Exhortationand

ExamplesChap 2:8-18

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The Structure of the BookOpening and introduction 1:1-2Paul and the Philippian Church 1:3-26Exhortation and Examples 1:27-2:30

An Exhortation to Courage 1:27-30A plea for Unity 2:1-4The mind of Christ – The Upward Stroke 2:5-11The outworking of God’s deposit 2:12-18

Warnings 3:1-4:1Encouragement Gratitude and Final Greetings 4: 2-23

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The Divine Parabola: The upward stroke

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Paul was writing to a church that had a tendency towards selfish individualism. He encourages them to consider the example of Jesus. One who let go of his rights and who replaced personal comfort with sacrificial service. What we have called the downward stroke of the parabola of Jesus’ life. As we begin to look at the upward stroke of the parabola notice a vitally important difference. In the downward stroke Jesus was actively involved. But in the upward stroke it is the Father who is actively involved. Jesus does not exalt himself- God exalts him. Cf v9 “Therefore God exalted him”. This pattern is reflected in Christian experience. When we humble ourselves in God’s service, he raises us up!!Presentation 06

Uniquely, Jesus was raised to the highest place and given ‘a name above every name’. But what is this name that is associated with the highest station? Is it the name ‘Jesus’ which means ‘Saviour’? That seems unlikely. Paul fills out his meaning by quoting from Is 45.23 in v10. In this passage Yahweh having declared himself to be the only God and Saviour vows that he will yet be the object of universal worship and adoration. And it is this divine honour which is now bestowed upon Christ. Paul applies the Isaiah passage to Jesus. The implication is unavoidable. The homage which the prophet Isaiah said was due to Yahweh, Paul now applies to the person of Christ. The title ‘Lord’ is above every other name given to Jesus, Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God. Why is this title of such great importance? Lord

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The Greek word ‘kyrios’ translated as ‘Lord’ was used in a variety of ways but it was used to acknowledge divinity. This was the title that Roman emperors coveted. Many of them wanted to be acknowledged as God above all. The same meaning occurs in the Hebrew word ‘Adonai’ also translated as ‘Lord’. This title assumed extraordinary importance in Hebrew speech. No Jew would pronounce the word for God when reading the Hebrew scriptures and replaced it with the word Adonai. And so both in popular speech and Jewish literature, the word Adonai -Lord became synonymous with, the personal name of God. So that when early Christians said, 'Jesus Christ is Lord', [and this they could not meaningfully do without the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit 1 Cor.12.3] they were saying that Jesus was the only true God.

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Interestingly, in the New Testament the Lordship of Christ is always described in a personal manner. Think of the word’s of Thomas when Jesus appeared to him after the resurrection 'My Lord and my God‘ John 20:28 . In each case it describes a personal submission to Christ's rule. As a young boy I often heard Christians giving their testimony and some used to say something like this, 'I used to know Jesus as my Saviour but now I have made him my Lord‘. They were suggesting that you can trust Jesus as Saviour, without surrendering to him as Lord. But that is impossible! These titles are indivisible. You do not become a Christian is stages: where stage one is getting a ticket into heaven and stage two is beginning to take discipleship seriously. If Jesus is not the Lord of your life then he is not the Saviour from your sin.

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The Practical Implications of LordshipChrist’s Lordship should penetrate every part of our life. 1. First it has an intellectual dimension. Some at Philippi wanted to be independent thinkers. If their thinking clashed with that of Christ well that was just too bad. We have a hint of this in v5 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ”. But it wasn’t! Jesus claims authority over our minds. When Jesus said take 'my yoke upon you and learn of me..‘ Matt 11:29-30 his Jewish hearers were more likely to think of a synagogue classroom than a muddy field full of oxen. For the Torah - the law was described as the yoke, the authority to which the Jew was to submit. Jesus spoke of his teaching as a yoke. His pupils would learn as they submitted their minds to his instruction. And so Paul writes: 'take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.' 2 Cor:10.5

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2. Secondly, Christ’s Lordship has a moral dimension. I have heard someChristians say 'Now that we are Christians we are no longer under law but under grace, so we can do as we please’. But we are not free from keeping the law as some claim. But the freedom Christ gives is a freedom to keep the law. As a result of coming to faith in Christ our relationship to the law has changed but not our obligation to it. We no longer view it as a threatening bully demanding what we cannot give. Nor is it seen as a potential saviour that says “keep me and you’ll earn salvation”. The Christian sees the law differently. It is a reflection of God’s character. The Christian says, “because I love God I want to behave like that.” Martin Luther writes 'The law drives us to Christ to be justified and Christ sends us back to the law to be sanctified'.

