In Philippians 2:1–5, we come to one of the most important passages in the entire New Testament. The Christ hymn that takes up the second half of this passage has, for good reason, demanded an incredible amount of attention within this book. In only a few verses, Paul’s writing takes us from the incomprehensible depths of eternity when the Son existed in the form of God to the point where he willingly takes on the form of a servant through his incarnation, and then down to the depths of his death on the cross, only to soar back up into the cosmos with Jesus exalted as Lord over all creation. What a magnificent Savior we worship!

But, despite our inclinations to examine the Christ hymn on its own, we must come to grips with the context in which Paul includes it in his letter to the Philippians. This is not a pure doxology, where Paul bursts into praise of the exalted, glorious, suffering servant. Instead, Paul gives us this written portrait of Christ’s humility as the picture of humility to which we ought to be conformed. Paul has written of his own rejoicing in the midst of suffering (Phil. 1:12–18), and of the confidence he has on the basis of his suffering (Phil. 1:19–30), and now he reveals the secret of how to rejoice and take confidence in suffering: humility. Through humility, we discover that unity, likemindedness, and even Christ-likeness all become possible.

We have been in a series in Philippians and as we come to perhaps the most famous passage in Philippians the Christ Hymn. I had intended to preach these first eleven verses, all in one fell swoop. But as I got into this, this was far too rich to do in one week, so I will be splitting this up. We'll look primarily at the first four or five verses this morning and then look at the last section of this next week, Lord willing, is the plan. On that note, I will have sermon notes, Lord willing, for this passage next week. It couldn't really split them up, so we'll be giving you those altogether next week is the plan.

Hear now the word of the Lord from Philippians two.

1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:1-11, ESV

This is the word of the Lord. My junior year in high school, I did a super cool move, which was to join the debate team. I talked about band last week, I was also in debate, which again just raises my stock considerably in terms of popularity, but as I joined the debate team, I really loved it. I enjoyed it so much and very quickly I found a particular event. I tried a couple, but a particular event that I really resonated with, which was called Student Congress, where you would gather in a mock Congress and debate mock legislation. It was just as fun as it sounds. I loved it. I prepared really hard. I competed hard the whole year with the goal of at the very end of the year, competing in the national qualifying tournament and Lord willing going to Nationals.

So as I was preparing for the national qualifying tournament, I studied hard. I researched well each of my speeches. I had pro and con speeches so I could give any speech I wanted on any issue, and I practiced all my speeches in the mirror. It was so much fun. I finally got there and my morning was going pretty well. I was able to give two speeches and they were awesome, if I do say so myself. I was thinking things were going very, very well until I got to the afternoon and I couldn't for anything give another speech.

The way it works is I had two speeches in the morning and so they give precedence in speaking to people who haven't spoken that much. Well, apparently everyone was sleeping the entire morning and didn't give a speech, so I couldn't speak the entire afternoon. I came in fourth. The top two people went to nationals, except that the guy who came in second place had already qualified in nationals for a speech event and couldn't compete in both. So he gave his spot to the third place person and I was the odd man out. Quarter of an inch Charlie and I would have been in.

It was a terrible, for a 17 year old, a terrible, terrible event. Although that wasn't great suffering, suffering with a lowercase s. The fruit of that was, the result of that was that I dedicated that I would go to nationals the next year. Now it ended up not mattering because I wasn't sadly able to go to the next national qualifying tournament. The story doesn't end well, but in the in between those two tournaments, I dedicated myself to two things. One, that's when I started running and jogging because these debate days are exhausting and I wanted to have total alertness all day long to be able to compete hard the whole day. And I also bought and dedicated myself to the study of Robert's Rules of Order parliamentary procedure. Which meant that I was just as super nerd as they come, but I memorized inside outside that that six hundred and forty-three page book of drudgery for the purpose of being able to run for presiding officer.

There were some other events that you could do kind of within the event, and I became at the end of that summer registered parliamentarian, which again, amazing off the charts nerdiness. But none of that would have happened. I wouldn't have been able to dedicate myself to that without the punch in the gut that coming in fourth had been. I mean, you may think that that's not a good thing, and trust me, reading Rules of Order is not as fun as it sounds, but I wouldn't have been able to press through that apart from having this raw, bitter taste in my mouth of having lost. I wanted to come back next year ready to compete.

