What Do You Think?

An exposition of Philippians 1:27-2:11

What do you think of Palm Sunday? There’s too much going on in Jesus’ last week before Jesus was crucified to pack into one “holy week.” We are a Reformed church which means, among other things, that we don’t follow the traditional “liturgical calendar.” God did not give the church a calendar to follow. He gave us His Word and pastors. So we continue to celebrate the resurrection of Christ every Lord’s Day by meeting on the first day of the week. For the Christian, every week is holy.

Glorifying God is not only the chief end of man;

the glorifying of God will be what man is doing in the end.

How you think determines what you think. What you think shows how you think.

They say education should be about teaching kids how to think, not what to think, which sounds good and a good teacher can show students bad ways of thinking, that you think you can change sex because people are pressuring you to think that, but usually the best way to show people how to think is by telling them what to think, by specifically showing them that this is true. Think that two plus two is four because it is; truth is objective and real; it doesn’t change by how you feel about it; who you are doesn’t change by what you identify as.

To live like a Christian, you must learn how to think. To do that, listen:

The Application (1:27-30)

Some don’t like the gospel because it is a “clear sign” to them that there is judgment coming and the dollars they are chasing will be destroyed. They think it tells them about their destruction. They’re right, if they don’t repent.

The gospel tells us that God has given grace gifts to us: faith and suffering. That faith is a gift from God is a surprise to a lot of Christians today who often assume that faith is what we contribute; that it’s a product of our free will; that what separates us from people who don’t believe and so get destruction and those who do is that we chose to believe. But the Philippians, taught by Paul, knew better than that. Notice, in verse 29, “it has been granted” (grace given) that “you should not only believe.”

Suffering is the grace gift God will bless you with if you are engaged in the same mission with the church.

For more on how faith and suffering are gifts from God, listen to the YouTube video linked above.

The Exhortation (2:1-4)

Is there any encouragement, comfort from the love of God, any sense of spiritual fellowship (koinonia), affection, sympathy, deep-seated caring that comes from knowing Jesus? Of course! Then, top up his joy by partnering with each other.

The quest for glory for ourselves is one of the main things that drives many people. “The Play Preacher” preaches out of selfish ambition. See: “Don’t Feed the Play Preacher”:

“The sin of resentment that flares up so quickly in the fellowship indicates again and again how much false desire for honor, how much unbelief, still smolders in the community.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 96.)

The natural way is to think about yourself. The supernatural of way is to think about others.

For more on how Christians are to live together, listen to the YouTube video linked above.

The Humiliation (2:5-8)

Jesus existed before He was born. “He was in the form of God.” “Form” means the out-ward shape, the appearance. It’s not saying that God has a physical shape only that before He was born as Jesus, He had the appearance, the glory, the prerogatives, the rank, the titles, the perks of God. In eternity past, Jesus had the “form” of being God. He was not only God in essence but He appeared – to angels, to saints in heaven, to cherubim singing “Holy, holy, holy” – to be the Lord God Almighty.

Jesus did not deem “equality with God” something to be grasped. Our first parents grasped to be “like God.” Jesus had it already and let it go. Jesus emptied Himself of the “form of God”, the glory, the prerogatives, the rights. Jesus obeyed the Father all the way to death, even the most humiliating death imaginable.

For more on the “kenosis,” listen to the YouTube video linked above.

The Exaltation (2:9-11)

Because Jesus let go of the form of God and embraced the form of a servant, therefore God has highly exalted Him. God has given to Him the “Name that is above every name.” It deserves the most respect.

All will confess, or “acknowledge.” Some will acknowledge what they denied before. All will glorify God: some in their terror and some in their adoration.

For more on the exaltation of Jesus, listen to the YouTube video linked above.

We should all not only say, with our mouths, that He is Lord but that show with our lives that we are willing to suffer and serve like Him because that shows what we really think. What do you think?

Covenant Reformed Baptist Church is Caswell County’s/Danville’s Reformed church.