Philippians 2:5 NIVUK
[5] In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: https://bible.com/bible/113/php.2.5.NIVUK
I’m no mountaineer. I certainly don’t look like one. But I am a complete sucker for a mountain view. And so is my wife.
Hence we love to visit the Alps. We’ve seen the German, Austrian, Italian, Slovakian, Carpathian and Swiss. The French and Spanish are on our ‘hit list’.
But during the Covid pandemic, we couldn’t leave the country. So as Scottish tourism began to tentatively open, we travelled through the Highlands by bus, past two wonderful mountain ranges: the Cairngorms and the Ben Nevis range. Both were quite stunning.
However, they are both quite deadly. Scottish weather is not dependable, and much less so in the winter. Every year, people get lost in blizzards, torrential rainfall and thick fog on those mountains. Some even die.
They are beautiful. But mountains can often be deadly places for the unwary.
We come to teaching now that is absolutely stunning – almost beyond compare for the sheer depth of Paul’s emotional pleading with them and the awe-inspiring height of his rhetoric. If you ever hear Philippians 2:1-11 being read in a dull monotone, fire the reader.
Honestly. This is quite an outstanding passage.
But for all its depths and heights, it is also a very, very challenging passage. One of the most challenging. We must traverse it with great care, because inside these beautiful words lies a deep existential threat to our self-sufficiency and sin, and we must let this threat perform its dangerous and painful work if we are to have the mind of Christ.
So we will scale this mountain. We will traverse its peaks. But I should warn you: you are not likely to emerge the same as you were when you started on this journey. Not if you are truly obedient to Christ.
We will start with The Cause.
Before we look at this in any detail, we must answer one very important question: why did Paul write these verses?
Yes, I know, he was inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16). However, often there are very real world situations that trigger the highest of rhetoric and prose, in the same way that pressure makes diamonds or irritation causes pearls. For example, even a passive reader of 1 Corinthians will notice that Paul is dealing with divisions and personality cults within the church (see 1 Corinthians 1:10-17). This reaches its nadir in the teachings in chapters 12 and 14 on the nature of the church as an orderly, organised, organic body. But Paul then goes on to reach the absolute pinnacle in the wonderful chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 – often misquoted at weddings – where he discusses, in very florid and poetic language, the very essence, nature and importance of love in their relationships.
He is dealing with disunity. He produces expert and highly persuasive prose to deal with it.
He is doing precisely the same here. Look at Philippians 4:2:
Philippians 4:2 NIVUK
[2] I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. https://bible.com/bible/113/php.4.2.NIVUK
What we see here is two women whose falling out is so serious and so important to the church that Paul, who is a senior leader in the church and hundreds of miles away, calls it out in a pastoral letter.
Just let that fact sink in.
This fall-out must have been huge.
Jumping back to chapter 2, that explains precisely why Paul felt the need to write such passionate prose: he was battling deeply consequential disunity within the Philippian church.
But the reason why he appeals to them to agree and settle their argument is really quite something.
It isn’t because one of them has won the argument and the other has lost – often we behave as if this could be the only settlement.
It isn’t because of a mediation or reconciliation or agreement or anything like that.
It isn’t even because they are being immature and the issue isn’t important – it clearly is.
No, it is something way more challenging than that.
Paul tells them to agree because of the Gospel.
Look how this chapter begins:
Philippians 2:1 NIVUK
[1] 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... https://bible.com/bible/113/php.2.1.NIVUK
Paul is saying that through the Gospel they have received encouragement from unity with Christ, comfort from his love, fellowship with the Spirit, tenderness and compassion and therefore should choose to agree, because to not choose to agree is hypocrisy and contradicts everything they have received from God through the Gospel.
This is something Jesus Himself taught in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:23-35). Paul also taught it to the Ephesians (Ephesians 4:32) and the Colossians (Colossians 3:13).
It’s even in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:12).
So the measure of how we react to other people, even those who are our adversaries, is not what they have done for us or even to us, it is what Jesus has done for us. We do not live under ‘an eye for an eye’. We live under ‘once, for all people, everywhere’.
