Watch your attitude

[0:00] a big Christological passage which tells us about Jesus, his person, his work, who he is, and there's so much in this. So, let's read. Paul has already been reminding them, talking about humility, talking about the importance of unity, and now he begins to give them an example of perfect humility, perfect servitude, and none other than Jesus himself. And he says this should also be our attitude. If we're wanting an example to follow, he gives us Jesus here. So, let's read from verse 5. Philippians 2, verse 5 through to 11. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing. By taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. We'll end our reading at the end of verse 11.

[1:39] Now, we're going to stand now and sing that song that was played during the uplifting of the offering, and I will glory in my Redeemer. whose priceless blood has ransomed me. Mine was a sin, my Redeemer.

[2:17] that draw the bitter nails, and told him on the judgment tree. I will glory in my Redeemer, my Redeemer, who crushed the power of sin and death, my only Savior before the Holy Church, the Lamb who crushed the Lamb who is my righteousness. The Lamb who is my righteousness.

[2:48] the Lamb who is my righteousness. I want glory in my Redeemer My life he bought, my love he owned I have no longings for another I'm satisfied in him alone I want glory in my Redeemer Peace, faithfulness, I stand in place The foes are mighty and rush upon me My feet are firm, now my disgrace My feet are firm, now my disgrace I will glory in my Redeemer

[3:51] Who carries me on evil's wings He runs my life with loving kindness His triumph song I'll ever sing I will glory in my Redeemer Who waits for me at gates of gold And when he calls me, it will be paradise His face forever to be gold His face forever to be gold I will glory in my Redeemer Who waits for me at gates of gold And when he calls me, it will be paradise His face forever to be gold

[4:52] His face forever to be gold Amen Thank you to the musicians, to the singers Let's just come before God Let's ask for his help now as we come to his word Father, with your word open before us We pray that you will speak to us We pray that the Holy Spirit himself will be our teacher Help us, Father, to understand these words before us Especially, Lord, as it relates to our relationship with each other Help us, Father, to consider your Son And his attitude That our attitude might align with his We ask these things in Jesus' name Amen Amen I want to begin by showing you this wee image If it comes up, this wee clip This is what we were looking at last week Where we self-indulge in self-importance Talking about disunity What causes disunity among us Paul says we should be of the same heart and mind and spirit

[5:54] And so forth And sometimes this is the cause of all our troubles, isn't it? That it's all about us and everything And everyone else has to fit around us So last week we were looking at our attitude And what it should be towards each other We looked at the source of disunity Self-interest Self-importance We looked at the solution To have the same mind The same love The same spirit The same purpose And we pray that that will be the case On Wednesday Or in any time when we meet That there is sense of unity The source of unity How can we achieve this?

[6:33] We looked at that last week It's based on our unity with Christ If there is any fellowship with Christ Any unity with Christ So the source of unity is unity with Christ The love of Christ The fellowship with the Holy Spirit And being a person of tenderness and compassion That's quite something That's been on my mind this week Tenderness and compassion And that's really what Paul was saying last time Do nothing out of selfish ambition Rather in humility Value others above yourself Not looking to your own interests But to the interests of others Now when you come to verse 5 Having said this Paul now shows us what that should look like And what our attitude should be And it should be the same as Jesus If you're wanting an illustration No higher, loftier illustration Of what humility and service towards others

[7:34] Should look like than Jesus And that's what he asks us to consider now And he says in verse 5 It's a springboard to what he's about to say He says In your relationships with one another Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus That's quite something, isn't it?

