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Philippians 2 is considered the central chapter in the Bible, focusing on the Incarnation of Christ. Paul emphasizes the importance of unity among believers and warns against false teachers and division. The Philippian church is commended for its sound theology and devotion to the gospel. The article written by the speaker addresses the topic of unity in a convention and the importance of voting and working together for the spread of the gospel. Good morning. Good to see you today. Good to hear Brother John's voice. It didn't last but about three seconds, but that's a good start. And he says he doesn't have any pain, feels great, and that's exciting. All right, glad you're here today. I appreciate Brother Jack leaving this chapter for me. This is the central chapter in the Bible. You have in verses 5 through 11 in the second chapter. In six verses you have the whole story of God and redemption and everything. It's incredible passage. Paul begins in this chapter with the most remarkable and significant moment in the history of mankind. That is the Incarnation. God became flesh. He starts with that. And so we begin now in chapter 2, and I'm going to read some of it. The first three verses are remarkable. We could devote the whole time to this. He says, by the way, he starts in this first verse with four if statements. And normally when you say if, that reflects doubt. But the little Greek word if does not always mean that. Context determines that. But if, this if is not a question, it's not doubt, it's an affirmation. You might translate it since or because of this. It's an incredible passage that speaks some wonderful things. If there is any encouragement, or since there's any encouragement in Christ, thank God there's encouragement in Christ. We all need encouragement. So we have encouragement from Christ. If or since there is any consolation in love. There's a lot of consolation in being loved, isn't it? It's important for us. And if there's any fellowship with the Spirit, of course there is. And if any affection and mercy. These are all incredible statements, four statements that are not in question, not in doubt. They are indeed facts. This is what we have in Christ. And he is, this entire chapter, I'll remind you again, he is writing to people who are in Christ. So he's writing to believers. It's not a book to unbelievers, it's for believers. And so he says, because these things are true, I give you a command. Make my joy complete by thinking the same way. You think he's talking about thinking the same way as he thinks, but in reality, as he says in verse 5, we're to think the same way that Christ thinks. We have the attitude of Christ. Make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Here he is talking about unity again. You wonder why he's mentioned it so often. Because disunity is always a threat to every church. And heresy is a threat to every church. Jack said last week that this is the first, only epistle of the Apostle Paul where the church didn't have any problems. Well, that's true. But they had two dangers. It was a good church. It was an incredible fellowship. And even healthy, good, strong churches always have two dangers that can exist in the church. And that is in heresy, false teachers, and in disunity. And so he warns them of both of these in this chapter. The incarnation of Christ is one of those things that is just impossible for us to fully understand, possible for us to fully realize the depth of it. It's the focus of this chapter. It's like he holds up a flawless diamond and then begins to look at all of the details and all of the beauty of it in a simple and yet profound way. It describes this incomparable entrance of the Lord Jesus Christ into human history. He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died to provide the only way we could ever have been redeemed through his death on the cross. That is the event that should make Christian unity possible. Now, by the way, when we become believers, we are one until somebody messes it up. We can mess up the fellowship. We can't create unity, but we can sure mess it up. And so the New Testament doesn't speak to us about creating, but maintaining unity. We ought all be committees of one to say that we're not going to be responsible for this unity in the church. Paul pled for unity in the first chapter verse 27. He said, just one thing, as citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you, that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together to the faith of the gospel. That's what unity is. And the church is, as Jack told us, this is a strong church. It was sound theologically. It was personally devoted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was morally pure. It was abounding in love. It was zealous in its passion for the gospel. It was courageous in conduct, committed in prayer, generous, everything you'd want it to be. That was this church in Philippi. In fact, the whole occasion of writing this book was a gift that the church at Philippi wanted to give to the Apostle Paul, who was in house arrest. You remember, he was in