Welcome to this message from the teaching ministry of University Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida, under the leadership of senior pastor Mike Osborne. Good morning. My name is Nick Anders and this morning I will be reading from the book of Philippians chapter 2. Verses 1 through 11 this passage can be found on page 1162 in the Bible beneath the seed in front of you. Page 1162 Philippians chapter 2 beginning in verse 1. If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 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, the Word of the Lord. Can you imagine a world that looks like versus two through four, that you just heard? Can you imagine a society, a city, a team, a school faculty perhaps, or a family, or some other group of people whose members are like-minded, and as it says in that verse, who are one in spirit and in purpose? Can you imagine a group of people who live in humility and submission toward one another who do nothing as it says there in verse four out of selfish ambition or pride but count others as better than themselves? Surely we would say, surely if a society or a work group or club or team or a family or a church could live by those ideals. It would be a happy situation indeed, but a last and a lack, the truth is that it's hard to find a group of people of any size that get along for very long at all without some issue forcing a wedge down in there between them. Look around us today at the hostility, listen to the hostility that characterizes most political debate these days, even within the same political party. Think of the racial divide that still rears its head from time to time. We have here in Central Florida a perfect illustration of that going on right now ever since the killing of Trayvon Martin back in late February. And look at the divisions within the church of Jesus Christ. Do you know that there are something like 38,000 different Christian denominations in the world today? Right here in our country, someone has counted at least 1,500 different faith groups. It seems that Christians can turn about anything into an excuse to separate from one another. Have you read the Hunger Games yet? Seeing the movie? Sweeping the country, great story. I've read the book, haven't seen the movie yet. 24 tributes must kill or be killed in an arena while people watch on TV for entertainment. Kill or be killed. Kind of an appropriate metaphor for our times, don't you think? But see here at UPC, we have a different vision, don't we? We have a vision of a different kind of world, a vision of a world made new by the gospel of grace. God has given us a vision, a dream to see something different take shape here in our church and in this community of East Orlando. A dream of a city where people are living together in harmony and submission to each other. A city where people look not only to their own interests as the text says, but to the interests of other people. But how is that going to come about? How is it going to happen that East Orlando be changed in that way so that relationships be radically different from the norm? What's going to happen beginning right here in this heart and in your hearts and in ours corporately as we together see God create humility. We've been looking at the book of Philippians in the last few weeks, we're now in chapter two obviously. A couple of weeks ago you know that I left you kind of hanging with part two of a three part message on what is the gospel. We are going to return to that in a couple of weeks, but because of Holy Week chapter two seemed a lot more appropriate to me as we study together about humility. I want to bring three things to you this morning. I want to talk first about the meaning of humility and then the model of humility and finally something about the making of humility here in our community of faith. So first of all, let's talk about the meaning of humility. The meaning of humility, look at verse three, second half of verse three says in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Now that's a great definition of humility. Humility means to count or think or reckon or regard other people as more significant, more important than you. Literally the word humility means to get low or to be low to lower oneself or take a lower position relative to other people. It means to care more about the flourishing of other people than to care about your own flourishing. It means to be happy being out of the spotlight. It means being happy, not getting your way, if you can imagine that, means happy being led rather than leading if that's what God would call you to do. It's opposite. Maybe that would help us to grab what the meaning of humility is. What is its opposite? It's opposite. It's in the first part of verse three. Selfish ambition, vain conceit, other antonyms that come to mind will be aggressiveness or arrogance, boastfulness, vanity, pride, all of those ideas come to mind. It's rather than me first. It's here, my friend you, you first. That's humility. Andrew Murray was a leader in the Dutch reform church, author, pastor, South African leader of the church, and he said this, I