SPEAKER_02: The script of reading this morning is in Philippians chapter 2 verse 1 to 11.
SPEAKER_02: So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being in the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord of one mind.
SPEAKER_02: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.
SPEAKER_02: But in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also in the interest of others.
SPEAKER_02: Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ, Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equally with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptying himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore God has highly exalted him, bestowed on him the name that is above every name.
SPEAKER_02: So that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, God's word.
SPEAKER_00: They all moved.
SPEAKER_00: And indeed, if you stand on the earth and you look up at the sun, don't look up at the sun.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want anybody to kind of send me an email.
SPEAKER_00: Look up at the moon, you'll notice that it looks like it moves.
SPEAKER_00: And so people thought, well, the earth must be the uh the center and everything else is revolving around it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what people believed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for centuries.
SPEAKER_00: They assumed that it was the center of everything until uh a Polish man called uh Nicholas uh um uh Copernicus.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I did write it down, I just can't see it because of my dirty glasses.
SPEAKER_00: Nicholas Copernicus came along, published a work called On the Motion of the Heavenly Spheres, and he proposed something radically different.
SPEAKER_00: He proposed a heliocentric, it's a good word today, a heliocentric, a sun-centered model for uh the universe.
SPEAKER_00: He was still thinking in terms of the universe, not in terms of the solar system.
SPEAKER_00: And that new thought became known as the Copernican Revolution.
SPEAKER_00: Uh generation later, uh, you get uh Galileo Galilei coming along, and he goes up against the most powerful institution in the world at the time, uh, the Roman Catholic Church, uh, for the contention that the sun is at the center of the universe, that it is static and everything else moves around it.
SPEAKER_00: And he's denounced as a heretic, uh, put into put into prison uh for years and years.
SPEAKER_00: He's dragged away and says these famous words under his breath, and says, and yet it moves, uh, that actually it's the earth that moves around the sun.
SPEAKER_00: And he was uh denounced for those views.
SPEAKER_00: And did you know that it's not until 1992 that Pope John Paul II issued an apology for how the church treated uh Galileo Galilei uh for generations human beings were wrong about what lay at the center of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: We thought it was us, we thought it was the earth and that everything else moved around it.
SPEAKER_00: And we're wrong again.
SPEAKER_00: We need another Copernican revolution.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's no contention right now as to uh whether or not uh you believe that the the earth is static.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that there are any flat earthers here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you are, welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Um I guess you're gonna you're gonna find that opening illustration hard, I suppose, but you can uh send me a long email uh afterwards as to why I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_00: No, probably everybody believes in a sun-centered model of the uh the solar system.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say that we need another Copernican revolution, I mean that we need a Copernican revolution in you, in us.
SPEAKER_00: The modern perception of the self is that everything else revolves around us, that your individual identity is at the center of your particular universe, and everything else, everyone else, moves around you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you hear people saying things like, well, I don't need to change, society needs to change.
SPEAKER_00: I'm at the center, I'm static, I don't need to move.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else needs to move around me.
SPEAKER_00: We're told that we no longer derive any meaning or identity or significance by our roles or responsibilities.
SPEAKER_00: That was the traditional view, but rather from our psychology, from rather what we perceive of the world and how we feel, particularly those uh those feelings that become sexualized.
SPEAKER_00: They are central to the uh our very identity.
SPEAKER_00: They are the center of our universe, and everything else is informed by and moves around us.
SPEAKER_00: Around that.
SPEAKER_00: We are at the center.
SPEAKER_00: Our heart's desire is for the self to realize our own potential, self-exaltation.
SPEAKER_00: That often either leads to conflict with others, because if everybody else is seeking their own good, uh, then you're naturally gonna, like bumper cars in the uh in the fair in the fairground, you're gonna bump up against other people whose maximal good conflicts with your maximal good.
SPEAKER_00: So it either leads to conflicts or it leads to it leads to worry and anxiety because you wonder, well, how sustainable is this is this position?
SPEAKER_00: Can I keep myself at the at the center?
