OCT 16 2016 | Philippians 2:1-11

Sea Change Church · "Philippians 2:1-11" · Adam Stadtmiller · October 16, 2016
Philippians 2:1-11
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

And so Pastor Adam's going to talk about that out of Philippians chapter 2 verses 1 through 11. It'll be behind me. And then if it's also in your bulletin and after I get done reading, I'm going to say the word of the Lord. And if you can respond, thanks be to God, that'd be really cool. Not school. All right. 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 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, rather value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being the very nature of 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 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.

This is the word of the Lord. Thank you. I made the newsletter and put pirate's booty on that. I enjoyed doing that this week. I don't know if anybody caught that. Anybody catch that? For the candy. But this is exciting because Paul talks a lot about the heart. The scripture we know talks about the mind. It talks about the gut. And the word that he uses is the bowels.

And we'll look at that word because he talks about a holistic life that connects the heart and the mind and the stomach. And he talks about living from these different places and about how they need to have an order of control. Meaning that the mind of the spirit controls the stomach, the appetites. The appetites of the stomach don't control the decisions that we make.

We're here again looking for the last week. Really a microscope under one of these churches from the book of Acts and in the area of Macedonia. If you are new, we have been in the book of Acts for a long time now. Most of the year we're coming in for a landing here. And we ended up on Paul's second missionary journey in the Macedonian churches.

That is Thessalonica. That is Philippi. That is Berea. And these churches had a special place in Paul's heart. The Philippian church, I would say probably from just my own gleanings, would be Paul's favorite church. They were the ones that supported him the most. Matter of fact, one time when he was in great need, he says, You were the only church that supported me.

They were the ones that when he was in prison in Rome, they sent Epaphrodite up to Rome to spend time in the jail with him and to comfort for his needs and to really care for him. They were a generous church. And Paul, in the book of Philippians, he talks about their generosity. Now I've spoken about the book of Revelations where God gives accounts of churches.

These are individual churches just like this one. He says, and he has an idea and a respect for certain things churches do. I talked last week about wanting to create and craft a church that Jesus would look at and say, Yeah, that's my church there on the corner. That little church there on that corner, that matters significantly in the kingdom of heaven.

Not that all churches don't, but we see that churches have personalities. The church at Philippi definitely had a personality. It was a generous church. It was a church that lived from their heart. It was a church that lived from their guts. It was a church that had courage. You think about the different analogies they have. You know, you can't stomach that.

Or when somebody is going out and you get what in your stomach? You get butterflies in your stomach. Your stomach is a, can be a real barometer for your emotions. You talk about courage. You say, you know, somebody, you know, they don't have the guts to do that. What does that mean? Why do we use those terms? It really, I think it comes from a lot of Greek thought, but also in the scripture here, when Paul speaks about it.

So when he speaks to this Philippian church, he's speaking to a church that has guts. A church that is willing to suffer for Christ, to stand up, to have courage, and in the midst of extreme poverty, willing to give of themselves. Then Paul, as you look, it's just a beautiful book. The more I've been into it, I've just been loving it. You see how Paul, he's such an architect as he crafts a letter.

No word is out of place. Every, every thought, everything builds. And as he talks about this generosity, he points to what Jesus did on the cross. He points to Jesus and he says, if you want to know what generosity looks like, let me show you this. I want to say that when it comes, when I speak about generosity as you as a congregation, I know that whether you give or not financially, God's going to take care of our needs.

We don't need anyone to give because God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. What I want to see is us have a generous hearts that changes the nature of the believers in this church. And this is what I said a week ago. When God wants to show you he loves you, he doesn't just send you a check. He blesses your emotions. He gives you peace. He gives you joy.

Generosity is so much more than just a financial thing, although that is part of it. But when Jesus, when God wanted to show love and wanted to show generosity, what did he send? Did he send you a check? No. He sent his son. He sent his very son that would die on a cross that we might be saved. And that is the message of the gospel, that we can be reunited with God the Father.

And so you see that. And if you put the scripture back up there, if you would, it talks about this. We'll get into this in a moment. It says that Jesus, who being in very nature God, that's verse 8, did, excuse me, 6, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Or you've heard the word grasp. We're going to get into that word in a minute.