You know, when we think of suffering, Paul, if you remember, from last week has just finished a passage where he talks about suffering as God's grace toward us. He says it's been graciously granted, the word there at verse twenty-nine is, "For it has been granted" or literally graced "to you." It's an idea that this is a good gift, this is a gracious gift, this is not something that is a bitter pill to swallow, period. Paul says this is grace. Not only that, you should believe we could see that God opening our eyes to see the beauty of Jesus, to trust him, to love him, to desire him so that we can't help but turn from our sin and turn to Christ. Well, of course, that's grace. Paul says also suffering is grace. That's what makes no sense to us.

What Paul is saying here is not that suffering is a good thing in itself that we should want to suffer, that we should somehow just delight In pain. That's not at all what he's saying. What is the case he's going to make in the passage that we're looking at today is that there is fruit that comes immediately out of suffering that we can get through no other path. Unless we go through suffering, we will not get the good, gracious gifts that God intends for us to have in Christ.

So we're going to look this morning at three fruits of God's gracious gift of suffering. Let's look first of this first verse in in Philippians 2:1, we're just looking at a few verses this morning, so we can kind of take our time as we go through this passage. I want to make four observations that will help us understand what Paul is saying here. T

he first observation is that Paul starts this verse 2:1, with a conjunction. Again, we talked about last week Conjunction Junction, what's your function? We have to understand which direction this is taking us. Well, in verse 19 of chapter one, earlier we talked about that "for" that takes us a step backwards to sort of give us the cause or the explanation behind what Paul has just written.

This word, "therefore" or "so" in the ESV, is a word that doesn't take us back a step to explain what's already happened, but it takes us forward a step to say, OK, this is the result. This is the consequence. All of what I've been telling you about the grace of suffering, here's where this goes. Here's what this looks like. Here are the consequences of that. So that's the first observation.

The second observation surrounds that second word there, "if" the word if. Now we only see this once in the ESV because it doesn't make sense to translate it in English as often as it appears in Greek. Really, it appears four time here. It's really beautiful repetitive Greek here, poetic, where, he says, "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from love, if any participation in the spirit, if any affection and sympathy will stop there for the moment." Each one is if, if, if, if.

The word if here isn't a hypothetical like, well, if, if you lived on the moon, then this would be possible or that would happen. It's not an outlandish hypothetical possibility. It's really more in the sense of since. He's talking about a reality that exists there and he's essentially making a proof here, a logical proof. If you ever studied reason or logic, you know that you have premises and you have conclusions.

So here's a very simple sort of silly, logical proof if or since we are in Omaha and if or since Omaha is a city in Nebraska. Well, if we are in Omaha, an Omaha is a city, Nebraska, then conclusion, we are also In Nebraska. That's not maybe mind blowing, mind shattering, but it's true. It's reflective of a reality, and that's what he's doing here. He's saying since these are realities and then is going to come to a conclusion that we'll look at in just a moment. Ok, that's the second observation that these are since, these are realities here.

Well, look at what he's talking about. He's talking about God's gracious, loving comfort to us In the midst of our suffering. So he talks in verse one about any if there's any encouragement or since there is encouragement in Christ. This word here it's the idea literally of coming alongside of someone. So what is the idea of an exhortation? You come alongside to someone you encourage them. I mean, think your track coach, if you are in track and you're just struggling to get to the finish line, your track coach comes alongside you and says, "Come on, come on, we can do this. Let's go, let's go. Let's go." That encouragement, that exhortation, that coming alongside is what helps you get to the finish line. It could mean that, but probably in the context, it's the idea of comfort.

That's why in John 14 through 16, we often read of the comforter. That's what Jesus keeps calling the Holy Spirit the comforter. It's the idea, encouragement is sort of an attempt, I think, to straddle the two. It's the idea of verbal comfort, encouragement that way, but it's the idea of comfort. This is the same word that we see in 2 Corinthians one "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all Comfort who comforts us in our all our affliction, so that here's the purpose that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."

So he first talks about our comfort and he says the same thing in the next phrase, any comfort from love. It's a different word, but with essentially the same meaning, it's the idea of the comfort that we have from love. And then, he says, any participation in the spirit, that word participation is a word for fellowship. It's the word that we saw in Philippians 1:5, "Because of your partnership, your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now." Paul says, I have a fellowship with you and we as believers have fellowship, participation, in the Holy Spirit.