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3. Thirdly, Jesus Lordship has a vocational dimension. In our daily work we should be acknowledging Jesus Lordship over us. In the ruins of the old Coventry Cathedral these words can be found: In industry, God be in my hands and in my making. In the arts, God be in my senses and my creating. In the home, God be in my heart and in my loving. In commerce, God be at my desk and in my trading. In healing, God be in my skill and in my touching. In government, God be in my plans and my deciding. In education, God be in my mind and in my growing. In recreation, God be in my limbs and in my leisure.

Lordship is now just a word to be bandied about in our worship services it should permeate every area of our living.

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4. Fourthly, there is a mission dimension to Jesus’ Lordship. In v9 Paul tells us that God has ‘super-exalted’ Jesus. This word super-exalted occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means that God has raised Jesus to the highest heights. What was God's purpose in doing so? In order that every knee should bow and every tongue confess him Lord.

If it is God‘s wish that everyone should acknowledge Jesus as Lord then we cannot shirk our commitment to world mission. We dare not say that our involvement in world mission is unimportant when scripture tells us is the great gospel objective. Mission is an unavoidable deduction drawn from the universal Lordship of Christ. How important is mission to you? Do you long to see others come to faith in Christ. Oswald Sanders used to ask his hearers this question: “How many people have you made homesick for God?”

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There is a day coming when all will acknowledge Christ’s Lordship ; angels, men and demons cf v10 ... Cf. the worship of the angels in Rev.7:11 as the unfolding drama of redemption is understood. However, the confession of Christ's lordship will also be made by those under the earth a reference to both fallen angelic beings and humans who have rejected God’s rule. A different Greek word 'exomologeo‘ describes their grudging acknowledgment rather than a confession of praise that Jesus is Lord. All created beings will confess Christ’s Lordship the only difference will be in the manner in which they do so. This twofold confession whether gladly or grudgingly given will bring Glory to the Godhead.

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On the parabola of humiliation and exaltation Jesus was sustained by the Father’s love who at his baptism said: “this is my beloved Son...” And we can look forward to that same sustaining love as we humble ourselves in costly service. John Owen writes:“When the reality of that [love] breaks on our souls from heaven when we imitate Christ in his servant role, when our attitude to service is the same as that of Christ, when there is a letting go of those things we have a right to, and we give prior place to obedience to the Father's will and allow the cross to have its effect in our lives, then we hear the echo of these words spoken to Jesus, "this is my son in whom I am well pleased". You can go anywhere with that knowledge”.

I hope that you too believe that you can go anywhere with that knowledge. As we humble ourselves in costly service, God will raise us up.

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The Structure of the BookOpening and introduction 1:1-2Paul and the Philippian Church 1:3-26Exhortation and Examples 1:27-2:30

An Exhortation to Courage 1:27-30A plea for Unity 2:1-4The mind of Christ 2:5-11The outworking of God’s deposit 2:12-18

Two worked examples 2:19-30Warnings 3:1-4:1Encouragement Gratitude and Final Greetings 4: 2-23

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We need to project the image of the divine parabola onto the screens of our minds, in order to understand v12ff. This exhortation "to work out our own salvation..." is often divorced from its immediate context: which is designed to encourage us to deal with the inherent selfishness in our hearts, and refusal to let go of what we consider to be our rights in order to serve others. Paul's plea here is for us to allow the gospel to turn us inside out. The example of Christ is the formulae to follow! As we look at these verses we will notice that there is 1. A command to be obeyed and 2. A consequence to be recognised.