rented quarters and he was chained to a soldier. He wasn't in a prison, but he was in house arrest in Rome. And they sent an epiphratus, took the gift to Rome to give to him. That was the occasion of the writing of this letter. He writes back, in part, to thank the church in Philippi for their support. And he identifies them as having been with him from the beginning. In fact, at one point he said, you're the only ones who stayed with me. I mean, this was his favorite church. And it was a great church. And it was a church that you would have high commendation about it. It's the church you'd want to belong to. But there were two dangers. And the dangers were, verse 3 talks about, begins talking about false teachers. And then you come down into chapter 4 and he talks about the dissension that was created by two women, Euodia and Syntyche. We don't know what their problem was, but they somehow got crossed up. And they drew swords and they were arguing, creating dissension. And Paul just says, don't do that. Don't let that happen. Remember, the Philippian church was in Christ. They ought to be able to work together to restore the dispute and love and unity. Instead, it had degenerated it into division and rivalry. By the way, I thought I had put this in the notes, but I haven't. About two weeks ago, I was called and asked to do an article to send to an open letter to the messengers to the convention that's meeting in Indianapolis in about two weeks. And two or three weeks. And so I did write that article. And you can read it. It was released in thechristianreview.com And there's no, it's all small letters and no fluctuation marks or spaces. thechristianreview.com is the article. And it dealt with what we've been talking about, unity. And not this time in a church, but in a convention. How can you have unity in a convention this big? I think I told you last week, but at my advanced age I don't remember. But the, now I just forgot what I was going to tell you. Anyway, I think I told you about the fact that there is no rules of order for a convention of thousands of people. Robert's rules of order, which is the standard, was meant for a small group. So anytime Southern Baptists get together, our strength becomes our weakness. Now remember I told you that I don't think we have strengths and weaknesses as individuals. We have strengths and our strengths are our weaknesses because we're careless about our strengths. We think we can handle that. And invariably when people fall, when you get a report of someone who has slipped into some sin or some mistake, it's because if you examine it, it was an area they thought they were strong in. So the strength of Southern Baptist Convention is that we are a democratically run and controlled convention. And by the way, the Southern Baptist Convention only exists two days a year. I know you're disappointed to hear that, but there is no such thing as Southern Baptist Convention except two days a year. The rest of the time it's the Executive Committee. So when you hear about the Executive Committee, they are what we would say is the convention odd interim. In the interim between conventions, when we have a convention, the Executive Committee acts on behalf of the convention. And we have clear guidelines as to how much they can do. The Executive Committee can't do everything. You need to get to the convention. Like when I was at LifeWay, our name when I got there was a Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. And so in time, about 1997, we asked if we could change the name to LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. And according to our bylaws, a change like that had to be voted on twice. That's part of the rules. And so it was approved in 1997, then approved again in 1998. And so there are rules that work that an Executive Committee owner has can go so far. There are limitations. The convention, that's why the convention is so important. The convention is really a two-day business meeting. And it's pretty exciting sometimes. You never know what's going to come up. And we've got a number of things that will come up this year. We've got our full quota of messengers who will be going to the convention. And so anyway, I addressed that in this article a little bit and tell them what it means when you cast a vote. Did you know when you vote on something in any meeting, you give your vote away? It's no longer yours. It belongs now to the church or to the convention, whatever the group is. So you can't gripe about it if you didn't get your way because you're not a convention of one. You're a convention of many million people who worked together for 170 years for the gospel, the spread of the gospel, foreign missions, and you're only one. So you give your vote away when you vote. So you don't have any reason or it would be appropriate for you to cause a ruckus and try to destruct whatever it was that you voted on and you didn't get your way. Unity and harmony works differently than that. So anyway, you'll enjoy reading the article. I enjoyed writing it. I hope people will read it across the convention. Now, again, in the first verse, Paul presents the beginning