Humility

Philippians 2:5–11

Our world tells us that greatness is found by climbing higher, gaining recognition, and making a name for ourselves. Jesus shows us a completely different way. He willingly humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient even to death on a cross. Then God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name. This week, we’ll discover that Jesus chose the way down, the Father lifted Him up, and now Jesus calls us to follow His example of humility.

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You guys are dismissed. If you want to walk, walk, walk, walk, okay? There's some wires up here, okay? But so glad God's blessed us with kids here at FBC and just those testimonies. You know, the testimonies, I'm I'm still just blown away what God is doing in the next generation. We as a church need to pray for them. It's not easy being a believer, and all these individuals who made that decision, that public uh proclamation in front of all of us that they're gonna follow Jesus, we need to be praying for them. It's not easy and come alongside them and encourage them, but God is on the move here in Pentwater. Amen? Amen. That is something to celebrate. So super excited about that. Praise God. Yeah, let's do that. Praise the Lord. Well, this morning, if you're new with us, we're continuing our series in the book of Philippians, and we just saying about there's joy in the house of the Lord today, right? Joy in the journey. No matter what we're facing, we can choose joy. And so if you have your Bibles, you want to open them up to Philippians chapter 2. We're gonna be kind of camping out in verses 5 through 11. And as you're turning there, I want to share a story. The story is about an airplane, a small airplane, and it's a little aircraft. There was a boy, there was a preacher, there was a doctor, there was a lawyer, and there was a pilot. So five in total. They decided they wanted to go on the airplane together and go on a little trip. And they started, they took off. It was a beautiful day, nice and sunny out. They took off, they had a great time in the air, and then something happened to the plane. Made the pilot call in and he said, Mayday, Mayday, we're going down. And so he looked at the people in the cabin and he said, Look, I got four parachutes, and there's five of you. I'm taking one and you guys figure it out. So he jumps out of the airplane. And so then after that, the doctor said to the rest of the group, he said, Well, I've saved so many people in my lifetime. I deserve a parachute, and I need to keep on saving more people. So he took a parachute, he jumped out of the airplane and started going. Well, now uh this lawyer comes up, he's like, you know what? I'm the smartest one in this airplane and in the world. So I deserve one. So he ran off with a pack and he jumped out of the airplane, and that left him with one parachute left, and the preacher's looking at the kids, the last two on the plane, and he's saying, you know, son, I've lived a really good life. You know, and I know exactly where I'm going. I'm going to heaven when I die. You take that parachute and you jump out of the plane. Well, the little boy looked at the Reverend and he's like, Reverend, relax, relax. The smartest man in the airplane just jumped out with my backpack. Some of you it's a little slow in for the fireworks, so you're starting to catch on there. There you go. That's what you get when you have homecoming of fireworks, but you get the joke, right? Pride goes before the fall. And uh Proverbs 16, 18 says, Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. In other words, D. L. Moody would say, be humble or you'll stumble. This almost sounds like that could be a good song, right? Be humble or you'll stumble. When we talk about this word pride, it's one of the oldest sins in the entire universe, and it shows no signs of growing weaker with age. Pride is oftentimes around a long time, and it's going to be with us for some time. One of the famous authors, C.S. Lewis, said, pride is the chief cause of misery in every nation and family since the world began. That nasty word, pride. Pride is the chief cause of misery in every nation and family since the world began. Think about it, it was pride that took Lucifer from heaven. It was pride that made Adam out of his paradise. It was pride that changed the angels into demons. Pride ruins everything. And here's why. Pride is cancer to the soul. And left undiagnosed, untreated, it's going to destroy your life. And so, what is the antidote to this word pride? When we think about pride, the only way to reverse that is the simple word called humility. And humility. That's been the theme of Philippians chapter 2 as we go through it. Last week we talked about Philippians chapter 2 and verse 3. Paul said, Do nothing, church of Philippi, do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Maybe someone in Philippi could have heard that and thought, okay, Paul, well that that sounds really nice. That's really nice. But does anyone actually do that? And Paul says, yes. Let me show you someone who decided to do that in Philippians 2 and verse 5. Having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. In other words, don't just admire Jesus. Think like Jesus. Don't just sin about Jesus. Live like Jesus. Don't simply believe what Jesus did, but let what Jesus did reshape how you treat other people. And that's where Paul takes us today. And the first thing he shows us is Jesus. The King of Kings. Chose humility. Jesus, the King of Kings, he chose humility, picking up in the story in verse 5. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, something to be grasped, but he emptied 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. You think about that. Don't move past that too quickly. Before Bethlehem, before a manger, before Mary and Joseph, before Nazareth, before Jesus ever walked the dusty roads of Galilee. Jesus is God. He is in the existence of God. He didn't begin his existence in Bethlehem. He existed eternally with the Father. And John 1.1, it says, in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God, and the word was God. Jesus possessed all glory and majesty in heaven. He needed nothing. And Paul says he did not consider his position something to be grasped. The idea is that Jesus did not use his position for his own selfish advantage. You think about that. Every single day Jesus had the right to say, hey, I had the right privilege to do this. Or I have, I deserve every honor. I had the reason for everyone to come to me and say, hey, we're going to serve you, Jesus. But instead, he came to serve us. That's what humility is rooted in. Humility is not thinking less of who you are. Jesus knew exactly who he was. Humility isn't walking around saying, oh, I'm worthless. I can't do this. That's not biblical humility. Humility is knowing who you are and needing everything, and not needing everything to be about you. Jesus was completely secure in his identity. And because he knew who he was, he didn't have to fight for any significance. Your identity is secure, and secure people don't have to fight for significance. They're free to give themselves away. And Paul continues in verse 7, he says, but Jesus, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. So what does that mean? He emptied himself. There's been a lot of debate on those first words right there. He emptied himself. What did he empty himself? I can tell you right now it's not his deity. He's still God. He emptied himself by taking something on. There's this debate on this. The Greek word is kinosis. He emptied himself. Did Jesus really empty himself of his deity? And he never did. It was not a subtraction problem, it was an addition problem. He added on to himself this human nature. Notice what the verse says. He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Jesus still remained fully God and became fully man. The creator stepped into creation. The God who made everything made himself low enough to serve people. The people that he himself had made. And Paul doesn't merely say Jesus became a man. He says he took on the form of a servant. That word changes everything. Jesus didn't arrive demanding treatment, or he didn't come. He said, I just simply come to serve. In Philippians 2, verse 8, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Notice that he humbled himself. Nobody forced humility on Jesus. Jesus himself chose humility. And his humility led to obedience, and not obedience when it was comfortable. Obedient to the point of death. And Paul adds, even on a cross. We hear that word cross and we immediately think our necklace. Or we look at the church building and we see the cross on that, it's become normal. We see it on a steeple. But the church in Philippi, when they heard that word cross, it meant something totally different. It was horrifying. It was humiliating. It was a shameful thing. It was associated with criminals and public disgrace. Jesus didn't merely die, he willingly accepted one of the most humiliating deaths imaginable. And here's what we can never forget what he did for us. Jesus wasn't dying for people who deserved rescuing. He died for us while we were still sinning in the lowest of low. So it makes you ask the question, why? Why would you leave your throne? You have everything. Why would you leave your throne, come to this earth, and not just come in the form of a man, you humbled yourself. And not only did you humble yourself, you said, I'm going to serve the thing that he created, humanity. You know, it makes you think of one of the uh my favorite hymns, The Love of God. It says, The love of God. Some of you have heard this hymn by Frederick Lehman. It was written in the 1800s. Listen to the words of the love of God. The love of God is greater far than ink or pen could ever tell. It stretches to the farthest star, it reaches to the lowest hell. And here's my favorite line in the song. Could we with ink the oceans fill, where the skies of parchment made, where every stalk on earth it quill, and every man ascribed by trade to right the love of God would drain the oceans dry. That's the love of God. That's what is going on right before our eyes in the passage of Philippians. Humility is not something that's easy for anyone. But imagine the king of kings steps out from his throne and he comes because he loves you. So what does that look like for us to follow this example? When Jesus comes, he chooses humility. It means that there are going to be moments where you have to choose to go low. Think about if Jesus decided that, how much more than should we? There are gonna be moments in your life we're gonna have to choose to go low because humility is easy to admire. Oh, that's really great that Jesus did that. But it's much harder to put it in practice. Humility, it costs us something. Sometimes it means you gotta apologize first. I know that's hard. And you come to me and say, man, you you don't realize what they did. I am like 1% in the wrong, and they're 99% wrong, and they should be the ones coming to me on their knees and apologizing to me. I get it. But being humble is taking that low road. Sometimes humility means you serve in the church and nobody even notices what you're doing, and you've been pouring years and years into this, and no one even knows what you're doing, no one even appreciates what you've been doing from your perspective. Sometimes humility means you surrender your preference for the good of somebody else. That is the mind of Christ. And here's the question I think all of us need to wrestle with. Where is Jesus asking me to choose humility right now? Where is Jesus asking me to actually choose this word humility in my life right