The Ultimate Example of Humility

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Well, we’re going to be in Philippians chapter 2 this morning. We’re going to go back to where we were before Easter in our journey through the book of Philippians. You know, anything worth doing is going to be difficult.

I try to teach my children that. When they complain something’s too hard, that usually just means it’s worth doing. And sometimes the easiest way to learn how to do hard things is by having a good example.

In case in point, I think most of what I know about being a husband and being a dad, I learned from my dad. he was a pretty good example in those areas and so guys if I when I inevitably fall short y’all can blame poppy okay just call him and let him know all right all right he had a little harder time learning because my grandfather while I loved him and and he had he was a changed man by the later in life by the time I came along my dad did not have a great example to learn from he had to kind of figure it out as he went. And it made it more challenging.

As far as being a pastor, seminary is great, but I’m not convinced that’s something you learn how to do really well from sitting in the class. I was in ministry probably 10 years. I can’t remember the timeline, but probably 10 years at least before I ever went to Bible college or seminary or any of that.

I learned because I had some pretty good mentors, men who were already pastoring, and I just followed them and shadowed them and irritated the living daylights out of them, wanting to learn how to do what they did. And I’ll give you some of their names and numbers so when I inevitably fall short, you can complain to them instead of me because they taught me. But we learn from examples.

And I see this with my own kids. There are certain things that the younger ones will pick up at an earlier age than the older ones did because they’re watching the example of their older siblings. I feel like Jojo has caught on to hand washing in the bathroom much faster.

And not just how to do it, but to do it. Has caught on to that faster than any of the others. Because the others, you know, we take them in there, wash your hands, here’s how you do it, teach them.

They didn’t care. But there have been a lot of cases where we’ve sent Benjamin or Madeline, can you help Jojo wash her hands? And they’ll go in there and wash hands with her and she just watches them.

And as Charlie says all the time, monkey see, monkey do. We learn things from example. That’s one of the ways God has wired us as humans to learn the information we need is to follow examples.

Now that’s a double-edged sword because sometimes we will follow the wrong examples. Anybody ever been down that road? You don’t have to raise your hands, but thanks for showing I’m not alone.

We can learn from good examples. We can learn from bad examples, but examples are incredibly powerful. And that’s why it’s so important when we get to this point in Philippians where we left off several weeks ago back before Easter, that we come to a point where the Apostle Paul says, let me give you an example.

As a matter of fact, let me give you an incredible example. Because up through chapter 1, the Apostle Paul talked about the importance of unity in the church. He talked about the importance of us working together.

He talked about the importance of us loving each other. And he says that one of the keys to doing that is for us to walk in humility, is for us to engage with each other and the world outside in humility. But that’s a hard thing.

That goes against the grain of who we are as humans. We tend to be selfish. Is that a fair assessment?

Even if we don’t want to be. Sometimes there’s that little voice within us that wells up and says, we want it our way, we want it in our timing, We don’t want to be wronged or feel slighted or stepped over. We have this selfishness that wells up in us.

And so the idea of being humble goes against our very nature. And so the Apostle Paul, understanding this and writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he didn’t just tell us, be humble. He could have said that, and it would be true, and it would be something we should follow.

But he went a step further and said, I don’t want to just tell you, be humble. I’m going to give you an example. And in fact, he gives us the very best example that He could possibly give us of what it means to be humble, to walk in humility.

And so with that, we’re going to look this morning at Philippians chapter 2. If you would turn with me in your Bibles there, if you’re using a device, there’s a link in our bulletin that’ll get you right to the passage we’re looking at this morning, or it’ll be up on the screen behind me if you don’t have a Bible with you. But once you find it in your Bibles, if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, if you’re able to stand without too much difficulty.

And we’re going to start in Philippians 2, verse 5. And we’re going to go through verse 11. Here’s what Paul says.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And you may be seated. So, as I said, Paul has already explained the importance of humility to the way the church functions, to the way we deal with each other, to our witness in the world outside. But he offers Jesus here as the example, so we can get an idea of what humility really is and why it matters.

But one thing we need to do is correct what we might have, which is a slightly off-kilter view of what the world means by humility. Because we tend to think of humility as putting ourselves down or elevating other people. Sometimes we’ll hear that word that we’re supposed to be humble, and we think that means, oh, I’m just dirt.

We just treat ourselves like we’re garbage. That’s not what humility means. And so people have taken to explaining humility as, well, it means elevating other people.

And that’s a better definition. I don’t think that’s quite it though, at least not from a biblical standpoint. Because one dictionary that I looked at this week calls humility a modest or low view of one’s importance.

