#151- Joy That Gives Thanks In Humility

What if true joy isn't found in elevating ourselves, but in lowering ourselves to lift others up?

This week we explore Philippians 2:1-11, where Paul reveals the radical humility of Christ. Jesus didn't cling to His divine glory—He emptied Himself, took on the form of a slave, and humbled Himself to death on a cross. Why? To save everyone, not just the privileged or powerful, but all people.

The world tells us to climb the ladder, seek status, and protect our image. But biblical humility turns everything upside down. It's choosing to serve others, not for applause or recognition, but because that's where we find Christ. 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. When we imitate His humility, we discover a joy the world cannot offer.

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Transcript

Transcript: Joy in Humility

 We are in week two of our series, A Joy That Gives Thanks.

It's a series where we're working through the book of Philippians one chapter at a time.

Last week in chapter one, we took that passage of scripture where Paul says, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain, and we spoke about a joy that gives thanks in every circumstance.

 This week the title of our sermon is A Joy That Gives Thanks in Humility and we'll be drawing off that passage of scripture in Philippians chapter 2 verses 1 to 11, that beautiful Christ hymn that speaks about the humility of Christ or the lowering of Christ where Christ comes to earth.

 A reminder of the background of the book of Philippians, Paul is writing in the early 60s.

And he is writing most likely from a prison in Rome.

It's a pastoral letter giving thanks and a strong emphasis on joy, thanksgiving.

Epaphroditus has brought a gift.

He thanks the Philippians for their gift.

 and reassures them of Epaphroditus' health.

He does, in fact, warn about false teaching and divisions or disunity within the church.

It's something that comes out in our passage today in Philippians 2.1-11.

Hear now God's word.

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete.

 Be 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 regard others as better than yourselves.

Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, being found in human form.

He humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

 Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 What a powerful passage of scripture.

Paul's exhortation to his readers and to us reading this letter is this, let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

In this passage, as I've noted, we come to that understanding.

We are confronted.

Paul is speaking into this disunity that is in this church in Philippi, in Philippi.

 Paul addresses this disunity.

We see it especially in chapter four, verse two, when he mentions two people in the church actually by name and encourages them to find agreement, to come together.

 As we read the book of Philippians, we see that this passage of scripture that we've just read becomes instrumental in the encouragement, in perseverance, in generosity, and in finding unity and joy in all circumstances.

He's saying there is a thinking in our faith, a thinking which is the same thinking that Christ had.

And if we have that same thinking and we live by that thinking, it's going to bring great joy into our lives.

 In fact, he would even suggest, and we could read from this passage, that we could discover a new sense of community by living in a way that is consistent with the humility of Christ.

 What thinking do we believe was behind Christ's incarnation?

What thinking is Paul asking us and asking the Philippians to embrace?

It is the thinking of humility.

We might ask the question, is it possible that humility might lead to a greater sense of unity and joy?

And I would suggest to you today that it does, in fact, do just that.

 Two thoughts only for today on humility and this beautiful passage in Philippians.

The first is this joy comes.

Joy comes to us when we understand and we appreciate the humility of Christ.

 key to understanding this passage of scripture is to understand this concept of biblical humility when we speak about humility we also think of the word humiliation and we might inadvertently take a secular understanding of humility and humiliation especially in a world that propagates and promotes pride

 and self-exaltation, it's very difficult sometimes for us to get our hands around what biblical humility looks like.

In a secular context, if you think of a context of humiliation or humility, often what we think about is the way we put others down in order to elevate ourselves.

 So secular understanding of, say, humiliation is to put somebody else down, often to either harm them and often for the express purpose of elevating ourselves.

 We don't have to go far to see this in the news around us.

We don't have to go far in life to see how even within a workplace environment, within family settings, wherever we're looking, political, economic, wherever we're looking in the world around us, people are trying to put others down so that they themselves might be elevated or exalted.

 Biblical humility turns things around.

It is the upside-down kingdom.

It is looking at things from a different perspective.

Really, biblical humility, as we see it in this passage, presented so beautifully in the words of Paul, is putting ourselves down or putting oneself down so as to elevate another.

 What a stark contrast.

The secular version is to put another down to elevate oneself.

A biblical understanding of humility is to put ourselves down and to elevate another.

What is fascinating about this passage of Scripture is that right at the end of this passage in Philippians 2, 9-11, Paul says this,

 After Jesus has put himself down, after he has given himself to the cross, after he has given himself, humiliated, humbled himself, taken upon himself the form of a slave for our salvation to extend grace and love to us.

At the end of that, the father reaches into the life of Jesus and said, therefore, God also highly exalted him.

 gave him the name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

And so as much as Jesus humbles himself in order to elevate us, the Father elevates Christ in that.