So if we find ourselves in a situation where someone is in debt to us due to their wrongdoing, we must charge it to the cross.
What we see here is absolutely startling. Paul is saying that is we must show encouragement, love, fellowship, tenderness and compassion to others, not as a reward for them doing good for us, but because we did bad to Jesus and He died for our sins anyway.
Do you see what I mean? This is quite some mountain.
But Paul is not done yet.
We've seen the cause – that the Philippians were battling with disunity and Paul is appealing to them on the basis of the Gospel they believe in to be united and to agree.
Paul now moves on to The Command, meaning that he isn’t just appealing to the Philippians to be united, he is also commanding it.
In fact, there are three times in these verses where Paul issues a command.
Here is the first:
Philippians 2:2 NIVUK
[2] then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
The phrase translated ‘complete’ is like filling a glass or a container until it overflows. This is more than just cheering Paul up. This is making him exceedingly happy in a very difficult situation.
And what will do that?
The Philippians having three things that are the same: their mind, their love and their spirit. So they should view the world in a similar way and have the same purpose, they should show the same agapé love to each other that they receive from God, and they should be united in their deep affection for God and each other.
That’s just command number one.
The second is a sharp slap in the face for anyone wanting to push themselves forward for their own self-aggrandisement:
Philippians 4-2:3 NIVUK
[3] Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, [4] not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
The word translated as ‘selfish ambition’ comes from the political world. It refers to someone who is willing to pull dirty tricks to get to the top so they have the power and the means of control in their hand.
The word translated as ‘vain conceit’ refers to someone who has a much higher opinion of themselves than they should, and who seeks to maintain that opinion at the expense of others.
This is a command for the ‘movers and shakers’ to be still and know who is God.
This is a command for us to check our motivation and ask ourselves this: who gains from what we want to do? Is it us, or is it other people?
James puts things a bit more drastically:
James 3-4:1 NIVUK
[1] What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? [2] You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. [3] When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
The idea of coveting is to look at something that belongs to another and to want it for ourselves. It is, by nature, a selfish desire. It is looking out for our own interests above those of other people. That’s why it is banned in the Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21).
What Paul, James and God, through Moses, are saying is essentially the same thing. We must not just seek after our own interests to the exclusion of others. We must desire a ‘win-win’ that is good for all of us.
And then we come to the kicker: the third command. This verse should be painful for us. I do not know of a single human being alive or dead, with the exception of Jesus Christ Himself, who has ever lived up to this all their life:
Philippians 2:5 NIVUK
[5] In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: https://bible.com/bible/113/php.2.5.NIVUK
The Greek is even more specific. It simply says, ‘Let the same mind be in you as Christ Jesus.’
And by ‘mind’ it means our thoughts, feelings, opinions, understanding, judgements.
This verse is essentially telling us to think and feel like Jesus.
But how?
Paul uses something that many commentators believe may not be his own writing, but may be a quote from an ancient hymn. At any rate, it is just breath-taking in its beauty. And there are, of course, three phases to it:
Jesus had it all – He was, in His very unchangeable nature, God. He had everything we could ever hope for or dream for or aspire to have or be. All of it. And yet...
Jesus made Himself nothing. And this should be startling to us. It should make us stand back in awe.
And when it says ‘nothing’, it really means ‘nothing’, because He reduced Himself to taking frail human form, becomes a servant to those who are thoroughly unworthy, and then dies the death of a disgraceful sinner on a cross. As Spurgeon put it:
‘The lower he stoops to save us, the higher we ought to lift him in our adoring reverence. Blessed be his name, he stoops, and stoops, and stoops, and, when he reaches our level, and becomes man, he still stoops, and stoops, and stoops lower and deeper yet.’
In fact, there is a stunning truth in verses 6 to 11. And I believe Paul is using it perfectly to prove his point:
All Jesus does is humble Himself and send Himself lower.
Do you see it?