of his concerns about the church. He said that he wants to, he deals with, he calls what is, in chapter 3, he calls what he's doing with these potential dangers safeguarding. So I'm giving you something to safeguard you, to warn you, not condemning you, not saying you've got a problem, but beware that these are problems that could come your way. And so the dangers are very real. In the third chapter, the safeguard that he mentions were first, in the third chapter of the first three verses, false teachers. And in the fourth chapter, you have the women who had begun to quarrel among themselves. It was spreading to the church. And it's interesting that disunity is often created by a few people. You know, if you look at most of the problems that the churches have, it really is probably just a few people that have a problem with it. But they can be so vocal, so active and aggressive that it sounds like the whole church is. It's kind of like when our Bailey was in the second grade, he came home and said, I need a wristwatch. He said, well, why do you need a wristwatch? He said, well, everybody in my class has one. Well, I checked with the teacher. There were only two or three that had watches in the class, but Bailey thought everybody in the class had that, you know. Sometimes we think that the churches, you know, they like to fight. No, there's usually just a few people that like to fight. Anybody that likes to fight is an idiot. Nobody likes to fight. And if you do, he's a guy that's got something wrong up there. You know, we don't like to fight. But when problems come into a church, it's usually just a few people. So that's why Paul was saying to them, I'm giving you a warning and you need to take care of this. You're in Christ. Surely you can find some reason to settle that dispute and maintain the unity that ought to be there. So disunity is often disturbed by just a few people and these two women. For some reason, we don't know why, they had crossed swords and contended disunity came, erupted, disharmony and heresy also was a possibility. And these are the greatest dangers for even a healthy church. Paul urges the church to help these people settle the differences and to calm the waters. And we ought to always, I like to say, we ought to be common ground and not battleground. Now I probably have told you this and I apologize if I have, but during the years of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, one of the visible leaders of the opposition who opposed the conservative resurgence, I met him when we were teenagers. We saw a handwritten note, still he died, and we disagreed on everything. That's kind of what harmony and unity is about. You can disagree, just don't be disagreeable about it. Don't be ugly about it. You heard me quote my dad, he said, strong convictions don't have to be brutal. And they don't, because we're in Christ. And the way the world handles disputes and disunity is different than the way a church ought to handle it. We don't handle things the way the world does. And so he is appealing to a very high spiritual motive because they are in Christ. So he says, you can work this out. You can work together in unity and love and not in division and rivalry. So he opens in with these if statements that normally would be followed by doubt, but these are not. These are positive statements. These are things that really exist. And these are powerful words. But the word for encouragement, for instance, is a Greek word from which we get the Holy Spirit. He is our paraclete. That means someone who comes along to encourage. That's the word that he translates as the translation of encouragement. The root word is encourager or helper. The consolation that he speaks of, it's a picture of Christ whispering words of love and counsel, fellowship. It's a word that believers have a fellowship together, a partnership with each other as a result of having received the gospel. Essentially what Paul is saying, now listen carefully. Essentially what he is saying is, listen, get over yourself. It's not all about you. It's not who has the most votes. It's who is behaving and conducting himself and creating a passion for the church, being the church, and maintaining the unity that's already there when we're saved. And that is the word that he has for consolation and fellowship, partnership with believers. Mercy and affection, that's compassion and love within the body of Christ. All of these things are produced by the Holy Spirit. We can't produce any of these things. The Holy Spirit in us is what produces these things. Because of the encouragement in Christ, because of the consolation and love, because of the fellowship with the Holy Spirit and affection and mercy in the Holy Spirit, he mentions these things. He says, now then I want you to make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Now he moves on from there, from talking about the shared blessings of believers in these words that we have, these if words, these comments. Paul is envisioning when he stands before the Lord, presenting this church to the Lord that it would be a united church. Unity pleases God. And Paul is thinking