The Way Up is Down

In this message from Philippians 2:1–11, Matt shares what it looks like to follow the humility of Jesus. The world tells us to climb higher, put ourselves first, and make a name for ourselves. Jesus shows us a different way. The way up is down.

Jesus humbled Himself, became a servant, and gave His life for us. Because of Jesus, we are called to choose humility over pride, put others before ourselves, and follow His example. The more we become like Jesus, the more our lives become about less of me and more of Jesus.

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Well, good morning, church. One more try. Good morning, church. We're excited to be here, right? All right. That was great worship. Um, thank you to Thaddeus and uh Naomi. And for Mia, our very first time leading us in worship. Yeah. I asked her after the first service if she was nervous. She's like, nope. And I'm like, well, I am. So uh good for her. And also, I don't uh want to disregard Mia's boyfriends also here. Trey, give it up for Trey. I'm just kidding. Trey's actually leading our communion today, so there is a reason to clap for him, so that's a big deal. So uh, and if you're a first timer, my name's Matt, and we do communion every week, so that's why I brought that up. But um, welcome to church. Uh, I'm excited to be here. Uh, we're continuing uh the work in progress message series, and today I'm tasked with uh going through Philippians 2, 1 through 11 in a message called The Way Up Is Down, uh, where Paul continues to uh talk to the Philippian church to remind them uh who they are in Christ and basically how they should respond to that. Before we get into this message, um looking through the scripture, we we really do try to go verse by verse here at Harbor Community Church as well. Um I have three points uh to go with Philippians 2, 1 through 11. But before we do that, I would just like to take a moment to pray. Um if uh you could take just 20 to 30 seconds to first of all pray for yourself that you would be receptive to God's word today. Pray for our church uh that we would continue to grow in unity uh and pray for me that I would be able to give this word um clearly to you. Um and then I will be praying for the same things, and then uh we'll get started. Let's pray. That we have a place that we can walk into this room and and we can really forget about the distractions of the world at this moment. Or we can get into your word, we can have this scripture before us that we can apply to our lives, that we can be changed as a result of it. That you give us this opportunity week for week, that it's a blessing, not something that we should look past or disregard, but truly to reflect upon the blessing that it is to be your church in this place today. So, God, help us not to take that lightly. Help our hearts and our minds to be receptive today, help the words to be spoken clearly. Help every breath that we take at Harbor Community Church be focused on making much of Jesus and allow us to walk away from this place more like Jesus than when we came in. Amen. I'm gonna be going uh through Philippians 2, 1 through 11. If you want to turn to that place in your Bible, if you have your Bible with you, we'd love for you to bring those physical Bibles with you into the room uh as you come to church every week. But looking at these verses, they'll be on the screen as well. If you can follow along as I read Philippians 2, 1 through 11, then we'll get into this talk today again titled The Way Up Is Down. 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. Do nothing from 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. 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 a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by 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. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should 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. Amen. Yeah, you can say it too. Amen. There you go. That's your cue. We like classroom participation here at Harbor Community Church. So feel free to participate in a kind way, though. I last service somebody was not not as kind as they could have been. So I I guess uh we got to work on that. But we're gonna get started here with Philippians 2, 1 through 4. And I'm gonna give you my first point, which is this to choose unity over selfish ambition. Choose unity. And as a church plant, we're all church planters. I would say that's important for us to understand. If we're coming into this place and we are together for the like cause of Harbor Community Church, we're planting a church, ING. It's continuing to be planted. And it's important for us as a church to understand that we need to choose unity. We need to pick unity. We need to choose unity over selfish ambition. There should not be any form of self at Harbor Community Church. We should not be interested in self here. We should be interested in the unification, the unity that comes through Jesus Christ as our Lord at this church. And Paul felt the same way about the Philippian church, saying, if there's encouragement or comfort or participation and any affection and sympathy to complete my joy by being of the same mind. You have these things, so be be of the same mind, having the same love, being a fool of cord and one mind. See, the one danger that threatened the Philippian church was that of disunity. Paul is saying these things love, fellowship, affection, sympathy, these things need to exist first. See, Paul is not telling them to manufacture these things. He's reminding them this is important, this is key. Don't manufacture these things. You don't have to make them up. You already have these things, you already share in these things