Fighting for Joy, Growing in Humility, Knowing Christ and the Peace that Passes Understanding: A Study of Philippians (19): Complete My Joy, With Humility


Sermon by J. Ligon Duncan on September 16, 2007 Philippians 2:1-3

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The Lord’s Day
Morning

September 16, 2007


Philippians 2:1-3


“Complete My Joy, With Humility”

Dr. J. Ligon
Duncan III

Let me invite you to turn with me to Philippians, chapter
two. We’ll be looking at verses 1, 2, and 3 today, especially concentrating on
verse 3. We’ve been working through this letter for a number of weeks now…a
number of months now.

The center section of the letter begins in verse 27.
Throughout this section the Apostle Paul is exhorting us to live the Christian
life. He has especially impressed upon us the fact that we cannot experience the
joy that God intends us to enjoy in the congregation of His people unless we are
pursuing actively the living of the Christian life. We have said on a number of
occasions now that the key to experiencing that God-intended joy in the
congregation of believers
is a God-centered, gospel-based, grace-enabled
shifting of our attention away from ourselves and on to others, in which we aim
to manifest and maintain our spiritual unity (given to us by the grace of
Christ) and strive together to slay pride and purpose to serve one another in
self-denying and self-giving love.

In this passage, already we’ve seen in verse 2 the
Apostle Paul gives an earnest plea for Christian unity
. Now, he’s not asking
us to create that unity; he’s asking us to acknowledge the unity that Christ has
created. God has made us to be male and female, slave and free, Jew and Greek,
one in Jesus Christ. As we rest and trust in Him and are united to Him, He has
united us all into one body together. And what the Apostle Paul is saying is
live that out. Manifest the spiritual reality of your unity that has been
created through the gospel. Maintain that unity. Don’t do things to disrupt that
unity, and on the contrary, do things to foster that spiritual unity

As he has called our attention to this unity in
verse 2, and as he has said that that unity is absolutely essential for the joy
that we’re supposed to experience in the congregation of the Christian life, he
has also said that the key to that unity is humility.
There will be no
shared experience of gospel unity in the local church apart from humility.
Humility is the key to that unity. That’s what he is going to talk about in
verse 3.

Now before we read God’s word, let’s pray and ask His
help and blessing.

Lord, again we find ourselves coming to You to
study a passage that is not that hard to understand, but it’s very hard to do.
This passage teaches us things that are easy to talk about, but very hard to put
into practice. So, heavenly Father, we don’t want to go away from our study of
Your Scripture knowing more stuff but not being transformed by truth. If that is
going to be the case, O God, if we are going to be changed, it will take the
help and work of Your Holy Spirit, so I beg that of You — for me, and for all of
us as we now reverently attend upon Your word. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This is the word of the living God. Hear it.

“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 rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more
significant than yourselves.”

Amen. Thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired, and
inerrant word. May He write its eternal truth upon our hearts.

The Apostle Paul teaches us in this passage that
if we are to experience the joy and spiritual oneness that God intends for His
people, and if we are to thereby witness to the reality of gospel grace in the
world, then we are going to have to pursue humility, because humility is the key
to unity.

John Stott, a number of years ago, said, “In every
aspect of the Christian life…” (and when John Stott says “In every aspect of the
Christian Life” I’m really interested in what he’s going to say in the rest of
the sentence! You know what he says?)

“In every aspect of the Christian life, pride is our greatest foe and humility
our greatest ally.”

In every aspect of the Christian life, no matter
what we are doing, pride is always an enemy to us, and humility is always an
ally for us. That alone reminds us of how important it is to cultivate humility,
but here the Apostle Paul gives two arguments or motivations to our humility.

First you’ll notice him say “Count others more
significant than yourselves.”
As he urges us to humility, he refuses to
leave humility as some sort of an abstract idea in your mind. He gives you
something concrete. How could you express humility? Do you just sort of walk
around feeling humble? No, you practically, deliberately, tangibly treat others
as more significant that yourself. So the Apostle Paul gives you a tangible
enfleshment of what it means to be humble.