ahead. In fact, in 1 Thessalonians 2.19, Paul said, Who is our hope or our joy or crown of boasting in the presence of our Lord at his coming? Is it not you? You are our glory and joy. Paul's joy was tied directly to the unity of believers. That was going to be the important thing. He wanted to present to the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming, the believers in unity. The same kind of unity, the same kind of love, united in the spirit. This phrase, united in spirit, is uniquely found in Paul's writing. It literally means one soul, one soul. It describes individuals knit together in harmony with the same desire, the same goals, the same ambitions, intent on one purpose. That speaks of a wholeheartedness, totally focused on one thing. That's the true basis of unity. We're never going to agree on everything. Husbands and wives are never going to agree on everything. Just not. But we can be united in one thing through the Lord Jesus Christ. What is it that keeps a couple married? It's the Lord. Sometimes we're not very lovable or very nice to be around, and yet we stay together because of the Lord. He is the cement that holds us together. And that's the way it should be. Colossians says, when Christ, he's the agent of creation, said, for by him all things consist. It means hold together. In other words, this universe with natural laws that allow us to go to the moon and explore space, a lot of other things, is there because Christ holds it together. If he were to release his grip on this universe for a split second, it would burn up before I could tell you about it. Because water is made of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen. One of them is combustible, and the other one supports combustion. If he were to release his consisting holding those together, and they were to split worldwide, it would burn this universe up in a split second. He holds everything together. He holds our marriages together. He holds our churches together. He is the glue that holds us together. We're not like people who are disassociated. It's what Richard was talking about in his message this morning, that God wants a relationship with us. We're bound together in him. And as believers, we ought to treat each other with respect and treat each other with kindness. My dad always said, be nice to everybody because everybody's having a hard time. That's true. It's different in here than it is in the world about us. The biggest problem in America is that we no longer have a political system that works as it's supposed to. Do you know the definition of politics? It's the art of compromise. In other words, not everybody gets everything they want. I remember, many of you can remember, when they'd fight like cats and dogs on the Senate floor and then go out and have dinner together and enjoy a fellowship. It doesn't happen anymore. We no longer believe in the art of compromise because we think that any compromise is bad. No, not every compromise is bad. When I got married, I had to compromise. I didn't have any girlfriends after that. Carol Ann would not be happy with that. I had to compromise. She had to compromise. Many things in life involve working together for a common good so that good comes where nothing but chaos would remain. That's what the Holy Spirit does in the church. This is an oxymoron. There ought never to be a discussion about unity in a church because it would just be there. Unfortunately, we've messed it up and we've chosen sides. In fact, he goes on in this chapter, kind of fleshing out this idea of thinking in unity, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourself. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests but also for the interests of others. That was unheard of in New Testament times. Humility was a word in the Greek language that meant something that was of no value. It was not to be desired. It was an undesirable characteristic. It spoke of weakness. And so nobody wanted to be humble, but Paul redefined it. And the best definition of it is consider others as more important than yourselves. That's why I said Paul is really saying get over yourself. You're not always right. Best advice my daddy ever gave me when I got my first church, he said, Son, let me tell you, you're not going to always be right. And he said, so when you're wrong, admit it. He said, everybody else knows it. You might as well admit it anyway. So when you're wrong, admit it, but you're not going to always be right. Guess what? I don't have to always be right. Do you know there are many things we did as a church when I was your pastor that I didn't want to do, but you did? And working with the Holy Spirit and the atmosphere of love and unity, we did things that some of us didn't want to do. That's what unity is all about. It's not an emotional thing. It's not what I like or don't like. We're in Christ. And the very idea that we might act out of selfish ambition or conceit in a body of believers is unthinkable. We are the first deacons came to be to solve a problem. The problem was twofold. They were having a widow's ministry, and some of the Greeks thought, the Hebrews thought that their