A Moving Appeal for Unity Part II

​Philippians 2:5-11
Pastor Jon Hueni | April 11, 2021

The passage that we come to consider this morning is one of the richest sections of the Word of God, setting forth the person of our Lord Jesus Christ—that He is fully God and fully man.  And believers that’s why His blood availed for me.  But the reason the apostle includes this glorious statement in His letter to the Philippians is a very practical one.  It’s not so much to teach us about the doctrine of the identity of Christ, though it does that by the way, but it’s to set before this church the example of Christ in His incarnation and to use that example as a powerful lever to move them to live in loving unity with one another.  

So let’s remember what Paul is doing here in this passage.  He’s right in the midst of a powerful appeal for unity.  He gives them several things to spur them on to the hard and humbling, self-sacrificing work of unity,  and a difficulty of what He’s calling them to can be measured by the powerful motives that he garnishes and brings to bear upon them to get them to do it.  And so there’s been three appeals so far and we’ll see the fourth this morning.   

First of all, in 1:27, this unity that he’s urging us to is nothing more than “conducting yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel”, that we might “Stand firm in one spirit, striving as one man for the faith of the gospel.”  That’s walking worthy of the gospel, that we do it as one.  The second is found in 2:1-2 where he appeals to their enjoyment of the benefits of the gospel.  “If you have any encouragement from being united to Christ, any comfort from His love, any fellowship with the Holy Spirit, any tenderness and compassion.  Then have the same mind, have the same love, have the same spirit, the same purpose.”  To not be united in spirit is to act as if the benefits of the gospel in your daily life don’t mean that much to you.  Are you feeling the force of the lever?  He keeps adding them.  Number three, in verse 2, Paul appeals to their love for himself.  Spurgeon says, “When all else fails in preaching, put yourself in the canon and shoot yourself at them.”  And I believe that is what Paul’s is doing here.  These Philippians owed so much to the apostle for the great suffering he endured.  The lashes, the stocks, the shame of imprisonment—all that he endured just to bring them the gospel that saved them.  And that won a place in their hearts forever and Paul knows it.  And he’s not above using that as a lever to move them to unity and so he says, “If my joy means anything to you, well then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, one in spirit and in purpose.  Do it for me.”  (He) uses the same argument with Philemon as to why he ought to receive back his runaway slave Onesimus.  “Do it for me, Philemon.”  

But it’s with this fourth reason that we come to today that Paul’s appeal rises to a full tsunami wave of pressure, of Holy Ghost pressure, as he calls us to follow the example of Christ in the incarnation.  That’s where we’re at this morning.  Follow the example of Christ in the incarnation.  Now the motivating power of a good example is known in all sorts of walks of life.  There’s nothing like an example.  We seek to do that for our children.  We do that at work.  We do it at school.  We seek to give examples—“Look  and learn”—and yet none compare to this example of God the Son, coming to save us.  And the idea here is not that we would do exactly what Jesus did.  That’s impossible.  We’re not God.  Rather what we’re to imitate is His attitude, His spirit, His mind.  The mind of Christ in the incarnation.  You see it in verse 5, “You’re attitude (or your mind) should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”  His humble, sacrificial, selfless love that moved Him to serve our greatest need—imitate that.  And if you do, then in the words of verses 3&4, “You will do nothing out of selfish ambition and vain pride, but in humility you will consider others better than yourselves and each of you will not look only on his own interests, but will look out for the interest of others.”  

So let’s fix our eyes, this morning, on our example laid down for us by the Lord Jesus in the incarnation.  Kids, that’s just a big word for “The Word becoming flesh”—God becoming man.  The example of Christ in the incarnation.  And in verse 6 we begin with the pre-incarnate Christ.  In other words, we’re starting now before Bethlehem.  We’re starting now before the Word became flesh, before He took on humanity.  What was He then?  Because if we would know how far He stooped down for us, we must know where He starts…the heights from which He came.  And so verse 6 tells us of the pre-incarnate Christ, “Who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.”  This is the strongest of statements on the Deity of Jesus Christ.  He was God.  As John says in the beginning of His gospel, “In the beginning was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.”  There was not one attribute of God that the Son did not possess.  All the qualities that make God, God, belonged to Him.  Notice He was equal with God.  

