Sunday Sermon Manuscript – September 27

Living as God's Children 

Philippians 2:1-13

Blood Will Tell

We have a saying in Korean: "Blood can't be hidden." In English you might say, "Blood will tell." When I was young, I let it pass as something older people just say. But as the years go by, there are moments when I suddenly catch my father's face in the mirror, or hear my mother's voice in words that slip out of my mouth without thinking. My walk looks like theirs, my smile looks like theirs, even the way I sigh when I'm upset looks like theirs. Seeing this, I came to think that a child is, in the end, someone who grows to resemble someone. That is probably why our elders, when they watched a stranger's conduct, would ask, "Whose child is that?" The way a person lives reveals, plainly, whose child they are.

The theme we will reflect on together today is "Living as God's Children." We are people who pray to God as "Father." If so, what are God's children supposed to resemble? Does it mean becoming powerful like God? Does it mean being lifted high like God? Today's passage, we might say, turns these expectations completely upside down.

It would help to begin by looking at the city of Philippi. Philippi was in the land of Macedonia, but it was a Roman colony. In 42 BC, after Antony and Octavian defeated the armies of Brutus and Cassius on the plains near this city, Rome settled veterans there who had finished their military service. Octavian, who would later become the Emperor Augustus, gave the city the name of the imperial family. The people of Philippi took great pride in their Roman citizenship; they lived by Roman law and used Latin as their official language. That is why scholars sometimes call Philippi "a little Rome." The inscriptions excavated in this city show how eager people were to carve into stone the offices they had held and the honors they had received. In a word, Philippi was a city where the measure of life was who ranked higher and who had more honor.

The church that was born when Paul first preached the gospel in this city is described in Acts 16. There was Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, who heard the gospel by the river outside the city gate and was baptized with her whole household. There was the jailer who, in the middle of the night, as an earthquake shook the prison, came to believe in Jesus along with his family. A church where a businesswoman who traded in fine cloth and a Roman prison guard sat at one table — that was how the church in Philippi began. But by the time Paul, himself in prison, wrote this letter, the Philippian church was facing two difficulties. From outside, they were suffering because of those who opposed the gospel (1:28-30); from within, two women leaders, Euodia and Syntyche, were in conflict and could not be of the same mind (4:2).

If you read today's passage slowly, you will find the word "therefore" three times: the "therefore" of verse 1, the "therefore" of verse 9, and the "therefore" of verse 12. The first and third are Paul's exhortations to the church; the second one, in the middle, is about what God has done. And right at the center sits the "Christ Hymn" (vv. 5-11), which we read together every Palm Sunday. Today, following these three "therefores," I would like us to think together about work as resistance, lowliness as power, and what it means to live as God's children. A child resembles the Father. This simple sentence may be where we begin reading today's word.

Work as Resistance

The first "therefore" is connected to the end of chapter 1. In 1:27 Paul urges, "Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." The Greek word translated "live your life" originally carries the sense of "live as citizens." In a city that boasted of Roman citizenship, Paul tells them to live as citizens worthy of the gospel, and in chapter 3 he declares plainly, "Our citizenship is in heaven." In the middle of a Roman colony, a colony of heaven had been planted. So the call in chapter 2 to be of one mind is not just a cultured piece of advice to get along nicely. We can see it as a word about how a small community can "stand firm in one spirit" and hold its ground in the face of those who oppose it.

But Paul does not begin with a command. "If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy..." In the flow of the Greek sentence, this is closer to "Isn't this already so?" than "if perhaps there is." Here we can see the benediction we receive at the end of worship — the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit — layered right over these words. There is something God has given first, and the "therefore" is built on top of it. This is exactly what we Methodists treasure as prevenient grace — the confession that grace always comes before us. A child receives first, and then grows to resemble the love they have received.

On that foundation of grace, Paul asks, "make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." The phrase "be of the same mind" uses a word Paul returns to again and again in this letter. The same word appears in verse 5, "Let the same mind be in you," and again in chapter 4, where he urges Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. It is not that everyone must hold the same opinion; we might say it means everyone looking in the same direction.