widows were not being treated as well as the Greek widows were, so that was a problem. And then the disciples were having to, the apostles were trying to solve that problem, and it was causing them not to spend time studying and praying and asking God what He wants to say to the people. So the deacons were put in place to solve a problem, not to be a problem, to help maintain the unity of the church, but also to give time to the ones who deliver the Word of God to the church to be with God so they'll have something to say. Some of you will remember E.V. Hill. I don't know whether that rings a bell with you, but E.V. Hill was a dear friend, and we did a lot of things together over the years. Got real close when I was president of the convention, and I was talking to him one day, and I said, E.V., you're God all the time. How do you pastor your church? Well, he said, I call the office every day. Okay, I got that. And so I said, I keep in touch, and I'm there, and I know what's going on. I said, well, how does your church feel about that? He said, well, they put it this way. Said, you can be gone as much as you want to, but you better be loaded for bear when you step in the pulpit on Sunday morning. In other words, you better deliver the message. Yeah, I hate to tell you this, but most preachers, I don't know any that this is not true, don't just get up on Sunday morning, and out of their mouth flows all these flowery words, and all of a sudden, they're anointed with the Holy Spirit, and here comes the message, and it's like they didn't even think about it until they got up there, and now it's there, and they're out. That's not the way you preach. Do you know I preached one, two, three, four, five sermons a week here. Now, I have to confess that three of them were the same one. So, we had three services, seven years, and then we had Sunday night. Y'all remember when we had Sunday night church? Okay, first Sunday night, we were here after I retired. We came to church, not a car in a parking lot. Nobody told us that we didn't have Sunday night services. Well, I had to preach Sunday night. Oh, and I thought since I was a pastor, I was supposed to preach all these services. Oh, I had another one on Wednesday night. It took me about 40 hours a week just to be ready to preach in those sermons. I used to tell deacons, look, my job is not to be here in deacon's meeting, but I'm here, and that's what I chose to do, to be here. I don't have to be here. I'm not a deacon, but I want you to know that I'm not here because that's my job description. I said, I earn my pay if I just preach on Sundays and Wednesdays. That's how long it takes me to get ready to preach and then to preach. So, it's a wonderful task. One of the reasons I'm enjoying teaching Sunday school is I get to study. Listen, when you've been preaching for 75 years and have thousands of sermons in a file, you don't have to study to go to church. But I love this because I never know what Brother Jack's going to come up with about where we're going next. And I get to study, and I get to learn these things. And by the way, you know, every once in a while, someone says, you know, I don't think I'll teach this year. I've been teaching so long, I need to be fed. I need to be fed. Now, pause just a minute. Who learns more, the teacher or the one that listens? The teacher. Well, the teacher does. For every minute I speak to you, I could speak five. And sometimes do. But it takes studying the Word of God. The deacons were there to help assist. The apostles be ready to have a word to declare. Remember, they had no New Testament. Remember, every church in the New Testament was a first-generation church. They had no trained leaders. They had no buildings. They didn't have any staff. It was just totally different. We're so used to hiring staff. Worst thing you can do is hire staff to do something that the church might ought to be doing. It seems like Ephesians 4 talks about that, that you ought to be equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. So the work of the ministry is not the staffing that you pay. The work of the ministry is what God gives to every one of us to be a part of. Isn't that amazing? Every one of us is an important part of the kingdom of God and the fellowship of the church. And there are no unimportant people in the church. Everybody is somebody. That's what being in Christ means. Everybody is somebody. Nobody is nobody. And we need to be reminded of the importance of every individual. But now he comes down to verse 5 here and he talks about adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus. That's an introduction. He's teasing us a little bit now. He said, oh, by the way, you ought to think like Jesus thinks. Now the passage that he is dealing with here, by the way, let me back up. Just I have to do this. The first verses talks about the focus and the thinking like Christ and the thinking like Christ he's going to show us in this has three qualities. That is thinking the same way, humility, and looking out for others. Now I said that humility in ancient world was not something desirable. You call a slave would be humble because that was just the interpretation. It's not a good thing. But humility is something that an unselfish person and we see one every week here, by the way, and you don't know it. How many of you can tell me the name of our minister of music? