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Philippians Chapter two is where we are. If you have your Bibles there. We're making our way through the Bible and this morning we are making our way through the book of Philippians. We're continuing in our series through this book that I've entitled Reasons to Rejoice. We're looking at all the various times that Paul writes about the joy that he has in Jesus despite his circumstances. Remember, he's in prison in Rome, Italy, awaiting trial before Emperor Nero. The year is 62 A.D. and he wrote this letter to believers in the Church of Philippi in Greece mentioning the words Joy or rejoice 14 times. And so far we've seen three reasons he's given us to rejoice. Number one, he said, rejoice because God will finish what he has started concerning us. That's from Philippians 1:6. And then number two, that God will use our chains. Paul wrote about his chains because he was in prison. In other words, God will use our discouraging times for his divine purposes, and for that we can rejoice. That's Philippians 1:13. We talked last week about how Paul wrote to live as Christ and to die is gain that brings us joy when we know our eternal reward in heaven is awaiting us. This wasn't a death wish on Paul's part, but it was simply the idea that he wanted to finish well and that he wanted to enter his glorious reward as soon as God called him home. Well, there's another reason that Paul gives us to rejoice here in chapter 2. I'm going to begin reading at verse 1 down through verse 11, Philippians 2:1. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if 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 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 interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death of the cross. Therefore God has exalted, highly exalted him, and given him the name which is above every Name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory.
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Of God the Father.
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We'll pause there. Paul begins the second chapter by making an appeal. He appeals to the church of Philippi, saying, you know what brings me great joy, he says, is when you all get along with each other. That's what he's saying here. He's saying, when you put aside your differences and you find unity around the common cause of Christ, he goes, that's what brings me great joy. And frankly, by implication, what he's saying is that that'll bring anybody great joy when. When you can find unity in relationships. Now, when you look at your Bibles, God is into various arithmetic operations. God is into addition. Acts 2:47. God added daily to the church, such as should be saved. God is into multiplication. Matthew, chapter 14. When Jesus multiplied the fish and the loaves and fed 5,000, God is also at times into subtraction. Acts, chapter 5. Ananias and Sapphira. Pop. Pop. Gone. What God is not into is division. That's Satan's game. He loves to divide because he knows that if he can divide, he can conquer. And so Satan is always about trying to bring division, discord, disagreement, disharmony, some kind of division in the church in particular. But in all other kinds of relationships, in marriages, in families, in places of business, among your neighbors, Satan loves to sow seeds of discord, to cause division and strife. And so what Paul tells us here through this letter to the Philippian Church is that the way that you achieve unity is through humility. And the way that you achieve humility is by following the example of Christ. So it's number four. For those of you taking notes. Unity comes through humility. And humility comes from following the example of Jesus. This is primarily from verses two through five. I'll read again. He says, fulfill my joy. There's the word. By being like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. He says, 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 interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And then he goes on from there to describe how Jesus did the most humble thing when he left the glory of heaven and came to the lowliness of earth, and died on a Rugged cross for the sake of the sins of humanity. And Paul's going to tell us. He's going to say, okay, now look, I just want you to see the example of Christ, what he did for us, the way he came to earth to save us from our sins. Because when you see how humble he was, you can follow his example. And when you follow his example, you're going to have unity and it's going to bring you joy. So there's this. There's this domino effect. You have humility, like Jesus. You'll have unity in relationships that'll bring joy within those relationships. Now, when Paul writes here, what he does, what we find out is when he talks about unity from humility, and humility from following the example of Christ is he's. He's not just talking hypothetically. What we learn here is that he's actually talking about a particular disagreement that is going on in the Philippian Church. And he's calling them to get along. He's exhorting them to come into unity over the cause of Christ. And, and he's addressing here some disagreement that was going on between two women in this church, and he calls them out by name. Go to chapter four. Look at the end of how it, how the, the book of Philippians ends. And he makes this comment about these ladies not getting along. It's in chapter four. Now, we don't know what the disagreement was about. We don't know why they are at odds. We don't know how long they've been at odds. But. But apparently it's so bad that what's going on in Philippi, Greece, has reached Paul in Rome, Italy, in a prison. And so Paul. Paul's going to call him out. Here. It's chapter four, verse two. He says, I implore Euodia and I implore Syntacy to be of the same mind in the Lord. That's. That's just what he says right there. He calls them out. But what we're reading in chapter two is the whole basis behind that. And so what he says here in chapter four, verse two is he's like, ladies, get along. Get along with each other. Ladies, like what's. Whatever the beef is, get along with each other. And the fact is, everybody, that wherever you have relationships, you are bound to have disagreements. That's in the church, that's outside the