And that doesn't mean being an interfering busy-body, poking our noses in where they're not wanted or needed. 

But it does mean caring lovingly and practically for others, doing the very best we can for those who are sick, or grieving, or struggling with life.

Paul says,  'Do everything without grumbling or arguing.'  Who are we really serving?  If the things we are asked to do are for our Saviour who loved us and gave himself for us, then why should we complain? 

What service has God called you to do?  Are you engaged with it?  We all have gifts and skills.  Let's use them in service with joyful hearts. 

Summary

We've explored what motivated Jesus' living so we have a model against which to measure our own thinking and motives, and which defines what it means to live lives worthy of the gospel.

We've seen how this is to affect our relationships, through unity, humility and service.

God is in the process of renewing us in Christ.  He's renewing our thinking, so that we can live lives worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Let's allow ourselves to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can be more and more like Jesus.