 What a beautiful picture we see, that movement through this passage of scripture.

Jesus chose to lower himself, taking on the form of a slave that we might be lifted up.

Jesus lowers himself and the Father elevates him.

Can we really understand?

 the humility of Christ?

Can we truly grasp the lowering of Christ from whence he has come to where he went?

Do we really understand what it took for him to come down to earth?

I don't believe we can.

 Jesus lowered himself, but really it's impossible for us to know how much he lowered himself.

In order for us to truly know how much he lowered himself, we need to have a very clear understanding of where he had come from.

 The true sacrifice that Jesus made is only understandable to us if we fully grasp, which we cannot the side of eternity, the magnitude of Jesus, the royalty of Jesus, the Son of God, the triune God who was in heaven with God.

God himself comes down to earth.

If we can fully understand that place, then we can understand the sacrifice.

 Until then, we can't.

We can, however, work with what we have.

We can work with what we do know.

We do know that Jesus is the Son of God, the member of, you know, part of the Trinity, a member of the Trinity, the Exalted One.

He is not just royalty.

He is the King of kings, the true royalties.

 And whatever picture comes to mind, however you might see that in your head, you need to contrast that picture with where Jesus ends up as a rejected person dying on the cross.

In fact, when he was born, he was rejected.

He was an outcast.

He had to flee to Egypt as a refugee, lived rarely in a level of obscurity in Nazareth, which is

 probably for his best interest, the interest of his family, grew up in a normal home and a normal life.

He was an average person.

And so we need to see where he came from to where he is, born in a manger in a stable, flees into exile.

And that gives us a little bit of a picture, but we can't fully understand it.

The king becomes the commoner.

 Consider the step down from glory, the glory of heaven, to the dirty first century Middle Eastern world.

Not fancy, yes, they might have had Roman roads, but even today our roads are probably in better condition than they were in those days.

 transportation was limited justice was really subjective there was corruption we want to think about things like health care and sanitation all the things that we take for granted even today in our world from societal norms the way we view the poor women children orphans widows all these things fall

 far more degraded in the time of Jesus, yet he comes, the true king of kings, royalty comes down into a place of absolute, just a frail, broken world.

You know, when we think about that, we compare what he gave up and what he sacrificed to how we feel when we have to make a sacrifice.

Sometimes it's permissions.

 Sometimes it's for the sake of the church.

Sometimes it's just because the way life is and how we feel persecuted.

Maybe we feel like God doesn't love us anymore because for some reason we are in a place where it's hot and we just don't have a thermostat to turn the heat down or it's too cold and we don't have heating.

We don't have our creature comforts.

 When we find ourselves in places where we have to drive long distances and maybe think, well, it's a long way to go in this car of mine, which Jesus never had.

A long flight that we might need to take.

Eating out somewhere and you feel like they just don't have exactly what you want on the menu.

 It is interesting how we easily feel badly done by in our world when what we are accustomed to is no longer available.

Jesus went through a lot more than anything we can ever understand.

We may not fully comprehend the extent of Christ's emptying, of his lowering, of his sacrifice, of his humility, his coming down.

 We do know enough to be profoundly moved by gratitude, to be thankful and to find joy in the understanding that God loved us enough to send his son, that Jesus loved us enough to come.

May that give rise to gratitude in our heart and may the gratitude in our heart give rise

 The second thing I want to leave us with today is this joy comes when we imitate the humility of Christ.

Joy comes when we imitate the humility of Christ.

Philippians 2, 6 and 7, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, never leveraged that.

 But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness as being found in human form.

And this is a very interesting thing, and I'm not sure if you've ever asked this question.

Why did Jesus not come as a king?

Why did Jesus not come as a politician?

 Why did Jesus not come as somebody with great wealth and influence to change the world?

Why did Jesus come as an ordinary person, the son of a carpenter?

 That's a great question for us to consider.

You see, what we're actually dealing with in this passage is something called the incarnation.

Incarnation essentially means that the preexistent son of God, Jesus, preexistent means that he existed in heaven before he came to earth, willingly chooses to enter into heaven.

 and closely identify with a broken reality and a fallen world to save the people of this world.

 And let's be clear about this.

Jesus didn't come to save just some people.

He didn't come to save just some nations.

Jesus didn't come to save just certain age groups or genders or populations or people with a certain social standing.

Jesus came to save everybody and wants to save everybody.

And so the gift of Jesus is available to everyone

 if we will receive that gift.

That's why John says in 1 John 4, 14, we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.

 So Jesus came as the savior of the world, not just the savior of royalty or the savior of the privileged, the savior of the powerful, the savior of the wealthy.

Jesus came to all people.

