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Christ‘s mind

Philippians2: 5 – 11

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 01 May, 2005

GOD’S CALL is not to be good. Nor is his call to do your duty. His call is to live the life of Christ in this world. Live Christ’s life, and you will be good and dutiful, but not the other way around.

 During the week, I passed on some survey questionnaires from Rachel, who works with me, to some of my friends who have e–mail addresses. Thanks to those who completed them. Rachel was very excited to have more than 100 responses in the end.

 One of the people I passed it on to was Thao, who sometimes catches the same train as I do. Thao and Rachel had a chat by e-mail and copied their e–mails to me.

 At one point they talked to each other about me, and Rachel made a rather perceptive comment about me, which Thao agreed with.

 I wrote to them both, “It’s dreadful to be known!”

  They didn’t have to ask me what I thought — they both know me well enough to understand the way I think and to predict my attitudes.

 We all do it at some time, don‘t we? We know people, we understand how they think, and we kind of “think their thoughts after them,” to use an expression someone once used about Christians and Jesus.

  One of the most important passages in the Bible, in my opinion, is Philippians 2: 5 – 11. It is about having the mind of Christ. But what does that mean? How does it work?

 The first reason that this passage was written was so that the early church would have some hymns. It is a hymn of praise to Jesus our Lord. Paul may be quoting from the Philippian Baptist Hymnal, or, more likely, he wrote it himself. It doesn‘t matter: it gets the point across.

 If you think about it, there are several times when Paul takes something from outside the Bible and makes it into God’s word.

 He quotes a Greek dramatist in Acts 17:

27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 `For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.’

  He quotes some other Greek writer when he appoints Titus to ministry in Crete. And he quotes a hymn to the Philippian Christians.

 The point is that the centre of everything, the core concern, is to reveal Christ, and through him, to reveal God the Father.

 So a quote from a Greek comedy play or a verse of a hymn can be the Word of God if they reveal the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit.

 In Islam, for example, that would be an impossible and perhaps a blasphemous statement. The Qur'an claims its authority based on the idea that every word came directly from Allah. But the Bible’s authority depends on its revelation of God regardless of who first said the words.

 And that directly parallels our purpose in existence: we, too, are created and redeemed so that we can reveal Christ, regardless of what we once were.

 God can redeem the words of a pagan writer and they become his words: God can also redeem us so that we become his word in the world.

  But this bring us back to how it happens, and to the passage we just read.

  It was originally written as a hymn, it was redeemed to become part of the written word of God, and, in Philippians, it has another purpose than just to praise Jesus.

 When Paul had ministered in Philippi, he worked alongside two Christian women, Euodia and Syntyche. In those days, all three were good friends.

 But the two women had had a falling out, and Paul urged them to sort out their differences. He used this passage to do so.

 I have heard preachers joke about these two women, and call them “Odious”, and “Soon-Touchy”.

 But there is no evidence that they were difficult people. In fact, their names are such names of praise, that I think they were given these names as adults because of their good nature. Euodia means, “woman of a good path” and Syntyche means, “virtuous”. I think these were nicknames which stuck.

 Paul wants them to have the mind of Christ. He wants them to choose to live in a way that reveals Christ, particularly in relation to each other.

 He gives them an outline of what Jesus is like, so that they will know what kinds of choices they might make.

  He says,

PHP 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

  Other translations say something like, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Sometimes Christians read too much into that translation, as though there were some almost magical “mind of Christ” which enters into us if we so will. Then they come to imagining that any thought they might have must come from this mind of Christ.

 So the translation, “Have the same attitude as Christ had,” gets closer to Paul’s idea.

 But there is also something a little too weak in talking about the attitude. Paul does want Euodia and Syntyche to learn to think and feel in the same way as Jesus did. He wants their patterns of thought to be so conformed to Christ’s patterns of thought, that they automatically think and feel and act in much the way that Jesus would think and feel and act in the same situation.

  He outlines the way that Jesus did think and feel and act:

PHP 2:6 [Who,] being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

  We don’t know how far Jesus was ever tempted to take over the role and power of God his father, but we do know that the temptation came to him, because that was one of the temptations the devil brought to him in the desert. “Don’t trust God: misuse your divine power for your own benefit; don’t wait for God: use magical miracles to gain a hearing; don’t submit to God: take up power over the world for yourself.”

 But Jesus refused. He had to struggle to resist, but he won the battle against Satan and against self. As Paul says, he

PHP 2:7 [but] ...made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

2:8 And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death--

even death on a cross!

  If Euodia and Syntyche are ever to sort out their differences, this will be the way to go. They can‘t afford to struggle to be top dog, because no one ever wins that way.

 For much of my working life, I have worked where a high proportion of staff were women.

  My observation is that men and women mostly work fairly much alike, except that women often have a better sense of teamwork. But I have also noticed that those few women who are really determined to win are often more ruthless than men, and fight harder.