[7:53] To be able to say that Whenever we gather in our relationships With each other It's one of the hardest things in churches Is human relationships I often think If there's ever anything that's We preach the gospel But if there's ever anything That's going to put people off Christianity It's other Christians Sad to say Where we fight We squabble We're not impressive As we should be We're not filled with the spirit We bite and we snipe And we do various things And that's why This is such an important topic And it's almost a whole chapter Given over to this So that's what we're looking at just now It's a lofty passage This from verse 6 through to verse 11 There's been so, so many books Written on these verses And there's no way I'm going to expound Because this is a Christological passage It tells us about who Jesus is There is so much in these verses It tells us about Christ's pre-incarnate stage

[8:58] He existed before Bethlehem He existed before Nazareth And it tells us that he is equal with God It tells us his character It tells us who he is It also tells us about his incarnation Taking the form of a servant Becoming in human likeness And also tells us his glorified state He's given the name which is above every name So here is Jesus' person Before he became a man Once he became a man After he became a man And what happened in all of this There is so much in this And I'm not going to expound these passages What I'm going to do is to allow verse 5 To dictate how we understand this So although we will be considering briefly Jesus' person Who he is It's really we're looking at his mindset More than anything Because that's what Paul That's why he's mentioning him here

[9:58] These are the verses that you'll come to If you're speaking to Jehovah Witnesses Speaking to people who say Yeah we like Jesus But he's not God He's not the son of God And who denies deity These are the very passages Among a few others That you would go to To show the divinity of Jesus Who he is And But We will touch on that But I want to It's more his mindset That's what Paul says Your mindset should be the same as Jesus Who is this person And that's what I want us to look at Some people say Verse 6 through to 11 It was actually a hymn We've been singing hymns this morning That Paul has just borrowed For his own purpose And although it is poetic It's also held that That Paul was capable of writing Good pieces of literature And poetry In 1 Corinthians 13 Is an example of that Paul is as well capable Of doing this But I want us to look Primarily at the mindset of Jesus And what an example to give

[10:59] The mindset of Jesus So first of all then I've called this Watch your attitude And that's really Is the key thing to everything I want to consider three things Jesus' attitude His actions And his acclamation So let's look at the first of them Jesus' attitude And He shows us Jesus And He shows us Jesus' person Sometimes the reason we get miffed and upset Is because People don't recognize How clever we are How gifted we are Why aren't they listening to me I am standing up saying something And Or I am in a relationship Don't you realize That I am worthy to listen to And we don't like to be little We don't like to be ignored When you come out with your big spiel And then somebody turns around and says Anyway what was I saying And you're completely blanked It can It really crushes your whole spirit But Jesus

[12:00] Paul begins with Jesus And he talks about His person Who is the one who showed humility And he He really shows Jesus And there is no higher example Of Some Someone who is Far more impressive Than we ever are So he looks Verse 6 Who being in very nature God That's quite a statement Equal with God Who being in very nature God Did not consider equality Equality with God Something to be used For his own advantage He's presenting Jesus As God Equal with God God the Father And so forth And scriptures testify To this is who Jesus is Other cults Other religions Would deny They acknowledge Jesus Was a historical figure But they deny that he is God That has massive theological implications for us If he's not God He's not the spotless Lamb of God

[13:01] Who can take away the sin of the world That's a topic for another day Why he has to be God Or otherwise we are not saved He cannot reveal the Father fully If he is not God Only the one who is God Can reveal God fully But other scriptures testify Colossians 1 15 He is the image Or the imprint Of the invisible God The firstborn over all creation By him all things were created Things in heaven Earth Visible Invisible Thrones Powers Rulers Authorities All things were created by Jesus They were created by him For him He is before all things And in him All things hold together He is creator He is sustainer And in those great passages And right at the beginning Of the gospel of John In the beginning was the word The word was with God The word was God John 1.14 The word becomes flesh Dwells among us We have seen his glory

[14:02] The glory of the one and only Capital O is two capital O's The one The one and only Who came from the Father Full of grace and truth So Paul's purpose here He wants to show The one who was humble The one we profess to follow Is God God the Son And you can't give us A higher example of humility Than beginning there And what Paul wants to do He wants to show us Where Jesus starts from This is so important This is not Jesus of Nazareth Who's washing people's feet You would expect that Can anything good Come from Nazareth Not a place you would boast I sometimes say to folk I come from Springburn But I say it in hushed tones I don't say I am from Springburn I was born in Stalb Hill Hospital And I lived in Springburn for a bit I lived in Rotherglen as well I've lived all over the place But there are certain places You don't boast that you came from And Jesus wouldn't boast

