John Gunter: Hey, this is John Guenter, the Eagle Community Church of Christ in Mont Belvieu, Texas. Thanks again for tuning into our podcast. Our, this is a teaching podcast from our church. We'd love to have you visit us. Check us out at eaglechurchofChrist.com.
It's eaglechurchofChrist.com. You can find out all you want to find out about us there. We'd love to have you visit. Anyway, this is our second sermon in Philippians. Love this part of Philippians.
This is the beginning of Philippians chapter two, some people call it the Christ hymn. It is about the humility and who who Jesus was on this earth. It's fantastic. So again, I won't I won't tease any more of it. I hope you really enjoy this teaching and really what what Jesus did for all of us.
And that's what I hope you learned from this. Hope you have a great week. Thanks again for listening. Hopefully, we'll see you soon. Bye bye.
Well, good morning again. We are so happy to have all of you here in person and worshiping online as well. I appreciate Ben for your communion thoughts this morning. The only critique I have is he said apart from communion. You know, it is traditional for us to say separate and apart.
I don't know why. In my mind a guy got up and said a prayer and as soon as he sat down he turned to his wife and he said, Do you believe I said both separate and apart? And then the next time he went on a trip everybody it had caught on, I don't know. Both separate and apart. We've gotta make sure that it's both of them.
Apart is separate, separate is apart, but we need both. But that's why we need it. It feels right, right? Thank you all for being here this morning. We continue our study of Philippians here in chapter two.
Let's see, is that up there? Oh, yeah, I don't have anything on my back. I was like, it's blank, I forgot. So you guys, probably won't affect you any. It hurts me to have to turn around and look.
Have you ever been to Target and you looked up, know, especially in the past where you looked up and you're like, who's that ugly guy? And then you realize it's you. So on the livestream today, I'm gonna turn around and I'm gonna say, who's the bald guy? You know, when I see the livestream, it's gonna be me, you know. So I'm gonna have to turn around to it.
But I hope that you're reading along in Philippians. Remember every week I'm encouraging you, hey just read the chapter we're in. Take a couple of minutes of your day and if you read two minutes a day, you read the chapter every day of the week, you'll have read it seven times. So I hope there's somebody in here that's done it. I'm not gonna ask you that but I hope that somebody has gone through Philippians because it will change the way you read Scripture.
It kinda gets into you because if you approach Scripture, it's just I've gotta get this done. Maybe you retain it better than I do, but I forget it pretty quickly. And so once you immerse yourself in Scripture, it just kind of changes. One thing I said on Wednesday night that I wanna encourage all of you is as you go through this, it doesn't take long at all to read this. So one of the things they'll tell us in school is to, if you wanna understand like translation differences and things like that, get you like four translations and read this over and over.
Okay, get you four good translations. I know Josh preached out of ESV. I've been using NIV. You can use a host of like NRSV, you like New King James, whatever, Christian Standard. And then get you one that's like a paraphrase like The Message or NLT or something like that.
And just hear the different translation options there. And something may pop out to you. Because Scripture continually speaks over and over. Scripture is continually one of those things like a movie. You watch it again, you're like, I didn't see that before.
And so I wanna encourage you to allow God's Word to speak to you throughout the week. This week as I said, we're in Philippians chapter two. Now, to understand this letter, you have to understand a little bit about the Roman Empire. Again, Philippi is this this colony within the Roman Empire. It's close to a coastal town.
It's on the Via Ignatia, the highway interstate, the interstate highway of its day, where commerce and traders come. And so it's a place that a lot of people go. It's a place that when the Roman military retires, a lot of the people say, hey, I wanna live in some warm weather on the coast and they retire to Philippi. Over the years in the in the hundred years preceding this, really the the Roman Emperors are a mess. The Roman Empire is completely about domination and conquest, extending their land holdings.
Okay, and what they will actually say, a term you will see come out of this is Roman peace, Pax Romana. Now that sounds wonderful. You know, we had a term said American peace, that sounds nice and warm, right? But the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome was actually don't cause trouble or we'll kill you and because of that fear we have peace. And so it was about dominating people.
It was about taking over their land. It was about gaining as much control and power as anyone can have. You know, during the Bible times, Jerusalem, Judea, all these places are controlled by Rome. And so power was a big thing. If you study the Caesars, the emperors, power was something they had to hold on to with a tight grasp because if anything changed, they could be killed.