quote, humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, even when I am blamed or despised. It's good definition of humility. The conductor Leonard Bernstein, he was once asked, what is the most important musical instrument in this symphony? And he thought for a moment, he said, second fiddle. Second fiddle, that's the most important one. He says I can always get plenty of first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm or second French horn or second flute. Now that's a problem, he said. Yet if no one plays second, we have no harmony. See if there's no one playing second, no one being humble, there's no harmony, which is what God is desiring to create among his people. You know the name Salman Chase, some of you history buffs remember, Salman Chase, he was the secretary of the treasury under President Abraham Lincoln back during the Civil War years. He had a tough job, he had to find money to finance a war that nobody wanted to fight. Salman was smart, he was strategic, he was known as a pretty good problem solver, but Salman Chase had one major problem, one major character flaw, his ego. He had to be top dog. Salman had an insatiable desire for high office to be specific, he wanted to be president of the United States instead of treasury secretary. A colleague once described him as a man of inordinate ambition, intense selfishness for official distinction and considerable vanity. Salman was responsible for printing money during those years, so guess whose picture was printed in the corner of every single one dollar bill. That's right, Salman Chase had his own picture printed there. Why the one dollar bill you might ask, it's because he knew that one would be the one that most people would have. And so his picture was plentifully reproduced throughout our country and when historians today talk about Salman Chase, it's usually about his ravenous passion for his own name. What a different spirit you see in, let's say somebody like John the Baptist. Do you remember what John the Baptist said shortly after he baptized Jesus? He said he speaking of Jesus must increase. I must decrease. I must get out of the way that Jesus might prevail. That's humility. Although on second thought, maybe that's not the best picture of humility, because what if you were looking at Jesus, wouldn't it be fairly easy for you? It certainly would be for me to say he must increase while I must decrease. Think about the person who annoys you the most. Who is the person who really drives you up the wall? Think of someone who irritates you to death. Somebody that you have a real relational problem with. Can you say by God's grace, she must increase. I must get out of the way. He must increase. He must prevail. I must decrease. That's humility. Maybe it would help if we had a model. A model to look at someone in the flesh who embodies this grace of humility. That's what we want to look at now, the model with a capital M of humility because Jesus Christ is the model of humility in this passage. Verse 5 says your attitude. You want to talk about humility? Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. We're going to spend the bulk of our time now on verses 6 through 11. This passage of Scripture is huge, right? There is so much in this part of Philippians 2. Most scholars believe that this is an early Christian hymn that Paul adapts and uses for his own purpose as he writes this letter to the Philippians. We're only going to look at the first part of this hymn today and we're going to look at the next part of it on Easter Sunday. But what it does from verse 6 through 11 is it spans the entire existence or history of the Lord Jesus Christ. Theologians, when they look at the lifespan of Jesus, they divide it into three things they call states. The three states of Christ. Let me give you an overview of it here on this chart and then we're going to break it down and look more carefully. First of all, back in eternity past, there's the pre-incarnate state of Christ. That is the state in which he was in before he came to planet earth. That's when Christ was in glory before his incarnation. It talks about that in verse 6. We'll look at it in a moment. The second state of Christ was when he left glory and came to earth, this we call his state of humiliation. It is when he humbled himself and became a man and was here on the earth for 33 years or so. And then third and finally, when he ascended to heaven, we're going to talk about the resurrection next week. He went to glory again as both God and man and we call that his state of exaltation. So now we're going to break that down and look at the first and the second and then save the third for next Sunday morning. So let's go back and talk about Jesus in his pre-incarnate state. Look at verse 6. The very first part of verse 6 says, who being in very nature, God. Now in that little phrase, you have Paul's commentary on the pre-incarnate state of Christ. In eternity past, long before he became a little baby in the manger Bethlehem, Jesus Christ was with the Father in glory. God of God, Lord of lords. And it says literally in the Greek that he was in the form of God. Some of your translations