How can we be the people God needs us to be?

Read to the book of Philippians, chapter 1 and the first portion of chapter 2. I will read for you and would like you to follow me, please in the scripture beginning with verse 27, Philippians 1:27, and we’ll read through chapter 2:11.

Only let your conversation be as it becomes the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of destruction, but to you of salvation and that of God.

For unto you, it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill your joy that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in loneliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a slave and was made in the likeness of men.

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father.

Let’s just bow our hearts again. I want you to keep those Bibles open and I feel such a unique sense of need myself today. I never come to this passage without just almost wishing that I did not assign myself the task of dealing with it. Because it is of all passages of scripture most holy ground.

“Father, I ask for some unique sense of your establishment upon the word this morning. You know those who have come hungry and open and responsive. You know the needs of our lives. Lord, we are naked before you. There isn’t. There is not one of us who can hide before you anything of what we are, and that is both negative in the sense that much of what we are, we are ashamed of before you.

But it is also positive in that you see things in us that no one else acknowledges. And, you know, to be good. But above all, father, we know the need that our so-called spiritual life be practical, that our Christianity be in shoe leather, that the world sees something deliberately different by the scheme of our life.

I pray, Father, that the dynamics of what can make that true in us from this passage, particularly through Your servant, the Apostle Paul, will be very true in our spirits this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

I want to begin this morning by sharing with you an interesting thing that you would not come to see quickly in the English version, but that you would quickly identify with if you were reading this as a New Testament Christian, and in the coin a Greek in which it was written. You remember in verse 12 last time I told you the phrase ‘the things which have happened unto me’ in the Greek is an idiomatic expression, which means ‘my circumstances.’ Now look to verse 27, and the phrase ‘I wish to hear of your affairs,’ tapon in the Greek, is the same idiomatic expression only in reference to the Philippians. In other words, Paul has said from verse 20 or verse 12-26, ‘I’m going to tell you how Christ has been magnified in my circumstances.’

And in verse 27, he turns the spotlight on and says, ‘Now I want to talk about your circumstances. I want to talk about what’s happening in your life.’ We glimpsed last week at this sentient personal revelation in these verses 12-26. You know that there are 22 personal pronouns in this passage, ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ‘me,’ ‘mine.’

And yet no one reads verses 12-26 of Philippians one thinking it is somehow an egomaniac who is talking about his own experience. It exalts Jesus Christ in the most phenomenal way by showing the philosophy by which a man can live his life to another. And the key verse of that passage, Philippians 1:20, “according to my earnest hope and expectation that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.” You either reach that point in your Christian life and through it as a portal, find the life of joy, or your Christian life stops at a demeaning, ritualistic kind of experience demanding that God change circumstances and do things for you, and you know nothing ever of the joy that God intends, which comes like a well into whatever circumstances you are asked to walk.

When in verse 27, he talks to their, he changes to their conversation. By the way, the word ‘conversation’ in verse 27, ‘let your conversation,’ comes from the Latin word ‘convesari,’ which means to conduct or behave yourself. And in the King James world, in the 17th century, when this translation was made, a person’s conversation wasn’t just his way of speaking, it was his whole life and conduct and word indeed.

So what the verse is saying is, “Let your whole behavior be worthy of those who are pledged to Jesus Christ.” The actual Greek word here Politeia is a word that means to be a citizen. And that was the highest concept that could possibly be imagined. Another way of saying it in this passage is, “You are a citizen of the kingdom of God.”

Wherever you go, regardless of the circumstances or whether there’s a Roman soldier present or not, you represent that kingdom, and people judge you by that. They know the kingdom by your representation. So, let your citizenship be becoming of Christ now. That’s interesting because this entire passage that we’re going to look at, which I’ve already mentioned, Philippians 2, is the holiest ground I know of, other than perhaps John 17 in the New Testament.

And the phenomenal thing is this holy ground, this Christological passage, dealing with who Christ is, is interjected right into the muddy waters of disastrous interpersonal church relationships.