Kids, you know what an equal sign is in math.  Whatever you have on the one side has got to match up with what’s on the other side.  So if it’s 2+2 over here, you gotta have 4 over here.  Maybe you’ve got 2+2 and you’ve got 5-1, but you’ve gotta come up with the same thing, and Jesus is equal with God, here a reference to His Father.  The Son of God is equal in Deity with God the Father.  And just because He’s the Son of God doesn’t mean He’s any less God than God the Father.  

In John 5:18 it’s very early in our Lord’s ministry.  Already the Jews were trying to kill Him.  Why?  “Because He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”  So the pre-incarnate Christ , “…being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped…”  To be clung to, to be held on to.  He didn’t hold on to all His prerogatives and privileges of Deity.  He didn’t proudly cling to His rights as God, to be treated and honored as God.  But He, verse 7 says, “…made Himself nothing”.  He made Himself nothing.  Not by subtraction, but by addition.  What did He add to His Deity in the incarnation?  He added humanity.  And by adding humanity, it was subtraction.  He became nothing.  He came and stooped down.  He became a servant.  Notice verse 7, “Taking…” that’s addition.  “Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness…”  Don’t let that phrase “human likeness” throw you as if to say He wasn’t really human, He just looked like He was human. Not at all.  No, He took a real human body and a real human soul.  In every way just like you and me, sin only excepted.  

So here we have the mystery again of Christ two natures in one person.  He continued to be God, but He also now became man.  Fully God, fully man, forevermore.  This is the One we will meet one day face to face.  And verse 8 says, “And so being found in appearance as a man”…again, don’t think by that He only appeared to be a man but He really wasn’t.  As if this was some vision or something…no, He really was a man.  “The Word became flesh”, but how did He appear to men?  He looked like an ordinary human being and nothing more.  “And so being found in appearance as man, He humbled Himself and became obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross.”  And that’s the lowest depths.  So we start with He who is God, equal with the Father.  And His humiliation leads Him to the painful and shameful death of the cross where His blood availed for me, and for you who have trusted Him.  

Now here’s why the Son of God became man.  Here’s the “why” of the incarnation—it was because He wanted to serve us.  He became a servant to serve our greatest good, to meet our greatest need.  And our greatest need was to have a substitute to die in our place and take the punishment we deserved for our sins.  He needed to die for us, and not just any death, but the curse-bearing death of the cross.  The kind of death that would atone for all of our sins and forgive them and take them all away and bring to us the everlasting favor of God.  That’s the kind of death that He came to die.  But we have a problem--Deity cannot die.  And so He was willing, being God, equal with the Father, He was willing to become a lowly human being that He might die as our substitute.  Hebrew 2:17, “For He had to be made like His brothers in every way in order that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.”  He became like us that He might die for us, that we might be eternally saved.  That’s the “why” of the incarnation….why He became man.  

But there’s more here than a mere rehearsal of what God’s Son did for us.  Yes, he became man.  There’s more here than being told why He did it—He became man to die for us on the cross.  The focus that Paul places is upon the heart attitude of the Son of God that moved Him to do all of this.  It was the very attitude that he’s just commanded the Philippians to have towards one another in the pursuit of unity in verse 3 & 4.  And what was that attitude in Jesus seen in His incarnation?  What selflessness!   He did absolutely nothing out of selfish ambition and vain pride.  He didn’t ask, “What’s in it for me?”  He didn’t consult His own divine rights, but our interests instead.  What humility!  Esteeming us better than Himself…above Himself in the way that He treated us.  What love that seeks the good of the loved one!  What sacrificial servant-hood that served our need at the greatest of costs to Himself!  

Do you remember what the mocking crowd kept repeating while Jesus was hanging on the cross?  “If you are the Son of God, save yourself.  Come down from the cross and save yourself.”  Now there’s an idea.  There’s a way to escape the whole mess of the cross.  The whole pain and shame of the cross.   “Come down and save yourself.”  It’d be no problem for our Lord.  He’s God, after all.  And He has legions of angels watching and just waiting for the nod of His head to come and rescue Him and to destroy His enemies.  But the temptation found no traction in our Savior’s heart, and here’s why.  He knows, “If I save myself, I cannot save My people.”  The choice before Him was clear.  Save Himself or save us.  And He chose to save us instead of Himself.  He put our interests above His own.  He treated us better than Himself.  He was willing to become poor to make us rich.  Willing to humble Himself in order to lift us up.  Willing to become a curse that we might be blessed.  To take the wrath of God that we might have His everlasting favor.  To serve our greatest needs and all at great cost to Himself—who is God.  You see what Paul’s doing here?  The very attitude needed for unity in that church, in this church, in any church, is that we see first that attitude in God, our Savior.  And that’s the example He’s left for us that we might do the same to one another in the body of Christ.  Verse 5, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus”…Who in the incarnation came down to lift us up.  

