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The Humility of Jesus (Philippians 2:5-8)

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Philippians 2:5–11

We’re picking it up in Philippians chapter 2, verse 5.

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, by taking the form of a servant, being born 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 bestowed on him the name that is above every 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.

(Philippians 2:5–11)

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you that you’ve gifted men and women to help us grow, to help us know you better, to help us know ourselves better, to help us know this world better and how to reach it, how to minister to it, how to disciple, how to encourage, how to do all the things that you want us to do in the Christian life. We thank you, Father, for the life groups, for the sweet fellowship that’s there. We pray that you [audio unclear] things are going well, but we pray for your hand of blessing and healing upon her. Let them be able to make it home very soon. Lord, we thank you for the blessing of children. Even as they’re making different noise in the worship services, they are a blessing, God. It’s a reminder that there is life amongst us, Lord. So help us value life from the womb to the tomb all the way, Father. Help us to see that it is very precious in your sight. And we thank you that children are a blessing, that they are a heritage from you, Lord. We pray, Father, as we look at your Word, as we look at your Son in his excellence, in his glory, in his majesty, and in his humility, you would give us insight and understanding today. Lord, continue to be with us, bless our time. We pray this with the authority you give us in Jesus. Amen.

The Two-Fold State of Christ

A lot of times when people talk about Christ’s earthly ministry and then what comes after his earthly ministry, you’ll hear people talk about the two-fold state of Christ. The two-fold state of Christ. So that, when you read those in different theology books, you have the state of humiliation that’ll be discussed and the state of exaltation. So as they’re trying to form up how they’re talking about Christ, those are kind of the two broad categories that they use to talk about the work of Christ. And by this they mean like the different relationships Jesus had to God’s law [audio unclear]. His possession of authority, his receiving honor for himself. Now these states really discuss Jesus after the incarnation. So they are about the person, what we might call the person of Jesus. When we talk about the state of Christ and his humiliation, that would be the first state of Christ. And there’s really four aspects. There’s his incarnation, his suffering, his death, and his burial. Those are the four aspects. When we talk about the two-fold state of Christ, the first fold is the humiliation of Christ. Then there’s the exaltation. And there’s also four aspects to it. That would include his resurrection, his ascension into heaven, his being seated at the right hand of the Father, and his return in glory and power. Here’s the thing. When we look at a passage like this, we’re getting some very serious and great insight in theology into the person and even work of Christ.

The Pre-Existence of the Son

From all eternity, the Son of God was in the form of God. That’s what we read in verse 6: “who, though he was in the form of God.” And even last week we looked at it in John chapter 17. Let’s just hold your place here, but just let’s just turn there briefly. We see this idea that Christ existed before the incarnation. In verse 5, and now this is Jesus praying: “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” Well, how could he have glory with him before the world existed unless Jesus had existed before the world existed? Right? Of course, the quintessential verse would be in John chapter 1: “In the beginning was the Word.” Right? And the Word was what? With God, and the Word was God. But then notice, and look in John chapter 1, and notice what John the Baptist says. In verse 29 it says, “The next day he,” talking about John the Baptist, “saw Jesus coming toward him,” verse 29 of chapter 1, “and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.”’” Well, from an earthly perspective, how could Jesus be before John? I mean, when is John—remember when Mary goes and visits Elizabeth? Right? Who’s further along in their pregnancy at that time? Elizabeth, right? So John is conceived months and months before the virgin birth and months and months before even the conception of Jesus, right? But here John is saying, and I mean John knew Jesus, so it’s not like he gets his chronology wrong. No, he’s recognizing something about the person of Jesus, that he existed before the incarnation. Then we get other verses, if you turn to John 8. Oh, where should we begin? Let’s start in verse 53. It says, the Pharisees here, actually the Jews are saying:

“Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

(John 8:53–59)