 I was in a conflict once with a woman who was very determined to win. In the end, I just couldn‘t keep holding out, and I gave in. I‘d had my shins kicked too many times.

 She sort–of won, but not exactly. She had been so keen to win that she lost sight of the original goal. So what she won was victory rather than what she really wanted. And I was determined not to lose everything, so I only gave what I had to give.

  I certainly didn’t win, but she only beat me, she didn’t really get what she wanted. And that happens so frequently. I was actually a little sad for the woman, because, if she‘d negotiated, she would have had everything she wanted and more.

 Paul’s model is a man who constantly puts winning aside, and chooses instead to serve and remain obedient to God his Father, even when that choice takes him to the cross itself.

 Paul says that this kind of choice will put you in a place where God’s rewards will come to you, just as they came to Jesus at the right time, and just as they will keep coming to him throughout eternity.

PHP 2:9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

10 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.

  Imagine if Euodia and Syntyche had put that into practice!

  Imagine if they had both said, ”Well, I feel like winning, but I am not going to make that my goal. Every time I feel like I need to win and defeat my old friend, I will choose to serve her instead. I will try to get her what she wants. I will trust God to look after my needs if I look after hers.”

 One of my good friends at work is someone who, I think, didn’t like me when she first met me. She didn’t know why I was being nice to her, when she was a newcomer in the office.

 So when she was injured and couldn’t get out to buy her lunch, I chose to serve her. For a couple of weeks I went down most days and got her sandwiches while I got mine. It developed from there. She started talking to me, and now, if one has a need, the other gives support if possible, just like friends do.

  Last week, she needed a favour from me at the beginning of the week, and I needed a favour from her at the end of the week. There are no hassles. If we can do it, we do; if we can’t, we just say why, and there’s no worry, because we know it’s an honest response. Choosing to serve can make a vast difference.

  And that brings us to the last reason that Paul wrote it. He wants all Christians to live in the same way. He wants us to get to know the thoughts and feelings of Jesus so well, that we learn to think and feel in the same way.

 If you think it over, that is exactly what Jesus said in John 17,

18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

 He wants us to be in the world in the same way as he was in the world, as a servant, who rejects the way of power, and accepts the way of God even at the cost of our own lives.

 As John Chrysostomos said,

“For as long as we are lambs we conquer; even when a thousand wolves stand about, we overcome and are victors. But if we act like wolves we are conquered, for then the aid of the Good Shepherd departs from us, for He does not foster wolves but sheep.”

  But the question still remains: how do we achieve this mind of Christ? How do we learn to have the same attitude as he did?

 Think back to those two women who were sharing a joke about me during the week.

  They knew how I think, because they pay attention to what I say and do.

 I was sitting at a table at our Christmas Party with Brian, Rachel, David and Liliana. Rachel was talking to Brian. And I noticed after a while that she was using the communication skill known as Advanced Accurate Empathy.

 If I say to you, “I‘m feeling down because I made a mess of my accounts,” and you say, “You must be rather depressed about that,” that is primary accurate empathy. You heard how I felt and you accurately reflected it to me. I knew that you knew how I really felt.

 If I say that to you and you say, “I expect that you’d be feeling threatened, because you could be in trouble over that,” then that’s advanced accurate empathy. You know how I feel, but you have gone beyond what I told you, and have worked out what the next step probably is. Now I don’t just feel heard, but I feel understood.

 People who practice good listening skills get to know other people well. They get to know how they feel and how they respond.

 The more you listen to Jesus, the more you get to understand his mind and will, and the more you will be able to adopt his attitude and mindset.

 One of the greatest problems of the Protestant Reformation was that we learned to think very clearly about the words of the Bible, but we shut the feelings out.

 When we listen to Jesus, through reading about his sayings and his deeds, we are not told a lot about his feeling. It is easy to develop theories that are detached from the real world.

 If we want to get to know Jesus, we need to read the gospels. We need to hear what Jesus says, and think about how he is feeling and why.

 Read about Jesus and the woman at the well. You can look at it as a debate about where to worship and how. You can extract theological answers to who Jesus is. And you can catch glimpses of his amusement, exchanging banter with a rather bright, but very afraid lady, who keeps trying to divert him from finding out about her real and sordid life.

 Read about Jesus and Jairus’ daughter, or Jesus and Lazarus, and see how death hurts him, see how committed he is to the battle against death.

 As you read, by all means ask, “What does this passage teach me about God — the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit?” But also ask, “How do you feel about this situation, Lord?” And look for his answers.

 Then, make sure that you put into practice what you read there. Look for ways to serve. Think about how to reject power struggles. Go the extra mile, give to those who ask of you — in the same way that Jesus would give.

  As we do that, then, bit, by bit, the life, the mind, the attitudes of Jesus will be manifested among us and in each of our lives.

 And we will be lifted up along with him, and share in his glory; and our lives will bring praise and glory to God the Father through Jesus. Let‘s do it! AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)