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Aug 24, 2014

Who's In Charge?

Who's In Charge?

Passage: Philippians 2:1-13

Series: Who's In Charge?

Category: Christian Walk

Keywords: worship, jesus, lord

Summary:

Jesus Christ is Lord and to be worshipped. He is the one who is in charge.

Detail:

Hello Mosaic family! I’ve been able to evade John’s attempts to get me to preach a message here for some time, but could only work for so long. Some of you know me, some don’t! So here’s a little bit of background about myself so that you don’t talk to strangers just like Arnold Schwarzenegger tells us in Kindergarten Cop. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, then escaped to the beautiful state of Iowa where I went to school to be a mechanical engineer at Iowa State University, go cyclones! ;) God decided He had different plans for me so I applied to Moody Bible Institute and ended up in Spokane, WA, which had been the furthest West I had ever traveled before. I will be getting my Bachelor of Arts degree in Intercultural Studies in about four months when I graduate. My wife and I were married by John one month ago, and were not entirely sure what our plans are for next year but know that God is in control.

I’ve been going to Mosaic for about two and a half years and joined Mark Masingale in Cambodia this past summer to help teach English and support the Cambodian church in their work in Kampong Chhnang. I was asked to preach a couple times in Cambodia, but the benefit there was that not many of them spoke English so I had plenty of time after each sentence to gather my thoughts, but I could tell that a lot of them were just waiting for the white guy to stop talking so that they could sing more worship songs. I did have to preach two sermons at Moody in a classroom setting and was critiqued and evaluated by all of my classmates immediately after speaking, which is a mild form of terror. Looks like everybody here can understand English and I’d like to ask that you would keep your clipboards under your seat to help my nerves. Before we dig into God’s Word let’s pray together. (1 minute prayer, thank God for the opportunity to preach, the people there, and that He would aid in the finding of a new building downtown to gather in and guide our time in Scripture together, and fill me with His Holy Spirit as I teach on it.)

I want to ask everyone a question this morning, “What does it mean to be humbled?” Does anyone want to share an example of a time when it happened to them? My story is a little bit lighter than yours, and it was when I was coming home from college on Winter Break back to Chicago to see my family. They had recently bought a Wii and my younger sister, Shania, who was 8 or 9 at the time challenged me to a game of Wii Tennis. Being the good brother I am, I thought I would go easy on her. Maybe let her almost win. She had different plans. Apparently she had been honing her Wii Tennis skills while I had been adjusting to my first year of college life. She was not messing around. I don’t know how many of you have played Wii Tennis before but she was hitting the ball so hard it had vapor trails coming off of it. She seemed to have superhuman tennis powers, and I could not stop her. I instantly tried to ramp up my playing skills and it was no use, she beat me three games in a row. Fortunately, we got called to dinner before we started another game and I scampered out of the room defeated by a girl who wasn’t even in middle school. Luckily nobody else witnessed this event, except now all of you know about it, I felt truly humbled in this circumstance. What would we say is the opposite of humility? (Pride). Ever heard the phrase American pride? Or proud to be an American? We are more often in our country to look at pride as a virtue and humility as something to be despised. There can be all kinds of things that we choose to find pride in, whether it’s the political party we affiliate ourselves with, the number in our bank account, or even the amount of social causes that we involve ourselves in to feel good about ourselves. None of these are bad things, but they can distract us from what is really important and what we should be placing on the throne of our lives.