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Now we've got say 75 people here today. Only less than 10% of us even know his name. His name is Brad Riley. You never see him. In the first service, now I can't talk about the second service. I think he leads the music there. But in the first service, Brad sings in the choir. Or he may have a microphone and be part of the praise team. Never introduces himself. Totally unselfish. Quick to give somebody else the platform. I tell him, I like you better every time I see you. Because you've got a selfish bone in your body. You talk about an humble spirit. We've got a minister of music that most of you did not even know his name and wouldn't know him if you saw him. That's the way he likes it. He lets other people lead the choir. Let's other people lead the worship. That's just who he is. It's an humble spirit. You know, it would be great if we could see what could happen if nobody got the credit for it. We've got a great music ministry here. Worship ministry. With a leader that nobody knows because he doesn't care who gets the credit for it. That is a picture. Just Brad Riley. Humility. Those go together. And that's the way it should be. And you need to get to know him. This is a great young man. If you read Pastor John's book, he's in the first chapter. You need to read that because that's where he came from. But he's a humble person. Well, that's the way it ought to be. Humility was not a desirable trait back then. But Paul made it a very desirable trait. Now, Warren Wiersbe. Jack quoted from Warren Wiersbe. When I was pastor, I couldn't read Warren Wiersbe because there was so much a lot. I'd preach him. I mean, he thinks just like I think. I was shocked when I did my book on Hebrews. He wrote an endorsement for it, which I didn't know that until the book came out. Because I didn't get all the endorsements. But this is what he said about humility. The humble person is not one who thinks meanly or badly of himself. He simply does not think of himself at all. If you think you're humble, you're not. You just lost it if you had it. We're to be so focused totally on the Lord that we simply don't think about ourselves. That's the true root and basis of unity. Doesn't matter who gets credit for it. We don't think of ourselves. And when we come to verses 6 to 11, this is the holy of holies of divine revelation. How could we ever read these words and absorb these words and focus, turn around and focus on ourselves or participate in disunity among believers? How could our attitude ever turn selfish and our actions be divisive and destructive? Jesus is our example. And he came to serve others. He introduced a new criteria of greatness. He said, if you would be great, you must become a servant. Nobody ever talked about that before. This passage now takes us back into eternity past. Into eternity past. Notice what I'm going to just read. When I read these verses, I have a sense that I need to hold my breath. This is incredible. The apostle Paul is in prison, house arrest, chained to soldiers in Rome. Nero is going to issue the verdict on his life. And Nero was a madman, a crazy man. No one ever knew what he was going to do next. His whole fate, Paul's whole fate was in the lap of Nero. Now he's in jail with soldiers chained to him. He doesn't complain. He doesn't ask for anything. He just says, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ, Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Stop right there just a moment. You see, I think maybe the King James says, there's something to be grasped. Something to be grasped. He was equal with God, but he didn't grasp it. How can I explain this? Did you ever try to get in a room you were already in? Jesus already was God. Richard talked about that this morning. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is a unique expression of one God. Three persons, one God. And Paul here takes us back. He says, who thought, who existed in the form of God, but didn't consider equality with God because he voluntarily gave up his deity and all of his divineness when he came to earth and became a man. He became the God man. And 100% God, 100% man. That boggles our minds. Otherwise, he could not have sacrificed and secured salvation for us. You had to have a sacrifice that was worthy of salvation. And the only one in the world, as I said a moment ago, that's the only way we'll ever be saved, is through Jesus Christ. So, existing in the form of God. Now, the word form there, there are several Greek words for the word form, but this particular word means the exact likeness, the same thing, the identical essence. He could have chosen some other words, but that's the word that he chose here. And that's what equality means, that Jesus was God. That's what being equal with God means. Well, when he comes down here in a minute to talk about he's in the form of a servant, same word, identical