Now there’s a couple things in verse 58 where he says, “before Abraham was, I am.” I mean again, a claim—it’s actually a claim to divinity, but it’s showing his pre-existence. The “I am,” and I know some versions I think might actually add the word—does any of your versions add that, “I am he”? Well, it’s just one Greek word translated into two English words, with the Greek word eimi, but it’s a claim to divinity because how did God reveal himself to Moses? “I AM has sent you,” right? Who do I say sent me? I AM. So when he’s like, “before Abraham was, I am,” he is putting himself and equating himself to Yahweh, and he could only do that if it was true. So we have this idea—we could look at many, many more verses. At one point, Jesus wasn’t a man. But there’s never been a point where he wasn’t God. He’s always been God. And then, in addition, he became a man. We call that the incarnation. The Son of God wasn’t created. That’s part of what some of the early creeds are trying to get at and discuss and put into verbiage to make it plain and clear that the Son of God wasn’t created. We looked at it when we went through the book of Colossians, chapter 1. John Calvin comments, “The form of God means here his majesty. For as man is known by the appearance of his form, so the majesty which shines forth in God is his figure.” If you would have seen Jesus one second before the incarnation, you would have seen him in all his glory and his majesty. You would have seen the Father glorifying the Son. And what would you have seen Jesus doing? You would have seen the Son glorifying the Father. So we talk about appearance, but there’s also substance. When he came to earth, he had the appearance and being of a man. He did have the substance. He was a man. But when we talk about verse 6, which has tripped people up, where he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped—listen, he wasn’t trying to grasp equality. What is he talking about? Well, when the Son of God was in heaven, he wasn’t trying to grasp equality or something that he already had. He wasn’t trying to make it be about himself. Think of the Trinity. The Father, we talked about this last week, is glorifying the Son. The Son is glorifying the Father. The Spirit is glorifying them both. But you could reverse the arrows. They’re glorifying one another. They’re not trying to make it about them individually. It’s about them really as a whole. But there wasn’t something for Jesus to try to grasp. He already had it. The point is, he wasn’t focused on himself. He’s focused on glorifying the Father.

He Emptied Himself

So when it says in verse 7, in many versions, “He emptied himself”—I know the King James, New King James, say “made himself of no reputation,” NIV “made himself nothing.” We have from this phrase what comes to be known as the kenosis theory. It’s just from that word there translated “emptied” or “made himself of no reputation” or “made himself nothing.” This theory, which didn’t come about until about the late 1800s, was the idea that when Christ emptied himself, he ceased to be God or he stripped himself of certain divine attributes. This idea of emptying includes a change of role and status. But here’s the thing, it’s not a change in essential attributes or nature. So there’s a number of arguments against this idea that Jesus divested. If he divests himself of just one attribute, then he is no longer God. So one of the arguments is just that no theologian had postulated this for the first 1,800 years of the church. And there’s some many crazy beliefs out there in the first 1,800 years. But no one postulated this, even those who spoke Greek as their primary language. None of them understood this word, kenosis or kenoō, to refer to divesting themselves of a particular attribute or being or substance. Two, just look at the verse for a moment back in Philippians. Just so you see what it says. I mean, it just says, he emptied himself. It doesn’t say he emptied himself of some powers. It doesn’t say he emptied himself of divine attributes. That’s added by people as part of their interpretation. But that’s not in the text. So we would call that eisegesis, reading into the text, not exegesis, pulling out of the text. The text actually does describe what the emptying is. Nothing has to be guessed at. Nothing has to be supplemented. Nothing has to be inserted into the text to understand what’s being communicated. The very next phrase tells us exactly what the emptying is. What is it? Taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, that’s what it is. And the King James, New King James, NIV, I mean, they do a good job, I would say, of interpreting that text. So the text shows the emptying is the humbling himself in status and position. Four, think about what Paul’s doing here. He’s holding up Christ as an example that he wants the Philippians to imitate Jesus, right? But certainly he’s not asking the Philippian Christians to give up or lay aside any of their essential attributes or abilities. True? He’s not asking them to give up their intelligence or strength or skill, or to become a lesser version of themselves—that’s what you’d have to be consistent. That’s how you’d have to interpret the text if you want to say that’s what Jesus was doing. That gets kind of weird. That’s not his exhortation to the Philippians. He’s asking them to put the interests of others first. He’s pointing to Jesus as the example in doing that. Additionally, if the kenosis theory is true, we would expect that such an incredible event would be taught clearly and repeatedly in the New Testament. But the opposite is shown. Jesus doesn’t lay aside divine attributes. No, I mean in every way he shows himself to have divine attributes. We could look at example after example after example. He’s got power over the wind and the waves. He can multiply food. So all persuasions today, interestingly enough, even those of liberal leanings, all persuasions today realize it’s bad exegesis. And most don’t push this anymore, even liberal Christians. Ironically, you’ll still find it in liberal seminaries being taught, even though the vast majority of scholars have come to the conclusion, yeah. So Christ, and this is important, Christ did not exchange the form of God for the form of a slave. He didn’t exchange it, he added to. He’s the form of God, and what does he do? He takes the form of a servant in addition, not in exchange. And where do we see this humility in Jesus’ life? Well, think about the upper room. What does he do in the upper room? Lays aside his garments, and washes the disciples’ feet, right? The lowliest—literally back then the lowliest task. I mean I don’t know much about you, but I don’t want to be washing no nasty feet. Especially when they walked, you know, with just open-toed shoes, all sorts of dirt and grime and stuff. What does he do? I mean he sets the example, and what is his exhortation? As you’ve seen me do, what? Do likewise. But even if you think of how he interacted with people, he interacts with lepers. But when he interacts with them, it’s not like, oh, he’s high and mighty and above them, and okay, I guess I’ll condescend to talk with you for a split second, even though it’s a huge inconvenience to me. I mean, that’s not his attitude at all, right? He cares about these people. The downtrodden, the hurting, the lepers. And it would have been easy for him to be like, well, I’m the Son of God and you’re below me. Or you’re a prostitute, I don’t have time for people like you. Or, you’re disfigured, I don’t want to be seen with you. There’s none of that. You can see that he cares about these people. He doesn’t think he’s mightier or greater than them. And what does he do? He ministers to those people.

