Ep. 15 | The Mind of Christ (pt. 2) | Philippians

Listen in as Pastor Eddie Blalock shares today’s daily devotional featuring Philippians 2:5-11. Let’s be Formed by The Word together!

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Transcript

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Welcome to Formed by the Word, a podcast where we don't just read the Bible, we invite it to shape our lives. In each episode, Pastor Eddie Blaylock will provide daily devotionals seeking to connect real scripture to real life. We'll be starting with the book of Philippians. This incredible letter clearly reveals how life in Christ shapes a resilient faith and a joy that is not dependent on circumstances. So wherever you're listening, whether you're driving, working out, or just scrolling for something meaningful, lean in, open your heart, and let's be formed by the word together.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hey, would you agree with me that attitude really does matter? As a matter of fact, attitude can elevate the mediocre to greatness, or frankly, it can drag down brilliance. In his book, The Winning Attitude, John Maxwell argues that a positive mindset is the foundational component for overcoming challenges, improving relationships, and achieving personal success. Maxwell writes that attitude is a choice, and by cultivating a resilient, proactive mindset, one can transform problems into opportunities and move from mediocrity to winning. The marks of a good attitude show up consistently, he says, in how someone thinks, how someone speaks, and how someone acts, especially under pressure, or especially in relationships. Well, as we make our way through the book of Philippians, we're going to see many of these good attitudes displayed. In fact, we've already had a peek at some great attitudes, but soon we're going to note the importance of optimism, of seeing possibilities rather than just problems. We'll note the importance of gratitude and appreciation. That is expressing thankfulness even for the seemingly small and insignificant things in life. And we've already noted that Paul demonstrated his attitude as he opened the letter, expressing gratitude for the partnership and the friendship of his people, his friends in Philippi. Well, our text today, we've come to this important passage in verses five and following. It's an incredible passage of scripture. And honestly, we're just going to have to take this a little bit at a time, and it's just too much to swallow in one big chunk. So let's just begin reading. He says, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity, and when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Well, many regard this paragraph as maybe being a hymn of the early church that Paul somehow incorporated into his letter. And this is quite possible, but not a necessary conclusion. Paul was really quite capable of writing very inspired poetic portions himself. You may remember 1 Corinthians 13, that beautiful expression of what is love. Even though I speak, he writes with the tongues of men and angels and have not love, I'm become as a tinkering brass or a clanging symbol. Paul's quite capable of writing the beautiful poetry. Well, I want us to look at the paragraph from a very practical standpoint. We could look from a theological standpoint, as it's one of the great Christological passages in Scripture, but I want us to take a look at it very practically and see if we can discover what a submissive mind, what the mind of Christ looks like in the life of we who follow him. Well, I observed several things in the first couple of verses, and that's probably as far as we'll get today. So let's observe. First of all, I note that the mind of Christ is an attitude that is not selfishly ambitious. Look at verse 6. He says, speaking of Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. So here Paul starts by telling us that Jesus is God, yet he did not cling to the privileges of deity. He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but rather he wanted to yield himself to something different. It says here that he did not consider it robbery. The ancient Greek is this phrase is the idea of something being grasped or cling to. Jesus did not cling to the prerogatives or privileges of deity. Weis defines the ancient Greek word here, translated robbery, as, quote, a treasure to be clutched and retained at all hazards, end of quote. So to be equal with God, it wasn't that Jesus was trying to achieve equality with the Father. He had it and chose not to cling to it. Jesus' divine nature was not something he had to seek or to acquire. It was already his. Lightfoot wrote this. He says, it was not a prize which must not slip from his grasp or a treasure to be clutched and retained at all hazards. Jesus was willing to let go of some prerogatives of deity so that he might become a man. So he did not have an attitude of selfish ambition. The second thing we observe in verse 7 is that the mind of Christ is an attitude that serves. Paul wrote, instead, he that is Jesus emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, let's stop there. Notice next that Jesus emptied himself by assuming the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of humanity. The ancient Greek word emptied is kenosis, and it comes with the idea that Jesus' incarnation was essentially a self-emptying. We have to be careful here to think about what Jesus emptied himself of. Paul will tell us plainly in the following verses, but we must take care that we do not think that Jesus emptied himself of his deity in any way. Some develop the doctrine of kenosis to this point where they insist that Jesus divested himself of many of the attributes of deity, such as omniscience and omnipotence and omnipresence, and even suffered the elimination of his own divine self-consciousness. Yet Jesus did not and could not become less God in the incarnation. No deity was subtracted from him, though Jesus did remount some of the privileges of deity. Rather, humanity was added to his nature. Fully God, fully man. What a miracle. We can't dive into that right now. That'll be for another study. But let's turn our attention to the relevancy for just a minute. Okay, so I see the theology here, but what's the relevancy? How do we apply this? What do we need to gain from this scripture concerning our own mindset, concerning our own attitudes? Well, I think there's two things that come to my mind. First, we all need attitude adjustments regularly. I think daily is the word for me. We all need to adjust our attitude. An airline pilot has a flight plan and he begins with that flight plan, but must consistently and constantly be looking to make adjustments to his flight plan, maybe according to the wind speed or the wind direction or something that was not planned on, and he has to adjust. And we too must make adjustments to our attitudes every day. The second thing I think Paul is beginning to tell us here is that the measure for my attitude is the mind of Christ. It's not enough just to strive for a better attitude, although I would argue that that would be a good thing for most of us. It's not enough to just strive for a good attitude. It's not even enough to just strive for a solid moral attitude. Our aim is to possess the mind of Christ that makes our attitude mimic his. Wow. So you see, for that to happen, we develop an attitude of love, an attitude of submission, an attitude of mercy, an attitude of grace, an attitude of being positive and hopeful. Wow. We could go on, but I I think you get the point. This is a goal that we strive for and we haven't yet attained. But for now, let's remember that attitude is important. And I think my takeaway today would be simply this. Remember, attitude can elevate the mediocre or it can drag down the brilliant. Which will you choose today? What will your mindset be today? Will you maintain the mind of Christ? Will you maintain an attitude of discipline? Will you maintain an attitude of grace? Will you maintain an attitude of thankfulness? What will you maintain today? What will be your goal? Tomorrow we'll go further in these same verses, in the same paragraph. Just didn't have time for today, but I look forward to you joining us tomorrow and we'll go a little further. For now, let me pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you that you've given us the challenge to mimic your attitude, to have the mind of Christ. God, we confess to you our weakness in this area. I confess, oh God, that we need your strength. We need your help. Lord, we in our own self will tend toward bad attitudes. Oh God, change our attitudes as you have changed our heart. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Thanks for joining us today. We are so glad that you chose to spend a few moments with us in God's Word. If this episode has encouraged you, we ask that you leave us a review or maybe share this episode with a friend. Also, would you consider sending us a note to let us know what God is doing in your life? Pastor Eddie would love to hear from you. You can find this email in the show notes. Until next time, stay in the scriptures, keep following Christ, and allow your life to be formed by the Word.