[15:02] He came from Nazareth In that way It just doesn't happen But that's not where he started And Paul wants to say Who is the one we follow? He is God the Son That's where he started And that's in complete contrast to us And what he does here He shows us how That Jesus in his pre-incarnate state He didn't grasp things So that's the first subheading Jesus' attitude He wasn't grasping He wasn't somebody who wanted To just keep receiving The ESV My NIV Which is the 2011 Says this Who being in very nature God Did not consider equality with God Something to be used to his own advantage The ESV says Not grasp He doesn't grasp this It's quite a statement And it doesn't mean that he didn't want to be God He didn't think being God was that important He was indifferent to this The NIV is a better translation He didn't see this as something to be used to his own advantage

[16:06] He didn't come down saying I am God Just you don't realize who I am Just do what I say And so forth He didn't see his personhood As something to be used for his own advantage Another version talks about robbery In other words To take violently In other words When he came He didn't fight for his position Isn't that something we do as Christians We fight for our position Sometimes it's right to fight for your position But sometimes it's not Sometimes we fight for our position Because we have an overinflated opinion of ourself And I'm speaking And you should listen And pride can often come there Jesus didn't fight for his position He didn't choose to grasp What was his right He gave up that right In that sense He comes to this earth It's very unlike Adam and Eve Isn't it?

[17:02] Who were created And the snake comes and says to them For God knows that when you eat it You will be like God And that's what they wanted We want to be wise We want to be like God And everybody That's their main problem They want to be like God I don't want MD to tell me What to do I struggle with my wife Or my husband Or my kids Or my boss telling me I don't want MD to There's something wired within us We do not want MD to rule over us And we want to be like God Adam and Eve were like this It's our natural desire Our importance Don Carson in his Weep book says this The eternal son of God Did not think of his status as God As something which gave him the opportunity To get and to get and to get Instead his very status as God Meant that he had nothing to prove Nothing to achieve He's secure in who he is And precisely because he is God

[18:04] One with this kind of God He makes himself nothing And gave and gave and gave It's quite something He's secure in who he is He is God And he can give He doesn't fight In that way Whereas we struggle for recognition For status Instead of giving We want We want others to think highly of us And to work towards our benefits I was reminded of this recently Mark 10 You know the passage that says Son of God did not come to be served But to serve But there's a word that we miss Right at the very start of that verse Even the Son of God Did not come to be served You're supposed to read that and go Wow Even the Son of God did this It's just It's supposed to blow your switches basically And Jesus' attitude reminds us Of something that's important

[19:05] We are already secure in Christ We are a royal priesthood A holy nation We are sons and daughters of God We don't need to fight for recognition We're already there We're already elevated To the highest place In that sense We are already seated At the Father's right hand And not right hand But we're already seated With Christ in the heavenly places It's not something we need to grasp We should have the security To be humble We don't need to make a name for ourselves What name can we make for ourselves Higher than that Which Christ has already given us As a Christian As a follower of Him As a royal priesthood A holy nation As a people belonging to God Therefore it should be easy For us to deny Our human qualities In that sense It's not gifts and luxuries That Jesus says We are to nail to the cross When He says If we were to follow Him We must not deny food And clothing

[20:05] And live like a pauper To deny yourself To deny who you are It's ourselves we nail to the cross Not just Well I'm being a good Christian I'm denying myself the BMW That I could afford It's more than that We're denying ourselves The rights that perhaps Compared to others We maybe feel entitled to It is that And Jesus comes He doesn't grasp these things He makes Himself Nothing Secondly The incarnate Christ Becomes man What does He empty Himself of?

[20:43] Does He empty Himself of deity? We don't have time to go into this No He's still God Veiled in flesh The Godhead see If you want to know good songs To do with the incarnation Christmas songs do this They are so packed They are some of the deepest Theological songs you can sing At Christmas And they just wash over us And they don't mean anything This Christmas Maybe focus on who Jesus is In them Don Carson says What does that mean?