You can pretty much get the picture when Paul starts in verse 27, he’s got something to say. “Get your circumstances into alignment as a citizen of the kingdom,” he says. And the major weight of this whole section is about human relationships by placing the problem in a priority position. In the epistle, Paul is making it clear that the preeminent criteria of true Christian fellowship is proper relationships.

In fact, a Christian-to-Christian relationship is of such incredible importance that John puts it this way: “If a man says he loves God and hates, or is indifferent to his brother,” he is a liar. That is one empirical evidence, and it is talking about brothers in the church, not just the world.

If you say you love God and you are indifferent to your brother, you are a liar. There’s empirical proof in relationships, and you need to know this. There are two imperatives of this relationship being right. One is the imperative for your true witness. Jesus said in John 17:21, in this other great passage I’ve referred to, in which Jesus is directly speaking to the Father, he said, “Father, I pray that they may be one, so the world may know that you sent me and the world may believe.”

The message: “I pray that they might have this unity and oneness.” It is the imperative to witness. I pray daily. Some people keep their mouth shut about Jesus. For them to open their mouth would only be an insult. Though they are believers and probably will go to heaven, by the grace and mercy of God, there is nothing in their relationship with the church that would add the dimension that Jesus said is necessary for a witness to even be acceptable. It’s an imperative for witness.

The problem of human relationships is the major one in the world, whether you’re talking about employer or employee, nation to nation, or the Klan, husband to wife, or parents to their offspring.

You’re talking about the number one problem, and that’s why the word of God says that if Christ is in your life, there’s a difference in your relationship, and that’s provable and imperative to the witness. Let me tell you something else, though. It’s also imperative to joy. We’ve said that every commentator says the book of Philippians is the epistle of joy. Although it’s written at the end of four years of imprisonment and to a church undergoing some real trials, it’s still an epistle of joy. Please know this: no one gets down on their knees and says, “Oh Lord, hallelujah. I’m not speaking to so-and-so.” There’s no joy in your experience when human relationships are broken and scattered. It’s the number one problem in the church and on the mission field. Most of us think missionaries are the greatest and that we should hold them in reverence. They’re wonderful people. But if you’ve been on the mission field, as I have, you’ll see that among those people who are perhaps the most committed, the thing that tears apart the witness of the gospel and field after field is the bad interpersonal relationships among the missionaries and among Christians within those countries. And that’s a travesty and a tragedy.

Now, there are conditions that cause disunity in anybody. The word of God here describes the conditions as external opposition. Verse 28 mentions “your adversaries.” Don’t be terrified by adversaries. And in verse 29 and 30, he speaks of being called to the grace of suffering. Most of us who are always seeking gifts, particularly in this contemporary charismatic movement, want to know what gifts we can possess. Do you know what great thing could be working through our lives? How many would like this gift? It is given to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in His name but to suffer for His sake. There’s a gift in being terrified by adversaries. Then he turns around and speaks about the internal corruption. Look at verses 1-4 of chapter 2. I mean, just look at them briefly: disunity, self-assertion, dominating games, and factions. What a tremendous understanding that in these two arenas, external opposition and internal corruption, disunity begins to seed itself and to grow in the soil of these circumstances. And in light of this, look at what Paul expects from them. He says in the latter verses of that first chapter, “stand fast in one spirit, in one mind.” The world is full of Christians in whom relationships are not evidence of Christ, but what a magnificent experience it is.

When the world sees a Christian who shows forth Christ, it is a powerful witness. I recently heard a story about a young Hindu in India. In some communities, when a person turns to Christ, they are treated as though they were dead and written off. This young Hindu boy came from a wealthy, prominent Hindu family and was excommunicated when he turned to Christ. His portion of the inheritance, which was a large sum due to the wealth of his father, was to be divided equally among the remaining children.

The remaining children fought fiercely over that extra amount of money after their father’s death, and finally, they called on the Christian, recognizing that he was the only one who could come in and set things straight. Although the Christian experience was reprehensible to them, his life demonstrated that he would be fair, just, and honest. They called him into their circumstances to bring unity. Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, and strive together, wrestling side by side, calm, cool, and in charge of your life. That’s what God wants in that arena. These are the pressures and stresses that cause disunity.