church. Wherever you have two or more sinners together, you're going to have conflict. You're going to have disagreements in a church, in a marriage, in a family, among friends, among Neighbors among co workers, wherever you have people there is the potential for disagreement and conflict. And it doesn't necessarily mean that anybody is bad other than the fact that we're all sinners. It doesn't mean that, well somebody has malice. It could honestly sometimes be good willed people who just see things differently and they have a disagreement about it. I'm sure that Euodia and Syntyche were good willed women who loved Jesus. But for whatever reason it doesn't tell us they had trouble getting along. Look, even Paul himself had a major disagreement with one of his traveling companions, Barnabas, over whether or not they should take another traveling companion with them whose name was John Mark. Now Barnabas was related to John Mark. So what do you think? Barnabas vote was take him. I like this guy, he's, he's family. But Paul was like no, the guy's weak. We tried this before. He left us halfway through a missionary journey. He, he doesn't have the stomach for some of this stuff. He's a mamsie, we're not taking him along. And they got into such a sharp disagreement that they parted ways. I'll read it to you. It's just a few verses out of Acts 15. You don't need to turn there. This is Acts 15:36 to 40, it says. Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, let us go now back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing. Isn't that a good idea? And Barnabas was determined to take with them. John called Mark, but Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. So Paul knows firsthand what it is to have disagreements with somebody. And the fact is it's not always a matter of trying to figure out who's right and who's wrong. It's a matter of two people who love Jesus and want peace more than they want to be right. They want peace more than they want to be right. And so they put aside their differences, they give their hurts and offenses, if they have any, to God and they humble themselves toward others for the sake of unity. Now look, granted this will only work best when, if there's a conflict just between two, when both love Jesus and understand what Paul is writing to us about, you know, if you, if you're still there in Philippians 4, verse 2, when it talks about Euodia and syntyche, I want you to notice the last three words of that verse in the Lord, this you're only going to be able to have unity and come together and have peace. And despite your differences, when it's in the Lord, when you can realize that you have the common cause of Christ, you're brothers and sisters in the Lord, you worship the same Jesus. So let's humble ourselves and let's, for the sake of unity and peace, come together on this. So it's going to take two to make this work. But even if it's only just you, if whoever you're in conflict with is not a believer, and you are, you can do your part. You can do your part to follow Jesus. Be humble. You're not responsible for their reaction, their response. You're only responsible for your own. And in Romans 12:18, it says, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all men. So in other words, like, I have a role and you have a role, and the other person may not reciprocate. But if you're a follower of Jesus, as far as it depends on you.
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Romans 12:18, live at peace with people.
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So we have to follow the example of Jesus, be humble in the way that we interact with people, because we want to work for peace and unity, and that in the end will bring great joy. Now let's be real, though. Striving for peace and unity takes work. It takes work. Ideally, it's two people who love Jesus pressing into Jesus, humbling themselves like Jesus, coming together for the sake of unity and peace. It doesn't always work as simply as that. Because why? Because our human nature, the default for every single one of us is selfishness. That's our human default. And wherever you have selfishness, wherever you are looking out for yourself, it. It will result in division. Because if you're not looking out for someone else, you're only looking for your own interests, then automatically it causes division. This is what Satan loves. So he'll take advantage of our fleshly instinct to be prone to selfishness in order to cause division and discord and disagreement. Selfishness is what we all have to have to fight against. Listen to what Paul said in Ephesians. Now, there are four letters that Paul wrote during the same time he was in prison. One of them was Philippians, another was Ephesians, and he's harping on the same theme to the church at Ephesus. Listen to Ephesians 4. This is verses 1, 2, and 3. He says, I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. You see, human relationships take work inside the church and outside the church, and it starts with humbling ourselves like Jesus. So go back here to Philippians chapter 2 in the text that we opened up with, and notice again verse 5, where he says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. So in other words, he says, let this be your mindset. He says, look at the example of Christ. Let this be your mindset. And then Paul is going to remind us of God's great example of humility when he came into our world. So verses 6, 7, and 8 here in Philippians 2, verses 6 to 8 explain what we commonly call the Incarnation. The Incarnation. The Incarnation is just from two Latin words in meaning into, and caro, meaning flesh. So the Incarnation describes when God came into flesh, when God left the glory of heaven and stooped down to earth and came in this miraculous way. The seed of God implanted into the womb of a virgin named Mary, and God wrapped himself in flesh, took on a human body, was born into this world. Look, this is the mystery of all mysteries. This is a very profound and miraculous and often difficult concept to grasp. Theologians have discussed this, written about it, tried to explain it. This is something that we accept and receive by faith, that God took on flesh, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, that Jesus Christ was God in flesh, who stepped into our world to be the.
