Portrait Of Humility - Philippians 2:5-8 Series

Philippians 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the very form of God, did not consider that equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Introduction

The Staggering Reality of the Incarnation

There is an old, fictional story about an angel who was mentoring a lesser angel, and the mentor was showing his understudy around all the glories of the universe. And he sees the innumerable whirling galaxies and the vast distances and exploding, burning suns with sizes that boggle even the angels’ minds, and finally they drew near to one of the galaxies and zoomed into a tiny little nondescript star inside that galaxy. And then as they got really close they could see what looked like some little specks of dust orbiting around that star. And the senior angel pointed to one of the smaller specks of dust and said, “That’s the one I wanted to show you.”

“That one?”

“Yes, I want you to watch that one particularly.”

You’re kidding, right? After all those amazing galaxies and supernovas, you’re telling me there’s something special about that little pebble?”

“Yes. That is the visited planet.”

“Visited? What is that… Wait a minute. You don’t mean visited by…”

“Yes. That little blue ball, humble as it is, has been visited by the Prince of glory.”

And at those words, the student caught his breath and bowed in reverence at the mention of the Name. Then the mentor angel goes on to take the other one through a series of revelations about what took place on this visitation that leaves him stunned and incredulous. That’s just a made up story, but I tell it just to help us remind ourselves of something of the incomprehensible magnitude of the reality that is spoken of in these verses. Because it wasn’t just a visitation. That would be staggering enough, for the Creator to simply visit our planet. But it went beyond visitation to incarnation – Almighty God actually taking on human flesh and entering his own creation as a man.

It is the most staggering conceivable reality, and it’s put here as a mere illustration of an ethical principle. You see that a lot in Scripture – huge motivations to support our tiny, little ethical responsibilities.

Review

The ethical responsibility I’m referring to is the command for us to achieve unity in the church through humility.

Philippians 2:2 …make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Then he goes on to give an illustration of that kind of humble attitude. Jesus humbled himself, and as a result, God the father exalted him to the highest place. That is that principle that appears again and again everywhere in Scripture. And of all the many, many passages in holy Scripture that teach that, the greatest of all of them is Philippians chapter 2. This passage is one of the most thoroughly studied passages in all of Scripture. Many people get doctoral degrees on the strength of their analysis of this passage. It is not only one of the theological deep points in the New Testament, but it is also written in a very beautiful, poetic structure.

Here’s a literal translation:

5 have this attitude which also in Christ Jesus 6 Who,

in the form of God existing,

did not consider it a thing to be grasped

to be equal with God,

7 but himself nullified,

the form of a slave taking,

in the likeness of human becoming.

And in appearance being found as a man

8 humbled himself

becoming obedient as far as death,

death on a cross.

That is the greatest portrait of humility ever painted, because the model who sat for the portrait was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And in this portrait we see that humility can be described under four headings: Appearance, Selflessness, Servanthood, and Obedience. We’ll only get to the first three today.

Appearance

The very first thing he says about Jesus in this passage is that he was in the form of God. The NIV unfortunately tries to interpret that for you, so instead of translating it literally (form of God), they say being in very nature God. All the other major translations just translate it literally, with the word form instead of nature, and I think that’s a good decision. The Greek word just simply refers to the form of something – the way it looks. External appearance. And if we try to make it mean something other than that, we are going to miss the point that Paul is making. All through this section the focus is on Jesus’ appearance – how he looked.