Have the mind of Christ in you…(Phil. 2:5).
Have you ever noticed how much of the way God has made the world work seems counter-intuitive to all we have been taught? Do you want financial security? The world says hoard. God says give. Do you want to be great? The world says claw your way to the top. God says serve. It all seems upside down until you realize that it is the world that is upside down and the Kingdom that is right side up! That is why so much of what Jesus taught seemed to go against the prevailing cultural tide of his time. He was speaking truth into a world that was filled with lies that were believed to be true.
Paul understood. Today’s text comes from a portion of his letter to the Philippians in which he challenges them to develop a way of looking at the world and acting that are in conformity with the way Jesus thought and acted. This is the thrust of the exhortation to “Be this minded which was also in Christ Jesus,” (the literal translation of today’s text.) He has just warned them not to act out of selfish ambition and vain conceit. He has also just encouraged them to consider others better than themselves. We call it humility.
The way to joy is the way of humility…in a biblical sense. The world would have you believe that the way to happiness is to focus on your own needs and desires and attempt to fulfill them. We call it upward mobility. Jesus says that doesn’t work. He says the way to joy is to get engaged in the lives and needs of others and to get interested in the things that interest them, no only your own lives. You might think of it as downward mobility.
Paul goes on to give the greatest example of humility: Jesus. Existing from all eternity in the very nature of God, he did not exercise his freedom to forcibly hold on to his glory. He “emptied” himself by taking on the nature of humanity. Fully God…fully man. He then submitted himself to the will of the Father and became obedient. And ultimately, he became obedient unto death…the humiliating death on the cross. That is the mind-set Paul challenges us to cultivate. It is impossible apart from the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.