Do you feel something of the force of this?  A motivation to unity-building servant-hood.  God sacrificially served you, so who will YOU enrich this week by becoming poor?  Who’s interest and needs will you put above your own that you might serve them even as Jesus served you?  And if God the Son’s example will not move us, what will, brethren?  What will?

Now I want to give you three lessons, then, from Christ’s incarnation.  We’ve seen it, we’ve seen what happens, we’ve seen why He did it, what attitude drove Him.  Now three lessons from Christ’s example:  

The first is that…
1.  It is the nature of God to serve others.  It is the nature of God to serve others.  I don’t know why, but I’ve often thought and found myself thinking of the man Jesus having a serving heart, but not so much of God being a serving God.  This passage is needed as a corrective to such thinking, because Philippians 2:6 is not referring to the MAN Jesus, but to the pre-incarnate son of God.  When He was but spirit, like the Father is spirit, and like the Spirit is spirit, and there was then in God this desire to serve.  And that’s the beauty of our text that it takes right into the heart of God.  How do you get there?  How do you get into the heart of God and see.  Scripture leads us and Christ leads us.  He says, “In seeing Me you see the Father.”  Study God by studying Christ, His Son. And study Christ the Son by studying the cross where we see His glory.  The incarnation.  And what we find when we’re right here at the heart of God is that God the Son didn’t cling to His rights and perks as Deity.  But as God, He humbled Himself.  I say, as GOD, He humbled Himself.  GOD humbled Himself and willingly became a man to serve us.  At the core of His innermost being, God is a serving God.  If you get nothing else this morning, get that.  Our God is a serving God who delights in serving others.  And this is the attitude that marks… that moved and motivated the Lord Jesus to stoop down to us and to serve our salvation.  

Donald Macleod puts it this way, "The impulse to serve lies at the very heart of Deity.”  The impulse, the urge, the strong desire, the burning inclination to serve lies at the very heart of Deity.  Of God.  Do you think of God that way?  I’ve been helped by seeing that it has to do with the difference between although and because.  Which way do you think of Christ?  

#1- Although He was God, Christ came to serve us.  
#2- Because He was God, Christ came to serve us.  

Although thinking, thought it’s true in one sense, if we’re not careful we can start to think that serving is something foreign to God.  That although He was God, He did something very un-Godlike and came down and served us.  And if so, we’ve missed the boat.  No, it was because He was God.  God, a serving God, that He came down and served us.  Do you see the difference?  That’s the very nature of God—this joyful impulse to serve others.  And in seeing the loving service of Jesus, Jesus is showing us what God is like.  Because it was when He was nothing but God, not yet man, that He humbled Himself and became a servant—a servant-man to save us.  

So we see this impulse to serve even within the persons of the Godhead.  Within the Trinity we see this reciprocation of service and honor and glory going back and forth, and praise and love.  And so we read of the Son glorifying the Father by completing the work He gave Him to do.  We see the Father glorifying and honoring the Son for what He’s done, and the Holy Spirit comes to glorify the Son and to glorify the Father.  And the Son honors the Holy Spirit by telling His disciples all that the Spirit will do for them.  Each for the other within the fellowship of the Trinity.  And it’s that same impulse to serve that was then directed upon us, His creatures, His people made in His image.  We might think serving is somehow beneath someone so majestic and glorious as God.

And if so we need our thinking corrected by this text for it shows us that God the Son , equal with God the Father is willing, and was willing, to stoop to serve us.  Now here’s a God unlike any of the pantheon of “gods” that men have ever worshipped in this world.  Our God is a serving God at the very core of His being.  He doesn’t need to be bought off in order to serve us.   Bought off by your good deeds, bought off by your offerings, He doesn’t need to be manipulated by us to get Him to serve our good.  He finds greater joy in giving to us than He does in receiving from us, Acts20:35.  His very nature takes pleasure in serving us even at great cost to Himself.  You count it strange?  So once did I before I knew my Savior!  And there I learned that our God is a serving God.  “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”  Why did He come?  What’d He come to do?  This is the pre-incarnate Christ.  This is God the Son, and in His heart is this longing, desire, love to serve… and so He came to serve and not to be served, and to give Himself as a ransom for our salvation.  That’s the revelation of the heart of God!  