might actually say that in the form of God. Is the Greek word Morphae? And it means the inner essence or the abiding nature of God. By nature, let's talk about me for a moment. By nature, for example, I'm an introvert. You know that about me. I'm somewhat quiet. I'm kind of reserved sort of conservative in a lot of different areas of my life. I'm 58. I'm not going to change. I'm pretty much that's who I am. That is my nature. Now let's talk about Jesus. Jesus's inner essence, his abiding nature is deity. His inner being is that of God. It always was and it always will be. Verse 6 is saying that his inner essence is God. Is God now? What's God then will always be the second person of the Trinity, the creator, the Lord of heaven and earth is God. And that's the consistent teaching of the New Testament that Jesus Christ is God. Now that's a whole nother sermon, but let's move on. Because one day something profoundly new happened to this God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He took on another nature. He took on the nature or the word again is Morphae or form of a human being. That is, as I said earlier, his state of humiliation when Jesus left his throne in glory and came to the earth as a baby. Look at verses 6 and 7. It says in the second half of verse 6 that he did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped. But he made himself nothing, taking the very nature, Morphae, form of a servant and being made in human likeness. Now folks, this is amazing. This is really huge. Without for a moment, ceasing to be God, Jesus Christ took on real human nature. And what I really want to do to appreciate this more is dwell on each phrase that we find in verses 6 through 8. First phrase, he did not consider or regard or think being equal with God something to be grasped. Let's mold that over for a moment. What does it mean? It means that even though Jesus Christ was in the form of God and equal with God, he did not take advantage of his deity. Though he was God, he didn't think of being equal with God as something to cling to or hold on to, something that absolutely must not slip from his grasp. Did you get it? Unlike, maybe this will help you. Unlike Adam, Adam in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3.5, unlike Adam who wanted to be what? Like God. Jesus Christ, let go and took the lower place. He didn't want to be like God in the sense of Adam. He, the second Adam, didn't clutch after equality with God but relinquished it and let it go. Next phrase, verse 7, says that he made himself nothing. Some of the older translations say that he emptied himself. Maybe yours says that he emptied himself. Now let's be careful when we read it that way. What did Christ empty himself of? Did Jesus empty himself of his deity? No. Not for a moment did he let go of his Godness? He didn't subtract deity. What he did was he added humanity and that's a big difference. So what does emptied himself mean? It means that he gave up his rights as God. It means that he set aside the outward expression of his deity. He sacrificed his divine prerogatives. He divested himself of position. He surrendered his right to manifest himself visibly as the God of all splendor and the God of all glory. That's what he emptied himself of. Have you ever seen the TV show Undercover Boss? Perfect illustration. Undercover Boss. You have a CEO of a huge company. You have a president of a huge company. Very successful person. Right? Wallowing and money. Successful on all the rest. And yet in this show he always takes an entry level position in some place, some store, some company that he might learn sort of the real story about it. Friday night, for example, it was a guy named Harlan Kent. He's the president and CEO of the Yankee Candle Company. I don't know if you saw this on Friday night. Yankee Candle Company. World's largest candle manufacturer. 200 million candles a year they make. $730 million in sales last year. They have 6400 employees. Harlan Kent takes this entry level job in a Yankee Candle store in some mall. And throughout the episode, you see him cleaning out toilets, vacuuming the floor, sweeping up the dirt, showing kids how to dip candles in the wax. He emptied himself. It divested himself, right? Of his prerogatives as the president and the CEO of that candle company. That's what Jesus did. One moment the son of God was in. Imagine it if you can. The blinding light of glory surrounded by billions of angels and the very next moment he's an embryo in the uterus of a frightened teenage girl named Mary. One moment Jesus was at his father's side that very next moment he was tossing and turning in a cattle trough. He emptied himself. He made himself nothing. Edward VIII is another good story along that line. I remember the story of Edward VIII back in the early 1900s. He succeeded his father, George V, as the king of England. And this meant that for almost a year Edward VIII was the king of England surrounded by honor and riches and prestige, but then something happened, right? He fell in love. He fell in love with Wallace Simpson, an American socialite divorcee. Wallace had divorced her first