Sermon on Phil. 2:5-11
"Grace, Mercy, and Peace are yours from God our Father, and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen." I would like to give a little explanation of why I begin my sermons with these words of blessing (benediction). They are from Paul's second letter to Timothy where he says "To Timothy, 'my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord'" (2Tim. 1:2). These words from St. Paul express a fact about Christians--that we live in a state of God's Grace, Love and Hope. That's why I draw out Paul's meaning by saying that "Grace, Mercy, and Peace are yours"--NOW. We do not just look forward to such things but enjoy the benefits of Jesus' resurrection everyday! Even as we come to church each week to confess our sins and wrong doings, God's Grace is the part of our lives that keeps us going through faith and gives us the "hope [that] does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (Rom. 5:5)
And we really need hope because in this crazy, chaotic, and sinful world, we would be lost without the Grace and Hope God gives us. We especially need the sure Hope of God's love shown through Jesus Christ because of two things we all experience. One, because we live in a world of sin, we see how bad things happen to seemingly good people--people we know or even our own families experience sickness, poverty, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or a marriage that breaks up.
But even more important is our experience of the good things that happen to bad people. We need God's Hope to keep from despairing because We Are included among the bad people for whom Jesus died! We daily hurt each other and God with our selfish actions and words which leads us to ask ourselves "Why would God want to be my Savior and my Friend?" It's even harder to fathom how great God's love for us sinners is when we ask, "At what cost did God save us from our sins?"
The answer found in our text this morning is the basis for our Christian Hope, through the greatest of all Friends, Jesus Christ, for as it says in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Jesus truly lives up to his name, which means "the Lord Saves," because through the death and resurrection of God's only Son, Jesus Christ that we were changed from enemies of God to children of God. Here in Paul's letter to the Philippian church, we are given a glimpse of God's Heart of Love and Hope through his plan of salvation. These verses describe how Christ gave up the glory of heaven to give us the hope of salvation.
Let's take a closer look at what God's plan included. Starting with v. 6, we see what Christ gave up in order to make heal the rift between God and humanity caused by our sin. Jesus gave up heaven for earth, the throne of God for the seat of sinners, royalty for peasanthood, wealth for poverty, strength for weakness, comfort for pain, power for servanthood, authority for submission, the infinite for the finite, independence for dependence, freedom for bondage, and life for death! To put it into some down to earth comparisons, If you had a $100 million, would you give it all up to some ungrateful people? Or if you could control the future, would you give that up? If you could be served by all people on earth, would you give that up to be ridiculed by them instead? If you had the chance to never experience pain or loss, would you give that up to be beaten and killed and suffer the pains of the damnation of hell? If you could live forever, would you give it up to die for people who hated you?
No one but God could do such things! We just have trouble giving up little things like a spot in line to someone who didn't wait like we did, or a favorite TV show when somebody wants to watch something else. We even have trouble sometimes giving up our time working for the people we love. All of our sacrifices PALE in comparison to what Jesus gave up for us.
Next, in v. 7, we see how Jesus went about gaining our salvation. This is perhaps one of the greatest "stumbling blocks" for people when it comes to believing Jesus is God. If God is all powerful, why didn't he just get rid of sin? Why did Jesus have to become human, suffer, and die? If Jesus had come as an angry warrior to destroy his enemies and all evil--the way we might think of first--then all people would have been destroyed since our sin makes us all enemies of God. Instead God came in weakness out of love. The wonder of God's plan of salvation is that He cared enough about his creatures to get his "hands dirty" by becoming one of us. God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and allowed his glory to be hidden in the form of a servant coming in love instead of power.
The way Jesus chose to bring us salvation and Hope by hiding his overwhelming power and glory, reminds me of the movie called "Cocoon" that came out a few years ago. The movie was about an alien race from another planet who had left some of their fellow being on earth until they could be picked up. These aliens were luminous being--their bodies were like light--but in order to walk around among people, they had to wear suits that looked like human bodies. In the movie, when one of the beings allows someone to see what she really looks like, she pulls the "body-like suit" down a little from her eye and a bright light beam shines out! Her true nature was hidden for the purpose of walking among humans.
With Jesus, we also find that his true glorious nature was hidden from most people while he walked the road to the cross. But the glory that awaited him was allowed to shine through once in a while--just as the beings in Cocoon--like when Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James, and John. And finally, after his resurrection, Jesus' glory was fully revealed! He has received the highest honor by God the Father by loving us enough to ensure our hope of heaven through the forgiveness of sins.
The beginning of this chapter of Philippians, then, tells us what was made possible for us through Christ's great sacrifice. Jesus draws us to himself through the love he has shown us by his life, death, and resurrection. The name of Jesus is above every name because it stands for nothing less than the complete forgiveness of our sins and the eternal salvation of our souls! Jesus didn't try to seize glory from God the Father, and neither did he try to use earthly power to topple the dominion of sin by setting up a new earthly kingdom. Instead he set up his throne in our hearts and lived a life of a servant. Jesus' whole life is a lesson in humility for us. He taught us this when he washed the feet of his disciples: "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet" (John 13:13-14).
Because of our sinful pride, following Jesus' example would have been impossible. But we have been washed in Christ's own blood so that our sinfulness is gone in God's sight. We can now boast in the name of Jesus. We can follow his example of a servant because the Holy Spirit lives in us, and what Paul tells us just before our text today is now possible: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves" (Phil. 2:3).
Paul knew that sinful pride tears apart a congregation which is the body of Christ. To avoid this among the Philippians, he encouraged them to take hold of what they already had through Jesus Christ--the Love of God--to heal their disunity. In the first verse of this chapter, Paul lists four good reasons why Christians can live in humility and live in unity: 1) We are all encouraged by Christ himself who comes to us in our baptism, and in the Lord's Supper; 2) We are comforted by Christ's love which saves us from our sins by his death and resurrection; 3) We are made spiritually new by the Holy Spirit. Sin no longer rules our lives because the Holy Spirit turns us around to hear God's desire for our lives & 4) We are blessed with gifts of love and compassion which we show to others.
Jesus has gone a long way to live up to his name--to save all people from sin. In doing so, he has given us real Hope and a better name, that is, the name into which we were baptized. God exalted His Son, Jesus Christ which means he exalts us too. We have not deserved this, but can accept it in humility. As People of the Resurrection, we are blessed--Now and eternally. We have eternal Hope because of our eternal Friend, Jesus. And now we can join with all creation to confess in true faith that "Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Amen!