Now, to be sure, serving is often beneath the great ones in this world, isn’t it?  Jesus tells His disciples that the rulers and authorities of this world…they use their position, their high authority and rule, to Lord it over others.  They’re eaten up with selfish ambition and vain pride and so they demand to be served by others who are beneath them.  And rather than serve the interest of others they’re often found uncaringly trampling over the interest of others.  That’s greatness in this world’s eyes.  “Not so with you!”, says their Master.  “For whoever would be great in the kingdom of God must become the slave of all…that’s greatness, that’s glory in my kingdom.“  And that’s why Christ the great and all-glorious God came, not to be served but to serve us.  Not to save Himself but to save us.  

So never think of service as somehow being beneath you.  It is not beneath God to serve.  It’s rather no small part of His glory that He’s a serving God at heart.  And the glory of the incarnation and the cross for which He deserves honor, and glory, and praise is something that we see in our text.  Don’t you love and worship Him more because He is a serving God.  Do you think less of Him?  Would you have a “god” like the Gods of the nations that must be manipulated to good?  Or would you have this God whose very impulse from the depths of His being is to serve?  I say it enhances…it IS His glory!  It IS His greatness that He serves so willingly and sacrificially in love.

For me, kind Jesus, was Thy incarnation,
Thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation:
Thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,
For my salvation.

That’s it.  Don’t you love Him for His incarnation and His impulse to serve?

That’s the first lesson.  It is the very nature of God to serve others.  And may we take that home and may we just roll it around in our mouth and suck every bit of sweetness from it.  And that stands behind the greatest thing that ever happened when Jesus Christ came down and became one of us to then go to the cross and be damned for us.  It comes back to that—God is a serving God.

2.  Now the second lesson this morning comes from B.B. Warfield, a world-famous theologian and pastor who wrote dozens upon dozens of books and taught for 34 years at Princeton Seminary until he finally died in 1921.  Warfield wrote a book called The Savior of the World.  I haven’t read every chapter but there’s one chapter in the book called Imitating the Incarnation--dealing with our very text.  It’s worth the price of the book, just the one chapter.  I’ve read it four or five times and turned to it again this week.  I don’t think I’ve ever come away when I’ve been humbled, I’ve been made to love my God and Savior more.   So we’re going to use one of Warfield’s applications for our second lesson.  And it’s this:  It’s difficult to set a limit on how far we will go in self-sacrifice for the good of our brothers and sisters and go no further when the example set before us is God becoming man and laying down His very life for us upon the hellish cross.  To serve us.  To serve our salvation.  He willingly sacrificed all.  How can we set limits on what we will suffer from our brothers and sisters, but no more.  Our we to endure wrongs?  What did He not endure in the way of wrongs?  Are we to give up our rights?  He had Divine rights and did not grasp, grab, and cling but laid them aside.  Are we to suffer some loss, some shame, some injustice?  What was He not willing to lose?  Newton says: 

Could we bear from one another, what He daily bears from us?    
Yet, this glorious Friend & Brother, loves us though we treat Him thus
Though for good (His good to us), we render ill, He accounts us brethren still
O for grace our hearts to soften, teach us Lord at length to love...(like You, you see)

So, it becomes hard to set limits on how far we’ll go to sacrifice in humility and love for one another when Jesus gave it all.  

Now we do find Christ’s disciples setting limits, don’t we?  And in that we can find ourselves.  “We’ll minister to adults.  Sure, that’s important work.  But we’re not going to be bothered or let Jesus be bothered by young children.  They’re a waste of time.  We’ve got more important things to do.”  And that drew a rebuke from their Master!  “Let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”  They were willing to go on many errands.  They would go into a city to get a donkey for Jesus to ride on.  They, no doubt, would go for water, make supper for each other, start a fire to warm themselves at night.  

“I’ll do that.  I’ll do that.  But I don’t wash feet.  That’s slave work.  No, that’s bottom of the totem pole slave work and I’m no slave to any man.  I don’t wash feet.  That’s where I draw the line.  That’s beneath me.”  