[21:12] Made Himself nothing Emptied Himself But the expression does not mean That He emptied Himself of something For example It's not that He emptied Himself Of His deity Then He would no longer be God Nor did He empty Himself Of the attributes of His deity For the result would be the same An animal that waddles like a porcupine Has the quills of a porcupine And in general All the attributes of a porcupine Is a porcupine He says If you take away all the attributes of a porcupine Whatever you have left Is not a porcupine Likewise If the Son is stripped of the attributes of deity It is difficult to see How He in any meaningful sense Can still claim to be deity The expression He emptied Himself Far from meaning He emptied Himself of something Is idiomatic For He gave up His rights Or the like He emptied Himself Hence He made Himself nothing It wasn't taken from Him He made Himself nothing He is the prime mover in this

[22:13] That is shocking to us We live our whole life Trying to make ourselves something The car we drive The house we live in The job we had Our careers Our kids We want them all to look great I'm coming up a wedding And this is the first time My daughter I've got two daughters now I've never done a father of the bride speech But just thinking of The family that my daughter's marrying into Are very smart They're smart cookies There's pastors There's doctors There's lawyers There's architects in there And I'm looking at my family And I'm going to have to wheel these folk out You'd rather that you lock them in a cupboard There's members of your family That you have to see at Christmas But when they go You're going That's us for another year They just embarrass you Members of your own family And I've got that to look forward to Thinking I hope they don't speak to them I'll just try and keep an eye on them

[23:14] Keep shearing them away And I'm hoping they're not the type of folk That go around wanting to speak to everybody I think they will be though But it's something in us isn't it We get easily embarrassed We want to be something We don't like the humiliation And we just react against it In every way Jesus made himself nothing He didn't care what folk thought of him He came for the benefit of others So if our attitude is to be like Jesus We don't grasp at things We don't promote ourself We take that position of humility Secondly Jesus' action His attitude leads to actions And that's what it should do Jesus became human He made himself nothing By taking the very nature of a sermon It's been made in human likeness He became a man Born in a certain place At a certain time In a feeding trough In Bethlehem Brought up in Nazareth Can anything good

[24:14] Come from there He became that which was He was not He was He is God The son of God Worshipped by angels And glory And he comes to this earth We will celebrate this at Christmas And his actions Led to his humanity So first of all Under Jesus' actions He became human And that is quite something He's still God It's a bit like the prince And the pauper The prince is still the prince He's still God But he takes upon Human nature He who is king of kings And lord of lords I think I've mentioned to you Donald Macleod Saying Picture in this picture With the angels Having a discussion And having Being blown away Looking down And saying Look at what he's doing now Being born in a feeding trough I mean Just we can't Begin to imagine The difference God God the son In coming to earth In that way It really is something Theologians call this

[25:14] The humiliation Of Jesus Christ The humiliation Of Jesus Christ We don't like Being humiliated Jesus Became A man With all His weaknesses And so forth All these vulnerabilities Secondly As a result of this He humbled himself He made himself nothing So His actions led him In this humble position As a man He didn't serve From a throne He came To this earth He did what Adam and Eve Refused to do They wanted to be like God Jesus Refused to grasp this But became He chose to be obedient And to serve God He chose to empty himself For the purpose Of becoming A servant To others In other words He didn't become Nothing For nothing He became nothing For you He became nothing For me He emptied himself That we

[26:15] Might be saved That we might be blessed And that's what it means To be If we have to have The same mindset Of Jesus Our mindset Should not be Just becoming humble For the sake of it It's for the benefit Of others Remember This is about Relationships Paul's talking about In our church We have relationships We will have relationships On Wednesday We will rub shoulders With each other How What will that Look like Are we interested In the interests Of others In the gospel He came for us For our benefit For our salvation And linked to this Humanity Humanity And humility He became Obedient He became And became Look at verse 8 He humbled himself And became Obedient It's one thing To become a man It's another thing To become an obedient Man If there's one thing That symbolizes Humanity Today It is disobedience And that's why When Jesus says Go in To all the world Preach the good news Preach the gospel