It’s interesting to me how two breeds of animals so beautifully demonstrate this. When a bunch of jackals or wolves attack stallions, the stallions come in nose to nose together and kick out, destroying the attacking jackals. But when jackals attack donkeys, they back up, facing the enemy, and kick themselves to death. This is a valid illustration of what often happens when external pressures and stresses come upon people. Many families, churches, and groups become stronger. The more the stress comes, the more they bond together against the enemy. But others disintegrate. Other families and churches just fall apart when the pressure comes.

Now let’s look at the causes for disunity. The one danger that threatened this church was disunity. They had no doctrinal problems like the Galatian church or great moral problems like the Corinthian church. This is a danger of a healthy church. Most of the churches that I could take you to on this Peninsula care so little about doctrine that you couldn’t get a fight over any issue because nobody really puts that much emphasis on it. In chapter 2, verses 1-4, both the causes of disunity and the contributions to unity are discussed.

But let me look at the causes for disunity first. You see, the one danger which threatened this church was disunity. They had no doctrinal problems like the Galatian church. They had no great moral problem like the Corinthian church. This is a danger of a healthy church. Most of the churches that I could take you to on this Peninsula care so little about doctrine, you couldn’t get a fight over any issue because nobody really puts that much emphasis on it. Who would really care? They might fight over the color of the carpet or whether to put a new stained glass window in or something, but they’re not gonna fight over doctrine. What I’m saying to you is that a healthy church like this Philippian church will always be exposed to this danger because when people are really in earnest, when their beliefs really matter to them, when they’re eager to carry out their own plans and schemes in the name of the Lord, they’re apt to get up against each other.

It’s that kind of health. In fact, there’s no question about it, sir. Those of you who want a place of absolute unity where everyone is in their place and no one is ever out of order, and it’s quiet and cool and calm and collected, go to the cemetery, the most organized place on the peninsula. No one rises up, no problems ever occur, and there is always total unity, but there is total death.

You go into a nursery, and you’ve got the exact opposite experience. I frequently, when we have films or some other activity, I’m away from the pulpit on Sunday night, I go into the nursery number one because I believe they ought to know who the pastor is. Even the littlest ones people work in the nursery deserve medals of honor. In fact, Purple Hearts. You walk in, one kid grabs your leg and starts gnawing on it, and another kid whales a toy across the room at you. It’s a war zone, sir. It doesn’t have the order of the cemetery, but thank God it has life, and I would choose that any day given the option. The Philippian church was alive, and the greater the enthusiasm of believers, the greater the danger of this kind of set of circumstances, and yet I would choose it.

Look at the dangers that are listed. Specifically, verse three: “Let nothing be done through strife and vainglory.” This means selfish ambition. Always a danger of people wanting not to advance the work of God, but to advance themselves. It was always a threat of your own personal ambition entering in. Oh, bring that to the cross, my friend. We were laboring this week, teaching on the tabernacle on Wednesday nights on the concept of the meal offering. The meal or meat offering, as the King James calls it, is the offering of service to the Lord, and he says, “What must be in that offering? It has to have finely ground flour, which speaks of a life that supports the ministry, and it must have frankincense and oil.”

Speaking of the fact that the work is of the Holy Spirit, but there are two things it cannot have: love and honey. Because honey is that sweet, emotional, personal, fleshly-like gift which appears very wonderful when you see it manifested, but when fire touches it, it smells to high heaven.

Many people who seem so gracious in Christian ministry just give me a job and I’ll do it, and they are so gifted and they smile so beautifully and they have all these marvelous gifts. But the first trial that comes, boy, it goes to high heaven. Let me tell you, the pastor’s very, very aware of that. People get in a job, a little misunderstanding comes, a little bit of pressure comes, somebody says the wrong thing, and that sweet, almost sickly Christian smile becomes something else.

Here is what he says: What are you doing that Christian service out of? Is it for self-achievement and glory? Secondly, he says, a desire for personal prestige. The word is verse three, lowliness of mind, esteem the other better than himself, to be admired, respected, to have a platform for your own experience.

