Philippians 2

Paul is counting on the affection of the church in Philippi for Christ, for the gospel, and for one another when he calls them to live in imitation of Jesus. Do they have any joyful energy for the message of the cross? Does the love of the Father mean anything to them? Is their experience of the blessing that comes from the Holy Spirit something upon which they place any real value? Are they moved at all by their concern for one another in the household of God? The obvious expected answer to all of these questions is, “Of course!” Paul then presses the implications of these good motions of the redeemed soul, and calls upon the church to further pursue true gospel unity, rejecting the bait of ungodly factions that will only destroy the peace of the church.

To respect what Christ has done in building up the church requires a sensitivity that goes beyond self. We have to look on others in the body of Christ as significant, even more significant than our own selves. If we have this kind of humility, we will naturally view the needs and interests of others as worthy of our careful consideration. This can cause us to think about what we are saying and doing that may end up hurting people for whom the Lord Jesus shed His blood. We too easily see people as an inconvenience, rather than thinking of their needs as our opportunity to serve the Lord who loves them as He loves us.

This way of life does not just come from a having a nice personality or a good family heritage. We need something more than an external makeover; we need an internal work of new creation. Paul moves us in the right direction for this fundamental change. He says, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” We need this mind of Christ. Are you willing to give up your own predispositions and heart habits, and to have these increasingly displaced by the genuine change that comes from having the mind of Christ in your midst?

Before you agree, you may wish to take a closer look at this mind of the Son of God. In His divine nature He has always been fully divine, but He was willing to take on human nature, and to become man for our sake. Not only did He become forever God and Man in one person, He become a particular man who would live the life of obedience, even to the point of the shameful death of the cross. The cross was a punishment designed to expose evil publicly. Christ became a sin offering for our sake, and then became the open display of the most extravagant and costly love of unworthy people ever known in all the history of mankind.

The cross was in accord with the eternal plan of God, and was full to overflowing with the highest merit in the eyes of God, though in the eyes of the world it was despised, and that by design. It should be obvious that the whole point of crucifixion as a penalty among men is to display someone who is to be despised by all. Yet God’s opinion is to be preferred to even the highest approval that the world may give to anyone. The world cannot give us resurrection from the dead, and even if we were able to accomplish such a feat, it should be obvious that the world can never give us heaven. Resurrection without heaven would be to live forever in a land of sin and misery. Christ was raised and ascended into heaven. He has been given the name above every name, but the pathway back to heavenly glory was through the depths of suffering and disgrace contained in the love of the cross.

This is what the lowliness and glory of the mind of Christ is all about? Do you want this mind in and among you, which was also in Christ Jesus? To have such a mind would certainly help you to turn away from glory-now schemes that only destroy others and bring trouble upon the church. It truly is what you and I need, whatever the cost might be to us of following the Lord in the path to glory that goes first through a willingness to see others as better than ourselves and to act for their good.

This is the only approved pathway for the true follower of Christ, and it is not easy. It involves fear and trembling, but it is the way of God’s work in you, granting you works that are consistent with the gift of salvation. It is the way of a drink-offering life that is poured out before the Lord out of reverence for Christ. Though it does involve loss, it is the way of true Christian rejoicing. If you choose instead to pursue worldliness, should it be that surprising that happiness in Christ seems very elusive?

Paul is himself an example of this kind of life. So is his fellow minister Timothy. He is genuinely concerned for the welfare of the Philippian church, and in acting in accord with that good concern, he is seeking the Lord’s own interest, for Jesus’ concern for His own church cannot be seriously questioned. The evidence of His love is most obvious. He gave His life for us. Who would you be willing to risk your life for? One of their own countrymen, a man called Epaphroditus who came to Paul as a messenger from the church in Philippi had risked his life to care for Paul in prison. He almost died doing this. But Christ has accomplished his greatest service of obedience and love with more knowledge, more willingness, greater suffering, and greater efficacy than anyone who has ever loved anyone at any time or in any place. Our search for inspiration need seek no greater example than our Savior. It is His mind in us that we can seek, and if we follow Him, we will save ourselves and others within the church much regrettable divisiveness and misery.