Philippians: Part 3 - Imitation & Limitation
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
The great philosopher Aristotle says, "To imitate is code natural to human beings from childhood. And in this, they differ from other animals because they are the most imitative and produce their first acts of understanding by means of imitation. Also, everyone delights in imitations. I was a great philosopher, Aristotle. If you think of a baby's first memorable interactions, some of them, most of them, are probably when they're imitating mom or dad. When they're growing up learning and maybe mom or dad are in their face saying "mama" or "dada" and then they say and they're imitating, and they bring such joy. Babies imitate facial expressions, tone of voice.
For any parents or those of you who have been around children, you know that part of their play is sometimes imitation. Whatever happened in their life, they're gonna imitate it and they're gonna play that out. I know for us, when Kinsley was going to preschool a couple years ago, we noticed that when she started coming home, and just from coming from preschool, she would want to play preschool. And so she'd bring all of her stuffed animals into the room and that she'd line them up, and she was imitating preschool. And so she was the teacher though, and one of us back here, I was a teacher's aide, and then all the stuffed animals were different kids, even to the point where some of the stuffed animals were ones that got in trouble, like the ones that got in trouble in real life. So she's like, "Hey, go put that bear in timeout," because it was not following instruction.
So imitation is a part of how we learn. You may have also heard this other quote, which is, "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery." You guys heard that? Yes? Well, I didn't know this, but did you know the full quote from Oscar Wilde says this, "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness." Yeah, a little more negative outlook on things. That imitation is only a shell or a shadow of the original greatness. And at the same time, or sometimes people who imitate, people will think, does that person have anything original themselves? Are they just imitating because they can't do something great themselves? But at the same time, we know that imitation can be really positive. It can help someone become great. You think of an athlete or an artist. An athlete, someone who maybe is a kid who looks up to one of their favorite athletes, are going to do all the same drills, all the same techniques. Maybe they'll have the same diet. They want to practice how they're--maybe it's Steph Curry in basketball or something like that. They're going to shoot the way that Steph Curry shoots because they want to be like him. or an artist who is learning how to paint, they're going to imitate their favorite art. So they're going to paint the same scenes, they're going to use the same tools or the same kind of paint. Imitation can help people to become great. Imitation is a key in our cognitive development. Again, think of those babies or those children. They're learning for years and years from imitating emotion or responses, language, skills, even more. And so in many areas of our lives, we are called to imitate until we can do it ourselves, until we can own it and say, this is the way that I do it. Like artists finding their own style or even parenting. Are you parents out there? You're maybe copying what your parents did until you kind of find your own rhythm, figure out now this is the way that I wanna do it. But you start in a place of maybe imitating. Imitation is something that God created. It's a fundamental part of how humans learn, and it's also a fundamental part of the Christian life. As followers of Jesus, who do we imitate? Maybe we imitate someone who's discipling us or a mentor. Maybe we have a favorite character in the Bible and we imitate them. Ultimately, we are imitating Christ. However, unlike these other areas of our lives where eventually we move on from imitating, in the Christian life it's a bit different. We never grow out of imitating Jesus. We imitate Jesus for life. Imitation of Christ as God has been in the Bible since the beginning.
In Genesis, the Trinity says at creation, "Let us make humanity in our image." We have examples like Elisha who imitated Elijah. Some of the good kings in the Old Testament were trying to imitate the best kings, David and Solomon. In the New Testament, we have the disciples who were taught to imitate Jesus. In our passage today in Philippians, Paul is instructing them to imitate Jesus as well. The problem is when someone is a new believer today and they don't know who Christ is, how can they imitate someone that they don't know? And people today don't have the privilege, as the disciples did, of walking with Jesus, being around Jesus, they gotta spend three years with him, learning the way he responded, learning his characteristics and his thoughts and how he processed. We don't have that. So how are we supposed to do it? How are we supposed to imitate Christ if Jesus isn't walking the earth today? Well, Paul addresses that in his letter. And so the goal for us today is to learn who Christ is in order to imitate Christ in our lives. Just pray with me again. God, thank you again for your word, for your truth. We pray right now that you would open up our hearts and minds to receive what your spirit is guiding us to. We want to have a deeper understanding of who Christ is and what he does, and so that we can live out being Christ in our lives. God, I pray that through your spirit, you would convict where conviction is needed. You would encourage where encouragement is needed. that we would rely on you for everything. We pray this in your name, amen. All right, so we're gonna go, if you wanna open up your Bibles to Philippians chapter two, and we're gonna start in verse five, and we're gonna go verse by verse and see what Paul says.
