September 28, 2008

Have the Mind of Christ

by Rev. Dr. Jim Carlson

Philippians 2:1-13
 

Writing from prison to church community in Philippi. Paul started the church.

Has just received report from Epaphroditus, along with gift from the congregation. Report was good.

Critics – Paul isn’t qualified; his teaching misinterprets Judaism.

People are harassed – squabbles are taking place.

Paul recommends that they take on mindset of Jesus in order to get along during tough times.

What is Jesus’ mindset? Don’t be selfish – put others’ needs ahead of yours.

Be humbles in your dealings with others and God will raise you up.

Illustrated his point – stratified society. People high on the totem pole and others low on the totem pole.

Church hymn. Jesus equal to God (on God’s level of greatness) in heaven. Gives up exalted position to humble himself by becoming human.

Jesus becomes lowest human on human totem pole: slave executed for capital crime.

Reward for his humility – God exalts him above all creation – appoints him Lord.

Point of analogy is that if you humble yourself, God will reward you, and church will be more Christlike.

Most people are very comfortable with this image of Christ. But the language here raises some serious questions.

First: If Christ empties himself to become human, does Paul think he’s no longer God? Did he empty himself of his divinity?

Second: If Christ is exalted after dying that horrible death and made Lord, is that position any different from the position he had before? Was Christ Lord prior to his life on earth?

If he was Lord before, then after he is exalted he isn’t in any position greater than he was before he came to earth. So God really isn’t exalting him; just giving him his old job back.

I’m saying this to guard against trying to make this more than just an analogy. Jesus humbled himself as far as you can go. Jesus was exalted to the place of Lord.

Since Jesus did that, we ought to do the same thing towards others, especially in the church. We should look to the needs of others in the church. We should avoid doing selfish things.

Of course, these are guiding principles, and people may interpret ideas like humility and selflessness in widely varying ways.

I’ve never heard anyone say, “I’m not going to be humble at church. I’m going to purposely be arrogant.” Everyone thinks he or she is humble and unassuming.

I’ve never heard anyone say, “I’m going to be selfish in my dealings with other people at church. I’m tired of putting everyone else first”. Most people in church would characterize themselves as concerned with the needs of others.

People tend to point his sermon in direction of others.

Unless you’re hearing Paul’s words in terms of your own life, you’re probably missing his point. What seems to be under the surface of what he’s saying here?

First – he isn’t just pointing to Jesus. He’s also pointing to himself in this letter. These people never met Jesus or his followers. They didn’t know what the guy was really like.

Paul himself had to model Jesus’ humility before he could talk to these people about being humble themselves.

We can talk about Jesus and being humble and devoted to the needs of others, but the humility we show toward others is more important than the humility we talk about.

Student evaluations – I can talk about being a good instructor; evaluations say something about what I show people.

Second: Jesus’ willingness to humble himself was not aimed at gaining brownie points. He wasn’t looking for a promotion.

Paul says we should humble ourselves. But that doesn’t mean we should do so because we want God to reward us.

The goal is not for God to exalt us. The goal is to be like Jesus, wherever that takes us because we are his body here on earth.

We should not try to look to the needs of others so that people will like us or because we need to make up for something bad we’ve done.

Both of those options are just another form of selfishness.

We need to look to the needs of other just because we want to be like Jesus. Period.

Paul reminds his followers to live humbly even if he’s not there to check on them.

Someone said integrity is what you do when no one’s looking. The same can be said for humility.

We can’t be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; we can’t be humble when people are looking and then selfish and arrogant when we think no one’s watching.

Paul reminds them that God is working in them. Always. So they must always be asking themselves whether or not the choices they make reflect the mindset of Christ.