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1905. Cross-Shaped Community, Pt. 2

The Daily Platform / Bob Jones University
The Truth Network Radio
November 15, 2024 9:08 pm

1905. Cross-Shaped Community, Pt. 2

The Daily Platform / Bob Jones University

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November 15, 2024 9:08 pm

Dr. Alan Benson continues a series in Philippians called “The Mind of Christ” at BJU chapel. The text is from Chapter 2:1-4. (Part 1 was too short so it not run on The Daily Platform).

The post 1905. Cross-Shaped Community, Pt. 2 appeared first on THE DAILY PLATFORM.

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One of the pronounced themes about the book of Philippians is this whole idea of joy and rejoicing.

But why? I think this is a book, if you will, about having the mind of Christ. Thinking about real life circumstances in light of the thinking of Christ. I need to live with a gospel transformed mind. My perspective on the circumstances of life must be shaped by the gospel.

We are living in a day where we are blitzed with information all the time. And our brain is designed that in one way, shape, or form, it does process that information. And when it does, it informs or it transforms our perspective.

And I am here to challenge us today that there are things in life that we need to at least understand whether my perspective on those things is informed or transformed. And so I believe in this book as we study it together. What is God saying should be my perspective on that.

And if I make the change from one to the other, will it result in me living a life that is marked by a peaceful, settled joy in God. Today we're continuing a study in the book of Philippians called The Mind of Christ. In today's sermon, Dr. Alan Benson will guide us through Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2 beginning in verse 1. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, of any comfort of love, of any fellowship of the Spirit, of any bowels and mercies, fulfill you my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in loneliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man in his own things, every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and at every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

And I want you, if you would, to read this last little phrase with me together out loud on three. One, two, three, to the glory of God the Father. I preached Philippians chapter two, particularly verses five through 11, a lot.

And I must admit that most of the time when I preach it, I preach it in a gospel way. I use this passage because I think it is the clearest passage with regard to the incarnation, the enfleshment, the taking on of humanity of the Son of God, and then his purpose in doing so. And that is a redemptive purpose. But I must confess to you this morning that I think I miss the subject.

And I think most of us miss the subject. But why, if you will, what was this really all about? Why is it that Paul is presenting this here? I think we could actually look at verses five through 11 and through that we could read and then we come to the end and say, wow, because of what Christ did, look what God did for him. And we can actually teach and preach this with regard to our own thinking and our own living and in a sense develop our own form of health and wealth. Gospel meaning if I actually do these things, if I live this way, if I have this mindset, if I am self-deprecating, then God tells me, look what he did for Jesus, so that's what he'll do for me. That my pathway to actually being exalted, which is really what I want, is that I choose to submit myself and then God will give me what I want. Do you think that that's actually what Paul is writing here? You see, the subject of this isn't me at all.

We tend to interject ourselves into this. Jesus did this for me, and I think there's right emotion in that. Jesus left glory for me. Jesus became a man for me. Jesus humiliated himself for me. Jesus became a servant for me. Jesus chose to die on a cross for me.

I think we ought to personalize it that way. But do you realize that I'm not mentioned here in this passage at all? What Paul is describing is not my relationship to Jesus or Jesus' relationship to me. He's actually describing the mindset of Christ and his relationship to his Father. And the exaltation at the end of this passage of Scripture isn't an attaboy for Jesus because he did such a great job. It is actually part of the purposeful working of God.

Why? Because the purpose of Jesus in doing what He did was because He looked on His creation and He realized that God wasn't rightly worshiped by that creation and the pathway for God to be rightly worshiped was for Him to do what verses 5 through 9 describe for us. And the end result of that is, in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, there is a name — it's not the name Jesus, by the way.

The name here actually refers to a title. And because He was Jesus, the one who would save His people from His sin, He then is rightly exalted to that position of Lord. And the result of that is, His redemptive work makes it possible for the fallen creation to now do all things to the glory of God. Notice what we read together, to the glory of God the Father.

So when Paul begins this illustration with the, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, he is pointing back to what he is going to say before verse 5, and then Christ is going to illustrate it. And what he's saying before verse 5 isn't actually a description of how I should do something for people that I view as being lesser than me. It actually is talking about one another's. We're just people. We are believers. It's not I'm to look at somebody and say, oh, they're less than me, so I'm going to serve.

It actually is that I just look at people. And who was, if you will, in this passage of Scripture, one who was equal with God. And he didn't think it was robbery to hang on to that position. See, this is describing a relationship between Jesus and His Father. And that's the illustration of the truth that He wants us to grasp about each other. There's a sense in which I should never start this conversation about Gospel thinking about each other or pursuing the mind of Christ toward one another with the thought at all that, okay, you're lesser than me, so I will.

You're not as talented as me, so I will. Actually it begins with an assumption that we're all image bearers. That all of us have gifts that we got from our Father, and so if I deprecate you in your giftedness, I deprecate the one who made you. And so as we looked at this on Monday, we opened with this section about the incentives. Paul uses these if phrases, if you will, in a descriptive way.

