This teaching, based on Philippians 2:3-11, emphasizes adopting the "mind of Christ" by understanding Jesus' divine nature, his voluntary humanity and servanthood, and his ultimate exaltation. It calls for a transformation of our own attitudes and actions to reflect Christ's humility and selflessness.
the teaching this morning is
found uh it's based on the passage which
is printed in your bulletins and I'm
going to read it now it's Philippians chapter
chapter
3-1 Philippians chap 2:
3-1 do nothing out of selfish ambition
or vain conceit
but in humility consider others better than
than
yourselves each of you should look not
only to his own interests but also to
the interest of others your attitude
should be the same as that of Christ
Jesus who being in very nature God did
not consider equality with God something
to be grasped but made himself nothing
taking the very nature of a servant
being made in human likeness and being
found in appearance as a man he humbled
himself and became obedient to death
even death on a cross therefore God
exalted him to the highest place and
gave him the name that is above every
name that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow in heaven and on Earth
and under the Earth and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the
glory of God the
word
uh if if the if the Bible was a mountain
range this would be one of the two or
three highest
peaks uh there's there's an awful lot of
treasure in here it kind of overwhelms
me as I read it even just now uh too
much to say you say well that's that's
always true for you yeah I know I uh you
know ministers it's it's a it's a danger
of being a minister I'm always saying
this is the greatest passage this is the
greatest truth I know but this
is what do I do about that I don't know
why would you even believe me the word
inflation anyway
uh we live in a we live in a time of of
talk shows Revelations of people's inner
lives inner Secrets inmost thoughts uh
this is the ultimate Revelation because
we not only have in this passage maybe
the most complete picture of
all of who Jesus is and what he did this
is the most complete passage it's all
here he was God he was also God man he
was God he was incarnated as a human
being beyond that he became a servant
and went to death the death of the Cross
therefore God has highly exalted him it
tells us all about who Jesus is all
about what Jesus is done but here's
what's especially important this text
not only tells us about him but it tells
us his mind you know verse 5 says have
the same attitude your attitude should
be the same as that of Christ Jesus what
is that blow apart the real Freight
that's a bad translation it says have
the same mind in you that was in Christ
Jesus literally it's the word mind this
passage is not only about the fact that
Jesus was God about the fact that Jesus
became human about the fact that Jesus
became a servant emptied himself made
himself nothing it tells us also about
what Jesus thought about those things it
gives us his inmost motives Revelation
his inmost thought thoughts it tells us
why he did the things that he did it
shows us his inmost motives now when
talk shows do
it they only show you the inmost mind of
somebody else for the Just For Itself
just for the sake of doing it for the
pure salaciousness of it you
know but when God does it when the Bible
does it when the Bible would for the
Bible to take the curtain away and to
show you this kind of Revelation the
inmost thoughts of Jesus Christ the mind of
of
Christ it only will do
that in order to transmogrify your mind
it'll only do that to Electrify your
mind to melt your heart and to change
your life in other words verse 5 does
not say here's the mind of Christ it
says let this mind be in you
too God would never be well so willing
to share his inmost thoughts with
you just so you could say I saw
it he does it in order to to change you
he does it in order to change the way in
which you look at everything and think
about everything and act toward the
world let me show you the three things
that Philippians 2 tells us about Jesus
basically it says he was God secondly it
says he became human thirdly he said
Being Human he humbled himself and
became a servant even to the death of a
cross those three things and what he
thought about them but it's not enough
just to say oh that's interesting we
also have to say how does that change
change our
mind about the way in which we think
about the way in which we act how does
it change our mind there's so much here
let's go number one first of all this
passage tells us Jesus is God in fact
let me spend a little time on this there
is no passage in the Bible who that more
more powerfully dramatically
dramatically
intensely uh puts the fact that Jesus is
God God himself it does it in three ways
let me let me show you the first of all
in verse 6 it says being in very nature
God now let me descend to particulars
that is a very good translation the word
the Greek word here it says Paul uses
the Greek word morphe m o r pH
pH
morphe he was in the very morphe of God
now the trouble with this word is almost
always when we take that Greek word
morphe into into English uh you know we
do do have the word some places in our
English words like Metamorphosis or
morphology and so on it usually is
translated by the word
form morphe is usually translated into
the English word form there's a problem
with that though because the English
word form has to do with outside
appearances that's not what the Greek
word mean we had a Greek word for that
there's a Greek word
schema which means the outward fashion
the appearance the word morphe actually
means the essence of something it means
those qualities which make something
what it
is and that's the reason why the the the
translation we here The New
International Version translation that
we use each week gets it
better this is a much stronger statement