because of Jesus Christ. See, we have Christ. We share the same Christ, and as a result, we share the same mind. Now that does not mean there won't be differences in our church. We will experience differences, especially as a little baby church, and as we grow, there's going to be differences of opinions and differences in thoughts, and we will look different. We will think differently sometimes, we will speak differently, but these differences should never create distances. Galatians 3 28 says, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. You're one in Jesus Christ. A God-created diversity, it's never divided, it's united. It's something that should bring people together. We should see the need to be one in Jesus. To illustrate this, there's a story in the Bible, and I always like to offer some homework here as we think about going into the world. And Genesis 11 is a great place to uh to look this week. It's not very long, uh, but there's a story there, a great illustration for this point of the Tower of Babel. And maybe you know this story, but maybe you've heard it before. But uh the the nutshell here, the basic idea is that Babel, human, humanity came together and they said, Let us make a name for ourselves. You can read that in the scriptures where they said, Let us make a name, key word here, for ourselves. See, their problem wasn't unity, it was unity that was centered on themselves instead of God. That's selfish ambition. That's pride. Humility is not thinking less of ourselves, humility is thinking of ourselves less. But pride can be really hard to see in ourselves. I don't know if you've looked in the mirror and seen any pride, but it can be difficult to notice pride in ourselves. We can see pride in everyone else, though. That's really easy, right? We can go out and we can look at other people, we can identify pride in others, but we completely miss it when we look in the mirror. But Paul reminds us in Romans 12, 3 to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment. Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought. I thought about this idea, this concept this week as I was preparing my final notes for this talk. And I thought about this, and how do I know if I'm thinking of myself more highly than I ought? How do I know if this is the way that I'm living my life? And I came up with a list of uh, I believe, five uh ways that we can determine if we're thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. This is a great list to think about today as a church, individually as well, uh as a community. And number one is this am I a fault finder? Do you seek out and find faults? See, pride has a way of magnifying the faults of other people while minimizing our own. We can uh if we're a fault finder, we want to magnify everybody else's faults, but we want to minimize our own faults. So the question here is whose faults are you primarily concerned with? And I'll tell you as a preacher, uh, been doing this for a long time, and Justin as well. We we talk about our messages together, and sometimes I'm going over a message with Justin, and I think, man, this person really needs to hear this, right? This person really needs to hear this, and then God or Justin uh will get a hold of my heart and say, No, Matt, you need to hear this. Um, and it's tough coming from Justin. He gets on my case in the email thing. You guys were here last week for that when he said I don't respond to emails quickly, spot talking about fault finding. I had 17 emails that I responded to this week under a minute. So that's and and I did say to the first service as well, which was completely full, if you want to go uh to your email and send him an email at justin at harborcc.org, see how quick he gets back to you. Talking about finding faults. Let's be concerned with our own faults, church. Let's not worry about the faults of others. Let's be concerned with our faults. Number one, am I a fault finder? Number two, am I a harsh hypocrite? See, what we do is we find the sins of others more significant than our own. We like to think our sin smells not as bad as other people. See, we're quick to give ourselves grace. Are you are you quick to give yourself grace? I think we are quick to give ourselves grace because we know our circumstances, we know our intentions, we know our struggles, so we are so quick to give ourselves grace. But when we judge somebody else without knowing any of these things, right? We judge someone else without knowing anything. People are going through things, people are experiencing difficulties, but we judge them harshly and we judge them as a hypocrite because we give ourselves grace that God has given to us. It's not our grace. We didn't earn the grace, we didn't deserve the grace. It's amazing grace given to us. And the grace that has been given to us, how often do we withhold the grace given to us from others? Because our pride is in the way. See, pride condemns humility that the Paul Paul is talking about here. Humility remembers how much grace I've received, and then we operate within that boundary of grace which is immense from God. And number three is this am I a secret sinner? I think to everyone in this room, we're to a degree secret sinners. Sometimes we're more concerned with the perception people have of us than the truth about us. See, we fight the sins, we fight the sins everyone can see, and we tolerate the sins nobody can see. Think about if you're doing that today. Fighting the sins, fighting the visible sins, but tolerating the hidden sins. And as Naomi reminds our children all the time, God sees what you're doing. They try to get away with something and it comes out real quick. God sees what you're doing. But we're concerned with high