turn with me if you will please to philippians chapter two and um there's a lot of different things that are tempting to preach on on a day like today and a lot of different things that i was uh very serious in looking at and praying through and what i should talk about the philosopher in me i suppose thinks that maybe this is the time to be profound in some way but that's not at all what i want to do today and or at least not no profundity in terms of philosophical profundity instead i want to talk to you today just about what i think is absolutely most essential and most important in your life and that is your walk with god your walk with christ so philippians chapter 2 i'll say more much more about this obviously in just a few moments i'm going to focus in on verse number one through verse number four but i'd actually like to go back and start reading in chapter one and i've wrestled with it all morning long i could go back really all the way to the beginning but i won't let's just start in verse number 19. i've got to start somewhere so let's start here chapter 1 verse 19 and we'll sort of build into chapter 2 verse 1 through 4. hear the word of god and may we as his people this morning as we listen and as we read and as we consider the scriptures together this morning may we listen with a hunger and with an expectation that god might speak to our hearts that he might strengthen our souls that he might make us more faithful to him as a result of hearing his word together this morning verse 19.
for i know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the spirit of jesus christ according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing i shall be ashamed but with all boldness as always so now also christ will be magnified in my body whether by life or by death for to me to live is christ and to die is gain but if i live on in the flesh this will mean fruit for my from my labor yet what shall i choose i cannot tell for i am hard-pressed between the two having a desire to depart and be with christ which is far better nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you and being confident this i know that i shall remain and continue with you for your progress and joy of faith that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in jesus christ by my coming to you again only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of christ so that whether i come to see you or am absent i may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel and not in any way terrified by your adversaries which is to them a proof of perdition but to you of salvation and that from god for to you it has been granted on behalf of christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake having the same conflict which i saw you saw in me and now here is in me and our text here this morning chapter 2 verse 1. therefore if there is any consolation in christ any comfort of love any fellowship of the spirit if any affection and mercy fulfill my joy by being like-minded having the same love being of one accord of one a mind let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself let each of you look out not only for his own interest but also for the interests of others let's pray together one more time god in heaven you alone are great lord we are not we sit we stand before you here this morning as your children by the blood of your son lord my only desire here this morning for myself and for our students for those who i might by your grace have some small degree of influence over that god you might implant within us an urgency to really learn to live out what your word has commanded us here and that god when all is said and all is done that we would simply be a people that's faithful to you finding our hope and our love and our strength in you we love you we give ourselves to you we ask you to bless what we do here today i pray that god you give me accuracy and precision with your word as we consider it together for just a few moments in jesus name i pray amen so i want to talk to you again today about essentially the most important thing in your whole life and your existence and that is your walk with god i've noticed over the years and there's a lot of different things that can be important to a person at different phases of their life but the older i get and the longer i walk with jesus and serve in this context i've been around southeastern for about 15 years now i've noticed that there's a lot of different things in this world that vie for our attention that the enemy uses to try to offset us to distract us or to destroy us i'm reminded of what jesus says that the enemy comes to steal to kill and to destroy and of what peter said that our adversary is like a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may devour in short the devil has a lot of different schemes and a lot of different methods and a lot of different plans to debunk you to destroy you and to make your life a massive waste of time it comes in a wide variety of shapes and forms it can come with moral failures i've watched and there's nobody in this room today or nobody listening to this today that's immune to this type of possibility but i've watched some of my professors i've watched some of my peers i've watched some of my fellow students when i was in seminary and when i was in college and now i've watched some of my very own students i've watched people make moral failures that absolutely destroyed their potential to serve christ in a meaningful way but even worse than that to destroy their own lives and the lives of the people around them that they love i've watched people grow cold in faith i've watched people get hurt and mishandle things in church and ruin their ministry and now we live in a context where the hostilities against christ and against christianities those of us who are trying to be faithful to christ the hostilities against us seem to be mounting with time and so in short i actually stand here today with a greater burden and a greater fear for myself and for you than maybe i've ever had because i realize the older i get the more sober minded i become and realize that there's so many different pitfalls out there that i could fall into that you could fall into and that we together might shame the name of christ with and at the same time while i've never been more fearful i'm at the same time i've never been more confident not confident in me at all far be it from that but confident in christ that he is enough to keep me he is enough to preserve me he is enough to help me honor him with my life and so that's why i turned to philippians chapter two here today i read chapter one to kind of set up the context to you let me let me be very clear i understand that the context at the church of philippi is different from our context today obviously they're going through persecution paul mentions this starting verse number 27 going through verse number 