Biblically speaking, there is no way that Jesus Christ had a low view of his importance. Jesus Christ came as God in human flesh. For Jesus to see himself as lowly, for Jesus to see himself as unimportant just doesn’t make sense if he’s God in human flesh.

To view humility as putting others above yourself, that’s really not something Jesus could do either, because if you take something else and you put it above God, that’s not humility, that’s idolatry. So it seems like there’s a little something else to the biblical definition of humility, or at least the example that’s given here of humility. And what it looks like to me as we read through this text and we see his example and we see what he’s done.

Humility seems to be more in line with this. The willingness to accept less than what you deserve to give others better than what they deserve. It has nothing to do with Jesus saying, oh, I’m down here and you’re up here.

But it has everything to do with Jesus acknowledging what he did deserve because he’s God. He deserves all the glory, all the praise we could ever give him. And he doesn’t deserve a bit less of it.

And yet Jesus said, I’m willing to take less than what I deserve to give you better than what you deserve. And we see this in the passage here, that Jesus deserves all of the glory that belongs to God. We tend to think about them as being different.

Well, here’s God, here’s Jesus. Sometimes people will even act like Jesus is less than God or Jesus is less God than the Father. The teaching of Scripture altogether is that Jesus Christ is equal to the Father.

He’s every bit as much God as the Father is. He’s done all the God things that the Father has done. And so he deserves all the glory.

Part of this, we need to understand that the first two verses here, I’m sorry, not the first two, two of the verses here early on, verses six and seven, are some of the most complicated verses in all of Scripture as far as I’m concerned. In the Greek, they’re incredibly complicated as well. And for us to get a better understanding of what he means when he says, first of all, Jesus being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, I think it’s beneficial to look at a couple of different translations here.

Because, as I said, this Greek is very difficult to translate into English. The phrasing of this passage, if we misunderstand it, it can lead to some pretty bizarre ideas. And it has led to some pretty bizarre ideas.

People teaching some just flat-out wrong views of Jesus Christ and what He did. So we need to understand what it’s actually saying here. And so I’ve given you a couple of different versions.

I’ve given you the one we just read out of the New King James. The New American Standard Version says, Jesus, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. And the Christian Standard Bible says, Jesus, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Now, if you’re new to this, I don’t want this to throw you off and say, wait a minute, different Bibles say different things? If you’ve ever dealt with multiple languages, there can be different ways to translate different phrases, between languages. It happens all the time.

I’ve done translation work in French. There may be two or three different ways to phrase things, and they may all be essentially the same thing and just word it a little bit differently. Talking to Jojo in Spanish, I’m convinced now she’s not just bilingual, she’s actually just Spanish speaking, because she won’t respond to me in English anymore.

But there. . .

Dora the Explorer. Yeah, it’s wonderful. But there may be three different ways to say something to her in Spanish and finally one of them will get the point across and she’ll listen.

Same thing here. English sometimes just is not a strong enough animal to carry all the weight of the Greek because the Greek has very specific meanings. And so I think all three of these are correct.

And I think to get a full understanding of what it’s saying, I think we take all of these together. The text does not tell us that Jesus just took on the form of God. We could possibly get that idea when we read Jesus being in the form of God.

Take it as though it’s just like an office he took, or it’s a suit he put on, a role he assumed. But instead, what Paul’s saying here in the Greek is that Jesus Christ was God by nature. At the very fabric of who he is, Jesus Christ is God.

That’s what it means, being in the form of God. It doesn’t mean that’s just a role he took on. It means that’s who he is down at the very core.

He’s God. Unless we think Jesus was just a God, because some people will teach that, that He’s divine, but He’s not all the way God. He’s in there somewhere, but He’s less than the Father.

Paul talks here about His equality with God. He existed in the form of God, and He has this equality with God. This means that Jesus is every bit as much God as the Father is.

And if He’s every bit as much God as the Father is, then He deserves all the glory that the Father deserves. Now, some of you, I worry, are close to checking out here because this is deep theological stuff, and you may be saying, what does this have to do with my life? It makes a tremendous difference whether Jesus is just somebody we respect or if He’s somebody that we view as deserving all the honor and praise and glory that God deserves.

There’s a big difference to how we interpret His words and how we live our lives according to His words. There’s a big difference in whether He’s God or he’s just some guy with a special connection to God. But here Paul calls him equal to God.

And in this example that Paul gives, that’s where Jesus is starting out. When the story begins, Jesus is there with the Father. He’s reigning over the universe.

He’s enjoying all of the rights and privileges that belong to him as God. He’s doing what you would expect God to do. He’s sitting on His throne.