Then finally, he says any affection and sympathy. This is a mutual kind of affection for one another. The word affection Paul used in 1:8, "for God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus." I love you with this affection and with this sympathy as I see you going through your suffering. I care about you. He's talking about this God participatory, we receive comfort, we give comfort, we love each other, affection, sympathy.

The fourth observation I want to make is look at what he says about how God interacts with
us, grants us this comfort. He says, first of all, our encouragement or our comfort is in Christ. Then later, he says that it comes through a participation in the Spirit. So you have of Son and you have Spirit and between there you have any comfort from love. Well, that could be the comfort that I gained from your love and you gained from my love. Probably what he's talking about here is the Father's love.

You have Son, Father, Spirit here, you have the Trinity. You say this is not just generic God love, this is triune God love. This is the comfort of God, which we receive and experience in the midst of our suffering and the comforting love of the triune God that spills out from us in affection and sympathy for one another.

What Paul is saying, here's the first fruit. This comforting love that we experience from the triune God, both as recipients and as conduits, as givers to other people. This comforting love is something you cannot have, you cannot experience, it simply doesn't come to you, except by way of suffering.

Now this makes sense to us if we're in the midst of working out. We remind ourselves why on earth it is that we do that by saying no pain, no gain. It's not that we want the pain, it's that we want the gain and you cannot gain the gain apart from the pain. So we keep going through it. We recognize there's a goal, there's a value, we get something from the pain. You recognize if you give yourself to a discipline, whether you're trying to learn a musical instrument or trying to master a subject or trying to become really good in your job or career, you say it's worth the repetitive, boring work that I have to put in, the suffering there, in order to get good at something.

What's easy to recognize when we work out, or maybe not so easy to recognize sometimes, but what we recognize, at least when we work out or when we give ourselves to a discipline, it's very difficult to perceive in the midst of suffering. Paul says look at what's happening, this grace of the comforting love of the triune God is flowing through you. You are communing with Father, Son and the Holy Spirit for the purpose of this love to spill out on other people who are in the midst of suffering. Don't miss that, value that ,cherish that. You can't get it any other way. The first fruit of suffering is the experience of the comforting love of our triune God.

In verse two, then Paul completes his logical proof. Only it's not just to state a conclusion.
It's not just well, therefore we are in Nebraska. It's more along the lines of a proof like this, since human beings require water to live, and since you are a human being, then he gives a command, therefore drink water, please. All of you, I have some if you need some. You need to drink water to survive. You've got to do this.

So what Paul says here, the not logical proof, but the logical command that he receives that he gives by way of conclusion and verse two is to say complete my joy. It's an image of filling up my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. He actually says a word for mind, a very similar word for mind twice.

The second fruit of suffering is unity. Deep, real, genuine, cannot be faked unity. He says here's the unity, it's the similar mind, it's a similar love, it's the one accord. It's again the same mind, one mind. He says, that's how I rejoice. That's my joy, by seeing the gospel so work in your life, it's already begun in part, but now bring it to completion. Fill up what is lacking.

It's a very similar thing, he says to Philippians 1:6, he says, "I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion." Different word for completion. That's one of bringing something to perfection. The one he uses in verse two is the idea of filling up. He's saying, I know that what has begun in part will be brought to completion. Here, Paul says in 2:2, finish it, complete it, fill it up with this incredible, extraordinary unity.

Now, have you ever noticed that it is a fundamentally different experience when you take a class with a group of people than when you join a team with a group of people? Whether you're talking sports team, whether you're talking band, if you were super cool like me, whether you're talking a company that you work for. It's a very different kind of a thing because if you take a class with someone you know you're in the same classes, you're hearing the same lectures, you're maybe reading the same things, you're working on the same mastery of the same material. You may even study together, quizzing each other and trying to get people ready for the test. But their performance on the test, if it's good, doesn't help you and their performance on the test, if it's bad, doesn't hurt you. You all are discrete and separate an individual. Whereas if you were on a team, someone else's performance does help or hurt you.

Now we're about to come to football and I promise to work really hard by the grace
of God, not to give too many football analogies, but think about what it looks like to see a running back end up scoring a touchdown for their team. You ever notice who is typically the first people to greet them down there? It's the big, ugly giant offensive lineman.
Just give them a bear hug and rip them up, or sometimes just lifting them above their head because they can do that because their offensive linemen.