You have senators plotting against Caesars. Caesars plotting against, senators. You have emperors that that don't have a male child and so they start trying to have relations with their sisters in hopes that they will have a male child. Because power is important. Because if I don't have somebody in my line, this goes up for anybody.
And we become chaotic. It was chaotic anyway. But that's what they thought. And so this was a constant back and forth power struggle within this empire to control and to to bring about power and prominence of this empire. And it was a great empire.
It was vast. And it was a place where if you were in the military or if you were part of this Roman society, you kind of took pride in the way it was. That we we as our people, we continually go out and show that we're better than everybody else. We're stronger militarily. And so that brings about a nationalism.
I'm I'm glad to be a Roman citizen. You remember Paul's writings in other places, he talks about that and how proud he is, you know, he has this Roman citizenship. Kinda keeps it in his back pocket until the last minute a lot of times because that is his trump card. It was important to be a part of this empire but to understand this letter, you have to understand the way they were wired. It was a society built on honor and shame.
And so when we talk about things like the crucifixion of Jesus, that was very shameful. So for a Roman person to hear people like us say, our Lord and Savior was crucified on a cross. That sounds ridiculous. Because they were all about getting and receiving honor. How are we much better than other people?
And to these people, Paul writes this, therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility value others above yourself. Do not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interest of the others. 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 by becoming 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 other 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. And the church said, amen. Whoo, it gives me chill about reading that. Paul writes to these people who are all about honor, shame.
How much can I build myself up? How much honor can I acquire for myself? And he starts out by telling them have the same mind as Jesus Christ. And he talks about humility. And what you need to know is that to a lot of Roman ears, this sounds ridiculous.
Humility? That we need to have the same mind those in the upper echelon, those in the lower echelon of society? That we need to work together be one in spirit, one in mind, one in purpose. That's ridiculous. But he says that is the story of Jesus Christ.
That is who Jesus was. Scripture will tell us. Jesus says, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to what church? To So many times the message of Jesus Christ is subversive to our culture. Culture may tell us, you build up a name for yourself.
You put your name out there, you build your own brand. And Jesus is saying, you come and you serve. The disciples of Jesus have a problem. They wanna know which one is the greatest and he says, the one that's gonna be the greatest is gonna be the last. He's gonna be the servant of all.
That's the greatest. And so you see how so many things are are counter culture or subversive of culture. Wanna go back through this for just a second, just point out some fantastic things in this this reading. As he begins there, this letter of Philippians and Tammy does a great job in the bulletin. She's got a little kinda synopsis of Philippians kinda bringing joy.
And that's what this was. That's what this church meant to Paul because he had built this relationship with them. And so as he's as he's saying this, he says, if you have any encouragement for being united in Christ, any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, do you have any of these things, church? Do you have these things? He's asking, do you have this?
If you have any of these, if you have any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded. So so what Paul is appealing to is, if you wanna really make me happy. You think, Paul, who are you? Why why should we care about your happiness? These are people that that loved Paul and Paul loved them.
And so you gotta think about this close relationship when when somebody said, you know, if you wanna make me happy, this is this is what's gonna bring happiness And that person you love deeply, you wanna make them happy, don't you? Well, they want to be happy. I'm gonna try and see, you know, if I can make them angry. Oh, we don't do that. If you wanna bring about my my complete joy being like minded having the same love, being one in spirit and in one mind.
You think we've accomplished that yet? No. We haven't. And so, hope I hope when you read this, I hope when you read it this week, you're like, man, yeah, we hadn't got there yet. And and that's okay because in that moment, introspective.
You're understanding we have work to do. You know, God's not done with me yet. Right? Work in progress. And that's okay.
A church that understands that is a church that can be very healthy and growing. A church that doesn't understand it or or plants its feet firmly in the ground and say, you know what? I can't be taught. I can't learn anything else. I can't grow closer to god.
That's a church I don't want any part of because it's on the way out. So do you have ears this morning church? Listen to listen to what Paul says. Being of the same love, being one in spirit and then of one mind. Some translations will actually change that because notice he says, being like minded and then he says, in one mind.
Over and over the the same word is used twice in Greek. And it's being of the the same thought. It's understanding. It's it's kind of like all all being of one purpose. Some some translations will use.