                We’re going to be looking at a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian Church in around 60 AD while he was imprisoned in Rome. As I read more about the Philippian church, I was reminded some of our own society today in America. The city of Philippi housed the first church planted in Europe by Paul on his second missionary journey. They had been very helpful towards Paul on his travels, and had given him financial support on numerous occasions. For this reason Paul was filled with joy for this church and makes that clear at the beginning of his letter. One thing that plagued the Philippians though was their pride. The city took its name from the father of Alexander the Great when it was part of Macedonia. It later became a Roman colony and its residents were considered Roman citizens because of a great military victory that had happened there one hundred years before after the murder of Julius Caesar. It’s the battle that is described at the end of Shakepeare’s work when his betrayers, Brutus and Cassius are defeated by supporters of the Roman Empire. Because of this colonial pride the believers there possessed, Paul mentioned humility frequently in his letter to the church there. I took a lot of that history from John Macarthur’s commentary too, so I gotta give him a shout-out because I did not know all of that off the top of my head. The passage we will be reading from today is one of the greatest in the New Testament on the subject, but we’ll be looking at a theme that I think transcends deeper than that. If you’ll open with me to Philippians 2 and we’ll take a look at what Paul had to say.

                Starting in Philippians 2, verse 1: “Therefore, if there is  any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” Before we dive deeper into the passage, I want to ask another question, “who is Jesus to you?” When I was back at Iowa State, I was a part of Campus Crusade for Christ, now just called Cru. One of the things that Cru emphasizes strongly is evangelism, mostly towards college-age students. A few Spring Breaks ago, we went down to Panama City Beach in Florida. Instead of partying it up on the beach, we were there to do beach evangelism with all the other college kids staying there. One of the most common questions we would ask is, “Who is Jesus to you?” You can learn a lot about someone’s spiritual walk by this one question, and we received a wide variety of answers. The question that we’ll be looking at throughout the passage today is similar and will be, “Who does the Bible say Jesus is?”

In these first two verses, we see Jesus as Encourager. The word used to describe him is paraklesis, which Jesus uses in John 16 to describe the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. It can mean someone who comforts, helps, or counsels. We are to find all of these things in the person of Jesus Christ, and they lend toward unity in the church. Paul was already receiving joy from the believers’ faith in Christ in Philippi, but their ambition and resolve to stay united for the cause of the Gospel is what would give Paul even greater joy he says. That’s what he is referring to when he asks them to be intent on one purpose at the end of verse 2. Treating Jesus as the one who encourages them in their faith is a good thing as well, but it shouldn’t stop there. He should not only be the supporter of their faith, but the object of it. Most of America could probably say that they are encouraged by the story of Jesus or comforted by it, but that does not make them sincere believers. My family and I used to make frequent vacations to Michigan and visit towns along the beach. For those of you who haven’t seen the Great Lakes before, yes, they do have beaches there, with sand and everything. I remember visiting one of the tourist shops in particular and seeing a bright-colored tie-dye t-shirt on the wall that said, “Jesus said, ‘Don’t worry, be happy.’” With a verse reference attached at the bottom from Matthew 6:25. This shirt, equating Jesus with the reggae artist, Bobby Mcferrin, was meant to comfort people and give them a laugh. We don’t follow a hippie Jesus whose top concern for us is our earthly pleasure and looks like he’s stoned out of his mind. That’s not the Jesus the Bible is asking us to follow. While seeing Christ as our Encourager and Comforter is good, it shouldn’t stop there.

Let’s keep reading in verse 3: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” These verses look at Jesus as Example. If the Philippian believers were to reflect the characteristics of Christ, he was to serve as somewhat of a role model for them. Paul shows Jesus here as the epitome of humility as well, giving us a good definition of what it means concretely which is, “regarding one another as more important than yourselves.” This is something that goes against everything in our human nature and is not something that is second nature. A lot of Americans would see this as the noble action to take, and might attribute the title of “good teacher” to Jesus for speaking of these actions to His disciples. Jesus can easily be placed right alongside a group of people like Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, or even Joseph Smith and be seen as someone who proclaims words of wisdom. The problem is that Jesus demands more than that, and distinguishes Himself from these people. He cannot be seen merely as a good teacher or role model to follow to feel good about yourself and nothing more. If you’re using the name of Christ as a good luck charm to pump up your self-esteem, you’re exhibiting pride and not worshiping Christ but yourself. Seeing Jesus as an example should be our aim, but it shouldn’t stop there.