30. they are being persecuted in a variety of ways he returns to this in chapter three so there's different kinds of persecution that they're facing that we today sitting here in this chapel may not necessarily be facing but some of you may go to those places some of you may go to those places where your life is in danger some of you may go to those places where you're in jeopardy constantly or it may be the case that you have loved ones that are in those situations either way the enemy has a lot of different tactics schemes to offset us and cause us to fall away so the question is how do we persevere how do we how do we go about being faithful in short i think the apostle paul in chapter 2 is just pointing us to christ and saying christ himself is enough now what is it about christ let me just notice several things about what paul says about christ in chapter 2 verse 1 through 4 and i'll bleed over into verse number five through eleven in just a moment but paul mentions several things first of all notice with me in number one paul mentions christ as our great comfort now the command that he's about to give them comes in verse two and then again in verses three and four so there's two commands that are coming but before he gives them the command in chap in verse number two that is to fulfill his joy he first draws their attention to something about christ he says to them therefore if there is any consolation in christ any comfort and love any fellowship of the spirit if any affection and mercy then the command comes in verse number two what is it that paul's saying paul is reminding them with these sort of hypothetical statements the word if there can almost denote an uncertainty like well if there's any of this but that's surely not what he means we could perhaps better translate this as saying assuming that there is consolation in christ assuming that there is comfort of love assuming that there's fellowship in the spirit and assuming that we find affection and mercy in christ assuming those things or because we have those things in christ and so what paul is doing here before he gives these gives them the commands that he's about to give them he first draws their attention to remind them of who and what they have in jesus christ and so let's consider those statements there and there's some overlap in those statements but paul mentions these four things first of all he says if there's any encouragement now what in the world does this mean it means simply this and when you find yourself in these circumstances when you find yourself in these difficulties what do you do where do you turn to christ why because there is in fact encouragement in him so if there's any encouragement in him and there is if there's any comfort in his love comfort in knowing the fact that no matter what circumstances i might face christ is there with me knowing that christ loves me no matter what he mentions again the comfort of his love he mentions the fellowship of his spirit if there's anything in christ that gives us this encouragement and this comfort but also the fellowship with him his spirit and fellowship with his people and then lastly if there's any affection and any mercy because we have these things in christ the commands he's about to give will follow paul is simply reminding these believers that in the midst of conflict in the midst of difficulty or in our context maybe more specifically in the midst of temptation when we find ourselves there we are to remember what we have in christ and who we have in christ paul would say it this way just a chapter later chapter 3 verse number 7 through 10.
you can flip there and read if you'd like to or i'll just read it to you philippians chapter 3 verse number 7 through 10. listen to what paul says but what things were gained to me these i have counted lost for christ yet indeed i also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of christ jesus my lord for whom i have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish that i may gain christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own which is of the law but that which is through faith in christ the righteousness which is from god by faith that i might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death paul throughout the book of philippians is going to remind the church of philippi just what they have in jesus and just who they are in jesus i'm reminded also of isaiah chapter 55 verse number one through verse number two and i'm told that many of the points that paul's making in the book of philippians he's drawing on isaiah chapter 55 is sort of this backdrop isaiah says it this way woe everyone who thirsts come to the waters and you who have no money come buy and eat yes come buy wine and milk without money and without price why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy listen carefully to me and eat what is good and let your soul delight itself in abundance we find in the book of philippians and we also find throughout the old testament this idea of drawing our our satisfaction from christ himself and paul reminds us of this in verse number one because we have comfort in christ because we have consolation fellowship in his spirit affection and mercy and so i think that this forces us to ask ourselves some honest questions here this morning what is it that you ultimately look to to sustain you to satisfy you to encourage you to bless you what is the thing that you draw near to when you find yourself in need and i know that we would say we'd probably give the the sunday school answer here this morning and we'd say oh yeah i draw near to jesus or something like that but let's be honest with ourselves how easy it is for us to fall into the rut of finding ourselves looking for all kinds of other things like attention like fame like praise like power like our legacy like money like scholarly achievement faculty like sex what is it that we look to if i can just be honest and transparent with you so i again i've been here for 15 years i got saved almost 20 years ago i was 18 years old i heard the gospel i'd heard the gospel a whole lot of other times but this time i actually heard the gospel and as i heard the gospel it broke me down i fell passionately in love with jesus christ i began journaling every day about my walk and my struggle with god i was documenting different things that i was dealing with different temptations different pressures and i would write about these things every single day at the end of about a year of journaling i for some reason opened up back to the beginning of that journal and as i opened up back to the beginning of that journal i noticed some of the things i had written in the first couple days that i started journaling and again i'm i'm a couple days old in jesus christ at this moment when i start journaling and as i read those things that i had written as a two or three day year old christian