They're not just more to be thought of as since phrases, but they're actually confirming truth. Here's what happens in this kind of community. And coming out of those incentives, then he's going to actually walk us then down through a journey with regard to the truth that he is presenting, and we'll look at injunctions, and then we'll look at instructions, and ultimately then Christ and Paul and the other men in this passage of Scripture, Epaphroditus and Timothy are given to us as illustrations. And so Paul is going to call them to a particular mindset that actually then will lead to the kind of life they're supposed to live in community.

Notice these injunctions, if you will. Paul begins in verse 2 by saying, Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. I believe when you read this correctly, you actually are going to see that the four injunctions laid out in verse 2 mirror the four incentives offered in verse 1. Another translation reads this way, Make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, being united in spirit, intent on one purpose. So in other words, how do I receive the benefits of the four incentives offered in verse 1? I actually receive them by pursuing the four injunctions of verse 2.

In other words, I don't go out and buy them, I don't go out and manufacture them, I actually am only going to receive the benefit of the incentives that we talked about on Monday by living a certain way, by having a certain mindset, by pursuing specific things. They come as a result of living verse 2. Another translation reads this way, Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, being united in spirit, intent on one purpose. And there's a little Greek word that is hidden at the beginning of the text that I think is really important.

It's a little Greek word henna. It means as a result of or in order that or so that in almost every English text it's kind of hidden. It's a word that speaks of results or outcomes. It gives a reader the idea that there is a process that produces something. And I think what Paul is going to do here actually is a process.

He's thinking about results or impacts of doing particular things. Paul exhorts these believers to make his joy full. It's an interesting word, fill to the full, or fill up completely. Bring to a completion.

This is what would ultimately make it all full. So what is he saying here? Imagine Paul is writing to them, he's in prison, he's writing to these people that are concerned about him, and they're now beginning to suffer and suffer in ways that Paul suffered. And Paul writes to them and he says, hey look, I've got a really important message. You guys need to make some choices to make me happy.

Does that sound like Paul's intention in this passage of Scripture, the way he's going to describe Jesus and the things he's said to them? So he's going to write to them and he says, now look, I want to tell you what this is all about. If you guys would just live this way, I'll be really happy.

And I don't want to be sad. Obviously that's not what he is saying here. He's not saying please, please, please make me really happy. It would almost be completely antithetical thinking to everything else he says in this passage.

So what is he saying? What Paul is doing is passionately stating the relational results of the redemptive work of Christ. What would make him happy, actually what he's describing here is, this is what would make my mission complete. And Paul's mission was a gospel mission. It was about the work of Christ, the redemptive work of Christ coming to complete fruition in people's lives. And so what Paul is saying here is, is with personal passion, he wants to see in their lives the relational results of the redemptive work of Christ completely fulfilled.

And in order for those redemptive purposes to be actualized in these believers' lives, Paul is going to offer a sweeping life-encompassing consideration of how we think. He's going to speak to attitude and action. He's going to speak to the whole of the inner man. Here in these short verses he'll address mind, will, and heart. He's going to call for complete and utter surrender of selfish ambition, of self-serving action, and of superiority thinking.

Selfish ambition, self-serving action, and superiority thinking. What Paul is actually going to do is turn the modern notion of entitlement on its head. We are living in the most interesting of times. The Western world has never lived in a post-pandemic condition, ever. You are the first generation to try to figure out what the world looks like post-pandemic.

And the markers are pronounced. And the most pronounced of them is because of fear and lack of trust that we are uniquely marked by a sense of entitlement. And that entitlement, though we've lived with it in a materialistic culture for years and years, typically looked like I have a right to stuff. I have a right to things. I have a right to status.

Doesn't look like that post-pandemic. It actually looks like I have a right to know. All information should be my information. And the right to know in a controlling way is actually why we'll have this faculty forum with regard to civil discourse. Because the reality is this, if I don't know and you do know, then I have a right to act up because I have a right to know what you know. And it's sourced in fear that looks like distrust.

And that is what actually shreds our relationships. Paul here is going to turn our entitlement culture completely on its head. So let's look at what he says with regard to these injunctions. Paul writes, fulfill you my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

And I think he actually is going to lay these things out, maybe not just step by step as a process, but that all of these things then work together to accomplish what it is that would fulfill the relational dynamic of the redemptive work of Christ in the people of God. And so the first thing is purposeful thinking. Think the same thing or literally be like-minded. Mind the same thing. And the call here is actually active. It is keep on thinking the same thing. And that then calls me to work, but I have to in a sense be corrective in my thinking. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

I shouldn't be going there. There's a sense in which I am active in the process of making sure I am thinking the way I ought to be thinking. So literally here the idea is of exercising the mind to make sure that I inform myself with the right kind of thinking or opinion. My implication here is to give myself to a particular direction in my thoughts, to intentionally interest one's self in a particular thing, or some would say to set your affection on.