SPEAKER_00: It's almost you know I'm trying to keep myself in in orbit.
SPEAKER_00: And so we need a Copernican revolution, not of astronomy, but of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps even I might uh suggest to you this morning that viewing yourself not at the center of your universe is actually good for you, that when we place ourselves at the center, uh it's actually harmful in the ways that I've just described.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Paul this morning uh wants to recenter your universe.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to place not yourself but the other at the center of your whole life and what you prioritize and how you live and how you think and how you relate to others, what you value.
SPEAKER_00: There's a Copernican revolution happening in these verses, happening amongst us this morning by the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's a revolution that places uh selfless love at the center of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: And it orbits around the supreme example of that selfless love.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that we're going to look at this morning is that Paul is encouraging you to experience the revolution.
SPEAKER_00: Don't just join the revolution in terms of intellectually assenting to it, but actually experience it in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he lays out for us in verses one to four.
SPEAKER_00: Can I encourage you again to have Bibles open so that you can follow along with me?
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking at your phone, I'm reading from the ESV, the English Standard Version of the Bible, verses one to four.
SPEAKER_00: Paul heaps up these questions.
SPEAKER_00: So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
SPEAKER_00: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Let each of you not look only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
SPEAKER_00: The revolution that is needed within the human heart is not a mere intellectual change, though that is part of it.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that we need to change our mind on if we are to be followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But rather the revolution is something that is experienced, it is enjoyed, it is participated in in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul's driving at by these questions.
SPEAKER_00: These questions sound just slightly strange when he says, so if there is any encouragement in Christ, you're supposed to stop for a second and go, well, there is.
SPEAKER_00: Of course there is.
SPEAKER_00: There is encouragement in these things.
SPEAKER_00: Let me try and put them in my own words just to help us all understand what I think Paul's driving at here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul in heaping up these questions is essentially saying this, saying this to each of you.
SPEAKER_00: If ever somebody has come alongside and uh and encouraged you in your faith, either in the midst of pain or loneliness or anxiety or anguish, if anybody's come alongside and encouraged your heart by virtue of them being a Christian, you're a Christian, they've called the gospel and brought it to bear in your life, if you've ever experienced that encouragement, if you've ever felt any comfort from knowing the love of Christ in your life, if you've ever experienced that love from others, if you've ever experienced that connection with other believers that overflows in affection and sympathy and compassion and love, if you've ever experienced any of those things, Christian, uh make my joy complete by being like that more and more to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: That's what the questions mean.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever experienced the blessings of being a follower of Jesus, that often are so mediated by other people as they speak and encourage and shoulder burdens with you, if you've ever experienced any of those things, then complete my joy by being like that to other people, by being of that same mind.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is encouraging you that if you have been blessed as a follower of the Lord Jesus, then you should look also to be a blessing to those around you, to multiply that.
SPEAKER_00: That just as you've experienced people pouring into you, Paul's saying, complete my joy by going on and doing that to other people.
SPEAKER_00: Be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Be have that same mind of those people who looked at your life and invested in you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure many of us can recall those people who have poured into us spiritually speaking.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps in the early days of our faith, we can remember and recall their love and concern, their patience with us, their patience with our with our questions, with our struggling, with our working out what it means for each of us to live under the lordship of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We remember their open-heartedness, their open home, how they shared their life with us.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's saying that's the revolution.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Copernican revolution that is taking place because of the kingdom of God, that takes place in the heart of everyone who turns to trust the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That you're not looking to your own interests solely, but to the interests of others.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's saying that the revolution continues when you have that same mind, that same outlook, when you don't just look back to those who have blessed you, but you look forward and think, well, how can I be a blessing to others?
SPEAKER_00: How can I be an encouragement?
SPEAKER_00: How can I show affection and sympathy and love to those around me in my community group on a Sunday morning, uh around tea and coffee or sharing a meal or after class?
SPEAKER_00: How can I, as I have been so loved, how can I increase the joy of the body by being a blessing to others?
