Plantation SDA Church
Welcome! Our Speaker today is Pastor Joseph Salajan
Sermon Theme: The mind of Christ is characterized by humbleness, service and sacrifice and it leads to glory.
Philippians 2:5-11 ESV
Philippians 2:5 ESV
Hum the Right Song to Get Along!
Philippians 2:5: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. And to describe Christ’s mind from verse 6 to 11 he quotes the lyrics of the song:
Philippians 2:6-11 ESV
Spiritual songs
Spiritual songs work like vehicles that transport spiritual things into our mind and leave them there. You know the saying “let me give you a piece of my mind”.
Through this song Paul gives us 3 pieces of Christ’s mind…
1. Simpleness/Simplicity/Hum-bleness/Humility
2. Servitude (Service)
3. Sacrifice/Suffering
1. Simpleness/Simplicity/Hum-bleness/Humility
We all start out humming the song of
• self-realization,
• self-gratification
• self-glorification
We all tend to be driven by what Paul calls in verse 3 kenodoxia, that is “vain glory”. Glory without humility is vain! Like a bowl that has nothing in it; it’s
In contrast to our empty glory, Christ emptied Himself… This is the meaning of the Greek verb kenoo, translated in the NKJV as making Himself of no reputation…! Yes, God freely decided to empty Himself and go through the slide of incarnation and become a man! And then, when he became a man, he further humbled himself…!
2. Servitude (Service)
You can’t sing the stanza of servitude before singing about humbleness. Without humbleness, servitude is a cheap masquerade. It is like a roaring lion pretending to be a lamb, trying to baa or meh... It is something monstrous…
3. Sacrifice/Suffering
Sacrifice is suffering in the context of humbleness and service! Without humility, suffering is crazy and can drive you crazy. Without service, suffering is useless and absurd.And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (verse 8). He learned obedience from what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). And obedience is nothing else, but lovethat answers to divine love!
Hebrews 5:8 ESV
He became obedient to the point of death, even death of the cross, not any death…! A scandalous, foolish death…!
Ellen White, Acts of the Apostles, page 209: To remove the cross from the Christian would be like blotting the sun from the sky. There are many crosses in this world. Most of them are selfish crosses that we manufacture to ourselves or to others. That’s not Christ’s mind! Christ’s cross is not the cross of selfishness; it is the cross of selflessness!
The cross that brings the ultimate glory is the cross on which Christ dies for someone who’s not at all to die for! He died on my cross,in my place. He died on all our crosses put together! Yes! He put them all together, and died on them!
In Philippians 1:27 Paul says: Let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or I am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one striving together for the faith of the Gospel…
Philippians 1:27 ESV
You know this kind of people, don’t you? When the pastor, the elder, the instructor, a parent or any other spiritual person appears, they immediately start humming… Or if they happened to be humming the inappropriate song, they can shift instantly and hum the right song…” to get along!!! With whom…? Always hum the right song to get along!
Conclusion
Let’s now repeat the right song; let’s start with the chorus: Glory! Simpleness! Glory! Servitude! Glory! Sacrifice! And GLORY, GLORY, GLORY!