husband and was in the process of divorcing her second husband, but Edward VIII fell in love with her and he wanted to marry her, but there was a problem because to do so meant he had to abdicate. You see, the king of England is also the head of the church of England and the church of England doesn't exactly like having kings whose wives have two living ex-husbands. That doesn't look good for the head of a church and so in order to be married to Wallace Simpson, Edward, abdicated. He didn't cling to the glory that was due, but rather for what he felt was the greater good he gave it away. And in a similar way, Jesus Christ made himself nothing for the greater good of the joy that was set before him to see a redeemed humanity at one with the father. Jesus became a nobody that you might become a somebody to God. The next phrase in verse 7, he took the very nature. Again, that's the word Morphe form. He took the very nature of a servant. When I saw that word servant, I thought immediately of John 13, Jesus in the upper room with his disciples just a few hours before he was going to be betrayed, tried, condemned, crucified. He says that he took off his outer clothing, laid it on a couch, wrapped a towel around his waist, bent down at the feet of his disciples and washed their feet. He took the form of a servant. Now that word servant in the Greek language is not deaconos from which we get the word servant or deacon. It's the word dolos. It's a different word for servant. And literally it means bond servant. Now if you know the history of the bond servant, you know how special this is. Let me tell you what it was. Back in the book of Deuteronomy, the law was given that if there was a Hebrew servant who didn't want to be set free at the end of seven years. After every seven years, they would set their servants free. It's a good situation. But if at the end of seven years a servant said no, I love my master. I don't want to be set free. I want to stay being your servant for the rest of my life. I'm not a hired servant anymore. I'm serving because I want to and I love you. We take that servant to the doorpost of the home and leaning up against there with the lobe of his ear resting upon the wood and the master would drive in all AWL through the earlobe. Sometimes put a gold ring in there too. Indicating this servant won't go anywhere. He is bonded to the master. He belongs to the master for the rest of his life. That is the form of which Jesus Christ became a servant. He became a bond servant. He took off the privileges of deity and washed our souls with his blood. Next phrase also in verse seven says that he was made in human likeness. That simply means that Jesus was a real human being. In every respect Jesus owned our humanity. As a baby he cried for his mother's milk. Jesus got tired. He felt our emotions. The full range of of him. He had body odor. Jesus got sick. He snored. He got the flu. He was tempted by all the things that you and I are tempted of course without ever caving in to sin. He was no less a person than you and then I. Suffering for us. Suffering with us. Next phrase is verse eight. He says and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself. There's that word humility. Same word we saw earlier. Christ got low. He got low. He chose a manger for his vassanette. He chose an obscure Jewish family for his lineage. Nazareth for his hometown. Fishermen and tax collectors for his friends and followers. Even in his triumphal entry. That's what we're observing today, right? Even in his triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He came riding as the prophet Zechariah says gentle and riding on a donkey. A perfect symbol of majesty veiled in meekness. Jesus chose to play second fiddle. He counted or regarded or reckoned you as more important, more significant than himself. He decreased that you might increase in the eyes of God. He got out of the way that you might prevail with the father. It's amazing. The last phrase in this amazing him. Verse eight. He became obedient to death even death on a cross. Now we're going to look more carefully at the death on a cross this Thursday at the Monday Thursday service. But you know I'm sure that crucifixion was the most cruel form and the most despicable form of death in the Roman Empire. It was limited to non-Romans and to criminals, but it was reserved for Jesus Christ the Savior. It was as humiliating as it was excruciating. And to the Hebrew to be hung on a tree was equivalent to being under the curse of God under the ban of God. And Jesus willingly went there. Jesus obeyed his whole life was one of obedience to the plan of redemption from the cradle to the cross. Jesus's life was one of obedience. We call those 33 years in which Jesus was obeying the father's law his active obedience on your behalf because of your disobedience. And we call that last six hours of his life while he hung on the cross his passive obedience as he was dying for us paying the penalty that you and I deserve because of our sin. He paid it to its maximum hunger games. I talked about that a little while ago. Perfect illustration. Hunger games you have Katniss