October 8, 2006
Philippians 2:1-16
Sometimes life can be a matter of “IFs.” Fill in the blank . . . “If I only . . . Most of us have some ifs in our lives. Moments when we should have said “NO” instead of yes, or maybe we should have said “YES” instead of no.
Times when we should have made that investment, but didn’t.
Times when we should have expressed our true feelings for someone, but didn’t.
The time when we accepted a job we knew was the wrong one.
We can also ask those what if questions,
What if I never got sick?
What if I swung at that pitch in little league?
What if I hadn’t said yes to a job offer?
I need to tell you something that has to do with a ‘what if’ question. I am only a simple piece of paper away from being an NBA player. Now you may think that is a little funny, but it’s true. I really believe I have or maybe had all of the skill and talents to be a multi-million dollar player. And I was one simple piece of paper away from making it.
If, and it is a BIG if I was one piece of paper taller, I would have been about 6’7’’. I would have been able to look Joe Umstead eye to eye. Norm would have to look up to me. I was just one if away. Of course the fact that I am the tallest in my family may have something to do with it all.
Anyway, Paul starts Philippians 2 out with a series of IF statements. He said ~ ~
If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care . . .
Those are some pretty huge if statements from Paul. You see Paul is leading us to a destination this morning. For me it comes under the heading of Christian community - with a subheading called unity.
Paul wants the church to be one, one spirit and one mind, filled with one purpose. So he tells us, if you’ve gotten anything out of following Christ, if the love of Christ makes a difference in your life, if being surrounded by other believers makes a difference in your life, if you have a heart, if you just simply care,
Paul’s if clauses are not only meant for those who are already practicing them, but also for the entire Christian community to join together in order to express these qualities. You see, if we call ourselves Christians, we are that individually, but we are also joined together in a much larger way, and that is as brothers and sisters in Christ. And we become the body of believers who become and are the church.
So, it is vital for us to follow Paul’s train of thought here. If we are brothers and sisters in Christ, then Paul pleads with us, to make his joy complete by doing some things which identify us as those brothers and sisters in Christ, brothers and sisters in community. And this is where community and unity come together.
According to the New International Version, Paul says, “be like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
So, this means we all have to agree with one another, right? Wrong! Paul wants us to put aside our differences. He wants us to look at one another and say “I love this person, because they are my brother or sister in Christ.” We may not always agree, but we have the same love, the same spirit, the same purpose, and it all comes from Jesus, and it all starts with Jesus. There is no escaping this.
In Paul’s day, there were many different classes, and probably the most difficult of these qualities to follow was quality to follow Perhaps the most difficult quality to foster for Paul’s listeners, and for twenty-first century readers as well, is his instruction to "in humility consider others better than yourselves."
Now that is not too easy to do, is it? As much as we struggle with it, Paul wanted the Philippians to do it as well, knowing their society was dictated by social classes. Relationships, experiences, and possibilities were governed by inherited status. There were slaves, freeborns, citizens, foreigners, Jews, Gentiles, male, female. These were lifetime labels, forever denoting the favored or desperate status of an individual.
Paul is urging the Philippians to disregard, and indeed to discard their own personal status and instead to regard others as better. Few other suggestions could have been so shocking to first century sensibilities.
So, Paul concludes we should look our for others interests. This then changes the dynamics of every relationship we have. If we are called to look at others as better than ourselves, we must change the way we look at everything and everybody. Which is exactly why Paul recites the famous Christ hymn in the following verses.
But notice how he starts this hymn, he says, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Wow! Not an easy one is it? Our attitude needs to be just like Jesus’ attitude. What did Jesus do? Paul tells us Jesus humbled Himself. He was God. He was God in the flesh, but He didn’t come to be served, to sit on His royal throne. Instead Christ came to be a servant, to serve anyone and everyone who was willing to open their heart, spirit, mind and body to Him.
We know this about Jesus, but it’s still so hard to do isn’t it? Somehow we look at others and don’t give them the credit they deserve, we have designated them into a lower class than ourselves, so we don’t pay attention to them, we don’t listen to them, we discard them.
Maybe, just maybe, as we look at building more and more community within our church, we can take these words from Paul and actions and attitudes of Jesus to heart - - and help them to become more and more the reality, not the exception. I’m not saying we don’t do it, but we can all do a little better. We can always look around to see what the needs of others are. Placing others ahead of ourselves.
I like the way Eugene Peterson concludes this section, he says, “Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night.”