So it says in verse five, "In your relationship with one another, "have the same mindset as Christ Jesus," verse six, "who being in very nature God "did not consider equality with God "something to be used to his own advantage." We'll pause right there. First of all, we see that Paul is explaining that Jesus is God. We believe in the Trinity, three persons, one God, and Jesus is God. And so for the Philippians hearing it, knowing that there was a God out there, and if they're Christians, they know of God, and they think of the Old Testament, and all the stories they may have heard of the God of the Old Testament, the God of Israel who did all these things and was this certain way, Paul is trying to make the connection, Jesus is that God. We know that God is loving and kind, compassionate, slow to anger, a redeemer, merciful, a sustainer, and so much more. And Jesus is that very person. Jesus is God. And almost immediately, Paul also gets to Jesus's humility. Jesus does not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Paul here is trying to compare Jesus to all the people who came before who made that mistake of trying to, who considered equality with God something to be achieved, something to be had. If we go all the way back to the very beginning in the garden, we think of Adam and Eve. When they took that fruit, we're thinking, this is what it's gonna take for me to be like God. I want this. I can be like, I can be God. I can do this on my own. We think of the Tower of Babel, and them building this tower to the very top, to the heavens to say, I can be at this, we can be at the same level as God. We can be like God. Think of Pharaoh in the Old Testament, another cheap imitation of a God who thought himself at that level of God. Or the Israelites making their own gods kept falling away from Yahweh and trying to do it themselves. All of them considered equality with God something to be grasped. And Jesus, who absolutely is equal with God, because he is God, well, he, even he knows his role and knows what he has to do and he humbles himself.
You're taking notes on who Jesus is and therefore what you're supposed to do. First note, don't consider equality with God something to be grasped. It never works that well. Let's continue in verse seven. It says, "Rather, he made himself nothing "by taking the very nature of a servant "being made in human likeness." He didn't arrive as a king. He didn't arrive as a demigod or some sort of in-between, but he took on the lowest role, a servant. Jesus empties himself to serve humanity. And we see Jesus instruct his disciples to do the same in Mark 10:45, it says, "For even the Son of Man came "not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life "as a ransom for many." So that instruction that Jesus gives his disciples goes for us today too. We are to serve others. Jesus emptied himself to serve, taking on human flesh, what we call the incarnation, what we celebrate every Christmas. Jesus came to do that, lowered himself to serve others. Verse eight, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. We are now moving from Jesus' pre-incarnate humility to Jesus' incarnation and passion. So in verse six, we see what Christ did not do, which was consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but in verse eight we see what Christ did do, and he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
And Paul makes that emphasis because he knows that his audience, the church in Philippi, would know that that punishment, that death on a cross, is beyond just "he died." That death on a cross says something. It was significant because it was reserved by the Romans for the worst slaves, the most gruesome and horrifying and humiliating death. Cicero, a Roman philosopher and statesman, writes this about crucifixion. He says, "Crucifixion was the worst extreme of the tortures inflicted upon slaves. To bind a Roman citizen is a crime. To flog him is an abomination. To slay him is almost an act of murder. To crucify him is what? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed. And while Christ isn't a Roman citizen, that description of Christ's death still is true. This was absolutely the worst thing that Christ could have endured. Paul also says that Christ was obedient to the point of death, And so thinking of Christ's obedient death brings us to one of the most significant moments of Christ's obedience, and that is in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is having a conversation with God. If you remember, He took His disciples there, and He went off a little bit farther, and they were supposed to pray, and they fell asleep. So it's okay, even disciples fall asleep. Just know that today. But He goes a little bit farther, and he's praying with everything he has to God, asking God, "Is there any other way?" And he knows that there isn't, but he's having this intense discussion and he submits himself to God the Father and carries on. And the rest we know. He's taken away, goes through the trial, he's punished, he's tortured, and he's crucified. "but Christ was obedient continuously." Gordon Fee, a theologian writes this, "Here is where the one who as equal with God "has most fully revealed the truth about God, "that God is love and that his love expresses itself "in self-sacrifice, cruel, humiliating death on a cross "for the sake of those he loves." Paul is writing to the Philippians, hammering this home in their heads that the Christian life is one of humility and sacrifice. Humbling yourself, even to possibly humiliating extents, sacrificing yourself to love others. That's what the cross represents. That's what we are called to. It's the life Jesus lived, and that's what we are to imitate.