SPEAKER_00: That's how the revolution continues.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that's experienced.
SPEAKER_00: Experiencing the revolution, having not ourselves at the center, but the other.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it shows itself in two primary ways in this text that Paul draws out for us.
SPEAKER_00: Those two ways are unity and humility.
SPEAKER_00: Unity, he he says, You complete my joy, verse two, by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
SPEAKER_00: And in the context, actually, one of the things that we'll see in chapter four of the letter is that there was a bit of strife and division.
SPEAKER_00: There were people, and I know this is going to be a shock uh to you all here, there was people in church who didn't like one another.
SPEAKER_00: They actually disagreed.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's saying, No, no, no, actually, your your unity goes deeper than personality.
SPEAKER_00: Your unity is is wrought by the gospel of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, when he says, you know, be of be of one mind, it is actually of one soul.
SPEAKER_00: Mingled soulness, one outlook, value system, one love.
SPEAKER_00: When individuals place themselves at the center, unity is ultimately impossible.
SPEAKER_00: Things can masquerade as unity.
SPEAKER_00: Some groups can have shared purpose, shared entrance, but to to gather together and have a deep one-souledness, it can never be achieved by people who when the chips are done and all is said and done, their desires, their priorities trump other people's.
SPEAKER_00: Christian unity is not like that.
SPEAKER_00: Unity in the church should not be like that.
SPEAKER_00: Christian unity is ultimately around the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is the center around which we all orbit.
SPEAKER_00: He is the the ultimate other through whom we are connected, each of us, one to another.
SPEAKER_00: But Christian unity is as we gather around Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of pious talk uh about kind of unity and vague terms within churches.
SPEAKER_00: We should just be we should just be united.
SPEAKER_00: We should just get on.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's the basis?
SPEAKER_00: What's the ground?
SPEAKER_00: What's the what's the center around which our hearts feel the gravitational pull of love and around which we all orbit?
SPEAKER_00: So it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Christian unity places him at the center and not us.
SPEAKER_00: Just by the by, maybe you're here this morning and you're not actually a believer in Jesus, you're just kind of working out what it is that Christians believe.
SPEAKER_00: We're really glad that you're here.
SPEAKER_00: We want to engage with your questions and your doubts.
SPEAKER_00: We think that they're legitimate and worth working through.
SPEAKER_00: But let me just say that at the very core of what it means to be a Christian or the decision to follow Jesus, it actually comes down to this.
SPEAKER_00: It's asking yourself, am I willing to no longer be in the center of my life?
SPEAKER_00: Am I willing to displace myself from that center and put Jesus there?
SPEAKER_00: Because that is good.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way that actually the solar system, the spiritual solar system of our life was meant uh to be formed.
SPEAKER_00: Am I willing to do that and orbit around him and feel uh the uh the loving, radiating glow of his love and warmth and affection uh and assurance and acceptance of me?
SPEAKER_00: Or do I am I clinging on uh to the center?
SPEAKER_00: That's why following Jesus is never actually an intellectual decision, it's a moral decision.
SPEAKER_00: It's what's going to be at the center.
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be you, or is it gonna be Jesus, the God who made you, who loves you, for whom you were made?
SPEAKER_00: Our collective pursuit as believers, as the church, as city church, is to is to make much of him.
SPEAKER_00: And when he is at the center and not ourselves, not self-exaltation, then our unity deepens.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, in the practicalities of life, it's worth just saying that people will naturally gravitate towards others uh that are that are like them.
SPEAKER_00: We have personalities that we get on with and personalities that we don't get on with, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: There are people that we're gonna be more naturally drawn to and friends with, even within the context of the church, even here, and that's also okay.
SPEAKER_00: But for any church, for city church to have to have groups where you feel like you cannot penetrate into that group because of stage of life or or culture or uh or education or background or anything like that, to feel like I can't participate in that group that's not Christian unity.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to have particular friends in city church.
SPEAKER_00: But if you say, no, no, I'm not part of that subgroup within the church, that's not Christian unity.
