Raft, Sailboat, Or Speedboat Disciple? Series

We are continuing our series on the book of Philippians. As I have mentioned before, the book of Philippians was actually a letter, also known as an epistle, which was written by Paul to the church that he planted in the city of Philippi, which is basically what we would consider today northern Greece. We are going to continue to look at the letter to the Philippians, chapter 2. As I have been doing before the last few weeks, I would like to have a volunteer read through chapter 2 starting at verse 1 and going through verse 18, ideally the NIV version. (Scripture read here.)

As you can see in those 18 verses there is a lot of content, especially in the first 11 verses. When I originally thought about the sermon, I was going to preach on those first 11 verses until I realized that I just preached on those passages around Thanksgiving of this past year. So rather than simply repeat myself what I thought I would do is give you a quick recap of what is going on in those first 11 verses and then key in on two verse for the remaining part of the sermon. As we know, Paul was a letter writer. He liked to write letters. Some of the letters are a little bit more pleasant than others. This particular letter was a letter of friendship. He had a very good relationship with the Philippian people. But also as we read through the letter we get hints that there might have been a little bit of dissension, disunity in the congregation. Paul being one to not tolerate disunity makes out an appeal to the whole church to get along with each other. He bases that appeal on the attitude of Christ Jesus. In a paraphrase of those first four verses he basically says if you have gotten anything out of being united with Christ, if you have gotten any comfort in the love of Christ, if you have found any sort of fellowship with the Holy Spirit, in other words if you have found any benefit to being a Christian, then make me happy, “make my joy complete by being like-minded, sharing the same love, having one single purpose.” Then it goes on and says “doing nothing out of vain conceit or selfish glory” or anything like that but instead he says you should think of others as better than yourself. You should not just look out for your own interests but the interests of everybody else in the church. From verses 5-11 he gives what some people refer to as a hymn that was passed along that really talks about the attitude of Jesus Christ. He says “Who, being the very nature God,” (in other words co-equal with God) did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, something to be held onto or cling to as a possession but instead he became nothing. He took on the very nature of a slave, a servant. He was “made in human likeness”. Then it goes on to say that “being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself and he became obedient to death – even death on a cross. Therefore, God raised him up and gave him the name that was above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow in heaven and on earth and even under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to, the glory of the God the Father.” Can I get an amen on that? Amen. As I talked about back in November, in these 11 verses you really have a picture of the Christmas story and the Easter story. We are all familiar with the Christmas story where it says the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. The Easter story is coming up which included the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Verses 5-11 are a picture of both stories. Paul wasn’t saying these words to remind them of the Christmas and Easter story. He was trying to give them a lens to look through their own attitude and hopefully in doing so they would change their attitude about each other. He lays this foundation of Christ as this humble, obedient servant.

In the next few verses he begins to encourage the people to have that same sort of obedience as they work out their salvation. He goes on to say “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” He is trying to encourage the believers to continue on in their faith. These last two verses are where I want to camp out for the rest of the sermon because I think these verses are critical in our own understanding of the part that each of us plays in our own spiritual formation as well as the part that God plays in our spiritual formation. The apostle Paul starts out like he does many things. He says “Therefore”. Some of you know when you are reading your Bible and you come across the word “therefore” you ask what is it there for. In this particular case, it is there to remind the people that in light of what I just told you in the previous 11 verses, you should do these things I am about to say. Then he goes on and uses what I would call a term of endearment. He calls them dear friends, which affirms the friendship relationship that he has between himself and the church. Then he goes on and gives them a compliment regarding their past and present obedience.