And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:8

Philippians 2:5-8 – Acts
Trinity Sunday – June 7, 2020 (am)
 

This has been a heavy season here at GCD. Even before we look into the Word today we need to mention the DeJong family, the Conner family, the Tyler family, the Ewoldts, the Petersons (Dan’s mother passed away this past week), families that are on our minds constantly. Yesterday Jean listed for me some matters that were heavy on her heart in prayer and she forgot even to mention COVID.

But that topic is very much before us still, affecting the way we meet as a body, and even how we relate to one another.

Also in the forefront of our minds is the extreme unrest that has arisen in our cities and towns these past two weeks.

Our intention this morning is to center on these matters—the issues we’re facing as a church and as a society in recent days. So, our look at Philippians today is going to be more application than exposition, applying this text to these issues toward thinking more biblically about them. We’ve exposited this letter recently, not even two years ago; you can find those messages on our website. But our approach this morning will be a bit different than that, learning from this text for our day.

With regard to COVID, it’s not really the isolation, separation, and lack that I want to focus on this morning. We’ve addressed that in our Pandemic series. What’s drawing my attention more these days is the degree to which our perspectives on this virus can divide us along Party lines—political Party lines. I’ve actually seen Christians get upset with one another because they perceive in each other an unwelcome allegiance to the perspective of one Party or the other, Democrat or Republican, with regard to this whole COVID scenario and how we should respond to it. I’ve heard disputes of this nature among professing believers. That is not a good development.

And in the midst of this situation, we encounter the latest in a long succession of painful reminders that racial disharmony in this land—present even prior to our becoming a nation—is still alive and strong. George Floyd has become the latest in a disturbingly long list of names that capture by their mere mention the injustice that is commonplace in the lives especially of backs in our nation. And so the church can divide again.

We need help knowing how to think biblically about these matters, how to honor God in our response to them, how to avoid getting swept into the binary, and often dehumanized, thinking of the talking heads on the news networks which are far too often the source of our thoughts and evaluations and priorities in such matters as these than are the Scriptures, the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and the imitation of Jesus. So, we’re going to take some time on these topics this morning. And our aim as we do so is going to be the development of our likeness to Christ in such matters (6-7), our heart to follow His example (8), our hunger to have His mind (5), to walk like Him (cf. 1:27).

What we see in this passage from Phi.—not just our preaching text (2:5-8) but our Scripture Reading (1:27-2:18)—is that there is a direct correlation between the church thinking and acting like Jesus—in unity, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel (1:27)—and the strength of our witness in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation like ours, among whom [we’re supposed to] shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life (2:15-16). The effectiveness of our public manner of life (1:27), our citizenship in this world, our witness, is tied off to and fed by the strength of our understanding that our truest citizenship is in heaven (3:20). As we have [the] mind [of Christ] among [us], which is [ours] in [Him] (5), we’re more unified inside these walls and more effective outside them. That manner of life is worthy of the gospel! (1:27)

Now, [having the] mind [of Christ] doesn’t mean we agree on everything. It just means were we have one mind on an even deeper level than we have two [minds]! We’re unified in Him and our life together shows itself best in [this] world as we live and proclaim the gospel as our highest priority, far ahead of our allegiance to any other involvement or ideology. So, we don’t adhere to any one political platform, for instance, as though it is inherently more righteous than another. Oh, there are issues, to be sure, that are espoused with varying degrees of commitment by one Party or the other which are important to believers as we seek to [hold] fast the word of life (16) in this twisted generation (15), but those are simply issues on which this Party or that Party has come into momentary alignment with the word of life. Such issues do no t become a basis for us who have [the] mind [of Christ] (5) to commit ourselves to one Party over another as a point of personal identity. That’s getting things backwards! Our citizenship is in heaven! [Our Leader] is from [there]! (3:20) Christians are not Republicans or Democrats. They’re [citizens] of heaven, ambassadors, who would never want to compromise their witness by alienating half the world they live in! That political divide runs so deep in our nation; but both sides of the divide need to hear the gospel and feel the love of Christ as it’s expressed by Kingdom-hearted Christians who have [the] mind [of Christ] in this world!

Now, this doesn’t mean we can’t speak up on political issues. But I can almost guarantee you that the issues we most want to speak up on are, in essence, biblical issues, moral issues, much more than they are political issues. They’re moral issues that are now debated in political discourse. We should speak up on those issues. And we should shape our expressions in language that is winsome and persuasive in the political arena. But we must be careful that we’re not swept away into the political world as we speak. We’re [citizens] of heaven. And we must be vigilant lest the mind of politics begins to form within us ahead of the mind of Christ.

One of the clearest signs that this is happening in us is when we see human suffering and are more inclined to assess it politically than biblically—when we see the destructive, dehumanizing impact of sin more with the eyes of this world than with the eyes of Jesus, when we feel the weight of sin and evaluate its meaning more with the heart of a partisan politician or a cable news commentator than we do with the heart of our creator God and His eternal Son. And there are signs when this is happening to us.

• If we can watch the scene that unfolded in Minneapolis two weeks ago between four police officers and George Floyd and come away inclined more toward explanation than toward lamentation, that is a sign.

• If we’re more inclined to talk about Floyd’s criminal past than to grieve the tragic ending of his life, that is a sign.

• Likewise, if we’re more inclined to indict all police officers everywhere than we are to decry the inhumane methods of those four, and the long line of similar incidents that make this one all too familiar to us, that is also a sign.

