If I had to designate one big idea that has characterized the mood and the movement of people during the past ten or 15 years, I would say that this has been a time of aggressive self-expression.  Perhaps the most graphic reflection of it is the advent of assertiveness training.  This has been formalized in books, seminars, and workshops.  For many people, winning is everything, even if you win by intimidation.  In fact there is a book by that title, Winning by Intimidation.  Success is measured by achievement and position. The question seems to be, “Can I get what I want out of life and how soon?”  The goal is to look out for #1.  And, in fact, there’s a book by that title, Looking out for No. 1.  Now this is no new phenomenon.  It really began with Adam and Eve in the garden.  Though the expression of it is getting a kind of Good Housekeeping seal of approval in our time.  Go to our first scripture lesson today.  I chose that scripture lesson to illustrate the fact that even in the time of Jesus, this was the case.  James and John, the brother disciples of Jesus, were bitten by the bug of winning - of being # 1.  So they asked Jesus for the privilege of sitting one of them on his right and one of them on his left hand in the kingdom.  They not only missed the central teaching of Jesus, they were totally unaware of the nature of his kingdom.  But Jesus, unwilling to stoop to intimidate or humiliate others in the presence of their friends, did not rebuke them in that fashion, but rather he simply asked them a question to force further thought.  “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”  James and John still missed it.  Without hesitation, they responded, “We can.”  But Jesus knew that they did not know, so he pressed his teaching about the nature of his kingdom, concluding, whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.  And to disallow any mistake about which he was speaking, he added, for the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life, a ransom for many.

I wonder, I wonder if Paul had heard that story about Jesus responding to Peter and James in that fashion.  I wonder because in verses 3 and 4 of Philippians II, he laid the claim upon the Christians at Philippi, not to be served, but to serve.  You remember how he put it – there must be no room for rivalry and personal vanity among you, but you must humbly reckon others better than yourselves.  Look to each other’s interests and not merely to your own.  And now in our scripture lesson today, verses 5-11, he shows us clearly what that means.  He gives us one of the most beautiful pictures in all scripture of the nature and character of Christ, and one of the most demanding challenges to those who would be his followers.  Let’s live with that passage for a while today, as we seek to probe and appropriate its meaning.  Focus first on Jesus.  If we begin with Jesus, the chances of ending up at the right place are excellent.  Did you hear of that drunk man who was wandering down the street, crawling around looking for something?  A passerby said, “Sir, what are you looking for?”  And the drunk responded, “My wallet.”  “Well where did you lose it?”  “About a block down the street.”  “Then why are you looking here?” the passerby inquired.  The drunk responded, “Because there’s no streetlight back there.”  Whether in darkness and confusion or in light and clarity, we need to look in the right place to find Christian meaning.  So we begin with Jesus.  One of the problems in the church is that we don’t do enough hard, serious thinking.  This has been especially true, I think, of the Methodist church, because we’re not rigid doctrinarians, because our founder, Mr. Wesley put such a great emphasis upon experience rather than proposition.  We tend to excuse ourselves from theological grappling and serious study.  Yet, this is far from Wesley in his approach to the faith.  He did say, if your heart is as my heart, you’re my brother, give me your hand, putting the emphasis on experience.  But Wesley was not a sloppy thinker.  He was a creative theologian.  He put great emphasis on teaching and learning, and the mind was a gift to us from God, and had to be used.  Wesley received a letter once from a pious brother who declared, ‘The Lord has directed me to write you and tell you that while you know Greek and Hebrew, he can do without your learning.’  Mr. Wesley responded appropriately, ‘Your letter received, and I may say in reply to your letter that it was superfluous, because I already know that the Lord could do without my learning.  I wish to say to you, that while the Lord does not direct me to tell you this, yet I do it on my own accord, that the Lord does not need your ignorance either.’ 

