Looking Out For Number 1 Pt. 2. Phil. 2:5-11.

The key to our unity is our determined resolve to look out of number one.
Usually that phrase refers to someone looking out for his or her own needs, interest, issues and pressing forward to push through his agenda. He or she looks to protect themselves, promote themselves and make sure that they get the credit for whatever’s accomplished and are by no means looked over and looked past.

We look out for number one in that we look to highlight, exalt and push the agenda of Jesus Christ. Moreover we are zealous and jealous to see that His grace, power, goodness, love and Name are given all the credit, praise and accolades for whatever He does in His church and our lives.

Why are we so determined to throw the weight of our energy and effort in looking out for Jesus?

Paul opens this second section of his letter to the Philippians by commanding them to be a church that pursues unity for the sake of proclaiming the gospel. Last week we discovered three keys to pursuing that unity. It begins by accepting who we are in Christ and recognizing that’s true of all of us. From there we adjust our attitude and correct the way we think about ourselves and others and finally we adopt the virtue of humility in which we view the interest, issues, needs and contributions of others as just important as ours.

The fourth reason Paul gives for nurturing and building this kind of biblical unity is because this is the exact mindset that moved the eternal Son of God to live a sinless life on our behalf, die a sacrificial death for our sins which led to his powerful bodily resurrection which sealed our justification and place with Him forever.
Paul wrote that we should have the very same mindset and attitude that moved Christ to leave the Father’s side, be born of the virgin Mary, live among His creation and then die for the sins of His people. It’s a mindset of humility in that it moved Christ to consider our needs, interest and issues in place of His rights and privileges.

We look up to Christ because He is equal with God. Christ is the unique, supreme, eternal Son of God and thus equal with God Himself.
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, vs. 6.

In this verse the word form is defined It means the permanent, constant being of a person. It is the very essence of a person, that part of him that never changes. It is the unchangeable being.—Practical Word Studies in the New Testament

Jesus Christ, the one born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth by Mary and her husband Joseph is the unique, eternal, supreme Son of God and thus God Himself. He is God in the very substance of His being. And it’s especially important for us to be clear about and accept this truth about Christ so that we never regard or allow others to regard Him as just another prophet or good godly person how had some special connection with the divine.

As one of our most ancient creeds says: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. (Nicene Creed)
A creed is a statement of belief that helps the saints clarify our belief and thus mark the boundaries of biblical Christianity.

And it’s only when we grasp the truth of who Christ really is that we can begin to appreciate the enormity of His humiliation.

It is this Christ who is the unique, supreme, eternal Son of God who shared the full visible glorious expression of deity with the Father throughout all eternity. And yet He didn’t consider His absolute right to continue expressing that glory and receiving the worship that’s His due as God that He willing to hold onto it at all costs. He was willing to let it go so that He could humble Himself for our sake.

We look up to Christ because He emptied Himself.
but made himself nothing, 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.
vss. 7-8.

Christ laid aside or the full expression of His deity and in doing so laid aside all of the rights and privileges that came with who He really is. In laying aside the full expression of His deity He picked up the clothes of one of His creation.
He humbled Himself by laying aside His rights and privileges in order to become a servant. Though we benefit from His service we have to understand that Christ was serving the Father. He served the Father by be willing to be the one specifically and specially put forth to take the Father’s fierce, passionate, righteousness, holy anger against sin. He also served the Father by upholding the Father’s word to send a savior for Adam’s fallen race.

He humbled Himself by becoming a real human man just like His creation. Christ was humiliated in that like a man He had to eat, drink and sleep. He grew tired and weary and while in a body was limited to being at one place at a time. He walked almost every place He had to go and the very One who created the world and everything in it once truthfully said that He had no home to call His own. He was also humiliated by suffering the indignity the creator and savior of the world should never had to suffer.

He humbled Himself to the point of looking out for our interest, needs and issues by living a life of complete perfect obedience to the Father for us. The descent of His humiliation continued by be willing to die just like one of His creation. Here’s the One who has life in Himself and yet He’s willing to suffer the same fate that awaits all of His creation.

But it even goes further than that. Christ didn’t just humiliate Himself by being willing to die just as all other people do. He’s willing to die the death of a condemned criminal on a Roman cross. Death on a cross was the most humiliating death one could have endured. You were not only viewed as another weak and powerless challenger to Roman rule, but among the Jews death on a cross was considered a severe curse.
But Christ’s humiliation on the cross didn’t even end there. What made the cross so humiliating was that the eternal Son of the living God, the One who shared the expression of His glory from all eternity with the Father and had unbroken face to face fellowship with the Father had to hang on a cross while the Father turned away from Him as He became a sin offering for us.

We look up to Christ because He is exalted.
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 confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Vss. 9-11.

God didn’t exalt Christ the way we might exalt or cherish the memory of a great leader who is still dead. What Paul doesn’t say here but what is clearly implied because it was such a significant part of Paul’s message is that the way God exalted Christ was by first raising Him up from the dead.

God has further exalted Christ by setting apart as the Savior of all who believe in His eternal deity, sinless life, sacrificial death and glorious resurrection since that’s what it means to believe in Jesus Christ.

Finally, God has exalted Christ by designating Him as the Lord and Master of all creation. This means that that at one point in history you, everyone you know, everyone you know of and everyone you’ve heard of will at one point publicly acknowledge the eternal deity, supreme sacrifice and infinite majesty and authority of Jesus Christ.

Questions For Reflection:

Do you understand and accept the uniqueness, supremacy and deity of Christ? Do you realize why He is absolutely and utterly different from anyone else who either has led a religion or leads one now?
Do you recognize the height from which descended to humiliate Himself for our sake?

How can Christ’s successive acts of humility encourage and move us to cultivate the virtue of humility for the sake of our brothers and sisters?

What rights of yours (i.e. rights to your time, finances etc.) can you envision doing without for the sake of proclaiming the gospel in unity with your brothers and sisters here at CLF?

How can our humbling ourselves among our brothers and sisters to proclaim the gospel serve to exalt Christ? What does our unity among each other throw the spotlight on who Christ is and what He did?