Category: Philippians

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:5-11 (day four)

“At the name of Jesus every knee will bow”…Isaiah was the first to say this.  People of all ages have had idols…made of wood, iron, silver or gold.  The idols each represent some area of rebellion against God.  What Isaiah…and now, in our passage, Paul…is saying, is that there will come a day when the truth will be known.  People will recognize that God is the one righteous, creator God.  All of their pretense and sin will be stripped away and they will see clearly their folly in opposing God.  They will fall to their knees in fear and shame and guilt.

Where are the idols in your life?  Where have you opposed the truth of God?  What is blinding you from the glory of God?  Ask God to search your heart and reveal to you where your idols are hiding.  It is much better to surrender to God voluntarily rather than wait for the day when shame is forced upon you on the day the name of Jesus is proclaimed in heaven and earth.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:5-11 (day three)

“[Christ] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.”

Paul could have demanded that Philemon free the enslaved Onesimus. He could have leveraged his formidable political clout to eradicate his opposition in the church at Corinth. He could have availed himself of the perfect sign-from-heaven opportunity the earthquake afforded him to bolt from jail under cover of chaos and darkness. He could have done all those things, but he did none of them. In the face of enticement to wield power over others, he refused. He had been, remember, a pupil of Jesus himself, who taught him the gospel in all its facets. He learned directly from the leper-touching, foot-washing, silent-before-Pilate Savior that life disintegrates when grasped, clutched, or forced. Instead, eternal life consists in inviting, asking, listening. To live eternally is to live with others, not over them.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:5-11 (day two) Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, vs. 5

Attitude may not be everything as a popular saying goes, but there may be more to it than we realize. How much of what you do each day is framed by your outlook? When facing a crisis how much does your mindset play into how you manage the situation? Re-read vs. 8 and think about how Jesus’ attitude impacted his resolve. Christ chose to face the cross and all that came with it. We are rarely called upon to endure a fraction of that weight, and yet we can still have the attitude of Christ. Can you face that task differently now? Can you look at where God has placed you as an opportunity to make a Kingdom-sized difference? You bet.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:1-4 (day seven)

“regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

The word “merely” changes the way this verse is understood. Without it we would say, “Don’t look out for your own interests. Others are way more important than you.” Why is it important that we establish that we are important too?  If we do not love our self, we will not be able to love others.

There is tension here. One cannot have too high of a self-esteem but also cannot have too low of a self-esteem. Both extremes lead to the neglect of someone’s soul; other’s are neglected with high self-esteem and our own is neglected with low self-esteem. To bridge this tension, we must remember that we are children of the almighty God, created perfectly, and loved by Him. Therefore, we are worthy of being loved and are called to help others know this same type of love.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:1-4 (day six)

Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other,…Philippians 2:2a

Recently, I heard a story of one man’s pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of James. There are multiple paths one could take, one of the longest being over 500 miles. It is intended to be walked, although some bike.

His retelling was very inspiring. Along the way, different people, some times two or three at a time, but often just one person would join him. They would walk for miles together. It was those times, as I listened to his story, when he was aligned with someone, or going the same direction, that he found the most joy, along with the encouragement to walk just a little further each day.

This is what I think Paul means by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, or being of the same mind (ESV). Jesus would have used the illustration of being equally yoked; two oxen linked together in order to share the load.

Aligned together, and head in the same direction. Then we can surely cover more ground, and face almost anything.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:1-4 (day five)

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;”

It is a tension we must navigate carefully and cautiously- the desire to be humble and the desire to grow and mature in Christ. Paul makes the proposition that we can hold onto both. But as John Stott so wisely points out, “At every stage of our Christian development and at every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend”.

I had a professor who joked, that if you ever wanted to write a book entitled “Humility, and How I Achieved  It”, you’ve probably missed the point. Humility does take personal discipline and attention (the way we think about the Lord, priority of loving others, and willingness to be a servant). It is work for sure, which ushers in the danger of pride. But, as Paul reminds, humility can come, but only from the Spirit. So the prayer is NOT, “help me be humble”.  It is “make me more like Jesus”. Humility is not thinking less of yourself (desire for growth and maturity in Christian faith), it is thinking of yourself less (regard one another as more important).

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:1-4 (day four)

Paul uses a rhetorical ‘if’ in our passage this week.  If there is encouragement, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if there is any affection and compassion…he seems to shout out the answer…”AND OF COURSE THERE IS!”  We are to be like Christ because He is all these things.  To be like Christ, we must put aside selfishness…we must put aside personal interests…we must practice humility.

To put this Christ-like attitude into practice, what might it look like?  During this pandemic when many people are cut off from others and unable to interact, we could look for ways to reach out to them and challenge them with interactions.  Many of our senior adults are having cognitive failure because they lack interaction that makes them think.  Paul would say, “don’t think about what you have lost during this lockdown, think–how can I encourage and love and show compassion, and share fellowship with someone else?”  Look at this pandemic as an opportunity to minister and serve others.  Sounds like what Christ would do!

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:1-4 (day three)

“Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

Paul’s training in the eternal kind of life came not from just any man, but from Jesus himself. That’s what Paul told the church in Galatia. Paul’s point was not bragging rights. As a Pharisee, he knew firsthand how people attempt to augment sacred revelation. It’s what happened with the law of Moses. Paul was not going to be an interpreter of Jesus’s teaching, but a conduit. He wasn’t going to expand, but remind. That determination is the purity present in Paul’s thought. To the Philippians, therefore, he echoes precisely the words of our Lord’s Golden Rule: Understand the unique needs of others, and do that for them. His words are a tell that he had been taught by Christ.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:1-4 (day two) Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; vs. 3

It is a recurring trope found throughout scripture; the first shall be last, the greatest shall be the least, to lead you shall follow. It is a picture of God’s economy that runs counter to how most of us think about the world. Ambition, drive, motivation – these are not bad things, but they must be measured up against God’s design for how we interact with others. Our “drive” should include our fellow journeyman. Those walking this path with us. We must consider their role in this Kingdom work as well. It’s not about getting there first, it’s about bringing as many with us as possible. Only through Christ-like humility can we accomplish this, but the good news is He meets us right there.