So let’s do some, let’s do some deliberate theologizing today.  That is, let’s think seriously and deeply, beginning with Jesus as he is portrayed by Paul in Philippians 2:5-11.  Now I want you to hear that scripture again, because it’s one of the most magnificent passages in the whole bible.  ‘Have this mind among yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.  Who, though he was in the form of God, did not county equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of servant and being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even death on the cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.  That is the name of Jesus.  Every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth.  And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ 

Now this section of scripture is packed with meaning.  And it’s a hinge passage of Paul affirming the pre-existence of Christ and describing the nature of the incarnation.  Verses 6 and 7 graphically state the case.  ‘Who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant and coming in the likeness of men.’  Now I’m almost breathless before such a passage, and tremble at the thought of commenting on it.  I’m afraid I may say too little, or I may say too much, and detract from the majestic truth that is here.  There are intriguing theological nuances, aspects of interpretation that could occupy hours of discussion, especially questions about what it means to be in the form of God, or for Christ to have God’s nature and possess equality with him.  Not only here, but in numerous other passages, Paul embraced with certainty the pre-incarnate, as well as the incarnate life of Christ being of divine nature.  I mean by that, that long before, in fact from the beginning, before we knew anything about an historical Jesus who walked the dusty roads of Palestine, and who was conceived and born of a virgin, from the very beginning, Christ existed with God, at one with him, and equal to him. 

Paul grabs our attention with a puzzling suggestion.  Christ did not count equality with God something to be grasped.  Perhaps we need to put that verse in different words to understand the meaning.  We can say it like this, Christ was in the form God, he was equal with God, but he did not count this a prize to be clutched or to hang on to.  The idea is so mountainous, that we may never scale it.  But that’s alright.  To be in awe, even puzzled awe in contemplating God’s coming to us in Jesus Christ, is a proper Christian response.  We need to be breathless now and then.  We need to be speechless.  We need to be in awe over the awesome reality of God, and the mysterious fact of the incarnation, and know that these are beyond our comprehension.  Yet, we can ascend the great heights of this mountainous truth by a simple exercise.  That is, by comparing Jesus to the first man Adam.  Paul did that all the time.  He called Jesus the second Adam.  And he was always comparing Jesus to the first man, Adam.  Adam, the man, grasps at equality with God.  Christ renounced equality with God in order become man.  You see the difference - the enormous difference?  Adam grasped at equality with God, Christ renounced equality with God in order to be man.  Thus, that phrase in verse 7 is crucial.  Christ emptied himself.  The King James Version which says, ‘made himself of no reputation,’ is inadequate to capture the expansive meaning and power of what Christ did.  And it’s easy to get confused here, and commentators disagree, some contend for the extreme.  That Christ emptied himself of his divine nature, or to a lesser degree, but still extreme.  That it was his equality with God of which he emptied himself.  I can’t agree with either position.  The Greek word translated “being” in our text is not the common Greek word for being. It describes what a person is in essence.  That which cannot be changed, the innate, unchangeable characteristics of a person, through chances and changes and all circumstances, this being essence remains the same.  Paul, I think, would not regard as possible, the surrender by Christ of his divine nature.  His own experience of the risen Lord was such a vital factor in the formation of his thought, that he who had come to mean so much to him, surely did not begin to exist when he was born in Bethlehem.  So the nature of this one did not change in essence when he became man.  He did empty himself though, of the glories of heaven, of the prerogatives of being divine.  He emptied himself of rank and privilege and rights.  The Lord became a servant.  Don’t miss that.  The Lord – the King of kings and Lord of lords – became a servant. 

Do you remember that beautiful prayer of Jesus that’s recorded in the 17th chapter of John?  Jesus is praying about there, in his last prayer in the Upper Room, he says to the Father, God, I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gaveth me to do.  And now Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee, even before the world was made.  More clearly than any place else in scripture, the shape of the incarnation – God coming to us as a person – is described here - humiliation, weakness, and obedience.  He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.  Was Paul thinking about the suffering servant passage in Isaiah 53, especially verse 12?  ‘Therefore, I will divide him a portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death.  And was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors, and by his stripes, by his stripes, we are healed.’  Don’t ever lose this picture from your mind.  Jesus is Lord.  Jesus is Lord, and we’ll come back to that in a few minutes.  He is King of kings and Lord of lords.  But here is his identifying uniqueness – he is the Lord who is servant.  He is the Lord who is servant, and a suffering servant at that.  And if you will keep that picture in mind, you will never be without guidance for your own life and ministry.  And that leads me to the second mountainous idea we must consider.