SPEAKER_00: Equally, if your group is not open-hearted enough to embrace whoever would come into your social sphere, then that also is not Christian unity because it's unity that's based around a shared life experience, a shared cultural experience, and not Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Christian unity is ultimately, it places him at the center and we all orbit around it.
SPEAKER_00: Are you hearing what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: I know it's dark, but are you hearing what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying it's okay to have particular friends.
SPEAKER_00: It's not okay to be exclusionary of others.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Our unity is a unity that celebrates Jesus as the center.
SPEAKER_00: And the second way that it's experienced here is in humility.
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, unity and humility go hand in hand.
SPEAKER_00: In order to be united, you have to be willing to let go of certain things, you have to be willing to flex, you have to be willing to acknowledge that you're wrong, you have to be willing to embrace somebody who uh who's not altogether like you.
SPEAKER_00: Humility in the ancient world was not seen as a as a virtue, it's seen as a vice.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, so much so that the Greeks and the Romans uh didn't have a word for humility, it was not seen as a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so to pursue humility, to see humility as something that is uh desirable, well, that's a that's a Christian idea.
SPEAKER_00: But again, it is mostly seen as weakness again today.
SPEAKER_00: Paul again is saying that the goodness and joy of being Christians together, of being a Christian community is in its humble unity, of counting others more significant than yourself.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul says count others more significant than yourself, is he encouraging us to some sort of uh self-loathing where we just abase ourselves before others?
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, because it's uh it's expanded on in verse four.
SPEAKER_00: Look what he says, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, let each of you always deny your own interests and always elevate the interests of others.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, no, no, it's not about denial of any sort of self-interest.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, it's saying, can you regard other people's desires and interests on an equal footing to yours?
SPEAKER_00: The way that I was thinking to illustrate this is are you content to let someone else uh play first fiddle?
SPEAKER_00: Are you content yourself to play second fiddle?
SPEAKER_00: Are you content to let somebody else go ahead and to quote uncle?
SPEAKER_00: Unquote, win.
SPEAKER_00: Are you able to push somebody else forward so that they get the uh get the congratulation and the kudos and have joy in that?
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that selfishness and self-centeredness does is it steals our joy, steals our joy and other people's good.
SPEAKER_00: We look at other people's advancement, other people's success, and we don't feel joy.
SPEAKER_00: We feel bitterness, we feel resentment.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why did they get that?
SPEAKER_00: How come they were on the honors list?
SPEAKER_00: How come they got the promotion and not and not me?
SPEAKER_00: Are you content to play second fiddle sometimes?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you always need to be at the top?
SPEAKER_00: And actually, if you think about it, it's one of the really beautiful things about the Christian community.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that there are, it's not that half of you here are second fiddle.
SPEAKER_00: You're all, you're all the number twos, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and all of you guys over here, you're all the great ones, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're all the ones who should be first and should be ahead.
SPEAKER_00: And your role in life is to keep on maximizing them, keep on pushing them forward and telling them how great they are.
SPEAKER_00: And your role in life is to go, keep on pushing me, keep on bigging me up.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, the dynamic in the Christian life is that you're all doing it to one another.
SPEAKER_00: You're all looking to one another and say and saying, Do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I want to celebrate you.
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is great that God's doing this in your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of how it works in terms of Christian marriage.
SPEAKER_00: It's not one spouse constantly looking to the other and uh and saying, you know, I'm just pushing you forward.
SPEAKER_00: Or I'm just looking to your interests.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's that as there's a mutual consideration for one another, then the marriage flourishes.
SPEAKER_00: It takes more grace than I can tell to play the second fiddle well, rights D.A.
SPEAKER_00: Carson.
SPEAKER_00: But that is how we experience the revolution.
SPEAKER_00: We experience it in humility, in unity, in blessing as we have been blessed.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul, in order to drive this home, gives us an example, an example of the supreme revolutionary.
SPEAKER_00: So he's been inviting you to experience the revolution, and now he gives you an example of the supreme revolutionary, and that's in verses six to eleven.