Then, in verse 3, Paul names two things that tear a community apart. "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit." The word translated "selfish ambition" originally came from someone who worked for hire, for wages, and later came to mean the attitude of forming factions and scrambling for position for one's own gain. The word translated "conceit" is kenodoxia in Greek, a compound of "empty" and "glory" — in old English, "vainglory." The Korean word used here, 허영, means exactly the same thing: "empty glory." For the people of Philippi, who carved their offices and honors into stone, these two must have been the engines that drove life. But is this only a story about Philippi two thousand years ago? The title printed on our business card, a line on a résumé, the number of "likes" on our phone screen — the world we live in still seems to run on these two engines, selfish ambition and empty glory.

Instead, Paul says, "in humility regard others as better than yourselves." But in Roman society at the time, this word "low," translated here as "humility," was not a compliment. It was a word attached to lowly people, to those in the position of a slave, and it was not an attitude any free citizen would boast of. It is precisely this "lowly mind" that Paul holds up as the way the church lives. And in verse 4 he adds, "Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others." In those two short verses, 3 and 4, a word for "doing" or "affairs" appears three times. Before the church is a place that does grand things, it is a place where people look after one another's affairs.

I believe this is where we find "work as resistance." The world says, "Every man for himself — find your own way to survive." But when the church looks after one another's affairs, regards others as better than themselves, and carries on nameless service day after day, that becomes a resistance that does not take up the sword. In the fourth century, the Emperor Julian, who tried to revive Rome's old religion, lamented in a letter to a pagan priest that these "Galileans" cared not only for their own poor but for ours as well, while our own people received no help from us. What even imperial power could not overcome was this ordinary, lowly work of Christians. We gather every week to worship and share lunch together; people open their hearts and their resources to prepare it; they give their time and their hands in the kitchen, carefully, so that things get done — this is by no means a small thing. And this is not a way we invented; it is the way God showed us first. A child resembles the Father.

Lowliness as Power

To explain what that way is, Paul does not lay out an argument — he sings a song. "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." And the hymn that follows goes down without a pause from verse 6 through verse 8. The One who was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness; he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. It is a road that goes down one step, and then another.

"Did not regard as something to be exploited" in verse 6 means, we could say, that he did not consider it something to grasp and hold on to, something to use for himself. Here we are reminded of Adam in Genesis. The first human, created in the image of God, wanted to be like God and reached out his hand and grasped. But the One who truly was in the form of God opened his hand. The grasping hand and the open hand — perhaps the story of humankind is the story of these two hands.

We must also remember that "emptied himself" in verse 7 comes from the same root as "conceit" — "empty glory" — in verse 3. The Philippians strove to fill up their empty glory, but Jesus emptied himself. Likewise, "humbled himself" in verse 8 comes from the same root as "humility" in verse 3. The lowly mind Paul asked of us in verse 3 was the very road Jesus had already walked in verse 8.

In a city where people climbed the ladder of offices and honors one rung at a time and carved it into stone, this hymn recites the opposite résumé. One scholar even calls it a "ladder of shame," descending the ladder of honor in reverse. And at the very bottom of that ladder stands the cross. The cross was the most shameful punishment Rome inflicted on rebels and slaves, and Roman citizens were generally exempt from it. The Roman orator Cicero went so far as to say that the very word "cross" should be kept far away not only from the body of a Roman citizen, but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. For the Philippians, proud of their Roman citizenship, calling a crucified man "Lord" must have made no sense at all.

But then, in verse 9, the second "therefore" appears. "Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name." This time it is not Paul's "therefore" but God's "therefore." Jesus did not exalt himself; the One who exalted him was God. Verses 10 and 11 recall Isaiah 45, which says that every knee shall bow before God alone — and now that confession is directed toward Jesus, who was crucified. In a city that called the emperor "Lord" and "Savior," to confess "Jesus Christ is Lord" was, we might say, a fresh declaration of where true power lies.