What are you grasping at? Grasping at straws. What are you holding on to? Afraid you're going to lose. Rather, he made himself. What did he make himself? Anybody have the word there? Nothing. By taking on the very nature of a servant and being made in human likeness. Mark 10, 45 says, I did not come to be served. But Jesus said, I came to do what? Serve.

And give my life as a ransom for many. And being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death. Even death on a cross. Because you can't kill the author of life. He has to give his life away. And therefore, it says that God exalted him. That is what Paul was saying to what generosity is. That's generosity. Generosity is, that is the example we live from.

And that is the model. And so when we think about living generous lives. Whether it be letting somebody go in front of you in traffic. And I have to really work on that. Like, I bring it up a lot. Really hard for me. Or if you, like, come behind me really fast, I'm in race mode. I'm like, oh, yeah, you think you're going to do that? Anybody else a racer?

Yeah, I hate that. Why? Why? They're probably going to the hospital. Their mom's sick, you know? And I'm like, no, you're trying to race me. Don't, you know, come up off me like that. Rev your engine. I'll show you what's up in my little Ford. It's a Toyota, actually. Here's the main course. And this is what I think is so important about generosity. Being a person that's generous in your forgiveness.

Just being generous in your words. Being generous in your opinions. It's so easy to not be generous in our opinions or what we think about people. That generosity has a way to stake a sword into the heart of our own covetousness and our flesh. I think that generosity kills the flesh. No matter where you give that generosity. Whether it's a word or whatever.

But if you want to kill your flesh. If you're tired of your stomach. The appetites of your stomach. Running your life. And we're going to talk about the two different types of guts that Paul talks about. There's a good one and there's a bad one. But if you've been living from your kolia. Which is a Greek word for the stomach that just your passions rule you.

If you want to put a stake in that. If you want to chop the head off of that giant. Start being generous. Just start being generous with your time. Your treasure. Your talent. Just start giving stuff away. Giving words away. Being kind with your words. Do you hold your words? Do you, you know, you don't give praise very much. You know, I play basketball at the YMCA.

And there's this one guy I always play with. I can do 50 good things. But you do one negative thing. Come on, why'd you throw the ball out of bounds? Did you see I just got 15 rebounds, bro? You threw it out of bounds. That'd be nice if you didn't throw the ball out of bounds. I said, it's hard to work out my father issues here on the court when you keep doing that, bro.

Stop it. That went over well, actually. Here's the main course. Generosity. Here's the main course for today. Generosity sets God on the throne. There's an apostrophe there. We don't need that apostrophe. Generosity sets God on the throne of your life. Listen to that. You want God on the throne of your life? Be generous. Christ on the seat of your mind and the spirit over the desires of your stomach.

Just be generous. If you want to follow Christ, just be generous. It's not that hard, but it's incredibly difficult. This is the grand kenosis passage. This Greek word, kenosis, meaning to self-empty. God emptied himself out. He took all that was God and he just poured it all out. And he didn't consider that he had to stay God. He didn't have to be right.

God could have looked at us and said, you bunch of sinners, I told you not to eat from the tree. I told you not to disobey. Now you've got to go to hell. I'm God. I'm right. He didn't have to be right. He's going to say, do you have to be right? He didn't consider being right, worthy enough and more important than you. And so he gave up, even though he kept the nature of God, he gave up, Jesus, certain characteristics of the Godhead so that he might become obedient to even death.

That's generosity. I want to give it all. Who would give up being God? Who? I can't even give up a space in line. You know what I'm saying? I'm at Vons. Hey, bro, you got 17 items there. I counted. I counted. Now it says around 15. So they stopped. Yeah. I just want to erase that. No, no, no. It's 15. Not around 15. I'm trying to save the world with peace and all that.

It's 15. I can't even give that up. And Jesus doesn't even have to be here. There's some other you that do that, right? You count. Why's your dog in the store? No. I won't go there. Next I'll be talking about the seals. I can't even give up the things that are my opinions. I'm upset about. And he can give up the Godhead parts of it just to humble himself.