Verse nine, "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place "and gave him the name that is above every name." Paul has shown how Jesus has emptied himself, humiliated himself by obedience to the point of death on a cross. And now we see that God the Father drastically changes the status of Jesus, exalting Jesus to the heavens. God exalts him to the highest place and then gives Jesus the name that is above every name, Lord or Christ. In verse 10, that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. So we have this picture in our minds of all of humanity, all of creation, bowing down to Jesus, worshiping and submitting to the sovereignty of Christ. And then in verse 11, and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. You think of all the times that humanity's words, God's own creation has spoken against God, has rebelled against God, has paid lip service to something evil, to themselves, to their own desires, and how much that pains God, how much that hurts Him and saddens Him, And yet there will be a time when all of heaven and earth will be praising Jesus. It's a beautiful picture. And going to our larger series of Philippians, it's one that gives us hope and joy in the midst of suffering. So Paul has answered this question in a very short form. Who is this Jesus that we are supposed to imitate? Well, Jesus is God. He humbled himself by becoming a servant. He was obedient to the point of death and then exalted by God and will be praised by heaven and earth. So we follow kind of a timeline of Jesus. He starts up high, he goes to the lowest of lows and then he's exalted again. We are to imitate that. We don't start up high, we start here on earth, which is a lowly place. But then we have the same destination. If we believe in Jesus, we also get to be exalted with Christ to heaven. So this section, verses six through 11 that we just read, is actually an early hymn. We don't know if Paul wrote it or if he's quoting someone, but it is a beautiful synopsis of the gospel. You get everything. If someone ever asks you, who is Jesus? You can bring it right here. Philippians 2:6-11. They'll tell you exactly who Jesus is and what he did. And it's really, this part is also pivotal to the whole letter. It's kind of the central point that Paul puts at the center of his letter. And the whole theme of unity, of joy, of enduring suffering is gonna come back to this. If you understand who Christ is, it will help you in whatever situation you find yourself in.
As you try to imitate, as you try to endure, as you try to be unified as a church, as we remember that the Philippians were dealing with the possible division, if you come back to this, if you remember who Christ is, and therefore who you are supposed to be, it will tell you and instruct you and guide you in those situations. And so, now I wanna go back to the beginning of our passage. Given that we have this understanding of who Christ is, let's read verses one through five. It says, "Therefore, if you have any encouragement "from being united with Christ, "if any comfort from His love, "if any common sharing in the Spirit, "if any tenderness and compassion "that make my joy complete by being like-minded, "having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind, "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. "Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, "not looking to your own interests, "but each of you to the interests of the others, "and your relationship with one another "have the same mindset as Christ Jesus." If you were to even go back to chapter one and read, now having read verses six through 11, there'll be more for you to get out of those passages. But Paul gives three specific requests or instructional asks to the Philippians, and it's what we as a church need today too. So the first one is be unified with Christ. Have the same love. Be one in spirit and mind. Again, remember the church in Philippi is going through a rocky time There's possible division, and Paul has spoken for the need for unity before in this letter, and he's emphasizing it again. As Christians, we are to be unified in Christ, in spirit and in mind, and have the same love that Jesus had. Be unified with Christ.
We talked about this in week one, this partnership that we have with Christ. We are partners in the ministry. He is doing a work for his kingdom, and we get to partner with him and do that work as well. So work together with Christ. Number two is be humble. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Value others above yourself. Now we hear that and we're like, yeah, got it, done. I will try to think of others. It's a lot easier said than done. When we get into life, when we were at work or whatever situation, we very quickly think of our needs. We very quickly become selfish. I don't wanna do that. That does not benefit me. That's not gonna happen, 'cause I will then suffer in this way, so nope. But Jesus lived a different life, and Paul is calling us to also live a different life. Be humble, value others above yourself. You know who doesn't do this? Are people who consider themselves the best, or people who think that they are the most important and the world revolves around them. People who, whether consciously or subconsciously, might consider equality with God something to be grasped. So don't do this, be humble. And if you're thinking, man, it's really hard to be humble, to humble myself, think of Jesus in the garden before dying on the cross. And if Jesus can humble himself to that point, surely we can humble ourselves in the moments that we have in our lives. And why do we need to humble ourselves with the third point that Paul says is to be a servant. Not looking to your own interests, but looking to the interests of others. We need to serve as Christ served. And Christ served and loved and reached everyone, not just the convenient people in his life, not just the ones of a certain status or who made a certain amount of money. Jesus served even the least of those around him. The ones, and those are the ones that we should have in mind for us. As we go about our days and our lives, we should be looking to serve those who are in need. So, like Christ, as we imitate, we are to be unified in Christ, be humble like Christ, and be a servant like Christ. And I wanna end with some questions. Just as you are taking this all in, as the spirit I'm praying is working in you, I want you to reflect on your life.
