It's Time To Deal With The Emotional Baggage - Philippians 2:1 Series

The book of Philippians is this very transparent book where Paul opens up his heart and we get to see his own emotions. He teaches us about emotions. So we're going through the book verse by verse in an in-depth study of the book of Philippians. When we come to those passages that have to do with emotions, we're kind of digging into those a little bit more. Last week we didn't talk about emotions because the passage didn't reflect emotions. We're only doing that when we come to a passage that has to do with emotions, like today’s.

I'm really grateful for today's passage because I think that sometimes emotional health… We want to be emotionally healthy, but sometimes we have a hard time with that because of the baggage that we have in our lives. Things that have happened to us in our past, the hurt, the pain. Sometimes those things become baggage. What I mean by baggage is we kind of have this backpack on and we throw them in the backpack and it weighs us down, those things from the past. Real pains. I'm talking about traumas and abandonment and wounds and abuse, things that have been very difficult. If we don't handle those in a way that allows God to work on them in our lives, they go into this backpack and we carry them around. And then they cause us to react emotionally with more drama and more intensity than we would otherwise. That's why we call it baggage. We got this baggage going on so that if your wife was supposed to pick you up at the train station and she's five minutes late, you know, you're really mad, but it's really not mad at her. You’re mad in part because your parents abandoned you or something. You know, this history that you have that causes you to react in the moment.

So Paul is going to tell us today in Philippians 2:1 how to address that whole issue. I want to read verses 1-5 because I want you to see in the passage what he's saying. So let me just read those verses to you. It says – So, which is the word ‘therefore.’ So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind (or attitude) among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

I wanted to read all the passage, but we're only going to look at verse 1 today. But I want you to see these verses in their context and where they're going. In order to do that, then we look at the first word in the passage, the word so. Now when you see this word so, really it's the word ‘therefore’ in the Bible. It's a logical connecting word that takes us back somewhere. We have to go back now to the previous words that were said, last week's sermon, so to speak, or last week's passage is what we need to look at. Because Paul is saying because of what we talked about last week, so here's this week. That's what he's saying.

So let me just take you back. I'm not going to read it all. But I want you to see the words. I underlined a lot of the dramatic words, the words that describe this we're on a mission. We're like soldiers marching through. We’re standing firm, standing firm together. We're moving forward, engaged in this conflict is what he's saying. So all of that is our mission. We're all engaged in that. We're on a mission to serve the Lord in our lives, therefore... Okay. So let's get that. We're on a mission to serve God in our lives, therefore… So we come to this so. And then the first part of this is all the ifs. It’s not the main verb.

Let's jump to verse 2 where the main verb is. He says – Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. In other words, what he's going to talk about in verse 2 is having deep, meaningful relationships. We'll talk about that more next week. He says – Complete my joy by and then he gives these four things about deep, meaningful relationships. So if you look at the logic here, in the end of chapter 1 he's saying because you're serving the Lord as a servant for God, therefore, you want to have deep, meaningful relationships. Because that's going to help you do it. Okay?