The Joy of Humility
Philippians 2.1-11
Introduction
If you have been here for the past two weeks, you will know that we are looking at Paul’s letter to the Christians in Philippi, a Roman garrison town in Eastern Macedonia which Paul visited on his travels into what is now modern day Greece.
The particular theme we are picking up is the theme of joy, which is one of the major themes in the letter, in spite of the fact, as we were thinking last week, Paul is writing from a prison cells and facing the prospect of an early and painful death at the hands of the Roman authorities . In this short letter, just four chapters in our Bibles, Paul speaks of joy or rejoicing eleven times.
And as we were thinking two weeks ago when Marcus was speaking, the kind of joy we are thinking about is different from the happiness which so many people seek in this lives. Happiness is very often based on our circumstances, which are fickle..
In contrast, as Marcus was saying, the joy Paul is talking about is founded on something much more enduring and reliable, namely our relationship with Christ and the fact that Jesus has Overcome death for You and for me.
Just to show you that it is not just the adult congregation that is thinking about joy, I came across this on the whiteboard in the church centre the other day. It is the results of a discussion about joy by one of our young people’s groups. For them joy comes from …. And happiness comes from …
I wonder what you would put under those two headings?
Let’s turn to today’s topic which is Joy in Humility. Or as I would like to rephrase it for the purposes of this sermon, the Joy of Unity that Comes from Humility. Because if you were listening carefully to the reading you will have noticed that what will complete Paul’s joy is the Christians at Philippi being ‘like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose’.
Paul’s joy was founded on his relationship with Christ and his experience of the gospel, but such were his values that his joy would be completed, topped off, if he could see that the Christians in Philippi were united in belief and purpose. But, as we shall see, that unity can only be fostered by a Christ like humility.
1. The Joy of Unity
This section of Paul’s letter actually starts with the final paragraph of the previous chapter. In chapter 1 verse 2, Paul calls the Christians in Philippi to live lives that are worthy of the gospel of Christ, and key element in living worthy lives is, as he says, ‘standing firm in one spirit, contending as one person for the faith of the gospel’. Unity of belief and purpose is to be one of the hallmarks of the church.
And it is a unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17.11
I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of[b] your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.
And it is a unity that, according to Jesus, is going to be a witness to the world. As he goes on to pray in that same prayer:
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – 23 I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
So the unity of the church was and is important to Jesus. And it was important to Paul. How many of Paul’s letters were aimed at bringing an end to conflict in the churches of his day and encouraging them to unite around the gospel and God’s mission. The reason for that is that a disunited church is a poor witness to the world and far less effective in its mission to the world, because time and effort is being used to deal with internal differences – as we see today in the Church of England!!
And so at the beginning of chapter two Paul returns to the theme of unity, writing:
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, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
In other words, if you have received any benefits from being united with Christ through the gospel, go on to complete his work among you by being united in belief, purpose and action.
The problem with talking about the unity of the church is that we tend to get distracted into thinking about grand schemes to unite the various denominations into one grand organisational unity. However worthy the cause of church unity is at an institutional level, that is not the unity that Paul is writing about. He is addressing a single congregation, the local church in Philippi, and calling them to be united. And he therefore addesses us this morning here at St Giles.
Disunity within a congregation like ours can come about for a variety of reasons. In this letter, Paul addresses at least three causes of disunity, all of which are relevant today.
One is the disunity that comes from people pursuing their own self-interest rather than serving one another. As we shall think about a bit more in a moment, the remedy he proposes is the remedy of humility.
Another is the disunity that comes of false teaching infiltrating the church and causing disputes. In chapter 3, Paul calls on the Christians to ‘watch out’ for people he calls dogs and evil doers. These are people who are trying to add the Jewish law to the gospel and saying that Gentiles Christians must be circumcised if they are to be true members of the church. Paul wants the Christians in Philippi to have nothing to do with these people because he knows that they will only sow discord and create disunity as they lead people astray with their false teaching.
It is a reminder to us that true unity is based on the truth of the gospel once delivered to the church by Christ, Paul and the other apostles.
And in our own day we need to be alert to efforts to undermine the truth of the gospel with accretions or alternatives. We have different challenges today. One is the growing emphasis in some parts of the church in what is called the prosperity gospel.
You will have come across the prosperity gospel if you have watched some of the religious satellite TV broadcasts by people like Joel Orsteen. The prosperity gospel teaches that God’s people should expect to prosper in this life, to enjoy good health and growing material prosperity. This flatly contradicts what we thinking about last week, that as Paul says in 1.29 that it has not only been granted to believe in Christ but also to suffer for him.
We need to be alert to this and other distortions of the gospel and ready to challenge those who peddle them.
A third cause of disunity are the inevitable disagreements or personality clashes that will come as people from different backgrounds and with different opinions seek to work together to build the church. We have an example in this letter.
In chapter 4 we find Paul pleading with two ladies, Euodia and Syntyche, who have fallen out, to come back and ‘agree with eachother in the Lord’. These are two women who have been prominent in God’s service. They have worked together and with Paul in the cause of the gospel. But now they have fallen out. We don’t know why but we know that their dispute was important enough for Paul in this very public way to call the other Christians in Philippi to help them overcome their differences. He knew from experience that this kind of dispute might start small but can easily escalate, with other people taking sides and end up in a major division in the church, a division which undermines the unity for which Christ prayed and Paul laboured.