That's generosity. You want to know what it looks like? That's what it looks like. This is the kenosis passage. It's Greek. Kenosis is the self-emptying of one's own will. And becoming entirely receptive to God's divine will. That's generosity. You've given up rights. Your rights. And I think it's in the notes later. But we are in a society where everyone wants to grab their rights.

It's my right. It's my right. There's like this entitlement in America right now. This is a right. Let's fight about our rights. Let's fight about our rights. You know what? I'm not saying that rights aren't important. And they are to keep a society governed. But you know what I saw? I just want to bring Jesus into the conversation if I can. Because it really made me think.

He just said, you know what? I don't have to have any rights. Matter of fact, just put me up on the cross for the sake of love. When I looked at that, I was like, ooh, ooh. That is going to definitely diffuse some of my opinions. When I saw that this week, that kind of just diffused some of my opinions. And I thought, man, what if I just gave in to love?

What if I just gave in to not having to grab and define my rights? I'm right. Interesting. That's the kenosis passage. We're talking about living from your guts. You'll see in the notes right there. Paul encourages us to live from our guts, but with a stomach that is controlled by the Spirit. Let me say that again. Paul encourages us to live from our guts.

And you'll see the word there in a second. But with a stomach that is controlled by the Spirit. Go to verse 1. So, therefore, and he's speaking about Christ. He's setting up for this kenosis passage. He's talking about the life that they already live. He's talking about the kind of church that they are. And he's not rebuking them. He's actually, if you read through the text, he's reaffirming what they're already doing.

And I hope that we are the same kind of church. I want us to be a Philippian church. I really want to be the pastor of a Philippian church. I want to be a co-laborer in the gospel with a church that's just in heaven. They're just like, yeah, that church right there. Yes, I've got nothing negative to say about that. They are blessing me. Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united in Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, and that is a unified, a sharing of all things, because these are what these churches did.

They shared to survive. They couldn't survive without sharing. If you know the history of Australia, eventually they had to, when the criminals and the admirals got there, they couldn't survive without saying, you know what, we all have to bond together. And they got rid of their titles because they wouldn't survive without unity. I believe in the church we are the same way place today.

If any tenderness, and if any compassion, and the word there is Splachnon. Okay? Let's all say that together. Splachnon. Okay? It sounds German, and I am German. Stattmüller. But it's Splachnon, and it's Greek. Say it one more time. Splachnon. You know what that means? It means bowels. That's what it means. That word means your bowels. If you have any guts to do this, if you have any courage, if you have any...

When the Greeks, in Greek thought, when you spoke about this, or you spoke to the Jews, they understood that there was... Life was not just lived from the mind. That life was lived from your very guts. It was this life that was passionate. It was a life that lived to its fullest. It was a life that gave, that was willing to die on the battlefield. Just the best thing, when you think that person has guts, that goodness, when you think about that, that's what Paul is saying here with Splachnon.

And so he uses this word, and he encourages them. Let's look what it means. It says, The bowels were regarded as the seat of the more violent passions. The scripture says, talks about passions, and following God with our passions. Such as anger and love. There's nothing wrong with anger, as long as it is controlled by the Spirit. But by the Hebrews, as the seat of tenderness, affection, especially kindness, benevolence, compassion, hence our heart, our tender mercies, our affections, etc.

This is so interesting, that Paul is saying, when I want you to live, I want you to live from a deep tenderness. I want it to be real. When you can really feel, that it's just this thing, that you want to just do the right thing. Do you ever get that? Do you ever well up? Generosity wells up inside, and you can see that it affects your whole body, has the ability to do this.

Now this is contrary, from a little bit later in the scripture, where Paul brings up stomach again. Here he brings up stomach in a different way. Here he brings up guts in a different way, and he uses a completely different word. Philippians 3, 18 and 19 says this, For as I have told you before, and now tell you again, even with many tears, that many live as enemies of the cross.

So Paul cried over people that were lost, and there were enemies of the cross. I'm going to say, do we want to rant, or do we want to have revival? When was the last time you cried over a person who was an enemy of the cross, or do we just rant about it? Do we just get angry? Do we just get fearful? Or do we shed tears over the lost? And are we willing to suffer for their sake?