now? Jesus had every right to say, hey, you serve me, I'm a king of kings. He took the servant's place, ultimately the cross. So following Jesus means that there are going to be moments where we have to lay everything down too. Maybe not just our lives, our need to be right. Humility always costs something. And Jesus chose that. He chose humility. Jesus chose humility. Number two, in the last point today, Jesus was exalted. God exalted Jesus in point number two. God exalted him to the highest of high. In verse nine, therefore God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow 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. So verse 9 begins with one of the most important words. Therefore, and every time you see therefore, you gotta understand what is it therefore, right? You ask that question. Paul is connecting God in verses 9 through 11 with what Jesus did in verses 5 through 8. Jesus humbled himself, and therefore Jesus took the form of a servant. Therefore, Jesus became obedient, therefore, Jesus went all the way to the cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest of place. There's this movement throughout this entire passage, and I don't want you to miss it. Jesus went down. He went down. Verses 6 through 8. Jesus was in the form of God and still is, but he didn't use his position to his advantage. He took on the form of a servant, became human, he humbled himself, became obedient, even death on the cross. It's like Paul is constantly taking us down, down from glory of heaven. And then you come to verse 9. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest of high. Suddenly the direction changes. Jesus went down and God lifted him up. The one who went lower than anyone has been exalted over everyone. It's a great reversal in Philippians chapter 2. The world looks at Jesus hanging on the cross and saw humiliation where God saw obedience. The world saw weakness where God saw strength. The world saw defeat and God was accomplishing the victory. The world saw a criminal hanging on a Roman cross. Heaven saw the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world. And what appeared to be Jesus' greatest humiliation became the doorway to his exaltation. Think about that reversal. They put a crown on his head, a crown of thorns, and the crowd, they mocked him, they made fun of him. They're saying, crucify him. And one day everyone's going to say, Jesus Christ, you are Lord. Church, the cross wasn't the end of God's story. It wasn't the end of Jesus' story. Sunday was coming, the resurrection was coming, ascension was coming, exaltation was coming. Jesus humbled himself completely. And the Father exalted the Son completely. Jesus didn't have to exalt himself. And there's something incredible and important for us. Notice who does the exalting. Paul doesn't say Jesus exalted himself, it says that God has highly exalted him. Jesus didn't spend his earthly ministry desperately trying to prove how important he was. Jesus simply obeyed the Father and entrusted the outcome to him. The world says, Come on, promote yourself, build your brand, protect your image, get notice. And Jesus comes and he turns the world upside down. I know even some of you cringe at that. You're used to hearing that. But he humbled himself and he said, Trust God for the outcome. You don't have to spend your life proving your worth. You don't have to take, you can take that lower position. You can let somebody else get the credit. Because your father sees that God approval is worth infinitely more than any human applause. Jesus teaches that you can entrust your reputation, your recognition, your opportunities, your future to God. Jesus does the unthinkable. He says, the way up is the way down. And all of our world screams just the opposite. Focus more on yourself. Promote yourself. Exalt yourself. And Jesus comes and says, nope, that's not how it's done. I'm going to take the low road. The way up is the way down. And there's a principle running throughout this teaching of Jesus. It's interesting in Matthew 23, verse 12, whoever exalts himself will be humbled. And whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Once again, whoever chooses to go down gets to go up. Whoever decides to go up goes down. And in Mark 9, 35, if anyone would be first, he must be last of all, servant of all. And then Jesus says in Mark 10, 43, whoever would be great among you must be a servant. Do you see the pattern? The world says, if you want to be great, get above people. Jesus says, if you want to be great, get underneath people and you serve them. You take the little road. The world says, get in front. Jesus says, take the towel, wash their feet. The world says, get people to notice you. And Jesus says, notice other people. The world says, how many people serve you? Oh man, you're super successful with all those people serving you. Jesus says, how many people are you serving? Completely turns it upside down. Do you realize how enculturated we are in our culture with how we try to get to the top, climb the ladder, keep going up? And Jesus says, you got it wrong. You go down to go up. The way up is down. John Maxwell, he's been studying leadership for centuries. This man's got 92 books on leadership. And he's always got a new title. He's always talking about different things. And I listened to this man, and he he has a lot of good leadership insight. And one of the things I noticed, he said in his career, the times he chose the Jesus way, the times he chose to go down, like Jesus did, is when God brought him back up. Every time, he said. And he started to teach this leadership principle to other leaders, and other leaders started practicing the same thing. And they said, John, where'd you come up with this content? This is brilliant. We've never heard this before. It's totally different than what we're used to in the business world. And