visibility holiness. We want people to see us as holy, and we will do holy things that people can see. High visibility holiness. I want to look holy more than I actually want to become holy. That's a problem, church. See, humility is willing to let God deal with what nobody else sees. And I think that's a big reason why we at Harbor Community Church, we have weekly communion because it's an opportunity to repent and confess and deal with the issues that we are experiencing to go before a holy God, to seek forgiveness, to repent and change before we participate in taking the elements of communion. Number four, do I adore attention? See, pride wants attention. Pride wants recognition. Pride wants respect. What are we all striving for? The better house, right? We want a bigger house or a faster car or better clothes. We want a better title. We want the recognition. We want people to see us with what we have and to make it mean something. We want recognition. It's the I need to be seen mentality. We live in this social media age where it's all about people seeing the good things that we're doing and liking it. Now, not wanting recognition, attention, respect, it's not necessarily all wrong. The question is, why do you need people to notice you? Why do you need people to see what you're doing? Are you seeking the glory of God or are you seeking the glory of people? It's the applause of the world, or it's well done, good and faithful servant. Number five, the last one is this Do I prefer power? See, pride has a way of treating people differently based on what they can do for us. See, we notice the important person. We want the influential person to know our name, right? It gets us somewhere. We get a little thrill when somebody with power acknowledges us. But then we can walk right past the person who has absolutely nothing to offer us and not pay any attention whatsoever. And that's a problem, church. If we're trying to build something here, we need to recognize that everyone that God brings into our circle on a day-to-day basis is there on purpose that we need to invite into this fellowship to grow this church and to grow this kingdom and to change the island and change the world. And I've talked before about bringing revival to Hilton Head Island, to the Low Country. I believe that can happen. I believe we as a church can bring a revival to this island, but the revival has to start in our hearts. We have to respond correctly to God when he puts his mindset onto our lives, when he puts his thoughts into our head. We have to respond to those things with a discipline to recognize that we need to be Jesus to the world. We can't let people walk past us and think that person has absolutely nothing to offer us, so I'm going to ignore them. That's not the way of Jesus. Jesus did not determine someone's value by their influence. So maybe the question today isn't, am I a prideful person? Maybe the better question is, where is pride still hiding in me? Because we all have it somewhere. Pride says, look at me. Humility says, look at Jesus, which brings me to point number two, which is this choose the mindset of Jesus. Jesus taking on the form of God, not counting a quality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptying himself, taking the form of a servant, born in the likeness of men, humbled himself to the point of death on a cross. See, everything about our world, our world says climb. Our world says position, platform, climb. Jesus came down. See, we're told to climb the ladder. Our students are constantly up against this. Climb the ladder, build the platform, protect your position, make your name known. But then Jesus comes along and Jesus shows us an entirely different way in the kingdom of God. The way up is down. And think about Jesus for a moment here. Jesus did not use who he was for his own advantage. Jesus had all the advantage in the world. Read the scriptures, the gospels from beginning to the end. Where did Jesus ever use his own advantage? Where did he use who he was to change an outcome of something for his own advantage? And think about how backwards that is from the way that we live. We use our position to get a better seat. We use our connections to get through the door. We use our title to get respect. We use our influence to get what we want. We use what we have to move ourselves up. But think of Jesus. Jesus had the highest position and he used it to come down, according to Paul in the scriptures. Jesus had all the authority, yet he served. Jesus deserved all the honor, yet Jesus humbled himself. He possessed all the glory, yet he came for people who rejected him. Jesus never allowed, he never used his greatness to create distance between himself and the people. See, the world says, use what you have to elevate yourself. Jesus says, use what you have to serve somebody else. Now imagine if we're a church that goes into the world and we're looking for opportunities to serve somebody else. Imagine the difference that we're going to make in the world. Imagine the legacy that we're going to leave as Harbor Community Church because it's not the great talent that God blesses, it's the great likeness to Jesus. So let's be a church that looks and thinks and acts like him. What do you do with your mind? What are you thinking about? Even at this moment, right now, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking about yourself or others? Because believers have the same mind as Christ. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 2.16, it says just that. We have the mind of Christ. And if I really have the mind of Christ, the mind of Christ should change the way I respond, the way I plan, the way I trust, and the way I see myself. So five or four ways here that we need to have the mind of Christ. Number one, less of my reactions. Less of my reactions, more of his spirit. Think about your natural first reaction. Is it always your best reaction? Right? When you're hurt, we want to hurt back. Right? We want to say it's not fair. When we're criticized, we want to defend ourselves. When we're frustrated, we want everyone to know it. We are frustrated, and everyone is gonna know about our frustration. Less of my reactions, more of his spirit. See, having the mind of Christ means I do not be controlled. I'm not controlled by my first reaction. I'm controlled by his spirit. And again, that's that's a difficult thing. It's really tough. This is not easy to do. It's not easy to have control, to relinquish control to the spirit of God which is within us. But it's real simple if we get into these positions where we are having to make a decision, a reaction, we simply can pray at that moment, less of me, more of Jesus. What would Jesus do in this situation? It's a pause, a deliberate pause that most of us do not take. We don't make the pause, we react first. And sometimes those reactions have lasting consequences in our lives. Number two, less of my agenda, more of his purpose. See, we have plans, you probably have plans on how life should go. Do you have plans on how your life should go? Do you have a timeline? We have expectations, no matter how old. You are in this room. You have an expectation of a timeline, of a plan. We know what we want God to do. We know what we want God to do. But what if what God wants to do isn't what we want to do? And if you haven't written anything down at this point, this is a good place to start. Following Jesus isn't asking God to fit into my plans. Following Jesus isn't asking God to fit in my plans. It's surrendering my plans to fit his purpose. Man, what if we did that as a church? What if we did that as individuals? If we truly just said, My plans are your plans, God. Whatever happens, happens. And sometimes we don't like what God is doing in our lives. Sometimes we we think that we have the right plan. God has a different plan. But can you trust his purpose when it interrupts your plans? Less of my agenda, more of his purpose. Number three, less of my control, more trust in him. This might be one of the most difficult ones for me personally. I like to feel like I have control, but that's really all control is when it comes to Christ's followers. It's a feeling. Control feels safe because you think or I think I determine the outcome. I want to know what is next. I want to know how this is going to work. I want to know how this is going to end. But faith begins where my desire to control the outcome ends. Faith begins where my desire to control the outcome ends. Most of life is stuff we cannot fix, force, or control. I've told the students for years the best decisions made are the ones made for us because then we have no choice. God is working. And you don't have to control what you trust God with. If you put something in God's hands, you don't have to control it. You can trust that God is dealing with it the way that He should. The way that's best for you. Number four, less of my ego, more of his humility. My ego wants to be noticed, it wants it to be right, it wants credit. My ego wants recognition. Jesus never needed to prove his importance. He knew who he was. And we should know who we are in Christ. We can fight to make much of ourselves, or we can freely make much of Jesus. Less of my reactions, less of my agenda, less of my control, less of my ego, less of me, more of Jesus. Now here's the thing about Jesus, though. When it comes to the mindset of Jesus, see, the mindset of Jesus didn't stay in his mind. He didn't merely think humbly, he moved humbly. Jesus the righteous emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. And this is what the mind of Jesus looks like when it moves. The mind of Jesus produces the posture of a servant. Servanthood begins when I stop asking, what do I deserve? And start asking, how can I serve? What can I do to serve? I'll never forget walking into my first job as a as a teacher. Long time ago, 20 years ago, I walked into my first job into the first school, and I noticed this guy uh moving tables and chairs, dressed like a janitor. I thought he was a janitor, introduced myself to him as if he was the janitor. And uh then I get to the first faculty meeting later on in that day, and I sit down uh at the at the table, and the person I thought was the janitor was the principal of the school. He was actually leading the faculty meeting, and I thought to myself, man, that really resonates. His name was Dr. Tom Marcy, and uh still an influential person in my life 20 years later. And I thought about that moment. I I think about that moment often because uh a servant doesn't have to be noticed. It's not a matter of who's seeing you do it. A servant doesn't have to get his or home or her own way, a servant doesn't have to win. And that's where following Jesus actually gets difficult because serving like Jesus will cost you something. See, humility isn't merely thinking less of yourself, it's obeying God when obedience costs you something. Your responsibility is obedience and God's responsibility is outcome. Jesus humbled himself, Jesus became a servant, Jesus became obedient to the point of death, is what the Bible says. I don't think any of us is going to have to, we're not gonna have to go to the point of death, but we can back up right there and become obedient for every other reason. It should be a lot easier when we see Jesus as our example, what he went through. And then Paul gives us one of the most important words in the entire passage. Philippians 2, 9 