i was a little ashamed i was a little embarrassed because i was saying things that were rather silly that were biblically incorrect that theologically we're not all that great and i'd i'd been studying the bible and studying theology for a year now so i'd learned a whole bunch of stuff and i was going back on some of the earlier things i'd written and i was beginning to think of myself man how childish and how silly and how petty that i would think that way and by this point a year in it's pretty clear to me now that i'm going to go off to a bible college i'll probably go off to a seminary i'm going to get a theological education and then all of a sudden this deep deep fear hit me what am i going to think 10 years from now 15 years from now 20 years from now of what i've been writing here as an 18 year old christian i'll probably be so theologically informed at that point that i'll be ashamed of this drivel that i find and so i did something i stopped journaling and i'm not the point of today is not to say hey you should be journaling no no no i want you to see something in my own life i stopped because i was so afraid of the later theological snobbery that would consume me we moved a couple years ago over just a couple blocks from here you know when you move you pack up everything you put things in the attic you put you throw things away you're going through all this stuff i'm up in the attic going through some boxes and i stumble upon this little journal and i picked it up and i have to say i was cut i was afraid i was like oh no i'm gonna i'm gonna read this thing do i even open it up do i dare i had that worry because man now i'm i've really grown up i mean it's 20 years in i've been a pastor for 10 years i've got a phd i'm working on another one i'm a professor for crying out loud am i going to be ashamed of everything that i said and so i sat down with a little bit of fear and trembling and i opened back up to the thoughts to read the thoughts that i had written about my walk with christ when i was 18 years old expecting to be ashamed of how trivial i thought and how theologically uninformed i was and i was ashamed all right as i read but i wasn't ashamed because of how uninformed i was theologically yeah it's true i was naive in some ways and yeah it was true it was pretty obvious i didn't understand a few things but what hit me was as i read those words that i had written some 18 years before as an 18 year old kid there was a rawness there a fire there an urgency there a love for christ that was there a struggling with my sin that was there a begging of god would you please help me in my life to live this out and i was ashamed that that fire was no longer in me and it hit me it hit me yeah i've been a pastor for 10 years and you have been in ministry for these 18 years and yeah i'm a professor and yeah i have my degrees now and yeah i have all those things but it hit me that i had become this professional christian and that's not much and so repentance begins to follow and are returning back to remembering what i have in jesus that in him i find consolation and encouragement in him i find comfort in him i find affection and mercy and paul wants us to see that before he gives us those commands and so i ask you you know i'm asking you this question this morning what is it that you look to don't be like me whatever you do don't be like i have been so often the professional christian that's hollow and stale but rather may we return to this and pursue christ with great passion let me note second of all verse number two verse number two paul also points to christ as the great uniting love of the christian now it's a little odd what he's doing here and it's subtle so i'm gonna do my dead level best to try to make sense out of what paul is saying here but in verse number two this is the part of the passage where everybody says see here paul's teaching unity and he is but hang on there's something more going on in verse number two paul's pointing to christ yes as the thing that unites us but it he does so in a very particular way he says this fulfill my joy here's the command in light of the fact that there's consolation in christ in light of the fact that there's comfort of love in light of the fact that there's fellowship with him and affection and mercy in light of what he says in verse number one now the command is fulfill my joy how by being like-minded having the same love being of one accord and of one mind so yes there is a call to unity here but it's an interesting call to unity i think the temptation is to read this text and say you see here paul's telling us that we we the church need to be united and so what does that look like well we'd say well we just need to try to get along in churches and we need to put our petty preferences aside and do all those things and let me say yeah i think all of those things are true but i don't think that that's quite getting at what paul's saying here remember that chapter 2 starts with the word therefore in other words what he's about to say to us this command he's about to give to us is linked back to what he's already said in chapter one which is by the way why i started reading in chapter one it's linked back to this fulfill my joy how by being like-minded what does that mean does that mean just like-minded with each other well yeah that's it at a minimum level yeah that would be like-minded with each other but i think what paul's doing here is he's calling us to be like-minded with him like-minded with him in what respect in the respect that he's been talking to us in chapter one and so let me let me point to three different verses in chapter one that i think that paul's getting back to chapter one verse 18. remember what paul says here he says what then that in every way whether in pretense or in truth christ is preached and in this i rejoice yes and will rejoice what is paul saying well in that passage remember starting in verse 15 he said you know some people are preaching out of false pretense and some people are preaching out of a pure heart but who cares all i care about is that christ is preached in other words what paul is saying is that the thing that's most supreme to him is that christ be lifted up that christ be made supreme in verse number 19 through verse number 21 paul goes on to talk about how whether in life or whether in death christ is that which is absolutely supreme right and that's why i'd say in verse 21 for to me to live as christ and to die is gain so whether i live or whether i die i don't know if i live it is for christ if i die it is for christ right once again christ being supreme in verse 27 look at what paul says here only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of christ right so in other words what paul is saying throughout chapter one is let it be christ let it be christ let everything about our life be christ and now he says in chapter 2 verse 