That we understand our purpose. And I think a lot of times in the church, we don't understand what our purpose is. Well, we wanna tell the world about Jesus Christ. Okay. How you doing that?
How you doing that? Is it a verbal, just wanna tell everybody about Jesus or is it more than that? It's more than that, isn't it? He says here, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit rather in humility, value others above yourself. The only way that we can be of one mind and of one spirit is if we all value each other above ourselves.
That may be the hardest thing I say this morning. Because we've got a real problem with that. Every one of us, right? Like, first thing I think about is my comfort or what I need, what I need to get done and how I need to achieve it. All of these things.
Paul says, if you want to be this way, if you wanna bring my complete joy and be of one mind, one purpose, one spirit, what you have to do is value others above yourself. Well, how do you do that? So many times as a church, we we get called from the outside as as more like a country club. And sometimes that's accurate. Because we meet at a similar location, we come to the same place, we see familiar faces.
And we kind of we're here because of a similar theme, Jesus in this this part of the for our purposes, not golf. But in in those moments, if it doesn't get any deeper than that, if it doesn't change our lives, we are a country club. And so we have to grow these deep roots. I mentioned we're we're starting small groups. That is the purpose of our small groups.
It's the reason I hope that you sign up today and want to be a part of this. Because there is no way, listen to me church, there is no way as we pray to affect this community. There's no way we're gonna know how to affect this community and love this community if we don't know how to love each other and do it well. And the only way to to know how to do it well and to love each other well is to be around each other and actually understand who we are. Our services are never they have never been set up to learn more about each other on an intimate level, right?
We we may get a little of that in fellowship before it starts, but you staring at the back of the person in front of you, that doesn't do anything, right? And so to understand and to to love each other more deeply, we've gotta put in effort. And culture is telling us, you need to work harder. You need to get these things done. You need to be involved in this over and over and over.
All of these things that take us away from relationships within our church. And then because we have put in effort for all of these other things and we haven't put in time and effort to love one another, then we wonder why when we say, Hey, what can we get involved in in this community? We've got no idea. Because we've only loved each other from the outside looking in. And we haven't really gotten to know each other.
I wanna say this this morning, you cannot have the mind of Christ if you are not willing to be the body of Christ. Those things are not separate because the body of Christ has the mind of Christ. And so, we can't come here this morning and think, hey, Paul says we need to have the humility of Jesus Christ. And I believe that. And so right then it's head knowledge, right?
I know it. I believe it. I think it's true. But unless we say I'm going to be the body of Christ, I am going to make these changes. I'm gonna put in effort to be this way that does nothing.
So if you wanna learn how to love your community, you wanna learn how to impact Mont Belvieu, Baytown, wherever you're from this morning, you've got to learn how to love each other. Part of what Paul is saying is about disagreements. Some of the things Paul has just mentioned, know, I'm in jail, you know, the end of chapter one there, I'm in prison. You're seeing the things now that I went through. You know, when I was in Philippi, I remember he got thrown in jail.
There are issues. Part of learning to love each other is learning to love each other through issues, right? Through disagreements. So many times that right now it seems like if we disagree on something, cultures demands that we are mortal enemies. Right?
There's no, there's no in between. I can't stand there and love you despite I have to be on one side, you have to be on the other. You feel that way sometimes? Especially politically, right? So if I say anything against your candidate, though I may not endorse the other candidate, you immediately think, oh, he must be and so I can't like him.
It's the same thing with church stuff, right? But really loving each other, you all know this. That when we really love each other, think about those family relationships, those close relationships that have been around for a long time. They have only been that way because you've put in the effort and you have walked through those hard times together, right? You've agreed not to walk away.
That's what Paul is saying here. That you've gotta be of one mind, of one spirit, one purpose. We are here, I think the purpose for the church is just to be the body of Christ. And again, you've got to look right here and say, well, what does that mean? This is what it means.
He says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit rather in humility value others above yourselves. Not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interest of others. I wanna say one more thing about that before I move on. In Roman society, it was a society again, as I said of honor and shame of two different classes at times. You got the people who are wealthy, you have the people that just don't have anything, working class, slaves, servants, you know, freed men, that kind of thing.