through 11. God has exha uh highly 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 on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Point number three is this choose to make much of Jesus. Choose to make much of Jesus, church. What about the name? See, the fact is we put a lot of stock in names. Names carry meaning. Names carry reputation. Names tell us something about the person who bears them. I remember when Esther was little and learning to write her name. She would, she this true story. She would really actually write out her name and she'd look at me and say, That's not my name. Like a little child, a little kid, that's not my name. And I would say, Yes, that is your name. I know it's your name. I picked your name. I gave you your name. And at that point, when she was that little, she didn't fully understand what her name meant yet. She didn't understand that every everything that came with that name, but I did because I gave her that name. And eventually, not only did she learn to write her name, she learned to recognize that name as hers. See, that's what a name does. A name identifies you. It's something about who you are. And over time, your your life gives that name a reputation, and that's true of all of our names. But how much true, how much more is it true of the name of Jesus? See, Paul describes the name of Jesus. He says it carries meaning, his name carries a reputation, and his name tells us exactly who he is. Jesus, his name is unlike every other name. Jesus stands above every supposed competitor. It is a name that describes his very nature. Jesus, the name above every name. The name at which every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Think about the name of Jesus. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man, the Word made flesh, the bright morning star. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the righteous one. Jesus is the door for the sheep, the good shepherd who lays down his life. Jesus is the true vine, the bread of heaven, the living water that never runs dry. Jesus is the light of the world shining in the darkness that cannot overcome him. Jesus is wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, the healer of the broken, the deliverer of the captive. Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah who conquers. Jesus is Lord, Savior, Redeemer, our rock, our fortress, and our strong tower. Jesus is master, ruler, judge of the living and the dead, the blessed hope of our salvation. Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, Emmanuel God with us. Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, the King of glory, the great I am, and one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And when you see Jesus for who he truly is, Jesus, not just a name and a song, not just a figure in a story, but the king above all kings, your Savior and Lord. You cannot, church, you cannot encounter a king like this and walk away unchanged. Look at the way of Jesus. Think about the way of Jesus. Jesus came down. Jesus humbled himself. Jesus took the form of a servant. Jesus became obedient all the way to the cross. The way up is down. But church, the world tells you to make a name for yourself. Jesus already has the name above every name. The world tells you to make much of yourself. The Bible tells us to make much of Jesus. Again, less of my reactions, less of my agenda, less of my control, less of my ego, less of me, more of Jesus. Because in the end, in the end, this was never about making our name known. It's not about making the name of Harbor Community Church known. It's not about making the name of Matt known. It's not about making the name of you known. In the end, it is about making the name of Jesus known. That is our goal. That is our responsibility that is our mission and our vision to go out into the world to make the name of Jesus known. And are you doing that, church? Are we doing what we're supposed to do making his name known? Because one day listen church one day there will not be a debate about who deserves the glory every knee will bow that the Bible says every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. So why wait until then to bow? Why wait until then to be obedient to Jesus Christ as Lord? Why wait until then to surrender? Why wait, church, to make much of Jesus we can focus on a whole lot of things in this world we have a lot of distractions all around us. But why why worry about those things when we simply need to make much of Jesus in every circumstance and condition of our lives make much of Jesus. See Jesus is Lord right now. We don't have to wait to bow. We don't have to wait to surrender. We don't have to wait to make much of Jesus Jesus is Lord right now. So church let's live like we believe that. Father we thank you for this moment we thank you for your word today God and I just pray for each of us in this room for this church that we would truly be a people that would make much of Jesus that we would not be so concerned about our own agenda that we would be concerned with God's agenda in our lives and in this world. So God as we respond in worship today let us raise our voices let us make the name of Jesus known in this place but then let's carry that into the world this week let's go as a church into the world living sent changing the world for good for God amen there can silence roaring waves and no one pay there can empty and no one hey it's the only mess and it's worthy I call you Jesus I call you I call you something comes up every time I call you Jesus I call you I call you sick something comes up I call you else something comes something comes every time I call your day every time I call your name she called every time I call your day