The Visited Planet

There’s a short story called “The Visited Planet” by J. B. Phillips. It’s obviously an imaginary conversation that a very young angel is being shown the splendours and glories of the universe by a senior and experienced angel. It probably makes for a great Christmas story. But I’ll read a part of it to you. “The little angel was beginning to be tired and a little bored. He had been shown whirling galaxies and blazing suns, infinite distances in the deathly cold of interstellar space, and to his mind there seemed to be an awful lot of it all. Finally he was shown the galaxy of which our planetary system is but a small part. As the two of them drew near to the star which we call our sun, it looked as dull as a dirty tennis ball to the little angel, with the size and glory of what he had seen. ‘I want you to watch that one particularly,’ said the senior angel, pointing with his finger. ‘Well, it looks very small and rather dirty to me,’ said the little angel. ‘What’s special about that one?’ ‘That,’ replied his senior solemnly, ‘is the visited planet.’ ‘Visited,’ said the little one. ‘You don’t mean visited by—’ ‘Indeed I do. That ball, which I have no doubt looks to you small and insignificant and not perhaps over clean, has been visited by our young Prince of Glory.’ And at these words he bowed his head reverently.”

Any time you try to use an analogy or illustration with the Trinity, you usually get into hot water pretty quickly, because you usually use an analogy that’s actually a heresy. So a lot of times, you won’t hear analogies by grounded biblical pastors, because most of them are heretical. So you hear about the cloverleaf and different things. Yeah, that’s actually heresy. So you’re just re-giving heresy. It sounds cool in the beginning. But here is an illustration, imperfect as it might be, that at least helps us maybe to understand this passage a little bit in terms of what’s going on with the majesty of Jesus being laid aside and him taking the form of a servant, not divesting himself of any of the attributes or substance. But if you think of a king, right, a king dressed in all his kingly attire, and in his kingdom he finds out that some of the miners have been trapped underground in a cave and they need help. Well, this king knows intimately the ins and outs of the cavern and the tunnels, so he decides that he will be the one to go and rescue them. So he comes to the entrance of the mine, or the cave if you will, right, and he’s dressed in all his glorious regalness. And what does he do? Well, he takes off the crown, takes off the purple robes, lays it aside, right? He’s about to go into the cave, right? So he puts on the clothes of the miner. He’s going to have to get through some tight spots. He wants to protect himself, not get scraped up or anything. He goes in there, leads the people out. But in doing that, at any point, was he not the king? Right? He looked very much like the other miners. He had the little hat on with a little light, but he’s still the king. He’s still the king. Well, that’s a picture, as imperfect as it might be, of what’s going on here. He lays aside his regality, if you will, to do what? To rescue us. Isaiah talks about it. Like, it talks about Jesus, right? Like, it wasn’t like you saw the majesty of Jesus when you looked at him. He looked very much human, like you or me. That’s not an insult to him or to take away from his deity. He took on the form of a servant. He took on the form of a servant. He was still the king, but he took on the form of a servant. This idea that he did not hold on to his equality with God as something to use for his own advantage.