Romans 5, 8, While we were yet sinners, what did Christ do? Everybody know what that scripture says? Christ died for us. Would you be willing to die for a sinner? Would you be willing to die for a figure that is an enemy of the cross? Jesus was. He was. This is Paul. And it says that many live as enemies of the cross. Their destiny is destruction. Their God is their koelia.

Koelia. Let's say that together. Koelia. Koelia. It means their stomach. Now Paul just used the word bowels, guts. But then he used it in a different way. A way that has been controlled by God. When our guts, when our gut desire is controlled by a mind of the spirit, you start living with power. But when you have a stomach, koelia, that is your passions, the things that you really want.

Lust. If you've ever experienced lust, lust is koelia. It has that feeling to it. It's different than a feeling of courage to run onto the battlefield. Think of the feeling that would come with lust versus the feeling that would come with courage. Standing up for somebody. Or perhaps a child. Or somebody who's being misused or mistreated. The different feelings that you would have in your stomach.

When you were standing up for somebody and say there's a whole bunch of bullies. And you go and you stand up and you help them. And maybe you've stood up for somebody in the past. Or you stand up for justice. In that moment, it's hard. And you can feel the butterflies in your stomach. But when you run onto that battlefield like a Braveheart scene.

When you do that, you'll feel that in your guts. And I gotta tell you, it feels a lot different than lust is gonna feel. Lust is a hungry, desirous passion that rises up within you. That wants to have the final word. That wants to be covetous. That is like Gollum with the ring. There is a difference there and you can feel those differences. Matter of fact, this week, when I was preparing this, I began to ask myself, where is that feeling coming from?

Which stomach, which bowel is that coming from? And it was pretty easy after a while to define, this is from me and this is being driven by the Holy Spirit and this is of the flesh. The koelia is of the flesh. It's the things that we want. We don't wanna live a Christian life from koelia. I think that there are pastors today that I see that are shepherding churches in the name of God from koelia.

There's a sense of pride. There's a sense, and I gotta say, I have to watch myself on a regular basis. There's a sense of living, creating a church built on the ideas of the flesh. Whether it's to get bigger, whether it's to whatever, be known, whether it's to be popular, whatever it is. And then there is a church that is run by Splachnon, which is with this mind of Christ, rules the guts, rules the passions, that gives you the courage, even though you don't feel like it, to get out of bed and say, I feel depressed, I feel dark, I feel lonely, but I will get up, because it takes courage just to get out of bed in the morning sometimes.

It takes courage to go to work. It takes courage to do these things, to do the things that God has called you to do, but we can do them from this deep courage. It's like a Joshua courage. It's like a Moses courage. It's like the kind of courage Jesus experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane that stood there with everything. He cried from the depths of his being.

He cried out to God. He cried from the cross out. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Never saying my father, because the father never forsook the son, but God himself did have to forsake for the sake of us. Where are you living from? Which passions are you living from? Here the appetites are controlling the mind. Now let's juxtapose this to Romans 8.

Turn your page over. 5 and 8. Because you're going to start to see Paul's letters. If you could lay all the letters out on one big wall, like a, what do they call those? Those mindscaping, you know, where you brainstorm. If you laid Paul's letters out, you would be able to start putting strings from one letter to the next, to the next, and see where these ideas start flowing through the passages in this beautiful ebb and flow of a high tide and a low tide, talking about these different things.

Paul in Romans mentions these same ideas. It says in Romans 8, 5 through 8, those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things the flesh desires. So there it is. The ruling. Is the stomach ruling the mind? Or is the mind of Christ, like I said in the opening course, the spirit of Christ, the mind of Christ ruling the stomach? It says, but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their minds set on what the spirits desire.

Their mind, the mind governed by the flesh is what? Death. But the mind governed by the spirit is what? Life and peace. I've got to say, if you want to let your stomach be guided by your mind, the mind of Christ, and put those appetites in control, you will start sowing seeds of life and peace. We talked about Paul last week saying that he learned to be content in all situations.