You see that Christian ought to be desiring to focus man’s eyes upon God and not himself, and there’s a real word here to you, sir, to be able to esteem the other better than yourself. I heard the story of a revivalist who was coming through a town, one of these bombastic revivalists who just absolutely assailed everybody who was different.

And a friend who had attended the meeting went to a very well-known clergyman and began telling him what the evangelist had said the other night. And in the process, he said that Dr. So-and-so (naming another minister in the area) was not even a believer, was not even converted. And at that, this other minister just rose up out of the chair to defend his brother, a fellow minister, not of the same denomination, and said, “How could he say that?”

And then the man said, “Well, had he also said that you were not converted either?” And at that, this minister just sat down and put his hands in his face and said, “I really need to let that word pierce my spirit, that I might understand what God is trying to say to me.” You see, our response in most instances would be the opposite of that, wouldn’t it?

Let them attack anyone else, and we’ll say, “Well, I’ve always wondered about him anyway.” But if they would attack us, we would come up. You see? Let each and loneliness esteem the other better than himself. What a grace. And then he says in verse four, “Don’t look at your own things, but the things that others are involved with.”

Again, remember the same word here, this amatic expression, not your own circumstances, but the circumstances of others. If, for a man, life is a competition whose prizes he must win, if he forever regards life as a struggle to overcome, and that he must conquer others, then he will always think of other human beings as enemies or, at least, opponents.

I see this so much in our business world and our church world. Other people are seen as opponents, not brothers or those to be advanced. Let me look with you for a moment at verse 4 because it explains something that Paul says when he talks about the body of Christ. He says, “If one member suffers, every member suffers; if one member is exalted, every member is exalted.”

My experience is that God generally asks me to be involved when I am suffering in the joy of a brother. That’s a hard thing to do. It’s easy for me to enter into your suffering if you are hurting. I, from my position of having it together, can come down to you, put my arm around you, and bring you comfort.

But the reverse is almost impossible. When I am struggling and you are being exalted, instead of saying, “Well, brother, I’m grateful that God’s blessing you, but you’ll have to walk through this valley like I am someday,” adding sour milk for a 20 square mile area, but pulling yourself up and walking into that brother’s joy, saying, “What a joy that you are being exalted!” Esteem the circumstances of the brother above your own circumstance.

Those are some of the problems of disunity: self-seeking, self-assertion, esteeming your own affairs better than the affairs of another. Now look at the contributions to unity mentioned in the same passage. Verse 1 asks, “If there be any consolation in Christ, is the fact that you are in Christ any different for you than not being in Christ?”

Is there anything in your life that shows that being in Christ makes a difference? Has it made a difference in your marriage? For employers, is there anything about the way you deal with employees that shows that you are in Christ? For students, is there something about the way you maintain your student responsibility that shows that there is a consolation in the fact that you are in Christ, there is a strength?

That’s what the word consolation means. Is there something specifically that flows out of that resource that I’m in, Christ? Secondly, Paul says, “A comfort of love.” The power of Christian love, the unconquered benevolence that never knows bitterness, which will never seek anything but the good of others.

Is that affecting you? Are you able to draw on the love of Christ beyond your own love? I have said on several occasions in counseling situations where husbands, wives, or others have said to me, “I could never love her/him again,” or even in just the relationship of people who perhaps had been intimate friends and had been broken by disloyalty, and they say, “I’ll never trust that person again.” God never asks you to carry on one single human relationship in your own power. He asks you to draw on the reservoir of His love for you. How much does He love that person? Somebody’s offended you and spoken evil of you, and you say, “I can never forgive them.” How much does Christ love that person? How much does He love that offending husband or wife? How much does He love that person who’s done you wrong in a business relationship? I’ll tell you one thing, buddy: bitterness is worse than cancer.

Verse 1 talks about “the comfort of love.” Richard Tatlock, in his book In My Father’s House, wrote, “Hell is the eternal condition of those who have made relationships with God and their fellows an impossibility through lives which have destroyed love. Heaven, on the other hand, is the eternal condition of those who have found real life in relationships through love with God and their fellow man.” Now I believe in a literal hell, but I think Tatlock has something there: you can be in hell here when you have lived the kind of life that makes relationships with God and men impossible by a destroying kind of interpersonal involvement.