If we see these things and get drawn into the binary, black & white thinking of our two-party system in response to it; if we’re more inclined to blame one person or another, or our political authorities, or the peacekeepers, or even the broken systems in which all of them are operating; if we’re not just brought to our knees in humble confession that we’re all broken in ways that we don’t even understand, in ways that we can’t even comprehend—in ways that show themselves in sickening racial strife that just continues to choke the life out of our black communities, and then so often just stand by and watch as they begin to choke the life out of themselves—if we’re not just brought to our knees by all of this in humble confession that we need the solution only Jesus can provide, only Jesus has provided, then we’re not responding in a fundamentally Christian way. We’re not heeding Paul’s charge here (5). We’re not living in the orientation toward life that is [ours] in Christ Jesus.

So, what does it look like if we do respond in a fundamentally Christian way? Paul explains that here. When we have this mind among [ourselves] which is [ours] in Christ Jesus (5), when we seek to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (12), recognizing that it is God who works in [us], both to will and to work for his good pleasure (13), we begin to do all things without grumbling or disputing (14) because in Christ we’re becoming blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation (15). We press into our calling to have this mind among [us] which is [ours] in Christ Jesus and thus we begin to make a real difference in this world! So, when we see things like we’re seeing right now, we recognize them as opportunities not for us to receive and repeat the same bleak assessments we read in the news, but for us to love God by loving our neighbor—even those who perceive us as enemies!—in ways that make us shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life! (14-16)

So, what do we do? We begin by recognizing that only the gospel can resolve this problem. I hear so many people say that racial issues are a distraction from the gospel, that they dilute the gospel or divert us from the gospel. And surely that can happen. We’ve seen it happen. But it happens only when some other priority gets out in front of the gospel and displaces it. But make no mistake, the gospel of reconciliation to God in Christ—a reconciliation in which the dividing wall of hostility that separates people is broken down in Christ that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two (Eph.2:14-15)—is the only hope of true and lasting racial reconciliation. And that is precisely what the gospel was designed to do. It was designed to ransom people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation (Rev.5:9). And that is precisely what the gospel will do. It will reconcile people to one another as it reconciles them to God. It dispels the darkness of sin and corruption with the [light] of transformed lives united with the mind of Christ! The church simply cannot lose touch with the gospel. When it does, it forfeits the very thing this world needs most!

I’ve read several books on black & white tensions in our nations, and there are some amazingly clear assessments out there that help us understand where this divide came from, and even more clearly how to identify it today. But only one of them has been able to provide a solution. John Piper in his book Bloodlines has clearly articulated not only the problem but the solution. It’s the gospel of Jesus Christ! We need to live and proclaim the gospel, my friends. The world around us desperately needs it. We need to live it and proclaim it in our homes, with our families, in our neighborhoods. We need to live it and proclaim it right here! Paul was writing to a church. The mind of Christ needs to live among [us] here. We need to have [it] among ourselves (5). When people come in among [us], they need to see it, to feel it—that nothing can separate us from one another, that our unity in Christ runs even deeper than our differences. When people of different ethnicities join us, they need to be folded in immediately, joyfully—they should feel like family because they are! We need to get to know them, to love them, to [serve] them, modeling the love and [service] of Jesus.

When people of color come into our body, we should receive them as the blessing of God upon us! We should welcome them and fold them in, not just as a special guest but as a long-absent family member returned! Then we go through the ups and downs in the world around us, together, as family, as brothers and sisters in Christ who have [the] mind [of Christ] among [ourselves], and in whom the image of [God] is being renewed (Col.3:10), together. And when painful things happen in the world that remind these brothers and sisters of even more painful things that have happened in the past, throughout their long history on this continent, we can reassure them that those days are being left behind. In Christ, they have already passed away; it’s just that the world doesn’t know Christ. But they need Him. In His body on the cross Jesus absorbed the guilt of all expressions of hatred and harm among His people. And He bound up all the wounds that hatred and harm have inflicted (1Pe.2:24; Isa.53:4-5). We can sit together and reassure one another that this is really true. The gospel is really true! And it really does save us, and heal us, even from the scourge and the scars of racial strife and suffering!

I’ve had people ask if whites should apologize to blacks for the history of harm in this nation. And my response is: Absolutely, yes, do it. But hear me out. This is not the apology of present guilt. There is no way for one person to apologize for the guilt of others. That rings hollow on both sides of the conversation. The apology we offer is the same we offer to any suffering friend or family member. It’s the same apology we’re offering to the DeJongs and the Conners and others these days: I am so sorry for your suffering. These are excruciating days. But we love you and we’re with you through them. It’s the apology of sympathy, of empathy, of identification. It’s the apology of love and relationship. It flows from a heart that is grieved over the suffering of someone we treasure. And it’s offered anew each time there is another George Floyd-type incident, each time there is basis for reawakened anxiety or insecurity or fear that the past may be repeating itself again. It’s the apology of mercy and of grace. It’s the apology that displays the powerful compassion and deep humility that reside at the heart of the gospel—the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 6 who, though he was [God of very] God, did not count His equality with God a thing to be [used to His own advantage], 7 but emptied himself, by taking on 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 death, even death on a cross. Now we die with Him—we die to self in order to express the [humility] and love and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to this world that is coming apart at the seams for lack of Him. We [light] up this dark world with His love!

That is precisely what we’re here to do! And we’re able to do it, to love this world as He does, because we have [His] mind among [us] which is [ours] in [Him].