Jesus does not consider His equal status with God as something to be used for His own advantage (the literal meaning of the Greek word is ‘to seize or to grasp’ – a perfect picture of this would be Jacob being born grasping his brother’s heel in Genesis 25:26), so He lets it go. Then, as Spurgeon said, He stooped, He stooped and He stopped again, all the way to the cross. It was His initiative – no-one else’s. He could have stopped it any time He wanted, but He didn’t (Matthew 26:53).
Jesus humbled Himself, by choice, at His initiative, lower than any other being in earth or in the heavens ever could.
But what happens next is quite amazing.
God raises Jesus up. Jesus does not emerge like a film or comic book hero, tossed over the side of a cliff but clinging on by His fingernails until He clambers to the top, or down and out in a battle until He takes one last blow, and then begins the dramatic fightback.
No. Not at all. Jesus debases Himself. Jesus humbles Himself. God raised Him up.
God.
God lifts Him to the highest place like a king promoting his son.
God.
God gives Him the Name above every name.
God.
God causes every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
God.
And no-one but God.
Why?
Because Paul is appealing to the Philippians to be Christ-like: to follow in His example. Jesus did not defeat His enemies by being violent or vengeful. He beat them by humble service and obedience.
And that is absolutely key to this.
But why? What is Paul wanting the Philippians to do exactly?
Now we move on from the cause and the command to The Consequences – what Paul wants them to do as a result.
This is found in verse 4:
Philippians 2:4 NIVUK
[4] not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. https://bible.com/bible/113/php.2.4.NIVUK
Literally, the Greek can be translated as ‘Don’t look only out for yourself, look out for others too’.
In other words, don’t do anything for selfish gain.
Don’t do anything that pushes only your agenda.
Don’t seek your way or the highway.
Don’t only seek to do things that you like.
Don’t force your taste in music, your likes and dislikes, your preferences or your requirements on other people.
How much would our churches change if we took this seriously!
Philippi was a border town. As an honorary city of the Roman Empire it had special tax status. It was practically the ancient version of a Freeport. And it was very rich. In a materialistically-driven city like that, I have no doubt that there were many who enriched themselves by exploiting others. We even see a glimpse of it in Acts 16:10-21.
Here Paul presents Jesus as the absolute antithesis of this. I don’t doubt for one second that this would have stung.
Because it still stings now.
So we see then the cause and the command to have the mind of Christ, and the consequences of doing so – what this means for us.
A few years ago, we went on holiday to the Swiss Alps. From our hotel balcony in Wengen, we could stand with a mug of hot chocolate in hand and look to our right across the Lauterbrunnen Valley to the Eiger beyond it.
And what a view it was!
But before we left, I watched a documentary about a British naturist and adventurer, a very fit man, who sought to climb the North Face of the Eiger in winter. He did the very best he could, but the freezing temperatures, the highly winds and the incessant snow, not to mention the deadly ice, forced him and his crew back.
Ultimately, they failed.
These verses are beyond beautiful. But at the same time, if we take them seriously, they are also beyond intimidating. They ought to force us to our knees in humble prayer, in recognition before God that they are too much; that we are unable to do this; that we can try, but ultimately we too will fail.
Because, you see, that’s why Jesus needed to come. We are sinners. We are not good enough.
But when we realise this, and we throw ourselves on the grace of God because we have no other hope, a realisation will wash over us:
Other people are just like us. Because they fail too.
And suddenly we will realise what it means to see them as Christ sees them:
As sinners in need of grace.
Just as we are.
Since we are all in it together, maybe we should look out for their interests as well as our own.
Because that is what Jesus did for us.
And, if we choose to bear His Name, that is what we should do for other people.
Prayer
Lord, these verses are beautiful, but I have to admit that they scare me. What You did for me is beyond compare. What You want me to do for other people is really tough. Help me to truly understand what it will mean for me. Amen.
Questions
1. Why did Paul write these verses? How can this help us apply them to our situation?
2. What is Paul commanding us to do and why? Is this easy?
3. How can you show this attitude and mindset to others?
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