SPEAKER_00: It's worth just reading them again and just seeing the movement of the Lord Jesus here.
SPEAKER_00: Pick it up with me at verse six, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should buy, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, in order to drive this home, shows us the life of supreme other person-centered love.
SPEAKER_00: The life of the Lord Jesus, the example for us of the life that we should live.
SPEAKER_00: The example of the greatest humility as seen in the incarnation of the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Never before or since has someone come from so high and yet stepped so low.
SPEAKER_00: Let's trace uh some of the movements of what Paul is writing for us here as he puts forth Christ as an example.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with supreme selflessness.
SPEAKER_00: Back in the garden in Genesis, one of the things that you see from Adam and Eve is they're grasping, literally, they're reaching out and taking that fruit that God commanded them not to eat there, because they believed the lie of the serpent that when they ate of it, they would be like God.
SPEAKER_00: They would be equal with God.
SPEAKER_00: Adam in the garden grasped at equality with God, selfishly, self-centeredly.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Paul begins by showing us Christ, in contrast to our father Adam, he did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: Christ willingly laid aside that equality.
SPEAKER_00: He emptied himself.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what do we mean by that?
SPEAKER_00: What does Paul mean by that?
SPEAKER_00: We sing, sometimes we sing an old hymn that has the line, emptied himself of all but love.
SPEAKER_00: Um, is that what his Paul is meaning?
SPEAKER_00: Sorry to those of you who are listening on the recording.
SPEAKER_00: Um, emptied himself of all but love.
SPEAKER_00: It is not that Jesus is less than God, but that he laid aside all of the prerogatives of being God, all of the glory due to his name.
SPEAKER_00: He took on willingly, voluntarily, the limitations of being humanity.
SPEAKER_00: His word spoke the universe into being, and yet he babbled like a baby in his mother's arms.
SPEAKER_00: He walked upon the oceans, and yet his feet got tired.
SPEAKER_00: Supreme selflessness.
SPEAKER_00: And in laying those aside, he becomes the supreme servant.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not come to earth as a king, but comes as a slave.
SPEAKER_00: He bound himself to humanity for humanity's sake, taking on verse 7 the form of the servant and being found in the likeness of men.
SPEAKER_00: When we say that when it says in verse 8 that Jesus was found in human form, it's not saying that Jesus looked human but wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not like Superman.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Some people like to sing songs about Jesus being like Superman.
SPEAKER_00: He's not actually, because the thing with Superman is that Superman looks human but isn't.
SPEAKER_00: He's from the planet Krypton.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not like that.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can look at verse A and go, oh, he looked human.
SPEAKER_00: But he was actually underneath, he had the big ass on his chest, or supposed it would be a J, really.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he had the big J on his chest, and actually he was the man of steel.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: When it says that uh he took on the form of a servant, it's saying that Jesus willingly took on everything that it was to be human, all of the pressures and indignities, the temptations and the sufferings, all of human existence, all that is common to human existence, he took upon himself and became the supreme servant.
SPEAKER_00: But his servanthood didn't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: His servanthood led him to the road of supreme shame.
SPEAKER_00: The one who shared the Father's light, who basked in eternal joy, was then obedient to his father for our sake.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost as though Paul just takes it even deeper that he would write to say, even death on a cross, even the death of greatest ignominy and shame, the ultimate rejection, to be viewed as loathsome, to be reviled and to die the death reserved for the worst of criminals, even death on a cross, naked, shamed, ridiculed, cursed, and alone.
SPEAKER_00: This is ultimate humility, supreme selflessness, supreme servanthood by dying the death of supreme shame.
SPEAKER_00: But this is not where Paul ends.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel story does not end with the death of Jesus, but ends rather with Jesus' supreme exaltation.
SPEAKER_00: Verse nine.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, as a result of, as a consequence of his voluntary, willing obedience to his father that took him to the cross, the place of sin and of shame.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that is above every name.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel story doesn't end with shame, but with exaltation.