Then (and we’re not going to get there today), in
verses 5-11, he says, ‘Consider Christ.
Let me show you what humble is. Let
me show you your Savior, who spoke the world into being, to whom all the peoples
of the world owe the obedience of Lordship, because He is their maker…who
humbled Himself, dying at the hands of those He came to save, that they might
share with Him the glorious presence and communion with the living God forever
and ever.’ He says, ‘Behold humility. That’s what humility looks like.’ So the
Apostle Paul knows that the way to Christian humility is not for the preacher to
stand up and say, “OK, today’s application is be humble,” not because that’s
hard to understand, but because it’s hard to do. We need every bit of leverage,
we need every bit of motivation, we need every bit of instruction, we need every
bit of application, we need every idea that we can marshal to fight the fight of
humility, because it is absolutely lien to us living in this fallen world.

The very first sin was pride. It was pride
that caused Eve and Adam to look at a piece of fruit and have this inner
dialogue: ‘Let’s see. What do I want? A piece of fruit? Or everlasting
fellowship with God, who made me, who loves me, who takes care of me, who is
infinitely beautiful, infinitely just, infinitely kind, infinitely loving? OK,
now let’s see…piece of fruit? God? Piece of fruit? God? Hmmm. Piece of fruit
wins!’ Only rampant, blind pride can make that kind of decision, and yet that
kind of rampant pride is everywhere, and unfortunately we’re blind to it.

James Nedam a number of years ago told a story that
has been used by countless preachers and teachers over the last few years, and
maybe you’ve heard it, too. But it struck me so deeply when I first heard the
story, and then read the story later. It’s so applicable to this, I want to
share it with you today. He tells the story of a man who’s sitting in a coffee
shop or a breakfast restaurant, and he’s observing this man. And he is
impeccably dressed. He is in an Armani suit, his wingtip shoes are sparkling
from a recent shine, his shirt is heavily starched and pressed, and he is
complementing this gorgeous suit with a power tie. He is clearly an important
man. His every hair is in place. His mustache is exquisitely coiffed, and he
keeps looking at his Rolex watch. He clearly has a very important meeting to get
to. He’s reading The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal,
and suddenly he gets up and he begins to walk out of the coffee shop (or the
deli), and the person watching him notices that in the midst of this impeccably
presented man, there’s one flaw. He’s been eating a bagel, and there’s a glob of
cream cheese on his mustache. And he doesn’t know it. He’s off to his power
meeting, and he has no idea that there’s this glob of cream cheese there.

Well, let me ask you this. Is pride the glob of cream
cheese on your mustache? [Figure out some other image for you, ladies!] Very
often, though this is a master sin and all of us struggle with it, pride gets us
a thousand ways. You know, when you have great wealth you’re tempted to cease to
depend upon God because you become comfortable depending upon your wealth. But
wealth in and of itself does not make a person prideful. Some of the most humble
people I’ve ever met are wealthy. But it does tempt people not to depend upon
God. On the other hand, a person without great wealth could spend their time
envying the person who has wealth, and in that envy actually manifest the heart
of pride: ‘I’m better than that person who has great wealth.’ And so pride
attacks one through conceit, the other through rivalry or through envy, or
through jealousy.

By the way, did you notice the Apostle Paul talk
about that in this verse? “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit.” The Apostle
Paul is acknowledging that pride can hit you a hundred different ways.

Intelligent people can take pride in their knowledge and in their wisdom, and in
knowing things that other people don’t know, and being able to think in ways
that other people can’t think, and they can find their security in that. And
they can manifest pride.

Or, maybe it’s just that you crave attention, and you
want more attention than the others around you. Have you ever noticed that
there’s a phenomenon very often at dinner parties, where no matter what story
you tell, there’s somebody there who has a better story?

“You know, my friend bought a Jaguar.”

“Yeah? Well, my friend has a fleet of Jaguars.”

“Ah…my buddy went to Ft. Lauderdale to a five-star hotel
for vacation.”

“Yeah. I flew in my private jet to the Riviera.”

Have you ever heard Brian Regan, the comedian, do his
“I Walked On the Moon” routine? It’s about people who are always one-upping you
in a dinner conversation. You know, you tell them something and they’ve got a
bigger story. You tell them that you’ve met a star…well, they’ve met five! You
tell them that you’ve got a buddy that has a lot…they’ve got a buddy who has
more. There’s always something better. And Brian Regan, in this comic skit that
he does, says, ‘I’ve always wished in those times at a dinner party that I was
one of the tiny handful of men who have walked on the moon, so that I could just
sit there eating my hors d’oeuvre, kind of chewing, while the guy went on and on
about how many cars and how many houses and how many vacations…and then I could
just say, “Yeah. I walked on the moon.”’