Thirdly, he says “the fellowship of the Spirit.” This means the Holy Spirit. Are you drawing on the Holy Spirit to help you in the issues of unity? And then he says “tender compassion and sympathy.” And lastly, he says “fulfill my joy.” The apostle himself is involved. He says the way you walk out this experience affects me. Dr. Reas, in his book The Adequate Man, says, “If I am holding attitudes or displaying behavior that destroys the harmony of the church, I am despising the partnership of the Holy Ghost.” The contributions to unity that Paul names are the fact that I’m in Christ, that I have the comfort and the power of His love, that I have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

That there are compassions and mercies buried in me as I acknowledge what God has done for me, and there is even an investment of the ministries of others that ought to be involved in my life, encouraging me to keep my position of unity in the body of Christ, to quiet my tongue, and to cause me to walk in open relationship with brothers.

I am absolutely positive by the Word of God that at the judgment seat of Christ, some of us who have put great emphasis on external righteousness, such as not doing or saying certain things, will be very disillusioned when we find out that the sin issue has never been the issue with God. The issue at the judgment seat of Christ is largely going to be what we have done, which has affected our ministry and the ministry of others. That’s going to be the issue, and then Paul turns to the real cure for disunity.

Verse five through eleven, he says there has to be a fresh look at Calvary, a fresh plunge into the crimson wave, which reaches the throne of God and sweeps over me. Here’s the trump card for believers, and I believe it’s the trump card that makes the difference. This isn’t a spiritual pep talk, lady. If a man or woman has been born again of the Spirit of God, the identity with Jesus Christ is continually something that brings us into a state of conviction.

Verse five says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” “Mind in you” is not referring to intelligence. Good speed translation says, “Have the same attitude Christ Jesus had.” Weymouth says, “Man, every spirit which was in Christ be in you.” Moffitt says, “Treat one another by the same spirit that you’ve experienced in Jesus Christ.” The International Critical Commentary says the real word is disposition, and I think that’s right.

“Let this same disposition be in you that was in Christ.” We used to have a phrase that was called, well, I don’t know how to tell you what it was called. I’ll just demonstrate it for you. Our people back in Western Pennsylvania used to say, “If I mind to, I’d do so and so. Or if she’d have mined to, she would’ve done so and so.” And what they were saying was the mental attitude of that person was what determined what they did. That’s what Philippians two is saying.

I’ve heard the weirdest sermons preached from this passage. “Have the mind of Christ” as though it was some supernatural mental that comes upon you.

It’s talking about a disposition, a mental attitude of humility in the life of a believer. It’s a tremendous theological passage on the nature and person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I know men and women who read this passage and get all exalted about Christ and well they should, and what it says about Christ, and they fail to understand that Paul’s purpose in this passage was to get Christians to cultivate a certain pattern. Christ followed the path of selflessness to the cross. It was a descending scale of humiliation, ending with the most dignified death possible. Jesus did not say, “I will go this far and no farther.” We say that. We say, “I’ve had enough. That’s the last time you’re going to say that. That’s the last time this is going to happen. I draw the line,” we say. Thank God Jesus did not draw a line.

This moving Pauline passage says what Paul says in the second Corinthian letter, the eighth chapter when he says Jesus, who was rich, became poverty-stricken for us. Paul pleads for the Philippians to live in harmony and unity and lay aside their disharmonies and discords and shed their personal ambitions and pride and desire for prominence and prestige, and to have in them the same heart of humility and selflessness to serve others, which was the essential nature of Jesus Christ.