How about those Tigers? And those Wolverines? The Cubs, White Sox and Spartans will have to wait until next year. I can’t imagine what would happen if the Tigers won the world series. It would be great for the Tigers and the city to celebrate a World Series win. But, I wondered about the Yankees as they returned home. I read about 4 players, 4 stars, who probably will not be with the team next year, I read about a lot of second guessing. After all, the Yankees were supposed to win this series, but they looked pretty pathetic.
My point is, I believe the Yankees gave it all they had. I am certain no player gave up and quit. I am certain no player on Michigan State gave up yesterday. They made lots of mistakes, lots of penalties, but they didn’t give up; but what will happen? Lots of second guessing and speculating.
What happens when things don’t go the way we think they should, we do lots of speculating and second guessing, lots of blame casting, too.
Paul says, “No bickering, no second guessing!” Why? Because bickering and second guessing takes away the unity and community, it removes the oneness in spirit and love and purpose. It makes us feel like someone or group is better than others.
But that is not the case in the church, and that my friends is the beauty of this passage from Paul.
Nobody is better . . . nobody is worse,
we are all brothers and sisters in Christ,
called by the same God,
having the same spirit,
the same grace,
the same Jesus.
We are one.
So, instead of the negatives Paul reminds us to do the positives, which leads us back to last week.
Last week we talked about filling buckets. Are you doing that? Did you do that this week? Did you intentionally seek to say and do encouraging things for 5 different people? If you did great!! This week, choose 5 more people to bless with your encouragement, remember the words of Hebrews 10:23 which tells us to consider or think about how you are going to encourage someone. So do that this week. Be an encourager. Do it for someone in this community of faith.
I read the following closing story from Len Sweet. It comes from the closing years of the depression in a small southeastern Idaho community.
I used to stop by Mr. Miller’s roadside stand for farm-fresh produce as the season. Food and money were still extremely scarce and bartering was extensively used.
One particular day, Mr. Miller was bagging some early potatoes for me. I noticed a small boy, very skinny and ragged, but clean, hungrily looking at a basket of freshly picked green peas. I paid for my potatoes but was also drawn to the display of fresh green peas. Pondering the peas, I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation between Mr. Miller and the ragged boy next to me.
"Hello Barry, how are you today?"
"Hello, Mr. Miller. Fine, thank ya. Jus’ admirin’ them peas ... sure look good."
"They are good, Barry. How’s your Ma?"
"Fine. Gittin’ stronger alla’ time."
"Good. Anything I can help you with?"
"No, Sir. Jus’ admirin’ them peas."
"Would you like to take some home?"
"No, Sir. Got nuthin’ to pay for ’em with."
"Well, what have you to trade me for some of those peas?"
"All I got’s my prize marble here."
"Is that right? Let me see it."
"Here ’tis. She’s a dandy."
"I can see that. Hmmmm, only thing is, this one is blue and I sort of go for red. Do you have a red one like this at home?"
"Not ’zackley .....but, almost."
"Tell you what. Take this sack of peas home with you and next trip this way let me look at that red marble."
"Sure will. Thanks, Mr. Miller."
Mrs. Miller, who had been standing nearby, came over to help me. With a smile she said: "There are two other boys like him in our community, all three are in very poor circumstances. Jim just loves to bargain with them for peas, apples, tomatoes or whatever. When they come back with their red marbles, and they always do, he decides he doesn’t like red after all and he sends them home with a bag of produce for a green marble or an orange one."
I left the stand, smiling to myself, impressed with this man. A short time later I moved to Colorado, but I never forgot the story of this man, the boys and their bartering. Several years went by, and I had occasion to visit some old friends in that Idaho community. While I was there, I learned Mr. Miller had died. They were having visitation and I went with my friends.
Ahead of us in line were three young men. One was in an army uniform and the other two wore dark suits and white shirts -- very professional looking. They approached Mrs. Miller, standing smiling and composed, by her husband’s casket. Each of the young men hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, spoke briefly with her and moved on to the casket.
Each young man stopped briefly and placed his hand over the hand in the casket. Each left awkwardly, wiping his eyes.
Our turn came to meet Mrs. Miller. I told her who I was and mentioned the story she had told me about the marbles. She took my hand and led me to the casket.
"Those three young men who just left were the boys I told you about. They just told me how they appreciated the things Jim "traded" them. Now, at last, when Jim couldn’t change his mind about color or size, they came to pay their debt. "We’ve never had a great deal of the wealth in this world, but, right now, Jim would consider himself the richest man in Idaho."
With loving gentleness she lifted the fingers of her husband. Resting underneath were three, magnificently shiny, red marbles.
Friends, life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. Whose breath are you going to take away for Jesus this week?