People manifest their desire to find their security
in all kinds of things. It may be wealth, it may be influence and power, it may
be an entryway into the halls and corridors of power in society. It may be
beauty. It may be intelligence. It may be being liked. But any of those things
can become an opportunity, a channel, for pride. And so no matter what condition
we are in, we are vulnerable to pride. In fact, some people who are extremely
humble in some areas are capable of being prideful and arrogant in others. Just
recently I had a couple of friends come to me to ask me to help with another
friend who is being greatly used of the Lord in ministry. But they came to me
because his pride is ruining his relationships with those with whom he works.
And because I was a close friend of him, they wanted me to do something about
it. But there’s a person who’s being used of the Lord in one area, and yet in
another area pride is manifesting itself. And we are all vulnerable to pride,
and that is why Paul knows that the exhortation “Be humble” is not enough. He
gets very specific.

Now Paul is always battling pride and cultivating
humility, and he only does it in two explicit ways in this passage: one,
encouraging you to practically count others as more significant than you; the
other, pointing you to Jesus and the cross. But what I want to do is I want to
look specifically at applications of this truth for us today.

Now let me just say I had sixteen points in the first
sermon! We have twelve minutes to go. We’re not going to get them done. So I’m
going to be doing editing as we go on. If you want to get more of it, you can
read C.J.’s book or you can look at my online web log entry and you can get them
all. I don’t know how many of them we’ll get done…maybe we’ll get ten of them
done, we’ll see. We’re going to go through these very quickly.

How do you cultivate humility? How do you fight
against pride?

One, reflect on the wonder of the cross. If
you don’t get anything else, if you don’t get anything else out of this message,
humility only comes — gospel humility only comes — at the foot of the cross. If
you don’t sit hard by the cross, if you’re not constantly surveying the wondrous
cross, if you’re not constantly saying to yourself, ‘Alas! And did my Savior
bleed? And did my Sovereign die for me?’ If you’re not amazed by that wonder,
amazed by the wonder of His love, amazed by the wonder of His grace, you will
not be able to combat pride in your life. Staying by the cross is the greatest
weapon that the Christian has against pride.

Don Carson, who is one of the greatest Christian
scholars in the world today, was interviewing Carl Henry a number of years ago,
before Dr. Henry died. Dr. Henry was probably the most important leader of
evangelicalism in the English-speaking world during the last half of the
twentieth century. He founded Christianity Today magazine; he was a close
acquaintance of John Stott, of Billy Graham; he was a leader in anchoring
evangelicalism in biblical truth; he wrote a massive theology book that even
intelligent people can’t read because the vocabulary is so wide. And Dr. Henry
was also known by his closest associates to be a humble man. And while Dr.
Carson was interviewing Dr. Henry, he said, “Dr. Henry, you have been at the
center of attention in evangelicalism for over a half century. How have you
stayed humble?” [What an embarrassing question to ask a man!] Dr. Henry quickly
tried to take the focus off of him, and he simply said back to Don Carson, “Don,
it is hard to be prideful when you’re standing at the foot of the cross.” It was
instinctive. You could tell that he had been deliberately cultivating this idea
in his own life, that he needed to consciously stand near and under the cross of
Christ, because nothing that we can do looks very big when we’re standing in the
shadow of that cross. No virtue that you possess looks very big when you’re
standing in the shadow of that cross. Do you want to slay pride? Meditate on the
cross. Reflect on the cross. Glory in the wonder of the cross. Become a student
of the cross. Point one.

Point two: Use the means of grace. If
you want to slay pride, if you want to grow in humility, use the means of grace.
Recognize that God’s word, the sacraments, and prayers are altogether designed
to kill pride. When we come and we hear God’s word read, we’re being reminded,
‘Oh, yeah…I’m supposed to live life according to the way that God said, not the
way I want to do it. I’m supposed to say ‘Your will be done,’ not ‘My will be
done.’’

When we come to the sacraments, we’re being reminded
that even our faith is weak, and it needs to be supplemented by God giving us a
visible confirmation of His promise, because our faith is so pitiful and weak.
And when we pray we’re acknowledging that we’re not in control of this world,
but God is, and we’re totally dependent upon Him. We’re needy, and so we lift up
our requests to Him.