John says, You really don't want to know where I got my content from. No, no, John, for real. Where did you find your content? The Bible. And they're like, What? The Bible? He's like, I just followed Jesus' way. The Jesus way this morning is the best way. To go down, to go up. That's what the Bible teaches us. It's not merely the best way to do church. It is the best way. It's the best way to lead. It's the best way to work. It's the best way to build our marriages. It's the best way to raise our kids. I can't tell you how I wish I would have known this when I was a kid. Youth in the room, let your ears hear this. The way up is the way down. Serving people and laying your life down for them. I gotta ask you this question this morning. What would the lower place look like for me this week? We all have it in our lives. I know the Holy Spirit's moving in this room right now. What would the lower place look like for me this week? Is it apologizing? Is it forgiving? Is it serving your spouse without expecting anything in return? Is it letting someone else get the credit? Is it listening instead of talking? Because the beautiful irony of the kingdom of God, the world says climb, Jesus says serve. The world says make yourself great. Jesus says, make yourself available. The world says, make sure people see you. Jesus says, start seeing them with your eyes. Church, maybe we've been climbing the wrong direction. All of our lives, you might have been climbing up the corporate ladder. All our lives, we've been trying to climb the ladder, the world says it's success, and Jesus is saying that's not how you do it. To go up, you must go down. And the question I have is how low are you willing to go to love and to serve somebody else? Because we see how low Jesus went. Even death on a cross. And God exalted Jesus from the lowest of low to the highest of high. But thinking about humility, it's not merely doing humble things. Humility means I finally surrender. That nasty word we talked about at the very beginning, pride. Your reputation, your preferences, your right, your need for control. You realize every knee, every knee will bow. There's people mocking the Lord right now. There's culture saying that Christianity, that's nothing. There's no way that could be true. There's people constantly, constantly saying that is not gonna work. That could never work. But you realize the Bible is not wrong. It's real. It's true. God's word is true. And the Bible says every knee is going to bow. Every person mocking will bow. Every one of us in this room will bow. Here's my question: why wait? You're gonna bow either way. Why not bow right now and say, you know what? I'm gonna trust you. Your way is the best way. Your way of going down, and then God exhausts you up. Your way is the best way. I'm following the life of Jesus. I want the mind of Christ. Why wait? Everyone will bow. You hold on your pride, your pride will bow at the name of Jesus. You hold on your ego, it's gonna bow at the name of Jesus. Your reputation, your preferences, your accomplishments, everything that we've ever worked for in our lives or thought that it was worth achieving, we'll bow at the name of Jesus. So why wait? Bow now at the name of Jesus. Church, that's really the invitations of Philippians chapter 2. Look at Jesus. When pride rises up in our hearts, look to Jesus. When we feel overlooked and we're struggling, look to Jesus. When you don't get the credit, look to Jesus. When serving becomes difficult, we gotta look to Jesus. When you want your own way, you look to Jesus. And when we look at Jesus, Jesus chose humility. And God exalted Jesus. So simple, yet so profound. Even studying this on my own, I'm just like, I just, in the culture we're in, this makes absolutely no sense. But that's the Jesus way. We need to take the way of the world out of our minds. Romans 12, 2 says, you can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We need to take what culture says and what the world says and get it out of our mind. And choose the Jesus way. This is the way. Jesus is the way. Will you choose him? Father, thank you. I thank you for Jesus. I thank you for his example. And I still struggle with it, Lord. It's not easy to choose humility. It's not easy to be humble, but I want to be like your son, Jesus. And so, Father, help me to do that. Help all of us, Lord, in this room to surrender our pride, surrender all the things in our lives at the foot of the cross. It's not worth it, Father. Help us to take on this illustration, Father, to the way up is the way down. Help us, Father, bring it to our minds to serve other people. God, give us the courage to do it, even though we don't see the fruit right away, Father. Help us to serve like Jesus did. Help us to live our lives like Jesus. And when the enemy whispers in our ears what culture says all the time, what the world says, help us to ignore that, Father, through the power of your spirit and listen to your word and re-transform our mind by renewing it to your word and what your word says, Father. For any young one in the room today, Father, I pray they would make that decision now. Just like we saw at the baptism, Father, there's someone in this room who is choosing to live for themselves. They're gonna bow to you, Father. I pray today is the day they bow. They stop living the way they think is best. We're only fooling ourselves. Father, thank you. All we gotta do is confess you're a Lord. I think of that thief on the cross next to you who just believed everything you said, and you said to him, Today you'll be with me in paradise. Father, if there's someone here today who doesn't know you, may they not leave this room without accepting you as their Lord and Savior. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for what you're doing. In Pentwater and beyond. And all God's people said. Amen. You're dismissed.