Right now, let me just point to the passage, verse six, being in the form of God, being is the Greek word here. That means it is not the common word for being. It describes what a man is in his very essence, the thing which cannot be changed, that which is unalterable as a characteristic form is the word “morph,” the essential nature. He was, in essence, an essential nature God. It wasn’t something to be robbery, to be equal with God. The Greek there says specifically that equality was a right. He didn’t need to snatch at it. And another way of translating is this, that he didn’t hold to that equality. That’s the thing I think is really being said in this passage. Not that he had to work for the equality, but what Paul is saying is he was in that position, but he didn’t hold to that. He didn’t say, “How dare anyone suggest that I would become something less than I am.” In fact, this passage is so filled with that understanding, for in the next verse it says, “He emptied himself.” The Greek word, the verb is canons from the concept of kenosis. In the Greek, it means emptying. Emptying how vividly it speaks about Jesus Christ, destroying himself, and look at the phrase and becoming of no reputation. Reputation is what people think you are. Character is what you are.

Jesus walked into a place where, for the will of the Father and the redemption of man, he would become of no reputation. He would empty himself – the serenity, the peace, the glory of divinity. He gave up voluntarily and became a man. Phillips says he stripped himself of all privileges. Moffitt, Weymouth, and Reed’s translations say that he stripped himself of his glory. And perhaps the greatest translation I’ve ever read is from Forsyth, who says the word should be translated “self-disglorification”.

How can I talk about this passage to most of us? Many of you in this very room this morning are as callous to what I’m saying in this moment as though I were talking about a movie star and the Academy Awards tomorrow night. To understand, we’re concerned about the redemption in Christ Jesus. We’re gloriously happy to be saved and wonderfully rejoicing that we’re going to heaven and gloriously expecting to be in the rapture when Jesus comes. But we’re not too interested in the step-by-step humiliation, emptying, and devastation that Jesus went through. He emptied himself until he came to the cross.

Verse 7 says, in the latter part of the verse, “He took upon himself the form of the slave.” Again, not playacting, it’s the word literal form. And he was made in the likeness of men, being found in that scheme, that temporary passing form as a man, he became hum. He was filled with humility and obedience until he came to the death of the cross.

I read the words of Cicero sometime ago. Not a believer of course, but Cicero, writing about crucifixion, said, “No adequate word can be found to describe so execrable an enormity as crucifixion.” There must have been, in the purposes, even the choice of the means by which he died, the most ignominious, embarrassing form of death. I see pictures of Calgary. I’ve never seen an accurate one yet. The cross was not lifted above the earth. The Romans crucified their criminals on man-high crosses, and the people stood eye to eye, spat on their face, and plucked their beards. It was the most humiliating form of death – to hang naked, literally among those who were your detractors.

Jesus came in the true form of a slave-like man. It wasn’t a stage or a temporary thing to which he came out of some kind of duty and from which he returned to deity. In fact, I think so few of us understand that when Jesus accepted the limitation of a human body, he took that limitation back with him to heaven.

That’s the teaching of the ascension. Jesus taught total emptiness for your redemption, and that humility, obedience, and self-renunciation are the hallmarks of a Christian. When a man truly works and worships Jesus, he doesn’t fall down in broken submission. Rather, he cries out in love, so amazing and divine, that demands his life, soul, and all.

In the Philippian Church, there were men and women whose one aim was to gratify their selfish ambition. But the one aim of Jesus was to serve others, no matter the depth of self-renunciation required. Jesus came to serve in the Philippian church.

There were also those whose sole attention was to focus men’s eyes upon themselves. However, the one aim of Jesus’ life was to focus men’s eyes upon God.

I say again, even reading this passage is difficult for me. I have studied this passage for 20 years, every word of it in the original until the words have become memorized and inevitably stamped in my mind. I am convinced, both by the manner in which Paul uses it and by the inspiration of the spirit that continues to inspire it.

It’s the only ultimate way that people are different. People aren’t different in relationships for fear of hell or missing the rapture. They aren’t different in relationships for fear of losing rewards. They are only Christlike in the spirit of a relationship when they have truly seen Christ, and they’ll come to understand this.

Perhaps the most biblical example that brings together Paul’s thought to the Philippians is what happened in John 13. Jesus had one more experience to live with Christians. He came into their midst as they were quarreling and fuming, asking who forgot to have a servant there to wash their feet, who was in charge of the arrangements, and which disciple could they blame quietly. Jesus simply walked over to where the basin was provided by the owner of the house.