All of the means of grace do what? They slay pride.
So when you come to the church on the Lord’s Day to worship God, remember that
one of the things that will be happening is you are drinking in the means of
grace: word and sacrament and prayer. Pride will be being slain, and you will be
being reinforced for the fight against pride all week long.

Thirdly, study God. Study God. Jim Packer
taught us many years ago that the secret to soul-satisfying Bible study is not
asking first the question, ‘What does this passage mean for me in my daily
life?’ but asking first the question, ‘What does this passage teach me about my
God?’ because that puts everything else in perspective. The Bible is
fundamentally about God, and when I study God, I don’t look so great. I don’t
look so big. And in a church and in a time where people think of God as small
and us as big, there is nothing more humbling and helpful than studying God.

Fourthly, study grace. How can you be prideful
if you believe in grace? Grace says you’re a sinner, you need help. Grace says
you’re the problem, not the answer. Grace says you can’t deserve or earn
salvation, but God can freely and graciously and lovingly give it to you in
Jesus Christ. Grace slays pride. That’s why “prideful Christian” is an oxymoron.
Fourth, study grace. So, reflect on the cross, use the means of grace, study
God, study grace.

Fifth, study sin. Especially your own sin. Not
the sins of others. Study sin. Rabbi Duncan, the famous professor of Old
Testament in Hebrew at the Free Church College in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the
nineteenth century, required all his students to read John Owen’s famous
treatise on indwelling sin. And as he gave the book and put it into their hands,
he would say, “But, gentlemen, prepare for the knife.” He was saying that Owen,
like some sort of a spiritual surgeon, was going to perform surgery on their
hearts and expose their sins to them in ways that they’d never understood
before. Now, in the end was that going to depress them? No, not in the end. It
was going to lead them to joy, and to humility, and to delight in God’s grace.
But it was going to hurt along the way.

There’s a famous story of Alexander Whyte, the famous
Scottish preacher in Edinburgh at the turn of the century — late 1800’s,
beginning of the 1900’s…turn of the twentieth century — who had a friend come
into his office. A traveling evangelist was in town, and this traveling
evangelist at his meetings had accused a number of the Church of Scotland
ministers in town of not being believers, including a friend of Alexander
Whyte’s. And the man came in, and he said, “Dr. Whyte, did you know that he said
So-and-So down at the Such-and-Such church isn’t a Christian?” Dr. Whyte stood
up out of his chair, and he said, “How dare he! The scoundrel! The villain! I
know Such-and-Such personally, and he’s a wonderful Christian gentleman!” And
then his friend said, “But, Dr. Whyte…ahem…that’s not all he said. Ah…he said
that you weren’t a Christian, either.” Now what do you think Dr. Whyte’s
response was? This is a man who was one of the greatest preachers in Scotland,
who had deliberately for the last thirty years committed himself to learning
what? The doctrine of sin — he said that’s what I want, to get my master’s
degree in the doctrine of sin. Dr. Whyte sat back down, and he said, “Go, then,
my friend, and leave me. For I must go before God and examine my soul.”

Now what I want you to get out of that is this…it’s
not to be morbidly introspective. The point is this. When another man’s honor
was besmirched, Dr. Whyte was ready to stand up and defend him. When his own
character was assaulted, instead of defending himself, he went immediately to
Christ, immediately to God, immediately to the cross, immediately in prayer, and
said, ‘Lord, judge my heart.’ Why? He was humble, because he had studied sin.
And he knew his own sin. He knew what his sins deserved, and it had made him a
humble man.

Identify graces in others. Do you celebrate
humility when you see it in others? You know, when you look at someone and you
say, ‘Look at her. She is a respected medical doctor in this community, and yet
when she is not on call she is washing socks for her children. Isn’t that
beautiful? She can be out saving somebody’s life, and she’s washing socks, or
preparing a meal. What service, what humility.’ Or, ‘Look at him. He’s a highly
respected attorney or businessman in the community. He could be meeting with
clients and accomplishing great things, and yet there he is sitting in a funeral
parlor because a friend’s wife has died. He has taken the middle of the day off,
and canceled appointments with clients so he could minister to that friend.’ Do
you look around you and see examples of humility and service and just exult in
them? Glory in them? And then say, ‘Lord, I want to be like that. I want to be
like people like that.’