The mind of Christ in us.  That’s the way this passage begins.  Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.  In many ways, verses 5 through 11 make up the greatest and most moving passage that Paul ever wrote about Jesus - certainly the most descriptive.  But not only is this a vivid description of who Jesus is, it is a call to us.  In Jesus we find embodied the self-giving of God to persons, and the self-giving of a person to other persons.  Jesus is the Lord who is servant, and Jesus is the servant who is Lord.  As the Lord who is servant, Jesus identifies with human life, so as to establish a redemptive relationship.  As servant who is Lord, Jesus calls us to acknowledge his lordship through our own servanthood.  Paul introduces this great theological statement of who Jesus is to support his call to the Philippians to look out not only for their own interests, but also for the interest of others.  His toughest word was in verse 3 – in lowliness of mind, let each esteem another better than himself - and what stark contradiction to the rampant self-interest being expressed by most.  It is scathingly clear - the call of Christ is that our ultimate concern leaves no room for indulgent self-concern.  Did you get that?  The call of Jesus makes it clear that our ultimate concern leaves no room for self indulgent, self-concern.  The call is to have the mind of Christ, who emptied himself, and become a servant.  Do you need a picture for it?  Here it is. 

Mother Theresa put her mental finger on the deepest need, not just the people who are dying in the slums of Calcutta, but of all human beings.  Not only did she defined the need, she gave herself and her order of serving nuns, to be the answer to that need.  Listen to her – “In these 20 years of work amongst the people, I have come more and more to realize that being unwanted is the worst disease that any human being can know.”  Think about that.  Being unwanted, is the worst human disease a person can know.  Nowadays, she said, we have found medicine for leprosy and lepers can be cured.  There’s medicine for TB and consumptives can be healed.  For all kinds of diseases, there are medicines and cures.  But for being unwanted, except there are willing hands to serve, and loving hearts to love, I don’t think this terrible disease will ever be cured.  Willing hands to serve, and loving hearts to love, that having the mind of Christ, being a servant.  But not many of us want to be servants like that, do we? 

Very early in my ministry here, I reminded you, and I will continue to remind you, that even us who have the notion that Christianity centers in service, need to realize that there’s a vast difference between the way most of us serve and Jesus’ call to be a servant. Most of us serve by choosing when and whom and how and where we will serve.  We stay in charge.  Jesus is calling for something else.  He’s calling us to be servants.  And when we make this choice, we give up the right to be in charge.  Then, amazingly, we experience great freedom.  We become available and vulnerable.  We lose our fear of being stepped on or manipulated or taken advantage of, and aren’t these our fears?  But what joy comes – what energizing of life – when we act out of the desire to be a servant, rather than the pride-producing choice to serve now and then, when we please. 

Now I must close.  Let’s return to where we began – to Jesus.  It is the paradox of the Christian gospel that the last become first, the humble are exalted, the servant becomes Lord, the poor becomes rich.  The Beatitudes of Jesus, which express all that, is a catalogue of the way things are turned upside down and inside out in the economy of God’s kingdom.  So Jesus’ enunciation of the humble being exalted, was gloriously fulfilled in his own case.  He ascended after the resurrection and now sits at God’s right hand.  Therefore, God has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.  That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  That’s who Jesus is.  And who he is determines who we are, if we’re going to be Christians.  Carl Young, the great psychiatrist, told of am an who asked a rabbi once, how come in olden days God would show himself to people, but today nobody ever sees God?  The rabbi said, because nowadays, nobody can stoop low enough.  Is the rabbi right?  Because nowadays, nobody can stoop low enough. 

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who bowed low, emptied himself, and became a servant.  Let this mind be in you, then we will see and know and share with God, as we become servants of the servant who is Lord.