YIELD
Phil 2:3-4 (p831) July 22, 2012
INTRODUCTION:
I love this story…I believe I first heard it during a Wayne Smith sermon but I’m not sure…what I am sure of is if Wayne was using it he’d “borrowed” it from someone else…but it’s a great story none-the-less…
A ship’s captain looked into the dark night and saw faint lights in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send this message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south.”
A prompt message came in return, “Alter your course 10 degrees north.” Captain angered that his command had been ignored sent a second message,
“Alter your course 10 degrees south - I am a captain!” A message came back in return,
“Alter your course 10 degrees north - I am seaman 3rd class Jones!”
The captain sent a third message knowing the fear it would evoke, “alter your course 10 degrees south – I am a battleship!”
Then the reply came, “Alter your course 10 degrees north – I am a lighthouse!”
Here’s the truth…none of us find it easy to “yield”…maybe occasionally we’ll feel magnanimous at the grocery store and let someone go before us…or at a 4 way stop…
But if you put an opposing force in the situation…someone cuts you off in traffic…or evades your space or authority…at work…watch how quickly we start demanding that they alter their course 10 degrees to the south.
It’s the only way we survive in this world, huh? If not we become doormats…our voices are never heard….we’ll slide silently into obscurity…
I remember William Ernst Henley’s poem “Invictus”
Out of the night that covers me, Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Black as the Pit from pole to pole Looms but the Horror of the shade,
I thank whatever gods may be and yet the menace of the years
For my unconquerable soul. Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
In the fell clutch of circumstance It matters not how strait the gate,
I have not winced nor cried aloud. How charged with punishments the scroll,
Under the bludgeoning of chance I am the master of my fate;
My head is bloody, but unbowed. I am the captain of my soul.
“I’m the master….. I’m the Captain…
Within every single one of our souls…men and women alike, there is prideful rebel singing Frank Sinatra’s “I did it My Way” or Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down!” or Niki Minaj singing “I Don’t Give A”
We are hard wired from birth to demand our own way…to get what we want when we want it…
So when Jesus comes along and teaches His disciples that the world’s philosophy is wrong…that His followers have a different method of leadership…Peter…and Simon the Zealot must have hated it…as well as every other one of the apostles.
Here’s some context…James & John’s mother…(Mrs. Zebedee) has asked Jesus to let her two sons have preeminent places ( 1 one at his right and 1 at his left) in the New Kingdom He’s building…I’m pretty sure, neither she nor James or John understood what kind of Kingdom this is…Jesus tells her…those places aren’t his to give…God’s prepared those places…the other 10 disciples hear about this conversation…listen.
Matt. 20: 25-28 (p 697)
How does the world work…”Exercise authority over them” …It doesn’t matter how or if it’s healthy…make them yield…put them in their place…
Jesus looks at His crew and says, “But not so with you…really…they don’t seem to have caught on yet.”
Remember our test…”do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit”….
Why that is important…why is servanthood more essential than just demanding the job get done?
I BECAUSE WE’RE MAKING DISCIPLES
The world is filled with powerful, talented, driven, rich people…Donald Trump can make apprentices all day long….and he can fire those who let them down…
Here’s a huge Kingdom hint…The world is accomplishment driven…The Kingdom of God is people driven.
Selfish ambition and vain conceit make you believe that no one…and I mean no one can do what you do or does it better. In fact, you’re threatened when someone begins to question your reign…that’s the time you can really put them in their place.
So when Paul says “In humility consider others better than yourself,” his view isn’t self. It’s the Kingdom….His purpose is discipleship and unity…not authority and control.
It’s human nature… (Our fallen one!!!) to want the best seats at the table…James and John and their Mom wanted those places…The other ten disciples were indignant, mad, jealous, grudge holding because they wanted those places!...
Why do you want those places?…well if you operate with a worldly mindset…so you can control…exercise authority…if you operate with a Kingdom mindset…you’re just keeping the seat warm for the one you’re preparing that comes after you…that God is preparing to sit there…
There is no success without a successor…Becky Brodin said it well, “Leadership is not wielding authority—it’s empowering people.”
John Maxwell asks an important question….”Am I building people, or building my Kingdom and using people to do it?”
We do realize that a great deal of the time the New Testament is being written and that the church of Jesus Christ is speaking to the gentile world that Paul, the apostle is in Prison?