this is the strongest possible statement
about the deity and the Divinity of Jesus
Jesus
Christ it is much stronger than if Paul
came right out and said Jesus Is God
somebody says well that would have been
a little more clear oh no it wouldn't
have been because when you say Jesus is
God you can mean an awful lot of things
Shirley mlan says that about herself and
she says that about you too and there's
a whole lot of things you can read into
that this is much
different Paul is saying Jesus Christ
has the unique and very identical
qualities that make God
God Jesus Christ is the very substance
of God Jesus Christ is the very
characteristics of God Jesus Christ is
the very being of God this is incredibly
strong and
if you think is it really that strong a
statement being in very nature God the
second way this passage shows us this
the magnitude of this claim is the
second pass part of the verse it says
who being in very nature God did not
consider equality with God something to
be grasped now you know what that word
kept again this is a little bit it
doesn't say it's a little misleading it
doesn't say he did not count equality
with God a thing to go after by grasp he
means held on
to this verse means here that Jesus was
equal with God and he decided not to
hold on to it that gets us into our next
point but point is here though this is
saying it's in as strong a way as
possible Jesus Christ was not just a
demigod you know it's not like the
father gave his substance to a string of
lesser Gods Jesus Christ was as much God
as God Jesus Christ was God as much God
as the father he's equal with the Father
the same in substance and
being now there's one more way in which
this passage gets this point across and
I'll take a moment to say
it people have a tendency one of the
ways in which the average person today
gets out from under this the weight of
this the claim that Jesus is not just a
prophet not just a a founder of a
religion not just a great teacher but
God himself people people say well you
know that's probably not how
Christianity started that's probably not
how it started probably Jesus in the
beginning was a teacher of peace and
love and his followers understood that
too but you know as time went on and as
the stories about Jesus became more
distant geographically from the original
site as the the stories uh developed
they they got more generationally
distant in other words as the years went
by the the stories got embellished the
Legends got embellished and more and
more people began to talk about Jesus as
if he was divine and eventually God
himself it had happened over a long
period of time the original Jesus did
not claim to be God and His original
followers didn't make him claim to be
God and the original hearers didn't ever
hear him say he was God all those
thousands of people that listen to him
teach they never heard him say that he
never said that that developed much
later here's the problem with that
opinion and with that
theory Scholars now believe that this
passage look from verses 6 down to
almost 11 yeah to 11 was not written by
Paul but that Paul's quoting
this now we know this from about verses
6 7 8 9 10 11 it is either a poem or a
confession or a
hymn its lexical links its parallelism
it has the it has the uh its Rhythm it
has the features of Greek poetry and
either Paul had written it previously or
else somebody else had written
previously but this was a hym or a
confession that Paul was
quoting and that he knew his peers would
know about he's quoting it now actually
whether or not he he wrote it doesn't
make any difference here's the point
though Paul wrote his letters within 20
years of the death of Jesus Christ and
if he is quoting here which he obviously
is all Scholars conservative or not
believe this almost all Scholars that he
is quoting an earlier hym of confession
that the church used this means that
from the very earliest days of the Christian
Christian
Church the very earliest father
followers not only worshiped Jesus as
God but said Jesus was aware of his
divinity Jesus taught his
divinity now that you have to see that
this is a claim that would have been certainly
certainly
contradicted by the
hearers if Jesus had never claimed to be
God and within one or two years all
around the Mediterranean all the
churches were saying yes Jesus claimed
to be God it would have never gotten off
the ground the whole movement would have
gotten off the ground this essentially
proves only one thing that Jesus did
make these claims and I'll tell you
something of all the people on the face
of the Earth the last group of
people whose worldview would allow them
to believe that a human being could be
the Transcendent creator of the universe
were the
Jews the Greeks the Romans people in the
East they had different views of God
their views of God were more a matter of
God being part of Nature and so they
could understand this idea of somebody
being God the Jews could not the Jews
understood God as being the Transcendent
Creator infinitely Transcendent above the
the
creation they were the last people in the
the
world to believe that a human being
could be God and if there was a
man who made these
claims and got thousands of Jews to believe
believe
him imagine the quality of his life
imagine his moral character you see
imagine the scrutiny he would have been
under imagine the miraculous power he
must have had imagine the personal
presence H imagine the Sublimity
Sublimity of his teaching and his and of
his uh of his of his preaching and his
wisdom imagine he must have been
somebody don't you see what this passage
is teaching us Jesus Christ claimed to
be God Jesus Christ was of such power in
his moral be bearing and such power in
his ability
ities that he was able to substantiate
that claim with the people who lived with
with
him and those people said he is not a
demigod he is God he is not he is not