Then is lowliness weakness? No, it is not. Some scholars say verse 6 can be read not only as "though he was in the form of God" but also as "because he was in the form of God." Jesus' self-lowering was not something un-Godlike; it was the most Godlike thing of all. Not the power that grasps, but the power that gives itself away — that is the power of God. And this hymn ends with "to the glory of God the Father." The Son lived not for his own glory, but for the glory of the Father. Jesus showed us first what it means to live as a child. Lowliness is not weakness; it is power.

Henri Nouwen, the spiritual writer who taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, laid down his professorship and, from 1986 until his death, lived as pastor at L'Arche Daybreak, a community of people with intellectual disabilities near Toronto, Canada. One of his tasks there was helping with the morning routine of a young man named Adam, who could not speak and could not wash or dress himself. Yet Nouwen later confessed that he had not taught Adam — Adam had become his teacher. And he said that the way of God is truly the way downward. The world says you must climb up to gain power, but on Jesus' road, it seems, those who go down are the ones who meet true power. A child resembles the Father. And the face of the Father we are to resemble is shown most clearly in the face of the Son, Jesus, who emptied himself and became lowly.

Living as God's Children

Now comes the third "therefore." Our Korean Bible (the New Korean Revised Version) gives the section beginning at verse 12 the heading "Live as God's children." This is exactly the theme we have taken hold of today. "Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence..." The word "obey" here comes from the same root as when verse 8 says Jesus "became obedient to the point of death." And Paul says, "in my absence." Not a child who is good only while the parent is watching, but a child who lives with the parent's heart even where the parent is not present.

But I suspect some of you feel a weight on your heart before the words "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Does this mean I must strain to earn my salvation? No, it does not. In Greek, "your own" is plural. So it is not "each of you take care of your own salvation," but closer to "together, carry through to the end the salvation you have received together." Not every man for himself, but living out salvation together. And "fear and trembling" is less the dread of being punished than the reverence with which we straighten ourselves before the fact that the holy God is at work in us right now.

Verse 13 says, "for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." In 1785, John Wesley preached a sermon on this very text, "On Working Out Our Own Salvation." Wesley preached: God works in you; therefore you can work. God works in you; therefore you must work. And he said that salvation begins with prevenient grace, which includes "the first wish to please God." Verse 13 means the same thing. If the desire to please God has stirred in you even once, that desire is itself evidence that God is already at work in you. Wesley also warned against sitting down and saying, "I can do nothing," calling it false humility. True humility is neither trusting my own strength nor collapsing in defeat; it is trusting the God who works in me and getting up again.

When a little child comes running with a crooked, wobbly drawing and holds it out, the parent's joy is not about the child's artistic skill but about the child's desire to please them. Doing the Lord's work means the same thing. So remember this, and though we may be clumsy and lacking, may you and I be people who respond only with fear and trembling.

I remember the day last spring when I climbed up and down the roof of Trinity Chapel three or four times to install Starlink for our young adults. I was sweating and my legs were shaking, and honestly I wondered, "Do I really have to go this far?" — it was, quite literally, a time of fear and trembling. But the moment I looked down from the roof at the students walking across campus, I became convinced that this was something that had to be done. Looking back, I think it was God who gave me that heart for young people up on that roof, and God who led that heart into Sunday afternoon worship at Trinity Chapel. The One who enables us both to will and to work — it was just as verse 13 says.

In verse 15, immediately after, Paul says, "so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world." So then, what does it mean to live as God's children? In a world driven by selfish ambition and empty glory, to look after one another's affairs — that is work as resistance. Instead of grasping, to open our hands and go down — that is lowliness as power. And to do all of this not by my own strength but by relying on the Father who works within me — that is what it means to live as God's children.

Beloved members of Yeolin Church, I love you. We are people who follow Jesus, who emptied himself, in a world that chases empty glory. And especially to you, beloved young adults, who live in places where you are constantly evaluated by grades and résumés: your worth depends not on what you have achieved, but on whose child you are. It is all right if our names are never carved in stone. For God gave Jesus the name above every name, and in that Jesus, God has called us beloved children. A child resembles the Father. This week, too, I bless you in the name of the Lord, that you and I may look after one another's affairs, gladly become lowly, rely on the God who works within us, and shine like stars in the midst of this crooked generation.