His Attitude of Humility

We want to think about for a moment what was his attitude. And that’s what Paul is getting at here. The same attitude that Paul wants us to have, he’s saying, look to Jesus for that attitude. The humility. The humility. Think about Satan when Jesus is in the wilderness. In Luke 4, it says, he took Jesus to Jerusalem, and he set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him:

“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

(Luke 4:9–11)

[audio unclear] That’s coming from our flesh or from Satan. Our heavenly Father loves us. Will he really follow through and make sure he’s okay? What’s Jesus’ response? Well, his response is, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” What, he’s like, you’re using one part of the Word, but another part of his Word is like, don’t put him to the test. Like, I trust the Father. I trust the Father. And then we see in Matthew 27, it says, they’re saying to him, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days”—right? Jesus is on the cross. He’s being crucified.—“save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” I mean, part of me when I read that sometimes, it’s like, hmm, just do it, Jesus. Like right there, show them who you are. That’s not the plan, right? That plan actually, I mean, it’s part of the plan, but that part comes later. That part comes later. Because he is coming back, and he’s going to show them who he is. But the plan right then, right? Stay to the cross. Why? For us. For us. But what do we see? I mean, his humility. Could he have come off that cross right then? Yep, definitely. Even he says, right, I have power to lay my life down, and I have power, what? To take it up again. I mean, again, you see the claim, I mean, none of us can make that. I mean, we can make the claim. Can we follow through on it? He followed through. Again, we see the deity there. He’s not like, I had power to lay it down and pick it up, but I divested myself of that power. No. He says, I have the power to lay it down. I have the power to pick it up. He’s got the divine attributes. So when we talk about the forms, you’ll hear one of the forms described as the majestic form. And then you’ll hear the other form talked about as the servant form. But he always was God, always is God, always will be God. He never stopped being fully God.

Fully God, Fully Man

So here in Philippians, I mean, we’re seeing what we already see in the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew and the beginning of the Gospel of Luke. We see a description of what it looked like for the God-man to enter this world. And if we believe this, then a few things are going to follow. It orients our thinking about the Son of God properly, fully God, fully man. The early church had bad actors on the outside trying to twist things. So it’s interesting. You would think that if anything they messed up, you think of anything they would overemphasize his deity—and they did actually. So an early error was Docetism. Jesus was fully God, but he wasn’t fully man. But then there is an over-focus on his humanity. That’s Arianism. Jesus wasn’t fully divine. Arians, that’s just your modern-day Jehovah’s Witnesses, really. But you can fall off either end of the scale. Not today. When people fall off the scale, usually it’s, you know, your average person out there is denying his deity, his divinity. But you can fall off either end. Well, I mean, what’s the big deal with this? Well, I mean, getting Jesus wrong, that’s a big deal. That’s a big deal. We’re talking about salvation issues here, first-order issues. The Arians back then, I mean, they came in around A.D. 300, and they’re saying, oh, I mean, Jesus, he’s so close to being like the Father. He’s so close to being like God, but he’s not. And it came down to one little letter, all right, homoousios versus homoiousios. Homo is just—I mean, you’ve heard that word, but you’ve heard the term homosexual, but it just means same, same. Hetero means other. So if it was, if the Arians would have come along and been like, well, Jesus is heteroousios, like completely different, then everyone would have recognized it immediately and been like, that’s false, that’s wrong, that’s bad. But error always tries to creep in ever so slightly. One little letter at a time. And that’s what the Arians did. So as they’re talking about how do we describe who Jesus is in his relationship to the Father. The Arians were like, no, it’s not homoousios, it’s homoiousios. He’s of a similar substance. Well, similar is not the same. Pretty close. And that was their point. He’s pretty close to being like God, but he’s not fully God. So our Nicene Creed, which we subscribe to here, we get the phrase “of the same essence.” That’s that word being translated, of the same essence of the Father, the same essence. I mean, some things are worth disputing. Some things are worth debating. This is definitely one of them. First-order issues. A. W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” We can’t get our view of God wrong, like the whole Godhead, the Father, the Son, the Spirit. We mess that up, and we go off the cliff. We mess that up and we’re going to end up like the Arians. It’s interesting, Tozer also said, in the same book, I think the same chapter, “The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion.” Let me think about that for a minute. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion. What does he even mean by that? Well, like every religious system sets a bar and the people are not going to rise above that. So secularism, I’d say that’s a religion of sorts. It’s not going to rise above itself. Pluralism and anything goes, that’s the bar that’s set. If that is the philosophy of a society, it will not go above that. That’s as high as it’s going to go. Hinduism, it won’t rise above the bar that it sets. Buddhism won’t rise above the bar that it sets. It’s not going to create a greater society or people than what it sets out as the bar. Same thing with Islam and the same thing with Christianity. So the question is, which one do you want? Which one do you want? Like which one do you want for yourself, but also for your family and also for the church and also for the nation? The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion. I mean, we can trace that. We’ve got another 50, 100 years on Tozer. We can continue to see that that’s playing out to be true.