He’s being worshipped by the angels. He’s creating an entire universe just for His own pleasure and glory. He’s there as the second person of the Trinity getting everything that He deserves.

And yet Paul says here that Jesus didn’t cling to what He deserved. All this that Jesus deserved and He didn’t just keep a tight grasp on that. And so we go to verse 7 and we see that Jesus accepted much lower circumstances than what He deserved.

Instead of insisting on what He deserved, the Bible says He emptied Himself in verse 7. Now we’re known to do this, right? we will insist on what we deserve.

You know, if we don’t think the food is coming quite fast enough, we’re going to let somebody know. Or if we feel like somebody didn’t treat us with the respect we deserve, by golly, we’re going to tell them. Or we’re going to tell them passive aggressively and pout about it.

You know, this is just how we do. We’re humans. We find what we think we deserve and we cling to that.

We cling to that for dear life. But Jesus, instead, it says He emptied Himself. We look at verse 7 here.

We’ve already read where it says he made himself of no reputation. And I think that’s a good way of expressing it. These other two verses, these other two versions say he emptied himself.

And there’s a Greek word there called kenosis, which is emptying. And some people have made crazy ideas out of that as well, saying that, well, he emptied himself of being God. I don’t understand how you empty yourself of being God.

You’re either God or you’re not. By definition, by definition, God is eternal. Any being that could start being God could not be God. Any being that could stop being God is not God.

He’s either eternally God or he’s not God at all. So the idea that he could empty himself of being God, that can’t be what that word means. There’s also, I’ve heard people add a little more nuance to it and say, well, he emptied himself of his divine attributes.

So all the stuff that makes him being God. I can’t wrap my mind around that. He didn’t stop being God, but he just emptied himself of all the stuff that makes him God.

That’s like saying, I’m still going to be a father, but I’m going to empty myself of ever having had children. Wait, but that’s what made me. .

. Do you see the logic problem there? That’s what made me a father.

If he just emptied himself of all his divine attributes, that’s a fancy way of saying he stopped being God, but I don’t want to say that because that’s heresy, right? And so there’s all these other explanations. Well, he just emptied himself of exercising his divine attributes.

He stopped using all the things. He still had the things that made him God, but he stopped using them. We may be getting closer there, but I think the explanation here is really simple.

Sometimes theologians mess stuff up and make it complicated. Sometimes they’ll take complicated things and make it too simple, and sometimes they’ll take simple things and make it too complicated. I think this is where they’ve made it too complicated.

When it says he emptied himself, right after talking about what he deserved, It means He walked away from all the trappings of being God, all the things that He deserved, all the splendor of heaven, all the worship, all the things that He deserved. He emptied Himself of those things. Instead of clinging to what He deserved, Jesus walked away from it.

Not because He was tired of it, but He came to earth for a purpose. He stepped out of the corridors of power and glory in heaven, and He came to earth and He endured the indignity of human life on earth. Like, I enjoy my life.

I enjoy the world for the most part. I mean, I know there’s a lot of ugliness in the world, but there’s some good in it too. But no matter how good this world can be, I’m sure it can’t compare to reigning over heaven and the universe as God.

And yet Jesus as God stepped into this world and became one of us. I’ve talked to so many older saints who say they just can’t wait to give up this world and give up this body and go be with the Lord. Can you imagine doing the opposite?

Can you imagine being in that environment and instead saying, I’m going to come be one of y’all? He chose to come down here. He chose to endure this.

He chose to be with us. And let’s face it, we’re not super wonderful all the time, are we? As a species, we’re kind of a lot of trouble, right?

Some of you need to go sit in traffic or go hang out at Walmart this afternoon and be reminded, right? Because some of you are, we’re not that much trouble. Yes, we are.

Yes. And yet He came down here to be with us. That’s what He emptied Himself of.

All the glory, all the privileges, all the stuff that He was surrounded by in heaven, all the stuff that He was entitled to because of who He is. And He said, I’ll take less. And so God became a man, and the King became a servant.

And it says in verse 8, being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. So not only did he come here and become a man, and by the way, we believe, and the Bible teaches, that he didn’t stop being God, but God became a man. And no, I can’t completely wrap my mind around that either, but the Bible, and if I could, it wouldn’t be right.

There’s a lot about God that is beyond my comprehension because I’m not God. But I believe that’s what the Bible teaches, that God became a man. Jesus Christ was and is fully God and became a sinless man without ever ceasing to be God.

How that works, I’ll let him sort that out. I just go with what he told me. But not only did he become a man, it would have been enough of a step down if he had come to be a king here on earth.