This is to decide there's a direction relationally that I know I ought to be in, and I'm going to work really hard at making sure that's the thing I think. In other words, I'm going to turn my heart away intentionally from the distrust that leads me to speculation about people's motives. Well, if I don't know everything, then I'm going to assume that you did this.

Why? Because if I assume that, I get to protect myself. I know what you did.

I know why you did it. And the reason you did it was never usually very positive. And so in order to protect myself, unless I know, I am going to assume something negative about you so that I don't get hurt.

Think about what Paul says of love, love thinks no evil. You see, our inclination in an entitlement to information culture is that I start with speculation about motives. Do you know that our media fosters that kind of thinking? Intentionally. Why?

Because it gets attention. How many times do you watch the Weather Channel and they say to you, there's absolutely no chance that this hurricane is going to affect us? Oh, okay. I'm not going to watch the Weather Channel the next day, right? Now there is one chance out of 674,322,000 that this hurricane could come to the Atlantic coast of the United States of America.

But you know what? We're going to talk about it for the next five days because there is a chance. Why? Because I'll listen in case I need to protect myself. You see, this is what a speculative heart does. This is a heart here that actually engages itself in a mind that is inclined towards others. That's the idea of like-mindedness.

I'm going to lean into the perspective of us being unified rather than starting with the perspective that we're divided and you have to do something to get me on your page. Remember the illustration that's coming. Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man. You see, Jesus did this because of His heart inclination to His Father. He didn't question the Father's motives. He didn't question the Father's thinking. Purposeful thinking.

Paul is literally asking them to do the work of thinking. This is our finger illustration, right? Go ahead, put your finger up. I know. I get it.

Look at your finger. Friends, this is the normal inclination of our fallenness. We live focused on ourselves and all of this is out there but it remains blurry. We are because of the fall, egocentric, self-focused. This is a call here to actually now keep your finger up and look at Alan and say, man, you never look so good.

No, I'm only kidding. This is a call for us to do this kind of thinking. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. There is out there a God with a redemptive purpose and if I focus there, I see myself differently. And how should I see myself? That's what he's describing here. Purposeful thinking that then is demonstrated in what? Practiced loving. Practiced loving.

Notice what he says. Having the same love. This should be a mutual love. Yes, he describes it that way. But it's a love that is the kind of love that God through the Gospel instills in a man's heart.

It is agape, and I don't want to overplay that word. I actually think God gives us multiple descriptors of the one idea of love other than when it becomes selfish. And so here he uses this word intentionally that highlights the selflessness in the loving. This love that makes a choice to give with no thought of getting. This love that intentionally elevates the needs of another to the place that they become a priority for me.

Did you hear that? Love that elevates the needs of others to the place that they become a priority for me. Practiced loving. Tis the season for yard work. And so I did some this weekend and I bear the scars.

You know by the end of the summer I'll be able to go out and rake and dig and hoe and if any of you want to come over by the way, I had a big tree and I don't have a chainsaw, I got to chop it down. You want to talk about therapeutic? Take that and that and that. I'm only kidding. It wasn't therapeutic at all. My back hurts and my hands hurt. I now need therapy. But here's the idea. These are evident tokens that there's something I haven't been practicing. That's when I do it.

I end up with raw spots and blisters and sore muscles. Do you know that so often whenever we finally come to the place where we do this kind of practiced loving we actually sometimes may see and feel and understand the benefit but there are many times that we actually are left more with the cost and it keeps us from doing it regularly. He is not saying to them every now and again go out on this incredibly missional goal of self-sacrifice and do something unbelievable for somebody.

He's actually calling them to living this way. That I view a community through a lens that says my goal in being like-minded is that I would live with a mindset that demonstrates to you love because your needs become my priorities. Can you imagine?

Can you imagine what our campus could look like if every one of us lived that way? Can you imagine the first thing I talked about living with self-protective speculative motives if we actually came to the place that we were convinced that we lived in a community where everybody practiced this kind of love? Would anybody walk around speculating about motives?

Well, how can I get to the place where I live free of speculating about motives? It actually is this second step that in light of my inclination to view the world through the eye lens I choose to practice this kind of love. By the way this passage of scripture is the best marriage counsel I know. This passage is the best parenting counsel I know.

This passage is the best sanctification passage I know. Well the third thing is prioritized choosing and I'm going to do some right now because I love you. I'm going to end chapel here and we'll come back and we'll talk then about prioritized choosing but I ask you this question.

Do you have the mind of Christ in relationships? Let's pray. Father, this is a work you must do and it's a need all of us have. This is the sphere in which if we're going to see your redemptive purposes carried out completely that is the last great frontier for us as your people. Change us from our egocentric mind to living with the mind of Christ. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Alan Benson from the study series in the book of Philippians called The Mind of Christ. Join us again next week as we continue the study preached from the Bob Jones University Chapel platform.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-22 23:25:01 / 2024-12-22 23:33:56 / 9

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