Manual For The Mindset Series

The Manual for the Mindset  

Philippians 2:1-11

Introduction

Tom Johnson’s job is writing technical manuals and though it is an exhaustive process that takes a lot of time, his comment about his own work is: “I don't expect anyone will ever read it.” How many of us have a drawer in our house full of manuals we’ve never read? Gadget Helpline that found 64% of men and 24% of women don't read the manual before calling support. Companies have had to establish help lines you can call only because people do not want to read the manuals that come with their products. (Mayer) Alfredo Rego writes, “You should read manuals like you read love letters. In a love letter, everything counts. You read between the lines, above the lines, below the lines, and in the margins….You wonder what significance the stamp has. You smell the envelope for any special fragrance. … In a manual, everything counts as well. Your heart may not pound as strongly when you read a manual. But you will certainly have more time for love if you do not have to spend endless hours at the computer doing things that you would not have to do at all had you read the manual lovingly to begin with!”

Gordon Fee brought this to my mind when he described this section of Philippians as the “manual” - the ultimate example of the character of God, which God wants to reproduce in His people. And that ultimate example is Jesus.

In Philippians 2:1-11 we have such a vivid and specific instruction of the mindset of a disciple of Jesus. This serves as the manual of the mindset - and we do not dare stick it in a drawer and forget it! We certainly do not dare to try to imitate Christ without His help!

1. Be Unity-Minded! (2:1-2)

Paul begins with a picture of the finished project: (2:1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,) The “ifs” here do not express doubt. More like “since there is” (Craddock).

ERV Think about what we have in Christ: the ecouragement he has brought us, the comfort of his love, our sharing in his Spirit, and the mercy and kindness he has shown us.

These are conditions of unity - necessary. (Barclay)

-That fact that we are all in Christ.

-The power of Christian love.

-The fact that we share in the Holy Spirit.

-The existence of human compassion. 

Three appeals to unity that say essential the same thing (2:2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.)

Can we ever think exactly alike? Be like-minded? N. T. Wright: There’s an old Jewish joke that says if you’ve got two rabbis you’ve probably got three opinions, and often the church seems like that as well.

Ironside via Swindoll “We are so largely influenced by habits, by environment, by education, by the measure of intellectual and spiritual apprehension to which we have attained, that it is an impossibility to find any number of people who look at everything from the same standpoint. How then can such be of one mind? … The “mind of Christ” is the lowly mind. And if we are all of this mind, we shall walk together in love, considering one another, and seeking rather to be helpers of one another’s faith, than challenging each other’s convictions.”

“Being of like mind means be like Jesus who never met a sinner he didn’t love to death.” - Phillip Heinze

2. Be Others-Minded (2:3-4 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.)

Are we more “There you are!”  or  “Here I am!”?

Outlooks that destroy unity: Selfish Ambition, Vain Conceit, Looking to your own interests. These “are the mindset exactly the opposite of Christ’s…” (Fee)

To be Others-Minded is to be Humble. Humility in the ancient world was descriptive of a slave mentality and therefore to be avoided. To be humble meant to be base, of no account, unfit. But for Christians humility was a virtue.  (Mercer). Humility is not focused on self but tends to forget self as it is concerned with the needs of others. That doesn’t mean we look down on ourselves or hate ourselves - it is a proper estimation of ourselves. We are a creature before our Creator, dependent and trusting.

“Love begins when someone else’s needs are more important than my own.”- unattributed

3. Be Christ-Minded (2:5-11)

From Sovereign to Servant (2:5-7 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.)