[27:16] Teaching them To obey Everything I have Commanded you That's what The Lord wants From every citizen On the globe Obedience To live the life That we really Should live Jesus came To be obedient My food is to do The will of him Who sent me And to finish His work It's interesting Lucille In our talk Says Is there anybody In the Bible That That Was it Found it hard To serve the Lord Nobody said Jesus Jesus That wasn't easy Lord if it's possible If there's any other way Let this cup Pass from me Nevertheless Your will Be done That That wasn't easy He wrestled In the garden His humanity Wrestling with the will Of God And yet As the perfect man The man That you and I Should be We come to that point We say Nevertheless Your will be done

[28:16] Not my will But if there's any other way It wasn't easy For Jesus To go To the cross He wrestled But he won He was perfectly Obedient And If you want to know If your attitude's The same as Jesus How good is our obedience But Jesus Obedience Took him to death To death But not just any death Death on the cross Now you think of Paul's presenting to us An amazing picture From Jesus being in glory God Becomes man With all his weaknesses And sorrows He becomes a servant No status A slave He becomes obedient To death But not only death He becomes obedient To death on the cross It's difficult for us To imagine The shame of the cross I touched on this At one of the communion services That the cross In Jesus' day Was a shameful thing It was not only cruel Instituted by the Romans To cause severe suffering

[29:16] It wasn't done In a private place You weren't in a prison In America Where you're given An injection And you die You're dragged out Into the public Your crimes put above Your head And you are hung there And the shame of this No wonder It's a stumbling block To the Jews And foolishness To the Greeks It was the hardest thing To preach the gospel In those days We're used to Preaching the cross And if you speak To even a non-Christian They expect you Well I've heard the cross Quite a lot But in those days Apologists had such a hard time To present Jesus As something Wow And then at some point Say Oh by the way He died on the cross They would just go Really?

[30:01] It's almost as if You were saying He was a paedophile Or something They'd just go Oh He died on the cross With the shame And everything That's involved in that Quite something We It's lost in us And Jesus Jesus didn't just die He died a shameful death He died on the cross As a spectacle A spectacle of failure And ridicule Before others He took the shock And the humiliation He did this publicly His self-denial To rights that were rightfully his Plumbed to the lowest depth He became obedient Not just to death But death on a cross And Paul says That's what our Mindset Should be Our mindset Should be That we die Even The shame of this I had This came to me This week As I was preparing this I think I've said to you before

[31:02] Pastors are quite an insecure bunch We go to conferences And we need to affirm each other Because we're congregation Don't appreciate who we are And what we do We just go How are you doing? I'm doing great Yeah tell us about your church My church And we swap war stories And we have a big hug fest And we go back into the work One of the reasons for that Is this I'm giving you perils here Only a pastor can tell you this One of the things I find frustrating Being a pastor is I studied for three years And I have so many years doing this You've maybe studied for three years Or done whatever you're doing And you've been I would never go into your workplace And presume to tell you your job I just wouldn't do it I wouldn't go into Phil's workplace And say What do you do Phil?

[31:46] Are you sure that's right? Should you not be doing this? There's a book you should read And give you books and stuff Happens to pastors all the time All the time In some ways It's a shameful thing That you don't respect the role of a pastor That the pastor is He maybe knows something Along with the elders They're not dumplings But because you have a congregational style government It's open season I'll just tell you what to do You need to be doing A, B, C, D, E I'll be honest It's one of the hardest things But I'll tell you It has no reason for leaving the ministry If your attitude is the same of Jesus And you feel humiliated Because they're treating you like a dumpling You still press on Because Jesus did this He wasn't You are the son of God We elevate you They nailed him to a cross No pastor I know Has been nailed to a cross But it's So even in any church

[32:46] Even if you're humiliated By people in the church Even if you As long as you know you're right Stick with it Love them Love them to death Even when you're humiliated By another church member That is hard That is hard I've known Christians That stopped coming to church Because somebody looked at them The wrong way Well it was the way They looked at me pastor I've not been there For the past six months Because of the look They gave me It doesn't take much Does it Don't they realize Who they're looking at It is me Our attitude should be the same As Jesus Who we might be worthy Of looking at And honoring In some way At a human level But if you're following Jesus Your mindset Has to be the same of his If you're not recognized Doesn't matter You're doing this For the benefit of others It is hard To die to self Very Very hard So Lastly Very quickly Time is really going on