In fact as he writes the words in our text in Phil 2…He is in prison. He was in prison as he wrote Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians…It’s around 60 A.D. And even though Paul is in prison he writes with joy. He rejoices. 14 times he uses these words in Philippians, in jail. Listen to Philippians 1:12-14 (page 830).
“Most of the brothers have been encouraged to speak.” Brothers Paul has discipled or brothers that have been discipled by Timothy or Titus, disciples who now speak when Paul is in prison. His response isn’t jealousy or self pity or “Hey, they’re taking over my ministry.” His response is joy.
“Christ is preached and because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice.” (v. 18)
Paul rejoiced because he had made disciples and those disciples were doing what he’d help prepare them to do—preach Jesus. Even if they were doing it out of “selfish ambition,” not sincerely, Christ was still being preached (v. 17).
How amazing is that? Some of these leaders were preaching Christ in churches Paul had planted but their motives were to make trouble for Paul while he was in chains. He humbly said, “Take my job. I could care less who gets the credit, but preach Jesus.”
It’s amazing what can get done in the Kingdom of God if we don’t care who gets the credit. If we stop jealously guarding our turfs with “vain conceit” and “selfish ambitin” and take the kingdom viewpoint of servanthood. We rejoice at empowering others to go, and do, and preach. In humility we consider others to be more important than ourselves. Let me please share with you some essential changes that have to occur for that to happen, individually and in the body of Christ.
I. Real Policies that change our hearts
Folks, some of these are very healthy and some are horribly detrimental to the Kingdom of God. First, unity isn’t possible if we think
1. Some people are more important than other people, so I’ll treat them differently.
Scripture teaches that if you treat people differently then, “You have become judges with evil thoughts.” (James 1:4). The mind and heart of Jesus is wrapped up in the word humility. When Philippians 2:5 tells us “your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus,” it is humble service it’s referring to.
Please understand that scripture never tells us to like everyone the same. That’s impossible. It teaches us to give honor to whom honor is due. And that we should do good for everyone, especially the household of faith (especially our Christian brothers and sisters). And yet it’s extremely important that people are treated the same. And if someone demands special treatment and they claim to be of the household of faith, teaching them to grow up is more important than showing them favoritism. One will destroy unity. The other will make the ground equal at the foot of the cross.
2. Secondly, do not expect lost people to think in a godly way, but expect people who claim to be godly to think that way.
Why would an unredeemed, unchanged, non-spirit filled individual (male or female) think with a Biblical mindset? The world has a totally different set of standards than the word of God. In the world I want to be able to do my thing, let other do their things. And as long as we don’t hurt anybody “we’re good.” In the world we are seeking to be happy and for those we love to be happy. It sounds beautiful. But all this focuses on me and the people and things that are important to me. People outside the Kingdom of God operate like this. All of us did.
Paul says, “I used to think that people like this, even Jesus Christ, but I do so no longer.” 2 Cor. 5:16, 17 says, “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.”
Worldly judgments viewed Christ as a backwoods rebel from Nazareth. A preacher with a few followers. I promise you after the Damascus Road experience Paul’s view of Christ changed and because that changed His view of all things changed.
There should be an expectation of people filled with God’s spirit to think in “new ways.” Ways different than the world. Because we’re making disciples and people are more important than agendas. “In humility considering others better than yourself, don’t just look to your own interests, but also the interests of others.”
Here’s a final thought, an essential policy that impacts the Kingdom…
3. Change is never comfortable, but absolutely essential in the Kingdom
(The tomato plants I planted with Kari are not the same as when we planted them. They’ve changed. They’re bigger. They’re producing fruit. Tomatoes are fruit I’ve learned. Growth and maturity are change by definition (picture). My wife also planted two new little pine trees. Here’s what they looked like (picture). One of them has changed radically (show dead one). Not all change is good. Both growth and death are change. No change is comfortable. It’s different, strange, uncomfortable, especially at first.)
In the Kingdom of God you can tell whether the change is healthy or not by the fruit it produces, by the disciples that are produced, by the attitude that’s shown. Some things are worth fighting for. Some attitude changes are absolutely and spiritually essential to health and growth in the body of Christ and individually; some aren’t’. Determining the difference is the tough part.