word, which means he didn't just look like a servant, he really was a servant. So, we have two great truths about the character of Jesus Christ in these verses. He was in the form of, he was exactly like God, he was God, he was exactly like a servant, he was a servant. That's why, stay with me, that's why in Luke 22, the disciples came into the room where they had the Lord's Supper, and guess what they were doing? They were arguing about who was the greatest. Now, they'd done that before, they'd had practice at this. They'd done this before, and Jesus made an interesting statement to them. He chastised them for comparing themselves with each other, and then he said, I am among you as one who serves. Guess what the word serves means? It is diakonia, from which we get deacon. Jesus said, I'm among you as one who serves. Paul, when the church got to arguing over who they liked as the best preacher, Paul or Apollos, Paul in Corinth said, what is Paul? What is Apollos? He didn't say who, he said what. And he said, we are servants. Guess what that word is? Diakonos, diakonia, deacon. So, deacons asked me, he said, what is our job description? It's in your name. You don't have a job description, your name tells you what you're about. You're a servant. And that word diakonos, in our terminology, it would be someone who waits tables. Jesus says, that's who I am. Paul says, that's who I am. That's what a deacon is. The very idea that deacons try to run the church and dominate the pastor, by the way, I never had an experience like that, but I know a lot of people have had it, is a total contradiction of scripture. Deacons don't exist to make life hard for the pastor. They exist to relieve pressure so that he can truly be the pastor God wants him to be. But here's the thing. Not any of us are authoritative over us, but we're all alike. We are all together in this. Imagine an assembly that it didn't matter who got credit. I had a evangelism professor at South Washington Seminary that said, you know, he said, I'd like to propose something. Said, what if we change the rules and if you won somebody to Christ, they had to join somebody else's church? He said, I have an idea that evangelism would come to a slow stop in your church. We're here. Forget that now. That has nothing to do with what I just said, I guess. But the point is, deacons ought to be a blessing to the church. We've got some great deacons. I spoke to deacons here a couple of weeks ago. This is a great group. Young, older, we've got a terrific group of deacons. My best friends in all the churches I served in were my deacons. I know that there are problems that arrive in churches if they're deacons, but I never had any. So I just thank God that he spared me. I guess he knew I wouldn't handle it well enough, but he spared me of that. But the deacons are there to maintain the unity of the church and to assist the pastor and the staff to fulfilling their jobs. That's what he's talking about in this. And so existing in the form of God, he was God existing as a servant. And he wasn't just the form of the servant. He really was a servant. He was the real deal. And so, again, we need to move on from that. But Jesus uses that word that he really is God. He really is a servant. And equality, by the way, is an adverb describing how he existed. He existed as a servant. He existed as God. He existed that way originally. He already had equality with God, so there's no need for him to grasp it or exploit it. And, again, in the same way with the servant. He was fully God, fully man. He was a God-man. And although he was God, he didn't think of himself. He thought of others. He thought so much of us that he could not focus on the privileges that he enjoyed as God or else he never would have died on the cross for our sins. He just could not keep his high privilege to himself, so he paid the ultimate price. Verse 4, others is the focus that he wants to be in our mind. That's the mind of Christ. We don't sit around trying to, we can use the words that he used here, that we selfish ambition or conceit. That describes somebody whose sole goal in his life is to make himself known and have his way and be able to lord it over people. Paul would just say, that doesn't belong in a church. Well, I know you'll be glad when this is over with, but anywhere you go in the New Testament, you're going to find this all the way through. Disunity and disharmony is the great danger of every church. Every church, whether it's sound theologically or compassionate and mission, whatever it is, it's a real challenge. And so, verse 7 and 8 says he made himself of no reputation. Literally, he emptied himself. He didn't empty himself of his deity, but he did set aside his heavenly glory and his incarnation. He set aside his voluntary display of his divine attributes when he came to earth. And what a journey he had. Every step of the journey of Jesus Christ was bathed in grace. From the Father's side in heaven to the incarnation on earth, from supreme authority to servanthood on earth, from life to death, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on the cross. Unbelievable. He was the exact essence