He took the slave’s apron that always hung on a peg by the door and noted that slave’s apron around his waist. In fact, the very word for knot in the Greek is the slave apron knot. Jesus knotted the towel in that manner and got down in front of one believer after another and began to wash their feet.

This act was incredible and seemingly impossible, except for what John 13 says in the beginning. It says that Jesus knew who he was, where he had come from, and where he was going. No task was demeaning. He understood his purpose and his message. I heard a story, and I’m finished, of a Maori tribesman in New Zealand. The Maori were tremendously warring people.

This man had been converted, and he had come in one Sunday morning and had taken his seat on the front seat of the church because it was the Lord’s Supper Day. It was the day on which the sacrament of the Lord’s supper was to be shared. Suddenly, he arose and went to the back of the church in a very heated manner, and other people in the church could tell by the very bristling of his walking back that something serious had happened.

Finally, he came forward again and sat down and was there for the rest of the service. When the pastor asked him what had happened, he said, “When I entered and came to the front to sit down, I had no idea who would be seated beside me. I saw a man at once, that the man who was seated beside me was the man who had murdered my father, and I had sworn to drink his blood, so I withdrew, died in the aisle of the church.

But as I walked down the aisle, I heard a voice say, ‘By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love one to another?’ And as I sat down dear near the door, he said, it seemed I heard Jesus say, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ And he said, ‘Then I stood up and went back and sat down in the front.

I sat beside my former enemy, and together we took of the Lord’s Supper, my friend. That’s the power of the gospel.

It’s the power that enters into, oh, we’re all in arenas, internal, external things that are happening that cause the stress. Yes, we all have the causes of the stress, and we all have enough of the ego for self-seeking and ambition and pride in all the rest. But the thing that makes the difference is when the Christ spirit becomes dominant, and we can say to God what Paul wrote to this church, ‘Oh God, I pray that the disposition of Christ will be in me.’

The mental attitude of Jesus, no reputation, will be in me. We have a bleeding, dying world out there, and I apologize for being a few minutes over this morning.

I hear evangelical Christians putting people in little pockets, and it makes me sick.

Some of the most carnal and obscene jokes that I hear, some of the language that I hear that most stereotypes people in our culture come from Christians.

Somehow, God needs to bury in some of us the spirit of tying the towel, losing our reputation.

Dying to our self-interest, even in the Christian community, and letting the Christ spirit of humiliation to redeem come through in our experience, that’s when there will come a nuclear explosion of Christian witness. That’s when it’ll be more than words. It’ll be power, demonstration, and authority of God.

Would you bow your heads with me, please? With our heads bowed and every eye closed in this auditorium, a first brutal frank question to you: how many of you this morning say, “Pastor, there is a relationship or circumstance I’m presently involved in that I’m both frustrated by and I am not doing very well in, and I need desperately to have the consolation of Christ, the fellowship of the superior, the compassion and mercy of God to bring me into a place of demonstrating Christlikeness in that circumstance/relationship, and I want you to pray for me”? Would you just raise your hand anywhere in the auditorium? Specific, specific, God’s speaking to you about that? Yes, you may put ’em down again.

Now, perhaps some of my words have been a little hard this morning. I said what I do believe. I don’t think many of us either care to or would spend time just getting in a passage like this and say, “Oh God, help me to understand what Jesus did. I want to know what no reputation means. I want to know what emptying means in order that Christ’s power may flow through my life.” Oh friend, I want that to be true, that there be a dynamic released in you that will not only bless the world but bless the body of Christ as well and bless and secure qualities in your life.

Now Father, I bring this moment to an end with my brothers and sisters. I thank you that you are a God of order and of love and of power. Father, for those who go to the prayer room for communion or go to the prayer room for counsel, for others who go into the courtyard for fellowshipping with Christians, for others who just leave the auditorium and go to their own homes, Father, for each of the diverse decisions that are part of these next moments, I pray your word shall be like a great missile seeking us out until its purpose is accomplished in each of our lives. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen. God bless you. We’ll see you tonight at six. The prayer chapel’s right here to my left. If you wish a time of prayer, God bless you.