Though we may not have necessarily defined classes within our society, we can fit this mold very well. The reason I say that, I want you to think about your situation right now. And I want you to think about your friends that you you hang out with most of time. Because most of the time, this may not be true for you, but most of the time, the way we kind of buddy up to people, the way we make our close friends is because they are of the same you know, status probably pretty close in income. We have a lot of similarities, right?
That's how it is. I mean you you have these things in common, it's just it's an easy friendship. There's nothing wrong with that. But what we can end up doing is, like I said, when we we don't know how to serve our community, it's because we don't know the the community needs because if we are in a an upper class or a middle class and a lot of the community or some of the community is a lower class, we don't know how to to to deal with them. We don't know the issues because we haven't been, you know, given that information.
Our Our culture, our place around us, our friends are showing us something else. And so a lot of times when the church comes again, it's like, hey, we wanna serve our community. We've got no idea how because we haven't put in the effort to be with other people. The scripture talks over and over about the body being many members making up the body, right? All the differences, all with unique gifts and all of these things.
And so, if all are doing is looking out for ourselves, how do I advance? All of these things that bring in this word conceited. If all I'm doing is that, I can be unaware of my brother's struggles. So I wanna encourage you through this this morning to be on the lookout, to have empathy, to look at someone else and say, okay, well maybe I don't understand this. Maybe this isn't my situation.
Maybe I haven't experienced it this way. But to have some empathy. That's one of the I think the key things that you can think of. Do you have empathy for other people who may see something differently, right? Because that's those things kind of come to a kind of grind against each other is when somebody sees something differently than you.
I don't see it that way. I don't understand it that way. So you must be wrong is usually the end of that sentence, right? But to have empathy and to have a purpose that says, I'm not gonna put myself above you. I'm gonna try and understand you and be of that same mind.
Any relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. And this is the rest of this is known as a poem. Some people think it might have been even a song. You see in your book, in your Bible it'll be written. See how it's kind of indented there.
It's written in poetry. And so, Paul just goes into it, who being in very nature God did not consider equality God, 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 by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. What Paul is saying here is that if anybody had a reason, if anybody had just the authority to say, I am above you now deal with it, it was Jesus, right?
John one one, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. Okay. Jesus was there in the beginning and then all of a sudden, He is in the flesh and He could have come as a king as they expected. Right? Taking over just kinda like the Roman Empire.
We're gonna take this thing back. We're gonna fight everybody. But it says, came in human likeness and though he was he was God, he did not see equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage. It was like the trump card he never pulled out. Jesus comes to earth and he serves.
He said, this is what leadership is. Leadership is serving one another. Leadership is caring for one another even above yourselves at times. That my own wishes and desires may have to take a back seat because I need to love and encourage a brother or a sister. That's where that love is found.
That's where we find that we are Whether or not we are one in spirit, one in mind, one in purpose, or in those times. So I'll finish this off. He said, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every other name. That 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. What Paul is saying here, that many times we believe that those pursuits that we have.
Those things that elevate us over someone else. I have more education. I have more work experience. I have a better job or a more prestigious job. You know, whatever the case may be.
Those things that we think that we go after that separate us from other people, we think bring us some kind of honor, some kind of extra reward. Paul says, look at Jesus. Though he had all of these things, he humbled himself. He became a servant and was even willing to die the shameful death on a cross for all of you. And what happened?
God resurrected him. Gave him power and gave him the name above every other name. The way to God, the way to this power, this honor that we seek is through humble service, through loving each other. Not in a way that says, I agree we love each other but in practice. How is it you can love someone this week?
I mean in a real way. I don't know how this churches haven't been around long enough to know are we connecting with each other? Are we are we making the phone call? Are we writing the letter? Are we sending the text?
Are we putting in the effort that says, I want to be the body of Christ in this place? I want to positively impact someone. I want to bring us all together even if that means I need to step out of the position I feel like I'm in or that might make me feel a little better. But it's for the body of Christ. So my prayer for us this morning is that we are a church that takes this very seriously.
We do love each other, we do love God enough to say, you know what, I'll take a back seat. It is for you because we just read last week Paul saying to live is Christ and to die is gain. To live is this, being like Jesus. To die is even better. Going to live it.
So does your life reflect that this morning? I pray that it does. If you have any needs this morning, I'd love to pray with you. If you'd love to put on Jesus in baptism and begin that walk, we'd love to make that happen today so we can all celebrate together. So if you have any needs, would you come right now at Luke Stanninson?