Why is that? Well, it's not because an offensive lineman could do what the running back can do. Even if it's like a super special trick play like the Fumble Rusedski. You know, you saw Dean Stein cooler just rumbling down the field, he got caught even with a super catch you by surprise trick play. The offensive line does something different from the running back. They can't run shiftily like the running back, but they have to open up those holes. They have to get the defense out of the way. Even those very fast wide receivers they have to block to everyone has to do their job if one person fails to do their job. The running back does not score a touchdown, so it's the same thing. We're all together doing the same thing, but it's all for one purpose. What the person besides you does, whether they succeed or fail directly affects your success.

That's what Paul is talking about here. He's saying, you know, look, you are not the kind of person that just gets through life on your own discrete from everyone else, private from everyone else is separated from everyone else. Your success or failure is bound up in your unity, your fellowship, not just with the Spirit, but with one another. To the extent that your brothers and sisters succeed, you succeed. To the extent that you fail or succeed, your brothers and sisters do. Not because of any of our own contributions, but because our participation, our fellowship is ultimately with the Spirit of God who mediates to us the victory that Jesus has already won for us.

You are, Paul says, in need of unity. He says, fill it up, continue it. So what he's saying is this is where suffering comes in handy. The fruit of suffering, what you cannot get through any other means, through any other process, by any other path. The game that you cannot gain apart from your pain is unity. You will come together in a way through suffering as you suffer as a people of God, that you will not come to unity by any other way.

So the first fruit of our suffering is the comforting love of the triune God that we experience.
The second part of this, where Paul says keep going in this direction, don't be discouraged, is in our unity together as a people.

Well, as we talk about unity, one of the questions that always comes up, especially in our
culture, a very individualized Western culture, does that mean that we are all supposed to be the same bland, homogenous kind of people? That everyone's supposed to look the same, they just want us to do the same thing, that everyone has the same gifts. The answer to that is absolutely no. That's actually part of our identity as a church here. You know, as the elders sat and discussed who is Harvest a while ago, one of the things we recognized is that if you try to put a definition on all the people who are here, the only definition you can come to is that we are a radically different people.

We are in an area where you can walk one block and come to a million dollar homes and walk another block and come to thirty thousand dollar crack houses. That's the nature of the
community in which we exist. We are of people right here where we see all kinds of people rich and poor, black and white. We see people who are been in the faith from their childhood baptized and we see people who wander off the streets without ever having heard the gospel of Jesus. That's amazing. That's a gift of God. The only way we have unity in the midst of such incredible diversity is through the gospel. The only way that becomes applied to us is through suffering. You can't imagine it; you can't rationally understand it. It's sort of like trying to learn the trumpet without a trumpet. You can work on fingerings for so long and you can do that with your lips for so long, but until you pick up a trumpet, you can't learn the trumpet. Until you go through suffering together as a people, you cannot be bonded to them in unity.

The third fruit that we come to then is Paul not saying I want you all to look exactly alike, to dress exactly like, to talk exactly like. But he says, here's how I define unity, Paul says, it's not through downplaying your differences. It's through humility. It's not through recognizing that none of us have differences, it's recognizing that what comes beyond our differences is Jesus. Therefore let no one exalt himself or herself above everyone else.

So what Paul says in verse three says do nothing from rivalry. That's the same word that Paul used in 1:17. The former his rivals proclaim Christ out of chapter one, verse 17. The former people who are his opponents preach Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in it in my imprisonment. Paul is saying, don't do anything out of rivalry. Don't try to one up each other. Then he says, don't do anything out of conceit. By the way, I think there are a couple of different versions of the ESV. If you have an ESV that was printed more recently, what that says is something like vainglory or something along those lines. There are a couple of differences that I just discovered this morning between different printings, but this word for conceit is the word for is literally it's a compound word that means vainglory or empty glory. It's the idea of glory that is not real, but it is empty. It is fake. It is false.

Those two words empty and glory, Paul is about to use in the passage we're going to look at more next week. He speaks of Jesus emptying himself or making himself nothing in verse seven. He also speaks about how everything that Jesus did happen to the glory of God, the father. There's real glory, but don't seek empty glory Paul says.

Then he says as he continues in verse three, "but in humility", again, that's a compound word. It's lowliness of mind and again, he speaks of Jesus's humility in verse eight being found in human form, he humbled himself, same word there. Then the mind part, Paul says in verse five, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus", or which was also in Christ Jesus.