But it says, being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself and became obedient. Jesus stepped into a lowly form. He came as a son of a carpenter.

he came and lived a pretty unremarkable life up until the last three years. When I say unremarkable, I mean just from a human standpoint. He didn’t write books.

He didn’t lead armies. He didn’t do any of the things that we associate with greatness. He came and taught.

Taught people the truth of God’s Word. He washed feet. He hung out with lepers.

He hung out with sinners. And when he left behind all this worship deserved, Jesus came and also took on a punishment that he did not deserve. Jesus, this is what got me when I realized it this week, when I thought about it this way, Jesus Christ was too good for the cross, but he didn’t act like he was too good for the cross.

He humbled himself enough to carry out the Father’s plans, because it was the Father’s plan. And by the way, Jesus was in on it from the beginning. I’ve heard certain theologians say, well, God must have been a cosmic child abuser.

The son was in on this plan from the beginning. He knew what he was coming to do and he came voluntarily. And even when he prayed in the garden and said, if there is another way, let me do that instead, he still came around to the point of saying, but not my will, but your will be done.

If this is the only way, then this is what we’re going to do. He was willing to carry out the father’s plans, even though the cost of his obedience was death on the cross. So we see here a contrast between what Jesus deserves and what Jesus was willing to accept.

and that’s humility. When Paul says to the church at Philippi and when we read those instructions, he doesn’t just say, be humble. He says, you need to show humility and here’s what it looks like.

And he gives us this example. And to be completely honest with you, not that I haven’t been up to this point, but to be completely honest with you, this is hard. This is hard stuff.

And I’m not standing here telling you this morning that I’m great at this and be like me. This goes against everything in how we’re wired, but that’s what makes it so incredible when he tells us to do this and he equips us to do it. He says, follow Jesus’ example and be willing to take less than you deserve so that others can have more than they deserve.

And our Christian faith calls us to imitate this humility of Jesus. That’s why it starts out in verse 5 saying, let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus. This is Paul’s point.

Up to this point, he’d been telling the church, keep your unity, stick together, and you need humility to do that. Pay attention to your witness. Pay attention to how the world outside sees you.

And you need some humility to do that. It’s going to require humility. And then he holds Jesus up as the ultimate example of this humility.

And I think sometimes this is where we as Christians go so far wrong. I don’t want to sound like I’m calling names or telling specific stories, but I have heard several stories in the last month of people in ministry, whether pastors, whether deacons, sometimes here in the state, sometimes nationally known guys that have wrecked their credibility, have hurt their churches, and have undermined their witness because of a lack of humility. The world tends to look at our churches and at Christians as a whole as arrogant and prideful, and sometimes it’s undeserved, but sometimes it’s deserved too.

We may not walk around acting like we think we’re better than everybody, but sometimes we might give people that impression. And I realize it’s a human trait, but even the world knows that we’re supposed to be different than that. So when we’re not, when we’re just like the world in that regard, it sticks out.

And it is so easy to do. It is so easy to get to a point where we start thinking that we’re more important than we actually are. Especially in ministry, it’s a constant battle.

In talking about this passage this week, I was telling folks in the office, I said, I still walk into my job every day, whether it’s into the office or into the pulpit, and I think to myself, Lord, on paper, I am the last person I would have picked to do this. And I don’t ever want to lose that perspective, because I worry about what would happen if I ever got to the point where I thought, I’ve just got this all figured out, and I’m the best there is. I’d much rather recognize the dependence on God that I’m only here and doing this because He’s given me the calling and the ability.

I’d much rather be in that position of second-guessing myself all the time than to lose my witness because of a lack of humility. It’s easy for us to get to the point where we just think we’re more important than we actually are. Sometimes, and even if you don’t struggle with that, sometimes it’s even easier just on a day-to-day basis to get to the point where we think our stuff is more important than it actually is.

I don’t mean our physical possessions. I just mean the stuff that we do, that we keep busy with. I blew it this week.

I blew it this week. Thursday, I was out here on the south side of the building with two of our vehicles. Charla had had car trouble, which, you know, stresses me out and puts me in a bad mood anyway.

And I’d been shuttling two of the vehicles back and forth between the shop and with her vehicle is the only one that can fit all seven of us.

so when it goes down we have a problem we have a logistical problem so I was already stressed out about that and it also requires moving car seats which I don’t care how spiritual you are you start fighting with a car seat it’s going to test every bit of sanctification you’ve got right so I’m in her vehicle out here trying to move a car seat trying to fight with it trying to get where it’s going and I’m stressed out because I’ve also got charlie and I’m trying to get where we need to be and a guy pulls up out here I’m fighting with the car seat and he says excuse me I’m like what what do you I didn’t say what do you want but in my mind I’m thinking what do you want says do you know if there’s anybody from the church that’s in there yeah there’s probably somebody from the church in there just go up there and ring that buzzer okay so he rings the buzzer he He talks to Stella.

