“IF… THEN”
PHILIPPIANS 2:1-11
#IfThen
INTRODUCTION
This morning we will focus on two words in our passage that seem like insignificant words, but when you put them together make a very powerful statement and will make us think. The statement is a powerful statement because of the conditional nature of it. The two small words are “IF” and “THEN.”
THE BIG FAT “IF”
The passage that we are going to look at today starts off with a word that is very small, just two letters, but it seems to be quite a large word in the passage as it begins. In fact, the word is repeated four times. The reason this word is so huge even though it has only two letters is because of the conditional nature of its meaning.
“IF” is a conditional word that leaves room for doubt.
“IF” is a conditional word that gives choice.
ILLUSTRATION… “If Statements” (p)
The word “IF” is also at the beginning and middle of a whole bunch of statements that you and I know by heart. Let’s see if you know the ends of these statements… call them out if you know them…
If it ain’t broke… don’t fix it.
If at first you don’t succeed… try try again.
If it doesn’t fit… you must acquit.
Walt Disney said, If you can dream it… you can do it.
If the shoe fits… wear it.
If you are happy and you know it… clap your hands
Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz said, With the thoughts you'd be thinkin' You could be another Lincoln… If you only had a brain
You see the word “IF” is a small word, but can carry with it a pretty hefty meaning in whatever statement we find it. It is a conditional word. It is a word that calls into question everything that comes after the little word or what is before it. Our passage today in Philippians 2 starts with four “IF” statements which get our attention right away.
READ Philippians 2:1
“If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion…”
THE FOUR “IF” STATEMENTS (verse 1)
I have got to tell you, these four “IF” statements in verse one seem very significant to me. The fact that the Apostle Paul repeats “IF” four times tells me that the conditional nature of what we are about to talk about is pretty high.
First, he brings to our mind the encouragement that we should have by being united with Christ. For those who are believers in Jesus Christ, we are encouraged through this life by the presence of Jesus in our lives and by the living out of His commands. When life is horrible, terrible, and just no good, we who are believers have hope and strength to drive through it all to the other side. Jesus brings us hope. Jesus brings us strength.
In Romans 15:4-5, the Apostle Paul tells us, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus.”
In 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, the Apostle Paul tells us, “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”
Second, he brings to our mind the comfort we have in our lives because of the ever present unconditional love of Christ. For those of us who are believers in Christ, the cornerstone of our faith is that Jesus Christ loves us. One of the qualities that define our intimate relationship with God is His love for us. Jesus loved us. Jesus, as we will see in a minute in this passage, emptied Himself in Heaven and came to us in a supreme act of love. He lived perfectly for us because He loved us. He died for us because He loved us. All of that was an expression of love that is meant to bring us comfort that we are always perfectly loved by God.
In Ephesians 5:1-2, the Apostle Paul says, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
In 1 John 4:10 and 4:19, the Apostle John says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” And “We love because he first loved us.”
The third “IF” in verse 1 focuses on fellowship with the Spirit. We do not realize how fortunate we really are as Christians. We who are believers in Jesus Christ are always connected to God in a way that is brand new in human existence. Before Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, people always had to rely on a priest to intercede with God for them. People were separate from God. People rarely were connected to God in a spiritual way. Because of Jesus and our faith in Him, we now have the presence of God inside us as the presence of the Holy Spirit. You and I are connected and fellowship with God on a regular basis because of the presence of the Spirit. He is our power to overcome much in life.
Jesus says in John 14, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth” (verses 16-17). He also said in John 14, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (verse 26).
The fourth and final “IF” in verse 1 focuses on tenderness and compassion in our lives. At first, I found this one odd. We who are believers in Christ should be marked by tenderness and compassion. Why is that? In answering that question, Galatians 5:22-23 came into my mind. You see, for the believer, the presence of the Holy Spirit, our living out of the Bible, and our pursuit of an active authentic relationship with God, all has benefits for us. Our relationship with God changes us. Such a Biblically-based life creates in us godly character. We who are believers understand that anything good in us is prompted by God and given by Him. He molds us to be like Him.
The Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:22-23, lists some of those good character qualities for us when he says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.”
In verse 1, Paul says over and over, “IF” “IF” “IF” “IF.”
IF you are someone who lives your life with Jesus Christ in mind…
IF you rely on God for comfort and hope in this life…
IF you enjoy and are blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life…
IF your character is motivated by God and His way of life…
In verse 1, Paul says over and over, “IF” “IF” “IF” “IF.”
Here is where the conditional statement has power. If those things are true for you, then the rest of the passage applies to you. If those things are true for you, then what we are about to discuss is how your life should be because you fall into the condition and it applies to you. If those things do not apply to you, then the rest of the passage does not bear in any way on your life. If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, then the rest of this passage does not apply to you. That is what the Apostle Paul is saying to us.
THE HEFTY “THEN” (verses 2-11)
We are talking about “IF” and “THEN.” Verse 2 begins with the second small word for today: “THEN.” Based on all of the conditional statements in verse 1, “IF” those four items are true, “THEN” the following items are then true for you.
READ Philippians 2:2-11
“then 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 better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature 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.”
THE TWO “THEN” RESULTS (verses 2-11)
Based on our identity in Christ, the Apostle Paul brings to our minds two results of our spiritual condition in God. If indeed the previous statements apply to you, then so does what I am about to describe.
“THEN” WE SHOULD BE HUMBLE (verses 2-4)
The first area that Paul mentions should be affected is our commitment to humility. IF we are someone who lives your life with Jesus Christ in mind, IF we rely on God for comfort and hope in this life, IF we enjoy and are blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, IF our character is motivated by God and His way of life, THEN we will be people who are humble.
What does that mean?
Selfishness is not a quality that characterizes God’s people. At times we are selfish, but overall our motivating character should be humbleness, humility, and thinking about others. An attitude that we are all about ourselves for ourselves is not the kind of people we should be. Paul describes for us that as a result of the presence of Christ in our lives, we will think of other before ourselves. We will be humble. We will seek the best for others around us. We will often do what is best for others before we do what is best for ourselves.
ILLUSTRATION… Humility; freestoriesforkids.com/children/stories-and-tales/beauty-contest
Once, in a lovely garden, lived the most beautiful butterfly in the world. She was so pretty, and had won so many beauty contests, that she had become vain. So much so, that one day, the cheeky cockroach got fed up with her showing off, and decided to teach her a lesson. She went to see the butterfly, and in front of everyone she told her that she wasn't really that beautiful, and that if the butterfly won contests it was because the jury had been bribed. In reality, the cockroach was the most beautiful.
The butterfly was furious, and with laughter and disdain told the cockroach, "I'll beat you in a beauty contest, with whichever jury you yourself choose."
"OK, I accept. See you on Saturday," answered the cockroach, without waiting for a reply.
That Saturday everyone went to the beauty contest, the butterfly arriving completely confident of victory until she saw who was on the jury panel: cockroaches, worms, beetles, and gnats. All of the judges preferred the creepy-crawliness and bad smell of the cockroach, which easily won the contest.
The butterfly was left sobbing and humiliated, wanting never to enter another beauty contest in her life. Fortunately, the cockroach forgave the butterfly for her vanity, and they became friends. Sometime later the butterfly even won the Humility Contest.
“THEN” WE SHOULD SERVE OTHERS (verses 5-11)
The second area that Paul mentions should be affected is our commitment to serve others. IF we are someone who lives your life with Jesus Christ in mind, IF we rely on God for comfort and hope in this life, IF we enjoy and are blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, IF our character is motivated by God and His way of life, THEN we will be people who serve.
Serving others is at times an essential part of the Christian life that gets left out in the cold. As Christians, we are called to have certain phrases running around in our heads to guide us…
… love one another
… love our neighbors as ourselves
… the first shall be last and the last shall be first
… look first to the interests of others
Serving is at the heart of who we are in Christ. We are servants of our family, neighbors, co-workers, enemies, frenemies, and fellow believers with our relationship with God in view. In the Bible, serving means to “render any kind of service” and often it means “to minister.” How do we do that? What should be our attitude about serving?
