Have Christ’s Humility as Your Own; He’s Given It to You – Philippians 2:3-11
“[Christ] humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:8) Amen.
Grace and peace to you in the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Holy Scripture turns us away from ourselves, toward God our Savior and our neighbor. That’s not the way our fallen nature wants to go; it’s the way the Lord has us go; the way we must go.
“Seek the Lord, all you…who keep His Word. Seek righteousness; seek humility,” the Prophet Zephaniah directs us. (2:3) “Act justly, …love mercy, and…walk humbly with your God,” (Mic. 6:8) Micah the Prophet tells us. And St. Paul the Apostle instructs us: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of yourself with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith God has given you.” (Rom. 12:3) And, “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 interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Phil. 2:3-4)
How can we – who’re by nature not meek – walk humbly with our God, think more highly of Him and of others than we think of ourselves, and count them as more significant than ourselves? Our “heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” (Jer. 17:9) The Rev. Luther described our fallen race as “so curved in on [ourselves] that…[we] only seek [ourselves.]” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 25, p. 345) We put ourselves and our own interests before others. We even margin-alize God our Father Who made us, and His Son Who redeemed us.
How hideous a thing is our pride! At the center of the word is the letter “I,” and “I” matters most to us. So we must confess: “I have placed myself above others – and even worse, above You, O Lord God Almighty!”
We can’t drum up humility in ourselves – at least not true humility, pleasing to our heavenly Father. Nor can we match our Lord’s perfect humility with our own, since we totally lack any real meekness.
Christ must impute or charge His very own humility to us – making it our own. Just like He must impute His righteousness and goodness to us, since “nothing good dwells in [us….]” (Rom. 7:18)
Glory be to Jesus, Whose righteousness God imputes to us poor sinners by His grace, through faith, so that we’re as holy in God’s sight as our Savior is! (See FC SD: Art. 3, Righteousness of Faith Before God, 1) Blameless as you are in your Redeemer, you’re also humble in Him.
We can identify with the Philippian Church in Paul’s day as they suffer from a lack of humility. Yet the apostle doesn’t rebuke them for their lofty opinion of themselves. What does he say to them…and to us? “Have [the mind of Christ] among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 2:5) Let Jesus’ thinking be your own. Then value others more highly than yourself, as God intends. Care more about them than yourself.
Our Savior Jesus – through His apostle – actually speaks His humble mind and spirit into you in the words of Philippians 2:3-11! Christ’s humility and selflessness become yours by faith in Him. In Him you think outside yourself as you consider His sweet humility in the manger and His utter lowliness on the cross, where He was made nothing for you and for everybody.
Romans 9:5 declares that Jesus Christ “is God over all, blessed forever,” and we believe this with all our heart! We heartily confess that He’s our eternal God, together with the Father. For the Son of God is everything that the Father is, except the Father Himself.
So as “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God,” (Nicene Creed) Christ humbled Himself by being born for us below; by taking on the form of a servant; by becoming man. He didn’t greedily cling to His deity or hold onto it at all costs – proudly refusing to become man for us and for our salvation. He assumed our humanity – in all its lowliness and frailty – unto His deity. As we sing: “The Son obeyed His Father’s will, was born of virgin mother; And God’s good pleasure to fulfill, He came to be my Brother. His royal pow’r disguised He bore; A servant’s form, like mine, He wore….” (LSB 556:6)
Christ didn’t limit His humiliation to becoming man for us. He further “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:8)
This led Rev. Luther to write that if you wish to see God, look nowhere else except the cross. For God won’t be found anywhere else for you except in the Sufferer on the cross. According to the Church Reformer, to “recognize God in His glory and majesty” is to recognize “Him in the shame and humiliation of the cross.” (Heidelburg Disputation)
What does it mean that your Lord “emptied Himself [for you,] by taking the form of a servant?” (Phil. 2:7) He endured the suffering, shame and degradation of the cross on your behalf. There, He Who’s first and greatest of all became last and least of all. There, He Who’s Lord God of Sabaoth became nothing for you and me who think we’re everything. There, He poured out His whole self; His life unto death as a sacrificial offering to the Father for you.
By Jesus’ shameful. demeaning death, all your putting yourself over-and-above God and others is put to death in you!
“Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” (Is. 6:6) by Jesus’ blood and merit!
An early Church heresy or false teaching about our Lord known as the kenosis heresy contends that, in taking our
humanity upon Himself, Jesus gave up or emptied Himself of His divinity and divine attributes, such as His
omnipotence and omniscience. So that He became less than God. But we the Church reject and condemn this bogus
belief wholeheartedly!
In fact, from His incarnation onward, “Christ always had [the divine] majesty according to [His] personal union [as God and
man.] Yet He did not always use this majesty [in His state of humiliation,] but only when it pleased Him.” (FC:E, Art. 8, The Person
of Christ, 16) Like when He chose not to know the identity of the woman who touched His robe to be healed of her
bleeding.
Saints of God at Grace, St. Paul would have you place all your trust and hope in your self-emptying, suffering Lord.
And to take comfort in Christ’s humility, which replaces your lack of it, and makes you devout, humble Christians
before God and one another. Be oriented by God toward Jesus and His cross; be Christ-focused rather than selffocused.
Since you’re washed clean of sin and death by your Baptismal waters, and since you’re fed Christ’s body and blood to
the fullness of everlasting life, behold God as greatest and chief in your life. As your first love! Then see everyone
around you as second-most important to you. Bringing up the rear is you.
Yes, we’ll be full of ourselves until the day we die. Which is why your Savior suffered and died to save you from
yourself as-much-as anything else, so that you “may be His own and live under Him in His Kingdom and serve Him in everlasting
righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.” (Small Catechism, Explanation
of the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed)
“After His resurrection, [ Christ] entirely laid aside the form of a servant, but not the human nature, and was established in the full use,
manifestation, and declaration of the divine majesty. In this way He entered into His glory. [See Philippians 2:6-11] So now not just as
God, but also as man He knows all things and can do all things. He is present with all creatures, and has under His feet and in His
hands everything that is in heaven and on earth and under the earth….” (FC:E, Art. 8, The Person of Christ, 16) Amen. In the
Name of Jesus. Amen.
Not used in above sermon as context, order of though changed: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Phil. 2:3-4) Here, our Lord through His servant Paul turns us from ourselves toward everyone around us.
Same as above: Love of self is built into us. “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk. 12:31) implies that you love yourself already. After all, “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.” (Eph. 5:29) But self-love can go too far. Actually, it’s a given that it goes too far in us, so every one of us is as self-infatuated as all-get-out.
Removed as it wasn’t entirely necessary: That Jesus is “in the form of God” (Phil. 2:6) doesn’t mean He’s an aspect of what God is like, but that He is, in His very nature, God.