[33:47] Last point Jesus Acclamation Acclamation really isn't The right word I just needed another A Acclamation Is a loud Eager Expression Of approval Or praise You are great But This doesn't really Have that It's really to do With Jesus Exaltation That's a better word Jesus Glorification In other words If verses 5 Through to 8 Are to do with Jesus Verses 9 to 11 Are to do with God the Father Not God the Son Because verse 9 Begins with God the Father Therefore God exalted him And it finishes with To the glory of God the Father In other words What you have here And this is very important Take this encouragement away What Paul says That's what Jesus did Now let me tell you What the Father Thought of that Therefore God exalts him To the highest place Because of what In his humanity He's not become

[34:49] More than God the Son But in his humanity Perfect obedience Humiliation God loves us He gives grace To the humble He resists the proud And therefore God exalts him To the highest place First of all then The highest place He is hyper exalted That's what the word Greek It's more than just exalted He elevates him To the highest place You can ever imagine And secondly He's given the highest name Verse 9 What is that name?

[35:25] Paul doesn't tell us What the name is It's possibly the name Lord Lord Isaiah says this For this is what the Lord says He who created the heavens He is God He who fashioned And made the earth He founded it He did not create it To be empty But formed it To be inhabited He says I am the Lord And there is no other That's a great name To be given He is King of Kings And Lord Of Lords He's given a name Which is above Every name And name is Is all that That person is If I said to you Your name is mud It doesn't mean Your name is now mud I'm not You'll say You'd be offended If I said Your name is mud It's not a compliment You're basically Attacking the whole person To be given a name Which is above Every name Is to elevate The whole person It's not just a title Like an OBE Or a Baroness Or a sir Or whatever It's not just a title It's recognizing

[36:27] The whole person He's given The highest place Highest name Highest honor Verse 10 Every knee should bow In heaven And on earth In recognition Of who he is Once again Paul quotes From Isaiah 45 Before me Every knee will bow By me Every tongue will swear They will say of me In the Lord Alone A righteousness and strength All who have raged Against him Will come to him And be put to shame Some will It's not speaking Universalism We're all going to be saved Some will bow In great adoration And wonder Others will bow In shame The question is this You are saved If you're a Christian Here this morning But I wonder If we would bow In shame Not because We have disowned him But because we never Had the same mindset Of Jesus That's quite something Isn't it We cannot replicate His ministry We cannot follow In Jesus' footsteps In that way

[37:27] But Paul says You can replicate His attitude And his mindset That's something Your mindset Can be the same As Jesus That is the challenge And we do all this To the glory Of God The Father God's ultimate purpose Is his own glory Jesus says He looked towards heaven And prayed Father the time has come Glorify your son That your son May glorify you I'm finished Time has gone on This morning There is so much In this Let's consider Jesus' attitude His actions And see how The Father Exalts people Like this May we know Something of what It means to be Humiliated And not fighting For our rights But being humiliated Not for the sake Of nothing Not because we Just like to suffer But only as it Benefits others As I say It's easy for me

[38:27] To go Don't they realize Who I am Every day I serve I serve I serve And if that means You die You die You die There is no easy way Jesus says As the Father sent me So I send you In other words In the same manner The Father sent me I'm sending you He sent me to die I'm sending you to die The Christian life Is one of death Constantly Every day Not just death to things But death to self Big lessons Massive lessons Let's stand and we'll sing Another old song At the name of Jesus No no it's not It's the servant king I changed it We sang that earlier I was going to say I thought we sang that The servant king There is only one song We can finish with And this is the song We must finish with So let's think of the words As we sing them together Link leggiğ kilogram Guy He What are you doing to die

[39:27] Here we speak new Iinta We raw Sees Iinta Iinta Iinta Iinta Iinta