Serving firstly is something we must choose. I think there is something about Jesus that we often do not think of perhaps because in the end we do not understand it fully. Before Jesus was born of Mary, Jesus was God. He was in fullness God. He is God. God decided to come down to Earth in the form of Jesus. He emptied Himself of everything that He was to become fully human.
ILLUSTRATION… Jesus emptied Himself (p)
I tried to come up with some analogies of how substantial the change was for Jesus to go from God in Heaven to a man on Earth. I don’t know if I captured it or not. Maybe there is not a description that would fit. You see Jesus emptied Himself of all His Godhood in order to be with us. That is amazing and a mystery all at the same time.
It is like a T-bone steak becoming a Krystal burger
It is like the king or queen of the castle becoming the lowly non-paid servant cleaning horse stalls
It is like having a smart phone connected to the internet and then only having smoke signals to communicate
It is like eating PDQ every day for meals and then being reduced to a steady diet of ramen noodles
It is like having a Lamborghini to drive and then only having a skateboard to get around
Jesus was God and then He came to earth. He on purpose chose the very nature of a servant and became man. Jesus chose to come and love us. The picture that we have in this passage in that He emptied Himself. It’s like taking a big gallon jug of something and just pouring it out. That’s what Jesus chose to do for me and for you. I believe that is an important aspect of servanthood in Jesus’ eyes: You have to choose to do it or it really doesn’t matter.
Serving, in this passage, is also something that will cost us something. Serving is not for our benefit, but for the benefit of others. Jesus is our example in this as well. Serving cost Jesus. It does cost us something to really serve other people.
I tried to think of other great servants in the Bible and wanted to see if this was true. I thought of:
Abraham in Genesis 12 gave up his home and land to go where God wanted
Joseph in Genesis 37-44 gave up his family for a while in Egypt and in the end saved their lives
Moses in Exodus 2-3 gave up his life of shepherding to lead the nation of Israel
The Apostle James in Acts 12 gave up his life in serving God
The Apostle Paul in Acts 13-28 gave up freedom, comfort, a permanent place, and even friendships for God
What did serving cost Jesus? Jesus is our example in this passage… what did He have to give up in order to serve? How did He have to extend Himself to have a servant attitude?
Jesus gave up heaven and equality with God
Jesus became an actual living breathing human being with weakness and a physical body
Jesus subjected Himself to suffering and death on the cross
Jesus made Himself available to God for service by giving up everything. We all have to do that. In most instances anymore, it is time that we are asked to give up. We are asked to use some kind of skill that we have to help out someone who needs it. We are asked to give up something we have an abundance of. There are needs in the community that only you can meet. Maybe it is money we have to give. I believe that is an important aspect of servanthood in Jesus’ eyes: Service has to cost you something.
SUMMARY & CHALLENGE
Philippians 2 shares with us the challenge that “IF” we are believers in Jesus Christ, “THEN” we will reflect certain characteristics of Jesus Christ in our lives. If we do not, they are goals for us as we work out our salvation and pattern ourselves after what God has commanded in the Bible. What are the two emphases the Apostle Paul makes based on the example of Jesus:
Humility
Are you a humble person who thinks of others before yourself?
Do you look to the interests of others and seek to love them?
Have you done something lately that was completely selfless?
Serving Others
Do you look for ways to serve the people around you?
Do you look for ways to put others first before yourself?
Do you meet at least one need someone has per day?
GOSPEL IN PHILIPPIANS 2 (verses 7-8)
Before we conclude today, I would like to re-read a portion of Philippians 2 which is really a wonderful summation of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. The verses highlight for us these same elements about Jesus. Jesus was someone who acted humbly. Jesus was someone who loved others. Maybe you are here today and you have never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Please know that Jesus humbled Himself to come to Earth to serve you by dying for you. You didn’t ask for it, but Jesus Christ did it anyway. Jesus humbled Himself for us. Jesus served and loved us.
READ Philippians 2:7-8
“7 [Jesus] made himself nothing, taking the very nature 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!”
CONCLUSION AND INVITATION