And so the One who is God got up from the table and took off His robe and dressed Himself to serve by putting a towel around Him, and then proceded to go all the way around the table, washing the dirty feet of His disciples with His own hands.  The same hands that the next morning would be fastened to a cross that He might cleanse them, not from dirt, but from their sins.  

How do you set limits on how far you’ll go when that’s the example?  He came down do that for us.  And just how much will you endure in the pursuit of unity when the Son of God stopped at nothing for us?  Regarding nothing as beneath Him but as, in the words of Warfield, was so absorbed in our needs, in our misery, in our helplessness, that He made no account of Himself.  And says to us, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also so wash one another’s feet.  I have you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”  Our Lord practiced what He preached.  He humbled Himself to serve and He called on them to do the same for each other.  

B.B. Warfield, as well, was no ivory-towered theologian spouting off things that he would not do himself.  At age 25 he married Annie.  While they were in Germany on their honeymoon, they got caught in a thunderstorm and Annie was struck by lightning, leaving her permanently paralyzed and she remained an invalid for the rest of her life.  This is the great B.B. Warfield—pastor, theologian.  Written enough books to fill a shelf that big.  Famous man.  And to read Warfield’s imitation of the incarnation, you realize that the same impulse to serve that was found in the incarnate Christ was found in Warfield.  Beating in his heart, by the power of the same Christ within.  And it animated a life of sacrificial service to his dear wife.  His home was near the seminary building and so he would just walk across the yard to teach his classes and hurry back home.  Because of her extraordinary needs, he was rarely gone from her for more than two hours at a time over their 39 years of marriage.  He must have been living in the yolk with Jesus, who is gentle and humble in heart.  Who loves to serve others, don’t you think?  Where’s a man get that stuff?  It doesn’t grow on the stalk of nature.  This comes from Christ!  That very Christ who is equal with the Father and came down to serve us out of such love and delight to serve us.  And Warfield found in Him grace to serve his wife for 39 years.  Imitating His example in the incarnation.  

 

Be like Jesus - this my song,
In the home and in the throng;  
(In the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the church!)
Be like Jesus, all day long,
I would be like Jesus      —James Rowe, 1865-1933

And when you’re thinking, “This is starting to cost me too dearly.”…get back to the Son of God before He became man and watch Him stoop to become a servant, to become a man, to become obedient even to the death of the cross.  And you will find grace in Him to help you go on serving at great sacrifice.  

Well, it is the very nature of God to serve others—lesson one.  Lesson two—it’s hard to set limits on how far we’ll go when imitating Christ is the example before us.  

3.  And then thirdly--exultation follows humble service to others.  Exultation follows humble service to others.  You see, we’re not done learning at verse 8 from the example of our Savior, the Son of God.  It doesn’t end at verse 8.  We continue to learn from Him, and what we learn, if we watch, is just how much the Father is pleased with the servant, humble, willing heart-attitude of His Son and what He did because of it.  So, keep your eyes on your example.

Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious:
see the Man of Sorrows now      —Thomas Kelly

Verse 9--
“Therefore, (because He stooped so low to serve us) 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 confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, (that’s the Divine name…Jesus Christ is God) to the glory of God the Father”

This is the glorification of Christ for His work of humiliation, so pleasing to the Father was it.  He brought glory to the Father by completing the work the Father gave Him to do.  So what did the Father do?  He says, “Here let me raise you from the dead.  Here, let me raise you higher into heaven.  No, You must go higher still, to the highest place.”  And He gave Him the glory that He had with Him before the creation of the world.  A glory that had been eclipsed and hidden behind his humanity, which as Stan pointed out was allowed to “peak through” to those three favorite disciples and they saw the glory of the One and only God in Him.  And the Father now gives Him…restores that glory to Him, visibly there in heaven with Him…that He had with Him before the creation of the world.  Exultation follows humble service to others.  And that principle holds true not only for Christ but for all who are in Christ.  “Whoever humbles himself” will what?  “Be exulted.”  Oh…the first will be last, and the last will be first.  Oh…maybe the Father really does take pleasure in service.  