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Perfect sacrifice for our sins.
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Now, Muslims have a hard time with the story of the Incarnation. In fact, today, if you go to Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, part of what is inscribed in Arabic around the top of the Dome of the Rock says in Arabic, God is not begotten, neither neither does he beget. It is a stumbling block to Muslims and to a lot of people, the idea that God actually condescended to our level, took on flesh, that Jesus is God. See, Muslims do not believe that Jesus is God. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that Jesus is God. Mormons do not believe that Jesus is God. That's a different Jesus than what the Bible presents. But this is what Paul describes here. And he writes verses 6, 7, and 8 to explain to us this incredible humility expressed by our Creator, who stepped into our world to save us from our sins. And then Paul is going to say, now I want you to see, get a glimpse of his humility toward us. How the Creator stooped down to save creation, his very created human beings that he loves, that he would die for us. And so he breaks it down. I'm just going to go through it quickly here so we can see this. Verse 6, Talking about Jesus, who being in the form of God. The word form there in Greek is morphe, meaning the essential nature and character of God made visible. So the very form of God. He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. In other words, he didn't take anything that wasn't already his because Jesus is God. When the seed of God was implanted in the womb of Mary, it was not the creation of Jesus, it was his entrance into our world. Jesus has always existed because he's co. Equal, co Eternal. And he is God. So it wasn't robbery for him to be equal with God. Verse 7. But he made himself of no reputation, meaning, in other words, he didn't cling to the rights or recognition of his deity. He was willing to exchange his royal robes for earthly garments. He made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant. The word bondservant there in Greek is doulos. It's one who gives himself up to another's will. And so Jesus, when he came into the earth, he submitted himself to the will of the Father. And then it says there in verse seven, coming in the likeness of men, verse eight, and being found in appearance as a man. In other words, he took on human likeness and appearance, retaining his deity. He did not empty himself of his deity. He retained his deity, merged it with humanity, and he became the God man, fully God, fully man. And then it says there, and he humbled himself, verse 8. There was no pride with Jesus, and he became obedient to death on the cross. He laid down his life for us. He was willing to die for the ones that he loved. And Paul basically saying, okay, look, you see what Jesus did here? You see how God came in flesh to save us, how he humbled himself, condescended to our level.
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He says, you think you could humble yourself for the sake of peace and unity with others?
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You think you could? Now, look, humility does not mean that you think less of yourself. Humility means you think of yourself less. Okay, That's a difference. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It just means you think of yourself less. You put others first. Look again at verses 3 and 4. Back up to verse 3 and 4. 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 interests, but also for the interest of others. It's about others. Augustine once said, if you ask me what is the first precept of the Christian religion, I will answer first, second and third. Humility. I always like to say that humility is the one virtue we should all aspire to achieve, but never say we have. You know, I mean, we should all want to be humble. But the moment you say about yourself, I am humble, you've just negated it. There's no way to say, I'm humble and be humble. Other people can say that about you, but it should never come off your own lips. We should all want to be humble, strive to be humble, but never say that we are the only one who could get away with saying that he was humble. When you look at the Bible was Moses. Moses actually wrote in Numbers, chapter 12, verse 3. Now remember, Moses was inspired by God to write the first five books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And in Numbers 12:3, Moses wrote. Now, Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. But in all of your Bibles, numbers 123 is in parenthesis. It's a parenthetical comment. And the reason, I think, is because maybe Moses argued with God a little bit on that one, because God is inspiring Moses to write the first five books of the Bible. And there, at Numbers 12:3, God says again, now, right there, I want you to write, Moses, I want you to write, you're the most humble man on the face of the earth. And Moses is like, seriously, Lord, do I have to write that? And he's like, yeah, write it. Ah, I don't feel good about this. No, I'm telling you, write it. Obey me. Write this. And then Moses is like, well, can I at least put it in parenthesis? God's like, all right, put it in parenthesis. But he's the only one who can say that because God instructed him to say it. But look, James 4. 6 says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And in James 4. 10, it says, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. Proverbs 22:4. Humility and the fear of the Lord will bring wealth and honor and life. And Jesus said in Luke 14:11, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted. The Bible has much to say about humility. And if you and I want to have or recapture joy in our relationships, you have to strive for unity. And you can only have unity if you have humility. And you can only really have humility if you follow the example of Christ. Unity with others begins with humility with ourselves. Don't look at the other person and say, well, if they were just more humble, we'd have unity. That's pride coming out of your mouth. Look at yourself and ask, how can I serve the other person? How can I consider the interest of others? Stop asking, what about me? And start asking, lord, how could I be more humble to achieve more peace and unity? Romans 15, 5, 7. Paul wrote, May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves.