Good Growth Takes Intentionality

So what does that mean? Well, did any of you all plant a garden this past spring, summer? All right, most of you gave up like me. That’s cool. A couple of you did. You know what you did? Have you ever planted a garden before, at least once? Okay. I mean, praise God for farmers, right? Because apparently we don’t have any here, so we would be really hungry if it was up to us, y’all. But you can have amazing growth in your garden by doing absolutely nothing. But what is the growth? That’s weeds. Yeah. And if you’ve grown that garden and you remember, like sometimes it’s like you walk away for just like a few days and you come back and what? Weeds. Why do weeds always seem to win? Well look, if you want good growth, it takes intentionality. Okay, bad growth, that can happen all the time, anywhere, any place, just sit by, do nothing, it’s going to happen. Good growth takes intentionality. Nothing good ever came about sitting around and waiting for something to happen. This is true of you as an individual. This is true of you with your family. This is true of you with your church. This is true of you with your nation. Good growth takes intentionality. The gospel spreads because people are intentional in wanting to spread it. Sanctification in your life happens because you’re intentional in wanting to seek the Lord and have him refine you, the refiner’s fire, and have the dross spread up to the surface. You’re intentional about it. You got some habit that is not of God, that is sinful, that is weighing you down. I mean, if you’re just like, oh, I’ll keep going along, I’ll keep going along, I’ll keep going along, I’ll keep going along, I’m going to be freed at some point—no, probably not, until you get some intentionality about it. And you deal with the problem. If you got some issue going on and you’re just like, oh, hopefully it’ll be dealt with, there has to be intentionality [audio unclear]. Life can be challenging, yes, at times. And young parents, I mean, it’s tough. Us older parents, and we’re kind of out of the younger parent phase, we need to be thinking and praying and looking for ways to encourage the younger parents. Don’t ever forget where you’ve been at in different stages of life, whether you’re 80 or 70 or 50 or 40 or 30 or whatever. Like, remember what it’s like if you’re an older man to be a young man, single, and have all the temptations of the world and the flesh bound about, right? And you’re like, yeah, I’m glad I’m not there anymore. Well, yeah, because it was pretty tough, right? It wasn’t easy. As it’s said, if you can’t say amen, say ouch, okay? But it’s tough. Same with the older ladies, right? Remember what it’s like. Don’t forget what it’s like to be a young mom, to be a young single lady. Like those can be very challenging times. How can you come alongside and encourage the next generation? Look, I want to pass on a legacy. I want to pass on a legacy to my kids. I want to pass on a legacy to my brothers and sisters in Christ with this church, right? I want to pass on a legacy to the nation that I’m a part of, a legacy. It’s not just about you as—I mean, that’s where pietism goes way off, but that’s another sermon for another day, but it’s not about individualism, right? You’re a part of something greater. No man is an island, as the poet said. So life can be challenging. Here’s what Richard Baxter said on motherhood being hard: “Women especially must expect so much suffering in a married life that if God had not put into them a natural inclination to it and so strong a love for their children, the world would have been at an end through their refusal of so calamitous a life.” Right? “Their sickness in breeding, their pain in bringing forth, the tedious trouble night and day that they have with nursing children—this and more would have determined women from marriage if nature had not inclined them to it.” Like you know God’s put that in them, right? God’s put that in them. But it’s hard, right? It’s very hard. Those early years are very challenging. But here’s the thing, God is so, so, so good. And he is so, so, so faithful. So he’ll walk with you through those challenging times. So rely on him, rest on him. It’s going to be challenging. That’s where the body of Christ needs to come around, surround, encourage, lift up, support, pray.

