Philippians 2:3-6To: Philippians Main MenuTo: Grace Notes Home Page Philippians 2:3"Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself."The plea for unity in Further commands in verses 3 and 4 are given on the basis of the privileges of verse one. Now he challenges problems of self-centredness. "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit"Paul argues against two negative attitudes in this phrase. "Through" indicates that Christians use these two negative attitudes to attain their goals in the Christian community. "Selfish ambition" is the same term used in 1:17 for those who opposed Paul. This word is used again in 5:20 for a characteristic of the flesh. It means party-spirit or faction. This involves intrigue by a person who wants to promote his own cause. Self assertiveness is a cultural value, not a Christian value. To impose our will on others and not respect their volition distorts unity. Strife is knocking others down by manipulation and intrigue. It tries to get people on their side by insidious means. So this person promotes his own cause by any means possible. Some politicians care nothing about the truth; they just care whether their party wins. They are passionate about their point but care little about the its veracity. They do not care about the welfare of their constituency; they are simply squabblers in a petty campaign. They fight to win not to find truth. Many believers care little about truth; they simply want to win at all costs. The acclaim of men is more important than principle. "Conceit" means empty glory. "Strife" is knocking others down in order to win; "conceit" is parading oneself before others. It means to deck oneself out with a facade that has nothing behind it. This person also lives for applause. An ovation from men is more important than the approval of God. This is a person who appropriates to self what belongs to God. We are the ultimate purpose for our existence rather than God himself. We should be the means not the end. When we sit in the status of God and deck ourselves in his majesty we operate in a shallow sovereignty. It is a shallow thing for us to take God's dues. Where does self assertiveness end and vain glory begin? They appear to be two sides of the same coin. PRINCIPLE: Intrigue and self glory damage the Christian community. APPLICATION: Factions, feuding, bickering and attempts to manipulate other Christians into our viewpoint violate Christian norms. Our goal in this methodology is to parade ourselves; it is vanity. The two negatives in the first part of this verse are followed by a positive. The thesis of promoting self for self glory has an antithesis--esteem others better than self. "but in lowliness of mind"A spirit of pride before other Christians is an indication of lack of humility before God and others. "Lowliness of mind" is the opposite of selfish ambition and conceit. The word "mind" is attitude. The last citadel to capitulate before God is our attitude. An attitude is more than just thinking. An attitude is a habit of thinking, a frame of reference by which we make value judgments. So we are to lay low our attitudes so that we do not feel the need for self assertiveness and selfish approbation. The antidote to pride is humility or deference to others. Might does not make right. That is the rule of the bully and braggart. Ruthless riding over the rights of others is the opposite of "lowliness of mind." This is not self effacement, however. Lowliness of mind is thinking that everything we are is from God. We can never earn the right to hold ourselves above others. Everything we are is from the grace of God. "let each esteem other better than himself"The word "esteem" means to lead out before the mind, to regard or count it to be true. We are to count it to be true that others are better than us. When we read this there is a temptation to whittle this down. In an age where self-esteem is so central to our values the thought of attributing esteem to others is foreign to our thinking. Notice that this does not say, "look for the good qualities in others that may be greater than ours, yet we still may be superior to them in many ways." With that thinking we could go unmolested in our skyscraper of self orientation. "The other" means to embrace an entirely new attitude toward our fellow. That is why we call it "humility." We place ourselves under others. There is no qualification to "the other." We do not place them above ourselves only if they are more intelligent or more handsome. The word "other" is a reciprocal pronoun. This is a community were everyone is giving consideration to the other person. I consider you above me and you consider me above you. What a fellowship where everyone looks up to everyone else! Paul is not asking us to do something that is untrue. He is not asking us to believe that someone has more brains or ability than we have and we know it is not true. This is talking about attitude, not capacity of personhood. We put others first in consideration rather than self. When we truly see the other's point of view we truly give them respect. Self assertiveness and self pride ends when we give others respect. God expects my neighbor to possess the claim of respect by me. This has nothing to do with any illusion we may have about them; it is the grace of God in them that demands our respect. PRINCIPLE: Lowliness of mind is humility. It is from humility that we are to relate to others. Our attitude should be one of deference toward others. APPLICATION: We often have an exaggerated estimation of ourselves. However, we are to elevate our estimation of others. Philippians 2:4"Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others."We live in a culture where everyone looks out for himself. The things of others do not concern us. Here we are introduced to the opposite value. "Let each of you look out not only for his own interests"This first phrase indicates the validity of looking out for our own interests. Paul is not asking from some supra spiritual self-sacrifice where we do not manage the life God has given us. Believers should attend to their own business. "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (I Ti 5:8). The word "look" means to mentally consider, to regard something as an aim. Some people are good at managing their own business; others are not. This word assumes that if we are good at managing our own business we are to make it our aim to consider the interests of others. "Own interests" is our own point of view. We are not only to consider our own point of view. We are not to look out for our own things only. "but also for the interests of others"When it comes to doing things for others--some people stop at nothing! If all of us are looking out for each other (spiritual reciprocity), the whole will be better than the parts. Instead of disregarding each other's interests we instead help each other. We deliberately choose the interests of others. True Christian community is when we take a joint- view of things. This, however, does not mean that we are to be busy bodies poking our nose where it does not belong. The Christian has no right to live his life by the law of the jungle. If we live our Christian life in community we cannot simply look out for number one. Looking out for our own interests to the exclusion of others is the rule of the braggart and bully. The person who is others oriented looks for qualities and good points in fellow Christians. Some believers compare everything to themselves. They measure all people and situations up against their