SPEAKER_00: The road to Jesus' coronation was the way of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And now, where is Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: He's not in a grave in uh in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: No, he is alive, bodily, physically, that's what Christians believe.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is not a metaphor, it's an actual historical event, that's what we believe.
SPEAKER_00: And that he is bodily ruling and reigning in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He is God's forever king, highly exalted.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the point for us no one ever humbles themselves before God without ultimately being exalted by Him, either in this life or the next.
SPEAKER_00: It is one thing to live for the praise and exaltation of men that will ultimately pass and fade away.
SPEAKER_00: You may be the you may experience that for a time, your fifteen minutes.
SPEAKER_00: It is another thing entirely to live a life of servanthood before the God who will exalt all who humble themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And that exhortation will be so eternally.
SPEAKER_00: Paul concludes this great hymn, this great tracing of Jesus' life by saying that the one who is supremely exalted now has ultimate lordship, and in the end will have supreme submission.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're tracing by your notes uh my supremes, uh Mark Smith and the Supremes, uh it's supreme, some of you got that, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Uh supreme selflessness, the supreme servant, supreme shame, supreme exaltation, and then in the end, supreme submission.
SPEAKER_00: So that verse 10 he writes, At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess.
SPEAKER_00: Confess what?
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Just notice that last phrase.
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't written it down in my notes, but just notice that last phrase to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That even in Christ's exaltation, even in his enthronement as King of the universe, there is still an other centeredness there.
SPEAKER_00: There's still him wanting to see his father made much of his father glorified.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_00: That supreme submission that we read of in verse 10 is not an option for human beings, but a certainty.
SPEAKER_00: The only question is whether or not you will bow willingly or with fear on that last day.
SPEAKER_00: We will not be able to continue with ourselves at the center forever.
SPEAKER_00: We will either willingly, voluntarily, joyfully remove ourselves from the center and place Jesus there, or we will have our self-centeredness ripped finally from our grasp on that great and dreadful day, and confess the Lordship of Jesus through reluctant and terrified teeth.
SPEAKER_00: The invitation that Paul lays for us here is to come now willingly to follow the one who gave himself for you and to live a life of other person-centered love, to orbit around him and him alone.
SPEAKER_00: But that is not where I want to finish this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you still going?
SPEAKER_00: Because I skipped over a verse.
SPEAKER_00: In this verse, I think this verse changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: I think that this verse is like what Paul's been doing here is he's been laying out all of the components for a life that is other person-centered.
SPEAKER_00: It's like he's been laying out all of the lights that need to be turned on in order for us to live a light that shines brightly for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's laid them all out, he's untangled them all here, and he's laid them about.
SPEAKER_00: And what this verse does is it plugs it in.
SPEAKER_00: It's verse five.
SPEAKER_00: Verse five plugs in and makes alive everything that I have said.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it with me.
SPEAKER_00: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That mind that took Jesus on the road of supreme selflessness, supreme servanthood, supreme shame to supreme exaltation and confession, that mind that drove him there is now gifted to you, believer, in order to live for him now.
SPEAKER_00: We had this question on Wednesday night at our city life group of, well, the example of Jesus is kind of bewildering.
SPEAKER_00: How could I possibly live up to it?
SPEAKER_00: The believer is united to Jesus by faith.
SPEAKER_00: We are joined to him, spiritually speaking, by his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And that Holy Spirit is the electrifying, empowering of our life to live without us at the center, to live a life of revolutionary servanthood and blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Have this mind amongst yourselves, which is yours by virtue of being in Christ because of your faith with him in him.
SPEAKER_00: Live humbly, be united, be a blessing, just as you have been blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice in the good of others.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Let me show you Jesus, how the highest descended to the depths and is now exalted.
SPEAKER_00: But he's not just your example, because that would be bewildering.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: So I'll try my best.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: It's not what he says.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to give you the empowering.
SPEAKER_00: The mind of Christ exists in the heart, in the mind of every believer.
SPEAKER_00: That you get to love what Jesus loved, you get to think like Jesus thought, you get to feel like he feels.