of the Father and of servants. He did the will of the Father, according to Isaiah 52. When he became a servant in his incarnation, he chose to obey even when it cost him his life. He experienced the lowest point in his life by not even demanding human rights, and he died as a criminal and suffered at the hand of unbelievers. The cross was a disgrace to many people, but cherished by believers. Without the cross, where would we be? You know, my favorite music is gospel music, southern gospel. I appreciate other musics, but I love southern gospel. And you remember the one about the lighthouse set on the point there? And then one of the lines goes, where would this soul be if it were not for the lighthouse? That is what we have in the cross. His death on the cross was not just the death of a beautiful life. It is not just the death of a martyr. It was the death of our Savior. He laid down his life for us, and we are to live our lives for the glory of God and for the blessing of others. He was willing to do it. His sacrifice and his ministry came to us together. Sacrifice and compassionate ministry go together. That was true of Paul in Philippians 2.17, with Timothy in Philippians 2.20, and Epaphroditus in Philippians 2.30. Warren Wisby again says, it is one of the paradoxes of the Christian life that the more we give, the more we receive. The more we sacrifice, the more God blesses. This is why the mind of Christ, that attitude leads to joy. It makes us more like Jesus. It means sharing his joys, and we also share in his sufferings. Of course, when love is the motive, Philippians 2.1, sacrifice is never mentioned. We don't think of it as a sacrifice. So, verses 9-11, for this reason, God highly exalted him, gave him the name that is above every name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth. Under the earth, every tongue confess, Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And God highly exalted him, and my clock has run out before I did, so here, I'll finish this up here. His exaltation began with his resurrection. Man had done the worst it could to him. They had killed him, buried him. God stepped in and did what only God can do. He raised him up and gave him the highest position in the universe. Man debased him. God exalted him. Man called him names and slandered his name, but God gave him the highest possible name. The name is Lord. His exalted position gave him sovereign authority over all created things and places. Isaiah prophesied that in Isaiah 45, and he gave him a name which is above every name, and that places him beyond all comparisons and contemporaries. That name is Lord. It describes Christ as the sovereign ruler. It indicates his super-exalted position, and all that his grace offers is available to us, and all who would come to him are enabled to see the truth and receive the gospel through Jesus Christ. Every knee will bow. What a conclusion. In heaven, on earth, under the earth. The entire television universe is going to worship the Lord. The angels of heaven in Revelation 4 are going to praise his name. The spirits of the redeemed in Revelation 4 are going to praise his name. Obedient believers in Romans 10 are going to praise his name. Disobedient unbelievers on earth are going to praise his name. Demons and lost humanity in hell are going to praise his name. Confess means to affirm, to accept, to agree with, and that is what the whole universe is going to do when he comes back. That is the name God has given to him. We don't make him Lord of our lives. We have some linguistic problems when we talk about making Jesus Lord. You do not make Jesus Lord. He is Lord. God made him Lord. It wouldn't mean anything if we gave him the name, but God gave him that name. Seven hundred and forty-seven times in the New Testament, Jesus is called Lord. In the book of Acts, he is referred to as Savior twice, but ninety-two times as Lord. The first creed of the infant church was Jesus is Lord. The Lordship of Christ is the very essence of Christianity. I will conclude with this. You can say no to Jesus, but you cannot say no, Lord. Somebody said that. I didn't say that. I read it somewhere and don't know where it was. Jack may remember it. You cannot say no to someone who is Lord. If he is Lord, he is over you. You have to do what he says. You can say no to him, but you can't say no, Lord. That is the name. The Lordship of Jesus is all-inclusive. It includes all spiritual beings in heaven, all living individuals on earth, and all under the earth. He is Lord of every conceivable being in the universe. The attitude and actions of Jesus Christ will always result in the glory of God, and that is what Paul is encouraging us to do. It is a great passage, and I think it is the center part of the Bible itself because it expresses fully what God has done through Jesus Christ and what is going to be done through eternity as he has established his Lord. Thank you. God, praise your name. Thank you for what you have done. Bless us as we go through this week that you have given to us. We live so that you get the glory. In Jesus' name, amen.
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