own viewpoint. This verse says that we are to step out of our viewpoint so that we are no longer an island where we alone are sovereign. This is a root cause of disunity. An acid test of our Christian life is to love others who can be of no use to us. PRINCIPLE: The Bible does not hold to the doctrine of exclusive privacy of the individual; mutual reciprocity of interest in others is Christian value. APPLICATION: The word "others" is a haunting word to us at the end of the twentieth century. "First come, first served" is not a Christian attitude. The Christian makes a place for others. How large is the circle of our prayers? Do we pray for more than us four and no more, our family and very few others? A sign of spiritual maturity is that we are less concerned about ourselves in our prayer life. Do we look at things form the standpoint of others? Do we care about those who do not know Christ? Sharing Christ takes the interests of others. Philippians 2:5"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."In this argument for unity Paul gave the most powerful example he could find--the Lord Jesus' attitude that took him to the cross. Jesus is set forth in all his towering superiority. There is hardly a greater passage which sets for this lofty supremacy of the person of Christ in the New Testament. The main argument of his passage is unity and the person and work of Christ is almost presented incidentally. The greatest passage in the New Testament which argues for the God/man is an illustration for unity! "Let this mind be in you"The word "mind" here does not mean mental activity or intellectual process. It means attitude. The only way God's people can have unity is to have the same mental attitude (vv1-4). But how do we develop an attitude? Is it by sheer volition? Do we simply determine to think in a certain way? If an attitude is a frame of reference in our thinking, a habit of thinking, then we build that base of thinking by the application of God's truth to experience. The more we apply God's Word to situations of our lives throughout the week the more we are going to think like God. When we think of Jesus' example when we face temptations to contention it will help form a correct attitude in the situation. "which was also in Christ Jesus"We need to have the same attitude Jesus had. What attitude did he have in his incarnation and death? He had a giving, selfless attitude. His thought pattern was unswervingly to pay for the sins of the world. It was sacrificial. If believers are going to have an attitude like Christ it must be sacrificial. Sacrifice is fundamental to unity. If that obtains then we will not merely concern ourselves with our own interests. Everyone cannot always have their own way. Someone has to give. Jesus was willing to spend and be spent for us. He qualifies as the greatest example of lowliness of mind. He followed the path of utter selflessness. He gave himself to the greatest of degradations--a criminal's death. Yet he was God almighty, the highest of high. He went to a criminal's death, the lowest of low. He could not have suffered more than he did; he could not have gone further than he did. That is to be our attitude. We should put no limitations on our attitude of willingness to give to fellow Christians. PRINCIPLE: We are to have the same attitude that Jesus had when he went to the cross for us--a sacrificial attitude. APPLICATION: If Jesus regarded no sacrifice too great, no humiliation too painful, should not we have this sacrificial attitude toward fellow Christians? Philippians 2:6"Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God"In the context of an argument for unity Paul presents the most powerful argument in the New Testament for the Deity/humanity of Christ in 2:5-8. The step from undiminished deity into a human body is the first phase of Jesus' humility. "Who, being in the form of God,"This is the first of seven steps downward of the sacrificial Son of God. These steps move from his undiminished deity to the death of a criminal on the cross. There is no human comparison to scale this step of Jesus. Oh, what a condescension! We often think of the cross as a humiliation but the incarnation was an enormous debase from his capacity as God. We could never say of Moses or Abraham that they were "in the form of God." Jesus is the only person in time of which this statement could be made. He was equal in essence with God. Never in eternity past was he ever non existent; with unbegun beginning he lives in eternal life. He never began to be God; he always was God. He always had perfect righteousness; his righteousness was absolute. This is just to name a couple attributes. He shared all essential attributes with God. The word "form" does not mean shape, but essence. It does not refer to outward shape or outward form of a thing. Jesus was not identical to God, he was God in essence. He shares the very nature and attributes of God. The word "being" refers to the original state of existence. In his original state he was God. Now he is about to take on another state--humanity. His original state was that of God; now he is about to stoop into a human body. PRINCIPLE: Jesus was willing to go through a massive humility by stepping from his deity into humanity. If he did this, is it not incumbent upon us to do the same? PRINCIPLE: Is humility a core value in your thinking? Is it even a fragmentary value? It was the heart of the one we love. We have studied the first phrase, "who, being in the form of God" and saw that this means Jesus was equal with God in deity. Now we come to the last phrase. Our Lord's incarnation commenced at the highest level--his deity. It was no big admission for him to consider himself equal with God because he was God. "did not consider it robbery to be equal with God"Jesus' thought pattern is seen in the word "consider." This is his thinking about becoming man and dying for the sins of the world. It was natural for him to think of himself as co- equal with the trinity. In eternity past, before creation, he thought about what he would do about salvation. Remember verse five, "let this mind be in you." The first thing that Jesus thought was that it was not "robbery to be equal with God." "To be" means state of being. In the present tense this means eternal existence. He was eternally conscious of his existence with the trinity. The word "robbery" means object of violent seizure, something to be eagerly seized. Jesus did not look upon equality with God as a treasure to find. He already possessed that treasure. From timeless eternity he always was God; why should he seek deity? However, he was willing to step foot in a human body and set aside the voluntary use of his glory. He did not stop being God, for eternal life cannot stop. He set aside the use of his essence of God because of his mission. Jesus considered our soul of greater value than the humility of taking on humanity. Deity cannot die on the cross, only his humanity. Eternal life cannot die for it is not temporal. "Equal" means the same as. He was the same as God. He was undiminished in that equality. PRINCIPLE: In eternity past Jesus had a thought pattern to disengage from the voluntary use of the glory of his deity to become a man. APPLICATION: If Jesus valued the sacrifice of humility for the sake of others as a value which transcended his own interests, should not we do the same? ---------- Copyright © 1995, Dr. Grant Richison. All rights reserved. There is no charge for Grace Notes Materials. 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