And that then leads us to ask the question, so how are we to imitate the humility of Christ as much as he has sent us?

He came to all people, so too we are called to go to others.

 Biblical humility, as we have stated, is the act of lowering oneself to elevate and uplift others.

So we lower ourselves that others might be elevated.

There is this thing that we deal with, and it goes back even to the time of Jesus and before.

It's a false humility or a secular humility.

 Sometimes what we do is we do the right thing, but we do it for the wrong reason.

It's a false humility.

It's a humility that does not have, it's void of the spirit of God.

And it chooses to lower oneself.

We lower ourselves, not because we want to elevate others, but we lower ourselves because we believe that will personally benefit us.

 There is gain in that and it'll give a perception of a sense of who we want people to think we are.

And so we try to present ourselves in a way that is untrue.

And so what we might do is we might engage in token works.

We do the right things because we're trying to create the right impression and elevate ourselves in the eyes of others.

 Essentially, it's when people do good works with a look at me kind of attitude.

Look at me, look at what I'm doing.

Look how good I am.

And so it's all about elevating self.

That's a false humility.

Now, if we think about this just for a moment, it's nothing unusual.

It happens in our world today.

It happened in the time of Jesus as well.

In fact, in Jesus' teaching, even as he comes out and has been speaking about on the Sermon of the Mount,

 before he teaches us to pray the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, he actually confronts the same false humility in the Pharisees where he says, be careful not to practice your righteousness.

No, it's don't do good works in front of others.

Why do you do your good works in front of others?

To be seen by them.

 Because that's what happened.

That's what the Pharisees were doing.

We're fasting.

Look at how righteous we are because we're fasting.

We pray.

Look at how sanctified and righteous we look.

Look at the good works we give.

Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is giving.

Why?

Because these were false.

There was false humility.

There was a sense of trying to create a perception in the minds and the eyes of others.

It was all about public perception.

 You know, when I think of humility, the person that comes to my mind is Mother Teresa.

Mother Teresa never did something for public appeal or perception.

In fact, whenever we see her, she almost seems to shy away from the stage, the world stage.

People seem to have found her.

She didn't go looking for an Instagram account or social media likes or

 She did it because there was something inside of her.

She was an extraordinary person, but she came from an ordinary, ordinary family, had an ordinary life, and she chose to become nothing, to lower herself.

And we can see her life just mirrored in this beautiful text in Philippians 2.

She chose to become nothing, to lower herself.

 so that people who are stuck in extreme poverty, the least and the last, the lowest of the low, could become something and experience just a little bit of the love of Jesus.

You know what the strange thing is?

That whenever you see her and you ever see these images and there are encounters with her, there seems like she carried a very strange kind of joy inside of her.

 She had things that she struggled with like everybody else.

But there seems to be something deep, a deeper sense of joy and purpose in imitating Christ and serving the world as Christ served us.

She said, a life not lived for others is not a life.

What a great example for us.

You know, it's such a different picture that we see in Mother Teresa than what we see today.

 in the emptying of so many people who are chasing the false promises of joy in this world.

People think somehow the more they can entertain themselves, the more joy they'll find.

The more they can distract themselves, the more vacations they take,

 the more toys they buy, the more successful they are, the more wealth they accumulate, the more comfort they have, the more power and money and status, the happier they will be.

The strange thing is all these people that are chasing after all these things seem to be some of the most unhappy people in the world.

Joy comes.

 when we imitate the humility of Christ, choosing to lower ourselves in service to others.

So what happens when we embrace the spirit of humility as individuals and as a church, remembering secular humility, putting others down to elevate ourselves, biblical humility, putting ourselves down, lowering ourselves to elevate others, what happens when we embrace a biblical humility?

Well, I wonder,

 What churches would look like if we lived according to the principles of Philippians chapter two.

How conflict would be resolved.

How we would deal with differences.

How we as a church would love the world around us.

I wonder how families would get along.

 all the disgruntled family members, conflict, infighting that we see even in people who come from the same family, workplace situations that just sometimes can be so toxic, sitting on airplanes next to each other, learning how to love one another in the strangest of places.

What about our community, the people right around us, even the place where we meet?

 What about our world?

What would our world look like if we truly embraced not a secular humility or humiliation that seeks to put others down, but we embraced a Christian biblical humility that really says, I'm here to serve this world, to find joy in serving others.

Remember how interesting this passage is written to a church that is struggling with disunity.

 What's Paul's answer for disunity?

His answer for disunity is humility.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ.

A final quote from Mother Teresa.

She said, I am nothing.

I am but an instrument, a tiny pencil in the hands of the Lord with which he writes what he likes.

However imperfect we are, he writes well.

 May we live with the mind of Christ.

May we live to love others as Christ has loved us.

Amen.