Encourage and serve others each day — that’s a
seventh thing that you can do.
Not only identify graces in others, but
encourage and serve others every day. Do you purpose, ‘Lord, how can I use what
You have given me to serve someone else?’ On the way home, men, do you pull off
on the side of the road and prepare yourself to go into your house and serve
your wife and your children, or do you expect to walk into the house and be
served by them for the rest of the evening? Are you preparing yourself to serve
others?

Eighth… (and this is really hard. I don’t like
this). Invite and pursue and welcome correction.
I hate to repent. I hate
it. C.S. Lewis once said, “Humility is actually quite a cheerful thing, once you
get past the initial shock.” And that is exactly how I feel about repentance. It
is hard, because in repentance I have to see what I really am, and I don’t like
to see that. I like to think of myself as a nicer person than that.

A few weeks ago, I did something really, really,
stupid. And really, frankly, not just stupid…sinful. Now, look, I do these
things all the time. But this stupid and sinful thing actually ended up
discouraging some members of our church staff. And an elder who loves me very
much came to me, and got in my face, and jacked me up. And I didn’t enjoy it. In
fact, when he walked out of the office, I was thinking to myself, “I did what
was right! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” I didn’t say that to him,
but I was thinking it. Two days later it hit me: everything he said was right;
everything I thought was wrong, and there’s only one thing I can do here, and
it’s ask forgiveness.

It’s so embarrassing! And it’s so humiliating. And
it’s so hard. Yeah…that’s why they call it humility. I hate to repent. But do
you invite and pursue and welcome correction? Are you teachable? People who
aren’t teachable, people who can’t be corrected…people who respond…every concern
of expression to them about themselves, their character, their behavior, they’ve
got 73 arguments as to why they were justified in what they were doing, and if
that doesn’t work, there’s the “well, you just don’t understand…you don’t
understand what I’m going through.” Is that your response, or are you
correctable, humble people? Or teachable? And only teachable people are humble.
Invite and pursue correction. Do you confess your sin regularly and
specifically, and are you correctable?

One last thing. Every day, deliberately
acknowledge your dependence on God, and your need for God.
Acknowledge when
you get up in the morning that you need God for every step that you’re going to
take; that any victory that you’re going to have during the day, any success
that you’re going to have during the day, comes from Him and is because of Him,
and is not because of your own innate ability.

Remember E. V. Hill, the great African-American
minister, who would wake up every morning, and the first words that he wanted…he
wanted three words coming out of his mouth every morning when he woke up on that
pillow: “Thank You, Jesus.” He’d wake up, the eyes would open — “Thank You,
Jesus.” Why? He was wanting to acknowledge his utter dependence upon Christ. And
the fact that he was still alive and that God had given him life and ministry,
and many, many gifts, was because of what Jesus had done. It wasn’t because of
him. “Thank You, Jesus,” he would say.

It’s so important…it’s so important that we speak
truth into our own lives, that we pillage the Scripture and speak it back into
our lives.

Don’t you love what Martyn Lloyd-Jones says? He says,
“Most of our unhappiness in life is because we listen to ourselves, rather than
talk to ourselves.” What he means by this is that we sit around and we grumble
and we murmur, and we listen to ourselves grumble and murmur. We listen to
ourselves grumble and murmur instead of saying, “Self, God will take care of
you. Self, God causes all things to work together for good, for those who are
called according to His purpose, for those who love Him. Self, nothing can
separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Self, cast your
cares upon the Lord, and He will care for you. Self, God is in control.” Instead
of preaching to ourselves, we listen to ourselves. Do you get up in the morning
and preach to yourself, “Today I am going to believe in the sovereign care of
God”? And, having announced that, can you be proud about that? Can you b be
proud about your utter dependence upon God for every breath, every step, every
accomplishment? Not unless you’re deluded.

No, my friends, we need every weapon we can find
against pride, because the joy and unity that God intends us to experience is
inseparably connected to humility. And our witness to the world is inseparably
connected to our humility.

Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we find ourselves again just
barely scratching the surface of the wonderful truth of Your word, but we ask
that by the Spirit You would continue to deeply apply this gospel truth into our
lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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