SPEAKER_00: You get to value what he values and live how he lived.
SPEAKER_00: He is giving you this transformed mind, a new outlook, his spirit within you, empowering you to be part of this revolution that our world so desperately needs.
SPEAKER_00: Living differently is possible through faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul elsewhere would say that the uh so in Titus chapter 3, he writes to Titus, he says, Titus, God's given you the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit enables you to say no to sin and ungodliness and to worldly passions.
SPEAKER_00: So for those of you who are who are trapped in persistent besetting sins and addictions, one of the things that Christianity liberates you to do is you can say no.
SPEAKER_00: It is a lie to believe that you cannot.
SPEAKER_00: You have been empowered and enabled to live differently.
SPEAKER_00: Christ this morning is not so much demanding that you stop orbiting your life around yourself and center it on him.
SPEAKER_00: He's showing you the goodness of doing that.
SPEAKER_00: That God does not forget the humble in heart, but exalts them finally.
SPEAKER_00: That you get completed and ever-deepening joy, unity, humility, and love both in your life and with your brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: He's showing you the lengths that he was prepared to go, to be other person-centered, in order to set you free so that you can live like that.
SPEAKER_00: So many of us, so many of the people around us who we love are addicting themselves to their own desires, miserable, trying to make their own meaning and way in the world hardened to the needs of others.
SPEAKER_00: The revolution that Jesus is bringing is a revolution of selflessness, of other person-centered love.
SPEAKER_00: Have you put your trust in the Supreme Servant?
SPEAKER_00: Willingly bowed the knee and confessed that he is Lord, and then are living out of that renewed mind, that renewed love, that one soulness with Christ and with others?
SPEAKER_00: If so, can I invite you to think about the answers to some of these questions that I will close with now in terms of how you can go on to live a life of other person-centered love?
SPEAKER_00: They are, first, how are you seeking to be a blessing as you have been blessed?
SPEAKER_00: Have you been able to acknowledge that other people have have poured into you, have invested in you, and maybe you're experiencing that now?
SPEAKER_00: Now is the time to think, well, how can I be a blessing to others?
SPEAKER_00: How can I be an encouragement, even with my young faith, my small faith?
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm bringing my five loaves and my two fish to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How can I bring that?
SPEAKER_00: How can I bring the loaves and the fish and watch him multiply it for his glory?
SPEAKER_00: Who can you get alongside in city life, in your community group here this morning, sending a message to you and saying, let's let's walk together, let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: How can I encourage you?
SPEAKER_00: How can I be praying for you this week?
SPEAKER_00: How can I serve you?
SPEAKER_00: How can we encourage one another to live for the Lord Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you seeking to be a blessing to?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you seeking to pour into, to walk with, to support and encourage?
SPEAKER_00: Are you committed only to your subgroup here at City?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you feel like you could move through those different layers and groups and be comfortable in them all and also welcome others into your group?
SPEAKER_00: If not, does there need to be a change in orientation of your group?
SPEAKER_00: Do you only go to lunch with the the same people?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to look outside of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to reflect upon that.
SPEAKER_00: Are you giving of yourself in terms of service here?
SPEAKER_00: Have you committed to being a member of City Church?
SPEAKER_00: Membership is how we show our other person centeredness that I say, I'm committing to this family.
SPEAKER_00: I know we are in a cinema, but we are not of the cinema.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just come and watch the show as good as it is, still awake, and then head off.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what this is about.
SPEAKER_00: To take on service, to take on membership Is a way of saying, do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just about me and my enjoyment on a Sunday morning, my my learning, my worshiping.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually about how can I encourage my brothers and sisters?
SPEAKER_00: How can I be a blessing to them?
SPEAKER_00: How can I say, I am part of you, and you are part of me, and we walk together.
SPEAKER_00: It is my prayer that as we press into each of those things, our unity will deepen, our humility will abound, and our joy will be unending as we seek the good of others and the glory of God alone.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, please visit our website found in the link below.