The text this morning is from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, the second chapter:
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so 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, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved... Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life...Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
In last week’s sermon, Paul’s words commended us to live lives in a manner worthy of the Gospel because soon suffering would come and being strengthened in these lives by Word and Sacrament is of vital importance. In fact, it’s probably the most and only important thing that we do in the Church. We preach the Word, we administer the Sacraments. This is what we do. This prepares you. It prepares you for the life outside these walls, where the world will come at you at a thousand miles per hour. It prepares you for suffering, where it can come from any angle. It prepares you for death, because having taken the Lord Jesus Christ into your mouth, there is no better time to die than right after Communion.
What was true last week is still true this week. But, Paul continues on with his thought. He needs, and we need, to know, that in Christ, there is comfort in our suffering, there is love, fellowship, affection, sympathy, even joy. And how does this come? Being united in mind, united in love, united in harmony.
See, this is how a church is supposed to work. A church works together, for the same reason, all with their different backgrounds and ideas. That’s really what Paul talks about when he says “one accord,’ he’s using the word harmonious there. We sing together, even if we’re not all on the melody, we sing the song of Christ.
We sing His love, we sing His grace, we sing His forgiveness, we sing His life, death, and resurrection. But the Church sings together. And when one person decides that they want to sing something else, the Church drowns them out with the song of Christ lest the Church get thrown off key.
The Church works together in humility and love. We do not backbite, we do not gossip, we do not whisper in the shadows, we do not do anything to harm anyone. Or, at least that’s how it should be. Paul tells us we should be thinking of others more highly than ourselves. We should be lifting them up, and not putting them down. We should allow them to surpass us. When this happens, the harmony sings. We put ourselves last, not to be first, but actually to be last.
We put ourselves last. Or, I should say, we should. But we don’t. We’re even bad at this here, in this congregation. We put ourselves first. We want to lead the song. We want our way. We gossip. We slander. We do myriad things in order to bring ourselves above another person. We want our way. And that’s not good. That’s certainly not in keeping with the Scriptures. And we need to stop it. We really do. It’s not what Paul tells us today, and it breaks all the commandments where we are called to love and serve our neighbor.
But we don’t keep the commandments. And so, we are lost. We are singing our own song, and not the song of the Church, which is the song of Christ. We need to sing the song of Christ, the song of the Son of God, who had every right and privilege in the universe. He was the beloved the Son, He existed from eternity, and as He looked down upon what He had created, He had pity on us for our sins.
Christ, In His pity, Paul says, emptied Himself of all the rights He had as God, all the privileges He had as God, He did not make use of them, He did not thunder at people with them, but He put them aside. And there, He became man. The Son of God took the form of man to be the God-man, and He came here to serve, to be a slave to righteousness and to us. He humbled Himself from His high and lofty position to become filthy with us.
And filthy He became, because He died. And not just a nice, natural death in His sleep like we all hope for, but a grisly, dirty, nasty death upon a cross where He hung naked for all men to see, where He bled, where His body evacuated itself. Christ’s death was disgusting! We want a nice, clean God, because then we can see that our Lord looks like us on a Sunday morning, all dressed up and pretty. But a God who has filth all over Him, this we can’t understand. We don’t get the humility here, we don’t get it because we don’t want it, but this is our God! He’s dirty because He came to be with us! He suffered because He came to be us!
He came from the heavenly places, down to the earthly place, and went into the under-the-earth place, the grave. All for us. All because He took our sin. All that happened to Christ is because He took our sin from us so that we do not have to suffer as He did. We suffer, yes, but our Lord suffered physically and spiritually, because in His death, because of our sin, His Father turned away from Him. The Father didn’t forsake Jesus because Jesus was covered in His own filth, but because our Lord was covered in our sin, for our sake, for the sake of the Church.
Do you know, do you see what this humility cost our Lord? He, in love and service and pity, took our flesh and left behind any claim to the throne of heaven. Do you realize what this cost Him? Are you beginning to feel the love He has for you? He could have just wiped us out in our sin, but Christ allows us to continue, to live, to live eternally, because He loves us, because of what He’s done for us on the cross.
You see, this same type of humility of Christ is what we do in the Church. We are Christ’s bride. He has called us to be one flesh with Him. And so we do as Christ does. Christ came down from heaven, was made man, and died under Pontius Pilate for our sins. There He went to the grave.
We do the same progression. We, in our sin, lost our eternal reward from God, this is what we call the fall into sin. And with that, we toil on the earth as Christ did. And we die. This is humanity; this is the human life.
But Christ, in His goodness and mercy, would not let this stand. He has reversed the order. For Christ rose from the grave, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father. And so, we humans, Christ has brought us out of the grave, both in our baptisms and at the last day in the Resurrection. And we shall work again on this earth, as Christ will, having regained, by Christ’s work alone, our eternal reward from God. We are righteous. We are made to be like Christ again.
Christ’s journey from up to down, from down to up, is for us. He does this for us. He makes us one family in Him, and we are continuing in Christ. We work together for the sake of the Church, not because we have to do it in order to be saved, but because Christ has forgiven us our sins and we should now desire to do it. We work together because we want to. We sing together because it is beautiful. We eat together because it’s right.
Don’t you see? When we, as Paul says, grumble, dispute, back-bite, or gossip, we are not working as Christ’s brothers and sisters. We are not depending on His cross. We are not looking to Him for our salvation. We are only looking to ourselves, making ourselves feel better, making ourselves to be God.
But you should not want to be God. Because as true as you might think it is, with as much death and decay as I’ve seen, I’ve never seen anyone raise themselves, by their own power, from the dead. And if you can’t do that, you don’t want to be God, because then you have no hope at all.
Instead, in Christ, in the forgiveness He has granted to us for the grumbling, the disputing, the back-biting, the gossiping, and all our sins, Christ is the one to whom all the angels, all the living men, and all those in their graves shall bend the knee. To Christ, and Him alone, is ascribed all worship and song and prayer, because our Lord has done this great and marvelous thing.
Christ has forgiven you, even you, this church, for all that you have done. He has come to earth to save you from your sins, and so He has. Do you worry over what I’ve said today? I know, the Law is hard to hear. And it’s true. Yet, this is true: Christ has come to save sinners, of which I am the worst. And if Christ can save me, and He has, then He has certainly saved you. He has died for you for the forgiveness of your sins, and there we hear the song again, the song of the saints, the song, that in Christ, boldly declares that we are His, and that we are ready for the reward of the resurrection, the time when we shall all be without sin:
Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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