Introduction

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WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION

The command in v12 is that they "continue to work out their own salvation". Clearly Paul does not mean salvation is something we can earn. Rather the work which Paul mentions here, refers to the Christians sanctification - the process whereby we become more like Jesus. Remember from v3 that Paul was concerned about the ‘selfish ambition and vain conceit’ of the Philippians. Indeed the sub-text of "work out your own salvation" is found later on in v14 "Do everything without complaining and arguing".

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We often use the text, "Work out...for it is God that works in you" in order to illustrate the paradox in Christian living, to show the tension between God’s sovereignty on the one hand and human responsibility on the other. We rightly talk about working out what God has worked in. However, the local context into which Paul writes was marked by a spirit of disunity, division and selfishness and so the idea of grasping at honour and position, takes on a particular significance. In order to deal with their pride and selfishness, the selfless, sacrificial Spirit of Jesus needed to be actively cultivated within their hearts. Our approach to the Christian life is often far too passive. There is a school of teaching which simply says, "Yield yourselves to God. Let go and let God".

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Christian men and women are viewed as mere passive lumps of clay on which God works. God is the potter and we are the clay. But many other Biblical metaphors stress the responsibility of the Christian to act. The Christian is a builder, farmer, soldier, athlete, etc. They all describe an active and not a passive involvement in the life of the believer. And so here, Paul calls the Philippians to action. “Work out your salvation....”

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This salvation is to be worked out in 'fear and trembling'. There is a place for godly fear at the approach of sin in our lives. “You cannot play with sin and overcome it at the same time”. J. C. MacauleyOne of the abuses of the gospel of grace is the response which says, "My behaviour cannot affect my destiny. Let's sin that grace might abound!" cf Rom 6.1

A lay preacher, whose daughter had begun to live an immoral life, refused to warn her of the danger of her sin. ‘There is nothing to worry about, he said, she believes, and has asked Jesus into her heart’. But the gospel is not something merely to be believed but something to be obeyed and we show by our obedience the reality of the operation of God's grace in our lives.

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The phrase "for it is God who works in you" must be understood against the background of the instruction of the divine parabola that Paul has just provided. This "movement" of death and resurrection, humiliation and exaltation leaves an indelible mark upon the lives of those it touches.

In Rom.6.17 Paul speaks of "obeying from the heart the form of teaching to which you were entrusted".

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The word "form", describes a mould, like the wooden shuttering on building sites that you will see builders pour liquid concrete into. That wooden mould creates the shape which the liquid concrete will take when it hardens.

In the same way Christian teaching and doctrine provides a mould to shape our lives. The mould provided for the Philippians is the parabola teaching in v5-11. The selfless humility and sacrifice of Jesus that characterises this mould would counter the self-seeking and strife that marked the church at Philippi.

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This is ‘the work of God’ to which Paul refers. The whole point of holding up the humiliation and exaltation of Christ before the Philippians is that it should be seen as a mould. Once they have grasped this awesome movement of grace, and once their lives are poured into that doctrinal mould, what might we expect? Transformation in the church fellowship! No longer would there service be marked by

complaining and arguing v14 The death and resurrection principle, the humiliation and exaltation pattern would be worked out in their lives. They’re no longer demanding their rights but submitting to Christ’s yoke.

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THE CONSEQUENCE OF OBEYINGAnd as a result their lives would begin to make an impression on others. We will become "blameless and pure children of God in a crooked generation“ v15. When Christians are grumbling they are not glowing. When they are whining, they are not shining. Instead of displaying God’s pattern they reveal by their selfishness and pride that they are shaped by the mould of our crooked world. This is the product of this world’s mould. A capital “I” it says ‘me first’.When we allow ourselves to be poured into Jesus mould this is what happens, a capital “U” it says ‘you first’. We get there by bending in the service of others. As we do so we reveal the family image, and as a result the dignity of our humanity is restored. Serving others does not destroy our dignity, [that’s what the world thinks] it restores it. Will you work out your own salvation

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