Take His Yoke

When we think about the humility of Christ, it’s this idea of not being above others. Freedom from an arrogance that grows out of recognition that all we have and all we are comes from God. That’s humility. And we see Jesus display many character traits throughout the Gospels. We see the New Testament epistles talk about it. But some of them are specifically called out. You know, forgiveness, obedience to the Father, love, and then this trait of humility. I mean, it gets a decent amount of attention in the New Testament. What does even Jesus say? His own words, Matthew 11. “Take my yoke upon you.” I mean, he’s claiming an authority, right? Take my yoke. Matthew 11: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” I mean, you really wouldn’t expect that to come from, to be the next words, necessarily. But that’s what he says, right? I am gentle. And like, I’ve got a yoke. Take it on. Learn from me because I’m gentle. Not because I’m the king and the master and I got all the power. He could have said that. It would have been true. But I’m gentle and lowly in heart. And what’s the promise? You will find what? Rest for your souls. Rest for your soul. So yes, life can be challenging. But take Jesus—I mean, you’ve got to take a yoke. Take Jesus’ yoke. And what’s his promise? You’re going to have a good and faithful and kind and loving master. He’s not going to be wagging his finger at you. He’s not going to be looking down at you. He’s gentle and lowly in heart. Is he your king? Amen. Absolutely. Is he your Savior and Lord? 1,000 percent. How does he interact with you? He loves you. He’s gracious. He is kind. Come to him. You take that yoke. You learn from him. And what’s the result? Rest for your souls. That is the antidote to life being challenging, right? Walking with Jesus, being under his yoke, and seeing how good he is. He gives you rest. I mean, how badly do you want to be like Christ? I mean, that’s the question. How badly do you want to be like Christ? How much are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to lay down? What are you willing to give up? What are you willing to take up? What are you willing to take on? Brothers and sisters, if our Lord, Jesus, can practice humility, can show it, display it everywhere he went—if he can walk in it, if he can put others’ interests above his own, I mean, we’re talking about the Son of God, who had every right to demand to be the preeminent one. If he can do it, if he can walk in humility, then certainly by God’s grace, we can too. We can walk in humility. We can do exactly what Paul commands us here. Verse 5, have this mind among yourselves. How do we have it? It’s yours. It’s yours in Christ Jesus. Verse 5, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours. I mean, you’ve got it, if you’re a believer, you have it. That’s really kind of been the point of the last five or six sermons. You have this by God’s grace given to you. Now you have to go display it and walk in it. That’s the tough part. Knowing one thing, doing another. But you have this, which is yours in Christ Jesus. And what is it? Well, we’re back to the first four verses, right? Walking in unity, doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, looking not only to our own interests, but to the interests of others. Humility, we see it in Christ over and over and over again. We want to be like Jesus, we walk in humility. Let’s endeavor to do that in our families, in this church, to a world that desperately needs it. Amen? Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, we thank you for being the quintessential example of humility for us. And we thank you for laying down your life for us. We thank you that you are God. We thank you that you took on the form of a servant and you came here. You humbled yourself and lived a life on this earth so that you could redeem a people for your own pleasure. Thank you that we have this in Christ, in you, through our salvation, through our reconciliation to the Father. We’ve been gifted so many riches. In you, Jesus, we thank you. Let us start enjoying those riches. Let us start practicing those riches. May it be displayed deep and thoroughly throughout in our own life. And we would completely and fully display it to others. Jesus, do your work in us and through us. We ask for your glory. Amen.