There’s gonna be surprises when rewards are handed out, I am sure.  I’m sure that some of the highest honors and praises from God will go to people that we’ve never heard of.  Who silently suffer injustices, perhaps from brothers and sisters.  Remember the context?  It’s the body of Christ.  It’s not putting your own interests above each other and not being proud and “What’s in it for me?”, and trampling on…  That’s the context and I do believe you will be surprised to find people honored by God in that day, who silently suffered all sorts of troubles, even in the body of Christ and didn’t answer in kind.  Was not overcome by evil but overcame evil with good, and prayed for and sought the blessing of God upon the other.  And you’ll find people, who the world didn’t think what they did was noteworthy.  And they were unknown to the world, and unknown much to the church as well, and yet they’re the ones who became poor to enrich another.  They sacrificed to make others rich.  And in that day of judgment the King will say to those on His right, “Come!  You who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  Because when I was hungry you fed Me, and when I was thirsty you gave Me something to drink.  And when I was a stranger you took Me in, and when I needed clothes you clothed Me, and when I was sick you looked after me.  In prison, you looked after me.”  In other words you put my interests above your own.  “When Lord?  When did we see You hungry, thirsty, in prison, sick, needing clothes?”  And then He will say to them, “I tell you the truth—Amen.  Believe it.  It is true—that whatever you do to the least of these brethren of Mine, you did it as unto Me.”  

There will be high honor in that day for what the world doesn’t see as headline material.  Oh how different does heaven regard such unseen kindnesses and service to others.  “For God is not unjust.  He will not forget your work, the love you have shown Him as you have loved His people and continue to love them.”  You see, it’s loving service that He is going to richly reward in that day.  Service like His Son.  It’s the same attitude found in His Son.  He loves that attitude because that’s the very impulse of Deity…to serve.  And whether He finds it in His Son, or whether He finds it in His people, He exalts them.  The lower you stoop, the higher He’ll lift you.  What a God!  What a Savior!  “Well done good and faithful” … what?  “Servant.  Enter into the joy of your Lord.  The happiness of your Master.”  The only thing greater than our joy in Him will be His joy in us.  His delight, His pleasure, in making us happier than we ever thought possible.  And our smile will deepen His, and His smile will deepen ours, and ours will deepen His.  And our joy will deepen His joy, and His joy will deepen our joy.  

And then what?  Jesus tells us in Luke 12:37 and He prefaces it with, “I tell you the truth…”  Brace yourself for a surprise, folks.  I told you there will be surprises.  The Lord says, “I tell you the truth, He will dress Himself to serve.  He—the exalted all-glorious Lord and King, now glorified above every name in the highest place—He will dress Himself to serve and will have His servants recline at the table and He will come and wait on them.  Forever proving that service is at the very heart of the glory and greatness of our God as He serves us for all eternity as our Shepherd, who leads us into such green pastures and still waters.  Still serving us, and we, His servants, serving Him.  

And so, the more we serve each other, the more God-like we become.  Here and now.  This is greatness.  This is glory.  Indeed, this will be our glorification.  That’s where we’re headed.  We’ve been chosen, predestined, called, justified, and yes, this is the final glorification, when we will be just like Jesus and we will find delight in serving others.  Each will find delight.  We’ll ALL be glorified, and then nothing for the endless ages among the people of God will ever be done out of selfish ambition—“What’s in it for me?”  Or vain pride—“What will make me look good?”  But forever and ever in humility and lowliness of heart we will consider one another better than ourselves, and we’ll delight to serve each other.  And we’ll never be more like God than when we’re doing that.  

Oh let it begin now.  Let’s grow…let’s grow in Christ-likeness.  Let’s grow in God-likeness.  And this attitude that was in our Lord Jesus in the incarnation…if it’s ever, ever, ever, ever to be reproduced in Jon Hueni, in Grace Fellowship Church, well it will only be by union with Jesus Himself.  It will only be as His spirit now lives within us, and we suck the Divine sap and energy from our fruitful vine and are enabled to live like that now.  It’s that Divine power that we’re going to take up in the next two verses.  Isn’t it wonderful that Paul just doesn’t leave us hanging with that kind of an example to follow?  “Well go on now.  See ya.  Head out into the day, and into the week, and y’all get on like that and imitate Christ.”  He’s going to take us right to the power source in the next two verses, as it is “He who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.”  And what have we seen is His good pleasure?  It’s to serve one another.  It’s to serve one another, as He has served us in Christ.