Continuing on in verse 6: “Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” This is mainly what distinguished Christ from the others mentioned before. Even though he did exist on the Earth as man, He was God at the same time. Jesus took the biggest leap of humility in the history of the universe in lowering Himself from Creator to creation. We can’t even begin to comprehend this act of selflessness, but should be encouraged by it and use it as an example. It is the perfect picture of servitude and love, a God that wants to communicate to His creation in the most intimate way possible. Not even coming as a wealthy king that all would be forced to listen to and obey as He could have, but as a poor carpenter’s son. Walking with and talking with His chosen people, face to face, as he was prophesied in the Old Testament to do. This act of humility doesn’t stop at Him coming to Earth to be with us, but continues on to one of the most painful deaths imaginable.

Some commentators said that the language used in these verses actually functioned as a sort of early church hymn, a way for them to remember and acknowledge Christ’s humanity, his divinity, and his death on the Cross for us. Paul included this early church hymn because it was powerful and reiterated the gospel message. That Christ as God did come to us in the flesh to suffer and die for us as the perfect sacrifice. He then rose again because death could not keep Him and He lives as God. He did what we never can do ourselves or work our way toward, and offers it as a gift which comes by faith in Him alone. He is the absolute truth in a culture where all things seem to have lost their meaning. He is the Rock we can cling to. He is the one thing in this universe we can fully and completely place our trust in and always be able to satisfy and deliver. He is Lord. And he is spoken of as such in the last part of the passage we are going to read today.

Read with me verses 9-13: “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus ‘Every knee will bow,’ of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Here we receive Paul’s main idea, that Jesus Christ is Lord and to be worshipped. He is the one who is in charge. It’s true that Jesus did encourage and comfort the Philippian believers. It is true that He served as a good role model for believers in their sanctification. It is true that Jesus is the God-man and suffered for our sake, paying the price of our sin. But more important than all of these, Christ Jesus is Lord and will be worshipped as such.

Paul has seen the faith of the believers at work and wants their faith to be that way even in his absence as he denotes in verse 12. This is not where it should stop though, but it is where it stopped for me until just a few years ago. I had been living as one who could accept all of these truths, someone who was following Paul, but not Christ. I had all the signs of belief and looked sincere, but was lacking something. My faith would fail as soon as it was tested, and did. Jesus Christ has to be known as our LORD and nothing less. After my freshman year at college I went to go work at a summer camp run by my church in Chicago. One of my goals for the summer was to read straight through the Gospels, to see who the Bible said Jesus truly was. I had been resting on the faith of my family members and the friends that I knew, but didn’t have much in the way of personal conviction. While reading through Luke one day, I was struck with that truth that Jesus asks of each of us. We cannot rest on someone else’s faith, but are all going to have to answer to God personally for who or what we treated as LORD in our lifetime. I understood that there was no in-between, that Jesus wants all of us or none of us, just as he says to the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3. We have to make a choice.

Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. To me it sounds like there is some amount of personal responsibility that goes into that. Am I saying that I understand how all of it works? To speak Christianese, am I ending the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism once and for all so that Moody students no longer have anything to argue about? Sadly, no. While there is some amount of personal responsibility and a choice to be made, we must read that verse with the next right after it that tells us that it is “GOD who is at work in you.” So we are each to make a choice that God works in us. I’d like to think that free will and predestination are both at play to some degree and work together somehow. If that sounds like a contradiction, try explaining the Trinity.

What we are left with is verses ten and eleven which make a reference to the book of Isaiah, sometimes called the fifth gospel because of its abundance of prophetic words about the coming messiah, Jesus Christ. Verse 45:23 says, “I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.” Paul was a Jewish Pharisee that persecuted Christians before Christ established Himself as Lord in his life on the road to Damascus. The Old Testament made even more sense to him after that and he could finally connect all of the dots about the coming Messiah spattered all throughout the Old Testament to the person of Jesus. That was what he was doing here in verse ten. So what does this mean for us? What this means is that whether we willingly do it in our lifetime, or if we are made to do so in eternity, all of creation will worship Christ Jesus as Lord. Will you choose to make Him LORD today? Let’s pray.