So he's using these words. He's saying he's already setting up the idea that what your life should look like is Jesus's. Don't lift yourself up. Don't exalt yourself but go the path that your savior walked of humility. Of looking out for the interests of others, he says in verse four.

Then verse five, he tells us where all this is going, and this is the link, and this is where we'll have to pick up again next week. He says, "Have this mind among yourselves", which literally which was also in Christ Jesus, it's a hard one to translate. I take what the what the footnote of the ESV have, "which was also in Christ Jesus". Literally, it's have this mind in you, which also in Christ Jesus. We had to supply a verb one way or another and I think it makes more sense to say this mind was the same mind that Christ Jesus himself
had, because he's urging us to imitate Jesus.

But why? Not in order to earn our salvation, Not because if you are like Jesus enough, if you follow closely after Jesus enough, then that will qualify you to enter into heaven. But he's saying something very similar and he expands upon this in 3:8, look at this with me. Paul writes, " Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ"

So what does that mean? Because of his sufferings, he's going to gain Christ. Look at how he phrases this in verse nine, "and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith."

The idea Paul is saying is saying, look, I don't have righteousness, I can't produce it, I can't manufacture it. There's nothing I could do to attain it except to look to Christ, who is righteous in faith so that my faith becomes the means by which I gain his righteousness. I don't have anything of my own, I need Jesus's righteousness. That's the gospel, that when we look to Jesus in faith, he saves us. He gives us an alien righteousness or righteousness, not our own, to save us. It's not that we can be unrighteous, unholy and appear before God, we can't. It's that we can't manufacture the righteousness that we need, we have to look to Jesus for it. That's the gospel.

Then Paul says the result of this in verse ten and eleven, "that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

We are called to suffer. Suffering is a grace is a gracious gift of God, because it conforms
us to the image of Christ. We don't imitate Christ to earn something. We imitate Christ from the righteousness that God gives us by grace through faith, so that we may be conformed to him. This unity, it's the unity of suffering that we have that binds us together so that we, as a people, as a church, are not disparate individuals who are individually connected to God, but individuals who, as a church, as a body of people, God fellowships with us.

Father, son and Holy Spirit, we engage with and experience the love of the triune God to unite us together to conform us like Christ. The love that God has for us, he gives us in Jesus to comfort us and to love one another so that we all together collectively may become like Jesus. So that as we travel the path of his sufferings, God confirms to us more and more that just as we suffer, we will also, with Christ, attain the resurrection from the dead.

The final reason suffering is grace is because it brings us into unity with the sufferings and therefore the resurrection of Jesus himself. Suffering really doesn't feel good. Paul isn't saying this is a good thing. Remember Jesus himself in John, 11, when he went to the funeral of his friend Lazarus, both said, "I am the resurrection and the life", and wept uncontrollably at seeing the suffering of Mary and Martha, Lazarus sisters.
He both insists I will raise up the dead on the last day and he insists this is a horrible, wretched thing that I will come again to put in order.

In the meantime, the suffering that God gives us, he says, as much as I hate it and I hate it more than you, Jesus says, what you have to understand is that I'm not going to waste a bit of it, not a moment of it, not a drop of it, the suffering that you undergo will be for your glory and your good and eternity to come.

I don't want to minimize suffering or downplay it. I want to, with Jesus, weep at it, but also to stand in hope that God is big enough to take it and to use it for my good and for your good and your suffering for my good and back and forth as we comfort one another with the comfort of Christ. As Christ comforts us in our affliction and we comfort one another.

Pray with me. Heavenly Father, of God, this world is so broken and you know that and that's why you sent Jesus to take the poison and the curse and the radioactivity of the fallenness of this world into himself. To taste it fully, to drink it down to the dregs so that there is nothing left of the sting of death and the curse of sin. Father, we know that you've given us this in part. We pray, God, that you would redeem our suffering. We don't pray that you would lead us into suffering, but we pray that the suffering that we naturally happen upon in the course of living in this broken world that you would not waste it but would use it. That you would create something glorious from it. That if we could see, we would be cheering you on that if we recognized and understood we would have such great endurance. Give us faith to follow you in places where our eyes cannot see that you were taking us. Give us the fruit of suffering, even as you lead us into its pain. Father, we pray all this in the name of Jesus, our lord who suffered for us and for our salvation. Amen.