He comes back out again. He says, excuse me. I said, yes.

I’m out of breath at this point. Yes. He says, do you know of any place around here that helps with gas?

And I’m thinking he means gas bills. It wasn’t until he left that it dawned on me he’s talking about money for gas. But I thought he was talking about gas bills.

I said, no, I don’t. I’m sorry. He said, well, thank you anyway.

And he goes to get back in his car. Have you ever seen those Golden Corral commercials years ago? The little guy that flies around hitting people with the frying pan?

Every once in a while, the Holy Spirit will do that to me. Here, I have been making my to-do list out to be more important than other people. And so I got out and I said, I am so sorry.

I said, have you tried such and such? I tried to be much nicer this time. I wasn’t mad at him.

I was mad at the car seat. But sometimes people get caught in the crossfire. I said, have you tried such and such?

He said, yes, I did. And they sent me down here. I said, I don’t know of anybody that helps with it.

I said, if you need food or clothing, we do that. That’s what we focus on. And he was asking me questions about how he could get help with that.

And I talked to him. But he left, and then I realized he was needing gas money to fill up his car. And I might have been able to help him with that.

But I felt like dirt after that. Because I thought, here I’m about to preach on humility. And I didn’t even have enough humility to take 10 seconds away from the stupid car seat that is still going to be there unless I think somebody’s going to break in and do it for me.

I didn’t have 10 seconds to take away and talk to him the way that I would want to be talked to. I acted annoying. And I hope by talking to him afterwards it dispelled that notion.

But I felt terrible. Humility is not, we don’t just have a problem with humility when we’re wrapped up in ourselves. Sometimes we have a problem with humility when we get wrapped up in our stuff.

We need to be willing, like Jesus, to accept less than we deserve. Or less than we think we deserve. Whether it’s the way other people treat us, whether it’s what we think we ought to accomplish, whether it’s what we think we ought to.

. . It doesn’t matter.

Sometimes what I think I deserve is getting my to-do list finished. Whatever you have that you’re grasping onto. And by the way, I’m not calling anybody out here in particular because this is a very loving church.

But I know we’re all human and we all struggle with this. But whatever it is that you hold on to, that you cling to, we need to be reminded that Jesus himself did not cling to what he was entitled to. But instead, Jesus was willing to take less than he deserved so that others could get more than they deserve.

Because what Jesus deserved was heaven and the splendor and the glory and all that. What Jesus was willing to accept was the cross and the humiliation and the agony that he endured on the cross. And why was he willing to do that?

not just so that He could be nice and not just so that He could show us a good example. Jesus literally took responsibility for my sins and for yours. For every wrong thing that you and I have ever done that stands between us and a holy God.

Jesus Christ took responsibility for those things and He died in our place. He was punished in our place. He did not deserve a bit of that, but that’s what He took.

Look at the difference between what He deserved and what He accepted. And He did that so that you and I could have a relationship with the Father that we did not deserve. So that we could have peace with God that we did not deserve.

So that we could have eternal life in heaven that we did not deserve. He took less so that we could have more. Now, you and I will not get anybody to heaven by being humble.

We will not earn anybody’s acceptance with God by being humble. So it’s a little bit different. But Paul ties this to their witness.

And absolutely, we can’t affect people’s eternities by our humility. because who wants to hear about Jesus from somebody who acts like they’re better than everybody else? My fear is that if I had tried to talk to that man about Jesus, he wouldn’t have had a second to listen to me.

But if the world hears us, if the world sees us following the example of Jesus, some of them are going to be more willing to hear. Some of them are going to be more receptive to the message because they’re seeing it lived out. Because honestly, the gospel is humbling.

The message of salvation is humbling. because you and I have to acknowledge that we’ve sinned against God in order to receive the forgiveness that Jesus offers. If we come to God saying, I don’t need forgiveness, I’ve never done anything wrong.

God looks at that and says, okay, God knows better. Jesus told the story of the two people who came into the temple, and I’m coming close to wrapping up. Jesus told the story of the two people who came into the temple.

One walked in and said, thank you, Lord. He’s praying in the temple. Thank you, Lord, that I’m better than that man over there.

And the other, he said, a lowly sinner walked in and was too ashamed even to raise his eyes toward heaven, but just said, Lord, be merciful on me, a sinner. And