Is there work to be done in our church, I wonder, where members have fallen out and need to be reconciled? Reconciliation does not have to be done in a public way. If you know of people who are hurting like this, start by praying for them, and then see what you can do to reconcile them. Such reconciliations bring joy, joy to God and joy to the rest of the body of Christ.
Complete my joy, writes Paul, by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. As we look around our church, are their opportunities for us to take an initiative to build that unity of spirit and purpose, because if we do we will add to the joy quotient that all of us experience as being members here.
But what is the main cause of disunity in the church, whether it is the disunity of theological dispute or arguments about whether or not to keep the pews, the disunity that undermines our joy. It is the disunity that, as I have said, springs from people pursuing their own self interests. Which brings us back to our main theme for today, the need for humility.
2. The Need for Humility
Having talked about unity, Paul moves immediately to talk about the attitude of mind we are to have if we are to promote unity in the congregation.
3 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.
How often are our actions born out of selfish ambition or vain conceit? Wanting to gain an advantage over others or wanting to look good to others. More often than we like to admit, I suspect. Even things that might on the surface look altruistic can turn out to be carried out for selfish motives.
We might volunteer to help with Sunday school, but we might really be doing it to impress others rather than serve the children. We might offer to help with clean the church but we are really wanting to look pious.
In my experience, it is very difficult to have completely pure motives for any of our actions, even preaching sermons. Do we apply for a promotion because it will look good or because we genuinely believe that we can use it as a platform to service others? Nevertheless, it is helpful to ask ourselves why we are doing something, and whether personal ambition or vanity are our primary motivations.
Paul’s antidote to ambition and vanity is humility: 3 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.
Look around the congregation. Have a good look at the people sitting around you. Then ask yourself, do I value this person, that person above myself? Am I prepared to put this person’s interests above my own? And what would that mean if I did?
The first thing it would surely mean is that you get to know that person if you don’t know them already. And then as you get to know them, you will be asking yourself, how can I serve this person’s best interests, even if it costs me something to do so? It might cost some time, it might cost some money, it might cost your dignity. But what can I do to really help this person?
You see the unity that Paul wants to encourage in the church, the unity that answers Christ’s prayer and is a witness to the world, is a practical unity, a unity that works itself out in individual relationship of mutual regard and service.
And if we need a motivation and example of what true humility looks like, it is the example of Christ.
3. The Humility of Christ
Verses 5-11 of Philippians 2 contain some of the most sublime writing about Christ found anywhere in the Bible. These verses may be an early Christian hymn or poem that Paul was quoting from, or perhaps just Paul writing in a poetic form. Either way it gives us a unique insight into the pattern of Christ’s life, death and exaltation.
Paul lifts this up before us as an example to follow. Of course, there is a uniqueness about Christ’s life that we cannot possibly emulate. Only he could die for my sin, since none of us are good enough to die in place of another.
Nevertheless, Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension are also the pattern for our own lives and provide us with a glorious example to follow. Listen again to what Paul says about him:
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.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming 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 acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
‘In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.’ What a challenge!!
As we consider Christ, living in the glory of heaven, humbling himself in taking human form, accepting the pain and humiliation of rejection and the cross, laying down his life for us, we are to have the same mindset in our dealings with eachother. The same humility, the same attitude of service, the same willingness seriously to put ourselves out for the benefit of others.
As we know from the letter to the Hebrews, Jesus is both ‘pioneer and perfecter’ of our faith and it was for ‘the joy set before him that Christ endured the cross, scorning its shame’. So for Christ, joy was present in his suffering and humiliation. But it was a joy that sprang from his knowledge of what his suffering would achieve, not from the suffering itself.
So too with us, as we humble ourselves in the service of others, we too will know the unique joy that comes from service, the joy of humility.
One of the reasons I think that we find it hard to be humble is that we think, falsely, that this life is the only chance we have to make our mark. But we can see from this hymn that Christ’s exaltation to the place of highest honour followed his life of suffering and service. Perhaps part of the ‘joy set before him’ was the joy of knowing that exaltation followed the pain. Having that knowledge in mind, knowing that one day God has promised that we will reign with Christ in a new heaven and a new earth, that our eternal status is guaranteed, should help us to humble ourselves in this life.
So let me ask, in your relationships with other members of St Giles, do you have the same mind-set that Christ had? If you do, you will know the joy of humility. If you don’t you are missing out on that uniquely Christian source of joy.
Conclusion
Paul’s argument then is that part of the joy we know as Christians is the joy of seeing, experiencing, practicing and deepening our unity in Christ. And that unity is undermined by self-seeking but fostered among us by an attitude of Christ like humility.
In our studies in Philippians, I hope that we are recognising with increasing clarity how distinctive is our Christian joy. It is a joy that is rooted not in our changing circumstances but in what Christ has already done for us in overcoming death. It is a joy that is to be found not in the easy life but in the midst of suffering. It is a joy that can be experienced not in our own personal achievements and successes but in the of others.
Do you know this joy? The more we take time to reflect on the sources of true joy, the more we will be protected from the vicissitudes of happiness and the more we will know that joy welling up from within, even within the most trying of circumstances.
It was the early American politician and philosopher Thomas Jefferson who first asserted that: all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A sentiment that lay behind the writing of the American constitution.
But if we are more concerned with joy than with happiness, I think we can recognise that joy is not something we pursue, but rather something we receive and experience as we recognise what Christ has done for us and as we pursue his agenda for our lives. And his agenda requires us to have a deep desire to promote the unity of our church and follow Christ’s profound example of humility and service.
