Have the Same Mindset as Christ Jesus

Introduction

Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, Paul urges in verse 5. Opening up the Philippians 2:1-11 meaning with Kierkegaard’s parable of a king who dressed as a beggar to win the one he loved, Revd. Mark Fletcher shows that Christ made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. Humility in Philippians 2 means naming selfish ambition or vain conceit in ourselves, and choosing to value others above ourselves.

Once upon a time, there was a great and powerful king who lived in a beautiful castle. And each day he would stand on the ramparts looking out over those who lived in his kingdom. But one day, he saw a poor girl struggling to make a living selling wild flowers. And his heart went out to her, and he loved her. But what was he to do? He’s the king, and she’s just a peasant girl. He could, of course, send servants to fetch her. He could shower her with gifts and ask her to marry him. But how could she say no to an offer like that? And how could it be real love if he didn’t honour her freedom? And how would he ever know that she loved him for himself and didn’t just love him for the crown that he wore?

And so one day he came up with a plan. He took off his royal robes and put on the clothes of a beggar and left his royal palace in secret and set out to find her and to try to win her. Now that’s a lovely story. It sounds quite familiar, like some old fairy tale. But it’s actually a parable told by the great 19th century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. And it’s a parable inspired by this passage that Anna just read for us, which speaks of a God who, for love, humbles himself and takes the form of a servant and sets out to win us. And so if you take nothing else from this evening, remember that. Remember the God of the universe, enthroned in majesty, who puts off his power in order to seek you. And he, even at this moment, is knocking at the door of your heart, asking to be invited in.

The passage that we have in front of us is another of these magnificent passages from Philippians. Remember that these are letters written by Paul while he is in prison, and despite the hardships and the trials that he is facing, he is able to write some of the most beautiful and profound theology that we have. It’s as if in the darkness, the light shines brighter than ever. And this is a momentous passage which speaks of the incarnation of Jesus. It’s a wonderful thing. Verse 7, he says, Jesus who made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, humbling himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. It’s the very heart of the gospel, isn’t it? It’s an astonishing thing, an astonishing statement about God, utterly unique to Christianity. Nothing else has anything that comes close to this. To speak of a God who comes looking for us, it’s not us who seek God, it’s God who seeks us. It’s a profound statement about the God that we worship. But I don’t know if you noticed that in actual fact, what Paul is doing with this passage isn’t just teaching us amazing things about God. He intends it as a model and an inspiration for you and me that we might live amazing lives in response to what God has done. And what that looks like is this idea that we should give ourselves away, that just as Christ gives himself for us, so we should give ourselves for the sake of one another. It’s a high calling, but this is what it means to be authentically church. It’s not just about me. It’s not just about you, but we give ourselves to one another in order to build a community which reflects Jesus. Verse four, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing if we could do it, if we could sort of get beyond ourselves, if we could give ourselves for the sake of others? As verse 5 says, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Jesus himself. But as we say that, you might be aware that when we try and do this, there is a tendency to come across quite a significant problem. It’s not just that it’s hard, it’s that there is something in us which seems to make this nearly impossible. In fact, it’s a problem so significant that it may be the very heart of the human problem. It’s something that we can often see in others, and we see how awful it is, but we find it very difficult to recognise in itself. It’s the thing that we call pride, that desire to make it all about me, to put myself first, to be at the centre of everything. Our world is dominated by that, but the sad thing is that all too often church ends up dominated by that as well, and that’s a desperately sad thing. And what the apostle does here is puts his finger on two particular expressions of that, two words which we would do well to know. He says, verse three, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. So selfish ambition, perhaps the more straightforward of the two, ambition for the self, wanting to get our own way, wanting to be in control, to have my will be done. Perhaps it’s the need to win, the need to have my world revolve around me and my desires, the desire to be recognised and celebrated. All of us struggle somewhere with that selfish ambition. And then vain conceit or conceited vanity is simply self-centredness, narcissism. It’s wanting to be the centre of attention. It’s wanting to get my, what I want. And it’s something of a drama queen. When it doesn’t get its way, it creates a fuss. It stirs up problems or it becomes self-pitying. And so it sees other people as simply a means to an end. Somebody who can either build up my sense of worth or ultimately are a threat or a competition to me. And it makes relationships really hard. Now those are two deep failings that we can see in other people, often in the extreme cases. We can look at megalomaniacs or deranged politicians or egotistical billionaires and see these things at work. But here is the thing. The seed of that is in all of us. Pride is the very heart of the problem, the sin from which all other sins take root. And the question is not if you are proud. The problem is what, how that proud expresses itself in your life. And so what we are offered here is a radical alternative, and Christ shows us a better way. Verse four, in humility, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. You see, that if we grasp what Jesus has done for us, if he has reconciled us to God, if we have found that forgiveness and that love and that belonging in our relationship with God, then that can set us free from needing other people to validate us, to us being able to value others. It helps us to put off our desire for status and recognition and to put others first.

Do you want to be truly rich in this world? Well, invest, not in stocks and shares, but in people. Value others and you will find yourself deeply valued. Friendship is one of the greatest gifts of life and it comes from giving ourselves away to others. It does not come easily. Pride is a hard obstacle to overcome and humility is something that we need to practise every day. Even after all these years, I still find that I need to fight something in myself just to make myself sit down with God and his word at the start of the day, even though I know that it’s often the best part of the day. Pride is always there, always threatening to derail me or lead me in the wrong direction. It might just be that the most important work of God in us is the work of humility, choosing to serve, giving away status, being generous, putting others first. When we do it, it feels like we would be becoming less, but actually it makes us more. This is the work of God. This is part of the greatest story in the universe because, of course, we will sing the story of the king of heaven who took the form of a servant to reconcile the world to himself through all eternity. The way of glory is not the way that we think. The way of greatness is not through the accumulation of power and wealth and pride. You want to be great? You need to choose the way of Jesus, the way of humility, the way of love, the way of service. Because Jesus is the one whose name will be lifted high. He is the one who is the king of heaven. As verse 9 says, as 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. If we’re going to be part of that, we need to start now. We need to bow our knee to Christ, to choose his way of humility and of service. This is the kingdom of God. This is the work of God in this world and in our lives. And it does not come easy, but it’s so vitally important.

Let’s pray together, shall we?