Somebody reminded me of something I said this week that I'd forgotten I had said weeks ago. They said, you said to lessen our desires that we would have more peace. That's true. If you just want less, you're going to have a lot more peace. Just want less. Spend less time on Realtor.com. Spend less time on Amazon. Spend less time, whatever it is. Just want less.

And let the spirit let you want the right things. That's a beautiful verse right there. It gives you life and peace. Do you want life and peace? Stop living according to the stomach and try to feel where these thoughts are coming from. It's not too hard. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. It's pretty simple to know what you are. So here's my question for you. In the notes, are you living according to Shplachnon or Koylea? Which one? Or are there different seasons of the day? Now I know we don't all live completely one or the other, but what would it take to change and switch that desire over?

To put to death the things of the flesh and those stomach and those fleshly desires. In Shplachnon, ! The mind of the spirit controls and fuels a deep gut passion for righteousness. Let me say that again. In Shplachnon, the mind of the spirit, the mind, the mind of Christ, the mind of the spirit, they are one and the same, controls and fuels a deep gut's passion for righteousness.

What happens is when we seat the mind, when we seat Christ on the seat of our mind and we let it rule our stomachs, we begin to have an unstoppable force of God's kingdom power in our life. We begin to live with a new type of power. We begin to live with a new type of authority that is able to speak to sickness, that is able to speak to depression, that is able to speak to the broken things in our society and to make a difference.

To be living kingdom power, we begin to channel the power of God through our entire being. But we've got to start seating the mind over our guts. Key point, and we're closing. Final point. Few things destroy fleshly living like generosity. I said that at the beginning. If you want to destroy the flesh, if you want to make the switch to splachnon, and you want to have a mind controlled by Christ, just start giving stuff away.

Give away your time. Give away your beautiful words because the words have power of what? Life and death. Just start speaking life to people. I was with my mom yesterday where she took me shopping. You can see. We've got some clothes. School, I'm 47. My mom still takes me shopping. Very cool. I want to take you shopping. Cool. Let's do this thing. We stop.

We're getting water. There's the person at UTC and they're giving you water and they're the hospitality person. And you'd think my mom was the hospitality person because she walks up and she goes, you have a great spirit about you. You have beautiful eyes. You're just so kind. You're great at your job. And I'm just like, wow. And she's just engaging.

And I did have to pull her away because I knew we were going into a 30-minute conversation at that point and I needed my new jeans. But just gracious. Just gracious. Gracious. Yes. Yes. Bless you. Bless you. You drove in front of me. Bless you. Bless you. You're amazing. That's so great. Oh, I'm so... I was talking to somebody this week and I just said, you know, I just, I sensed it.

I sensed the Holy Spirit on them. They're not a... They are following Christ but they're following other things as well. But they said to me, I want to follow Christ too. And I didn't have to go into exclusivity. I said, that's awesome. Paul would say you're a God-fearer and I want to help you follow Christ. Let me help you. I want to learn about Judaism too.

I'm like, cool. We can talk. I said, let's talk about that. I said, you know, I see the Spirit of God on you. There was a time 10 years ago where if you weren't... If I didn't think you were a professing Christian, I wouldn't have been able to say that. But I actually did see the Spirit of God on her. And I began to say, you know, I just see the Spirit of God on you.

And it was true. And I could say, it created a community in the conversation. Be gracious. Just be generous. You want to kill your flesh? Be generous. Be generous to your wife. Be generous to your kids. You know, and they're like, oh, you didn't take the trash out of you. Come on. Come on. Take the trash out of yourself and just tell your kid you love them.

You know, I mean, just crush it. I know there has to be rules. I'm not saying all that. But if you want to destroy your flesh and when you get anger, let me just ask this. Anger, you can feel it. Figure out where it comes from. Which stomach's it coming from? It's pretty easy to figure out. Trust me. It ends with this. It says, Jesus, it says, in the very nature of God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped to use to his own advantage.

And that's my final point. What are you grasping at? Are you grasping? Are you grasping to hold on, to get more? Better one handful with peace than two fistfuls with striving and chasing after the wind. I'm going to ask the prayer team to come forward and Olin as well. And we're going to sing one song. We're going to ask you to stand, if you would, and just take a minute to chew on this generosity.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.