2 fulfill my joy how by being like-minded having the same love that we would be united not in the sense that we just get along at church and we put petty preferences away you know what that sounds like that sounds like unity is based off of our really good effort to be good with each other but that's not it our unity is based off of the fact that we have a greater love than anything else namely christ i'm reminded and i'm struck by something in the new testament in the gospels we have these stories about the disciples and who they are and what they're doing and in each of the gospels they'll identify who the 12 disciples are and list them off and we hear much about some of these people but there's two that stand out to me not because there's much said about them in fact what stands out to me about this is what there's little said about them two in particular matthew the tax collector who's of course the author of the gospel of matthew and then another disciple named simon namely simon the zealot now i don't know if you're picking up on this but just those two descriptions right there ought to strike something in your mind matthew a tax collector and simon a zealot now what's the deal with those now remember who zealots are zealots are a particular sect of the jewish people that are political hostiles if you will they're absolute radicals the zealots despised rome the zealots long for god's kingdom to come when he would suppress the enemies of god and rule over them and the zealots were these people that were constantly being very active very radical almost terroristic if you will at times they hated anything to do with the romans then you have matthew a jew he's also referred to as levi in some places who's also described as a tax collector now that's interesting here's a jew that's collecting taxes on behalf of the romans you know what's interesting about that the zealots absolutely hate tax collectors they hate the romans but they especially hate the tax collectors why because they're sellouts to their own people what that means is folks is essentially these two men should have absolutely hated each other and i contrast this with stories in the gospel of two other people james and john who are constantly vying for superiority obsessed with which of them is actually better right and those two are fighting and feuding about those things but what strikes me is that we have matthew and simon and yet the gospels seem to be silent about any conflict with them now maybe there was conflict with him there should have been just looking out on the surface in terms of human affairs there should have been conflict between them but the gospels say nothing about this now maybe again i'm making too much of it or maybe simon and maybe matthew found something in christ that was big enough good enough lovely enough sweet enough to put aside silly things maybe they understood what paul was saying in ephesians chapter 2 verse 14-15 for he himself is our peace who has made both one dr keithley talked about this last week about how jews and gentile that division has been broken down and the greatest of hostilities that we find on this earth are brought together as one in christ himself so maybe maybe there's nothing to it or maybe there's something to it that they found christ and therefore they found something to unite them either way paul's saying to us in chapter two verse number two fulfill his joy how by being like-minded that's not a superficial unity here of just trying harder in the body of christ to get along it's a unity that's found as believers look up and fall in love with christ and there in that view we cannot help but stand linked arm in arm advancing his kingdom let me make one more point i think that this is actually the biggest point of the whole text verse number three through verse number four note that paul also points us towards christ who is our perfect model of everything christ is a model for us in the sense that he demonstrates humility for us there's a command in verse number three in verse number four and the command is humble yourself humble yourself before others listen to what he says let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit but in lowliness of mind let each of you esteem others better than himself verse 4 let each of you look out not only for his own interests but also for the interests of others what's paul saying to us he's saying it's time to die it's time to die to self that is that the christian is someone who's marked by humility the christian is one who's marked by by making himself low and looking after other people he's calling us to serve others and to be humble before others now what's interesting about this the reason i say that he's pointing us to christ as our perfect model is because he now follows this up with verse number 5 through 11 and i'm pretty sure that by now you're well aware of what's happening in verse number five through verse number 11.
verse number five through verse number 11 is what we refer to as the canosis passage it's that great passage that speaks of christ lowering himself i'll read it here in just a second and we love around here in a place like this to nerd out at this moment right because let's face it we love theology and what is it that we love in theology we love our christology and amen and amen and amen let me be clear there's a time and a place to nerd out over chapter 2 verse 5-11 and talk about christ being equal with god and talk about christ being made low with god and derive theological lessons about christ out of that sure great wonderful yes but that's not why paul gives us this passage of scripture verse 5 let this mind be in you that's the point right he said it in verse number three in verse number four humble yourself make yourself nothing look out for the interest of other people die to yourself and serve other people you say man i don't know about that and paul says now then you're not following christ because we believers are to be the kind of people that are following christ we are to have the same mindset the same disposition the same approach to life that christ jesus himself had and what does that look like well again verse 5 through 11 let this mind be in you let this be fleshed out in your life let this be manifest in your life which was also in christ now watch what he says and again resist the urge to nerd out here on your christology there's a time and a place but here what you as a believer in christ are being called upon to do christ who verse 6 who being in the form of god what does that mean this is divinity that we speak of here the second person of the trinity folks the one who according to john's gospel brings all of us and all of this into existence who being in the very form of god and he didn't consider it robbery to be equal with god meaning that's not why he made himself low i mean he had a legitimate claim to divinity but verse 7.