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And as you follow Christ Jesus, as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with.
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One heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another. Then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God, I'm going to end where this passage ends, because if I skipped it, I would be remiss. If you have your Bible still there at Philippians 2, could you just glance at verses 9, 10 and 11 with me? Therefore, God has also highly exalted him, Jesus and given him Jesus, the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Let me first tell you what this doesn't mean, and then I'm going to tell you what it does mean. This doesn't mean that everybody eventually gets saved. When it says, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. It's not talking about everybody getting saved and coming into relationship with Jesus. What Paul writes here is both encouraging and ominous. It is encouraging in this respect. When you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord. The Bible teaches us that we therefore there's no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. You humble yourself before Jesus and you ask him to forgive you of your sins, and you confess that Jesus is Lord. Before you die, your sins are forgiven and heaven becomes your eternal home. But there will be people, tragically, who will deny Jesus as Lord. But after they die will be forced to admit that he's Lord because they will see his glory in all of its fullness. And they will realize for them it is too late. And they will simply face judgment for having denied him in this lifetime. You will either confess Jesus as Lord now and enter your eternal reward, or you will tell him he is Lord later, when it is too late and faces judgment. That is just the truth.
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Everybody, receive him now.
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Receive his forgiveness now. Receive his love and his grace and his mercy now. And know that he is Lord, that he died for your sins. He came from heaven to save us from our sins, that you might experience forgiveness and your eternal reward of heaven forever and ever.
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Don't wait until it's too late, because then it will be just that, too late.
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And only then is judgment. Confess it now or confess it later. I guarantee you it's much better for.
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You if you confess it now.
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Amen. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word today. First, we want to pray that you.
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Would help us all to follow the example of Jesus.
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There are times in our flesh where.
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We are very selfish. We pray God that our spirit would.
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Dominate our flesh, that we would follow.
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The example of Jesus to be humble.
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Toward one another so that we might have unity and joy in that unity. We have to even thank you, Lord.
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For those times when you crush us, to cause us to be humble so we can see ourselves better, to recognize just how selfish we are, as painful as it is. Thank you, Lord, for the times you crush us, to break us.
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So that.
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We would be more like Jesus. I think of families and marriages, churches across our country that are struggling because of disagreement and friction, disharmony. Lord, there's enough of our flesh that contributes to that, but certainly Satan loves to pile on. Would you, Lord, help those who are in disagreeable situations right now to humble themselves to seek your face and to see the kind of unity that comes when we humble ourselves like Jesus. And I pray for those who don't know you as Lord and Savior, that they would confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord now before it's too late. One day everyone will acknowledge one way or another that Jesus is Lord. I pray before we die that each person who hears this Bible study will make that personal profession of faith now to turn to you, to accept you, Jesus, as Lord and Savior, to invite you into their hearts to be Lord and Savior. Thank you for the forgiveness of sins. Thank you for the cross.
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Thank you how you have opened heaven.
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Wide for all who would believe and receive Jesus. We receive you Lord. And we thank you that you loved us so much. You died on that cross for us. Bless your word, Lord, to our hearts as we leave here today, Lord. Thankful for your grace. In Jesus name and everybody said amen and amen.
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God bless you everybody.