under the father he is equal with the
father he is not a he's not a created
but he's the uncreated Creator he is God
himself now before we move on we have to
ask ourselves something how should this
affect our mind see that's the whole
idea you have to let your mind be
impacted by these
things and this is what I would suggest
to you for a moment and this the here
here's a couple ways in which the fact
that Jesus is God should have an impact
on your mind first of all if Jesus is
start to get more optimistic about your own
own
future if this is Jesus Christ that's
come into your
life and who says I love you and I've
never I will never forsake you and if
he's committed to you why are you so
pessimistic about ever changing this
habit why are you so pessimistic about
ever having any kind of joy in life you
see Jesus was a loving teacher he was
the teacher of love he was the one
little children got up on his lap he was
the one you know who comes and says to
you come unto me all ye who are burdened
and heavy laden I will give you rest he
is this loving one but who is he is he
just a well-meaning person who is this
one who says I am committed to you this is
is
God this is the one who's come into your
life you read Romans
8 where Paul says I'm not afraid of
anything look at his Unsinkable buoyancy
he's not afraid of anything he has the
highest hopes for himself and his the
people he loves there's one place where
he says he's not afraid of death nor
life nor angels nor nor demonic
principalities or powers nor things
present nor things to come nor height
nor depth nor any other creature there's
another place in the same chapter he
says I'm not afraid of suffering or
hardship or persecution or nakedness or
Peril or sword
why if God is for us who can be against
us now if you are not as Unsinkable as as
as
Paul if you are not as buoyant as
Paul if you look at yourself and say
I'll never
change if you look at and say the great
things are never going to happen in my
life and yet you're a Christian and yet
you say you've received Christ as Savior
if he's
God and you're not
Unsinkable and buoyant like Paul in
Romans 8 you're not thinking there's
something wrong with your mind that's
what he's saying there's something wrong
with your mind here let me show you
something else if he's God that also
means that's joyful news but if he's God
that's also sobering news and here let
me speak to maybe a different slice of
our congregation or our audience here
this morning uh if Jesus Is God and if
he claimed to be God as this little hymn
pretty much proves that he
did you realize that the only only
possible way to respond to him is
extremely uh when I first recently I've
been thinking about what were the books
or the things that I read when I first
became a Christian over 25 years ago and
what were the most seminal things and I
know one of the most seminal and influen
IAL things I ever read was the was one
chapter in a little book by John stot
called basic Christianity and in that he
said if you read the Bible some of you
have heard echoes of this ever since you
know in my preaching for years because
they've always been there he says if you
read the Bible you'll see that nobody
who ever met Jesus Christ ever had a
moderate reaction to him there's only
three reactions to Jesus they either wanted
wanted
to they hated him and they wanted to
kill him they tried to kill him or they
were afraid of him and they tried to run
away or they absolutely were smitten
with him and they tried to give their
whole lives to him but nobody ever had a
moderate reaction to him now the average
person in America likes
Jesus you can't like
Jesus don't you see if he claimed to be
God then if he's not God he's a
megalomaniac you shouldn't respect him a
bit but if he is God everything about
your life needs to revolve around him
don't you see there isn't anything
else how can you like Jesus nobody ever
has liked Jesus who knew who he was and
knew who he claimed to be don't you see
see if Jesus Is God that's great news
it's also sobering news but here's one
more thing if Jesus Is God see your
mind's got to be changed by this if
God this gives us a whole new
you know what this is teaching us about
this is teaching us about the
Trinity the
Trinity uh you sing it by the way you
sang it very well this morning uh you
know we sing it in the
doxology let all things their creator
bless and worship him in humbleness h
Allelujah H Allelujah praise praise the
father praise the son and praise the
spirit three in one you you sing it well
some of you sing it every week you have
no idea what that mean what the heck is
that why you sing it well though uh and
I I can't get into that too much right
now but this is teaching that the Father
the Son and the Holy Spirit are equally
God they're three in one one God three
in one three persons equally God you say
well I don't understand that can you
explain that to me no not tonight not
today but here's what I will tell you
Augustine in his great work on the
Trinity makes an incredible point
he says OU know if you're a
non-trinitarian many people believe in
God but they're non- trinitarians they
saywell there's only one God one person
Jesus was a nice man or Jesus was a kind
of created being but there's only one
person one God Augustine says if you are
non-trinitarian in your view of God you
have got a defective God you have a God
who never loved anybody until he created
the world
God existed from all eternity but until
he created at least Angels or until he
created other human beings other persons
relationship and Augustine says
therefore not only do you have an
imperfect God but you have a God who
created to meet a love
need he created in order to have
love Augustine says that's not true of
the god of the Bible the god of the
Bible is
love and relationship is in internally
inherent in him he's always had love and relationship