Everdeen who gives her life and says no don't take my little sister as tribute. Take me as tribute in your hunger games. It's exactly what Jesus Christ did when he said yes to the cross but the difference is this is not fiction. The story of Jesus is real. It's real. This state of humiliation that we're talking about. Can you see it? Do you feel it? Don't you love it? It's your hope. It's your life that Jesus did that for you. The maker of the universe as man for man was made a curse. The claims of law which he had made unto the uttermost he paid. His holy fingers made the bow which grew the thorns that crowned his brow the nails that pierced his hand were mined in secret places. He designed. He made the forest once there sprung the tree on which his body hung. He died upon a cross of wood yet made the hill on which it stood the sky that darkened or his head by him above the earth was spread. The sun that hid from him his face by his decree was poised in space the spear which spilt his precious blood was tempered in the fires of God the grave in which his form was laid was hewn in rocks his hands had made the throne on which he now appears was his from everlasting years but a new glory crowns his brow and every knee to him shall bow.
Jesus you see is the model he is the example he is the epitome of the humility that is so so beautiful so what should be the effect of that on you on me on us corporately it should create humility among us friends. Let's talk very briefly about the making of humility we've seen the meaning we've seen him being the model how is it going to be created among us well it's in verses one and two the making of humility go back up to the top of the text. Paul says to the flippians if you have any encouragement for being united with Christ and Paul's meaning here is and there surely is. If there is any comfort from his love as there surely is if there's any fellowship with the spirit and of course there is if any in attendance and compassion then Paul says make my joy complete by being like minded having the same love and being one in spirit and purpose. I'll repeat what I asked you at the beginning of this message can you imagine a world that looks like that can you imagine a group of people be it a city a church a neighborhood a family who live in humility and submission toward one another like this who do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but count others as better than themselves. I read recently about a man named Johann Lucasse he is the head of the Belgian evangelical mission he's a church planter he has successfully planted over 50 churches so he knows what he's doing but some years ago he realized he wasn't getting anywhere evangelistically in the nation of Belgium and he wondered why. He thought well is it perhaps because the Roman Catholic church has been so prevalent for so long in Belgium or is it because the cults are very aggressive and have found you know many inroads into our culture is that why Christian evangelism doesn't seem to be working and so he thought and thought and prayed and prayed and he came up with an idea Johann Lucasse gathered a diverse group of Christians together. Americans Dutch Belgians anybody else who wanted to join his project and he had them rent a house and live together for seven months. Anytime you've got a group of people living together in close proximity you know friction is going to happen and that's exactly what occurred. They started having button heads they started having problems together but they prayed together they talked together they confronted one another in love they did the biblical thing they worked through their relational difficulties and you know what happened suddenly Belgians began getting converted. Suddenly people started following Christ because they watched these people living together in humility before one another and they wanted the same thing for themselves and they said about these people living in that house in Belgium and I quote they are the people who love one another. Now that you and I have seen how profoundly Jesus humbled himself before us may we at UPC aspire by God's grace to be the people who love one another. Father thank you so much for sending your son Jesus as our sacrifice for sin thank you Lord Jesus Christ that you humbled yourself you became nothing you emptied yourself of all of your divine prerogatives you took second fiddle you decrease that we might increase father it's it's almost way too much for us to comprehend. So Lord Jesus we pray that you'll send your spirit to us we ask you to help us make your joy complete by having one mind and one love and in humility to consider others better than ourselves Lord Jesus will you create your life among us that people around us might be able to say about UPC they are the people who love one another. We ask this in Jesus name Amen. We at University Presbyterian Church thank you for listening to this message our mission is to help people know God row together and serve others to learn more about the church or how to have a vital relationship with God visit our website at www.uPC-orlando.com or call our offices at 407-384-3300