So the first question is this, in your situation in life right now, whether at work or in your marriage or in friendships, at school, with your neighbors, as a leader, or maybe as a follower, how are you participating in the life of Jesus? Do you have the same heart and mind that Jesus had? Are you imitating Christ in your situation? Now you may not be called to die on a cross, please no, we don't want that, but are you dying to yourself every day? Becoming humble and becoming focused on serving others. I said at the beginning of our series that Paul over and over again is going to invite to participate in the life of Jesus. And after hearing who Jesus is, he immediately says, all right, are you gonna do this? Are you gonna be like Jesus? Second question is what would it look like if we imitated Jesus in every aspect of our lives? This is the point where you just kind of, you play that out in your head, whatever situation that you were drawn to, that is maybe that God is putting on you, what would it look like if you were to truly imitate Jesus? I don't know if you grew, I grew up with this certain bracelet and it was called, "What Would Jesus Do?" I loved it. I had a book, used one as a bookmark, had like four of them on my wrist growing up. And it's a simple question, but I love the question. What would Jesus do? Whatever situation you find yourself in, whether it's the need to respond or whether it's to act or not act or whether it's processing inside, what would Jesus do? How would Jesus process what just happened? How would Jesus respond to what just happened? What would Jesus not do? I want to do this, maybe Jesus wouldn't. What would it look like if you imitated Jesus in every aspect of your life, being selfless, loving, serving others? You're not considering equality with God, something to achieve in that moment, but your obedience to God, even to the point of earthly humiliation. Being humiliated is not easy for anyone. None of us like it. It's not good. Not a fun situation to be in.
But I like this quote from Charles Spurgeon, a great English preacher. He wrote, "Do you expect to be honored "in a world where your Lord was crucified?" I read that one and I was very convicted. What am I expecting of the world? How am I expecting the world to view me if even the world crucified our Lord and Savior? Part of partnering with Jesus in this life is accepting the fact that we may be humiliated as we serve, as we love. Next question is, do you live with the future hope of being glorified as Christ and being with God in heaven. I have a dad who is slowly fading away due to Alzheimer's. And heaven is on the mind a lot, not for me, but for him. And I was having this conversation with Chris Lindsay this week, just more about heaven and how close it really is. So does the future reality of your exaltation to be with God in heaven bring you joy in your current situation? Does being with God in the future bring you joy in your suffering, knowing that this is whatever experience, it has an end. It's not gonna be forever. And that God tells us, he gives us glimpses of what being with him is gonna be like. no more pain, no more suffering, no more sadness, no more sorrow, no more brokenheartedness. I know for me it makes me so joyful to think of my dad whole again with God. So whatever situation you find yourself in, Think of that future joy and cling to it. Rest in it, rejoice in it. And the final question for you this morning is are you trying to imitate Christ on your own? You see, our imitation of Christ has limitations. We can't be like Jesus without Jesus. We need him to pour into us, to give us strength, love, mercy, compassion, grace, whatever it is, in order for us to give that to other people. We are finite, we have the limits, we have an end. So after loving so much, we're like, I'm drained, I'm done, I have nothing else to give. Exactly, maybe some of you are coming here this morning like I'm exhausted, I got nothing to give, I'm showing up. That's okay, be poured into in this moment. That's what this is for. But even throughout your week, You have to rely on God. You have to rely on him to be your source in order to love other people. So whatever situation, again, that you find yourself in, the one that is testing you the most in life right now, depend on Jesus, rely on him. Ask him to give you what you need. If you know you're going into a situation, you're like, "God, I got nothing. "You know where I'm on, the tank is on E." Pray, "God, give me what I need right now. Give me words to say, give me the energy, give me love to have with these people who are annoying to no end. Give me the grace, ask God, be talking with him, but you can't do it on your own. You have a limitation, you're finite. It's just the way it is. And that's okay because really that's a good thing that makes us rely on God. So remember that you're not God, but we have God within us through his spirit who dwells within us and gives us what we need and guides us through our day. And for that, are we not grateful? Amen?
Let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you again for your word. Thank you for Paul's words, who gives us a very clear image of who Jesus is and how we need him, how we're not God, but how we are called to be like Jesus. And that's our desire. I pray that that desire in each of us would grow. And God, I pray that through this week, you would help through your spirit to guide us. Whatever we find ourselves in, in conversation or in a situation where we have to make a decision or with our kids where we need to be a good parent or be a good husband and wife, whatever it is, God, I pray that you would help us to know how to be like Jesus in those moments. Such a simple thought and yet it's so hard. Help us to rely on you. Give us what we need. We pray that prayer of the Lord, give us our daily bread, not just physical food, but Lord, what we need to get through each day. God, you are good. We praise you for that. We trust you. We know that you are working things out for your glory. Thank you for the opportunity to partner with you. God, I pray that you would encourage us along the way, empower us along the way. And that you would use each of us to further your kingdom. We give you all the glory. We pray this in your son's name. Amen.