An Attitude Adjustment

"An Attitude Adjustment"
Philippians 2:5-11

Here are different kinds of attitudes toward life that you can have that might be beneficial.

Go for all the gusto in life that you can.
Fill up your life with all kinds of experiences—it does not matter what, just go out and experience everything.
If it feels good, do it.
Don't hold back.
Do it your way.
Let it all hang out.
Gain as much as you can in terms of wealth, possessions, and especially power.
Get as much leverage as you can over other people and use it to your advantage.
Take care of yourself first, because, hey, who is going to look out for number one if you don't.
Do not be in debt to anyone, but make as many people in debt to you as possible.
Pull your own strings.
Become so powerful that you can make the rules rather than have to cow to someone else's game.
Do not give an inch.
Live life according to your agenda rather than someone else's.
Take command.
Do not march to anyone else's drum beat but your own.
Defer to someone only when it will be to your advantage to do so.
You only go around once in life, so get yours while you can.
Do not worry about consequences; they will take care of themselves.
Do not do anything unless it is personally profitable.
Press your every advantage.
Gain the upper hand.
Crack the whip.
Climb the ladder of upward mobility.
Get on the inside track.
Throw your weight around.
Be assertive.
Do not be a nobody.
Be one of the movers and shakers rather than being moved and shook.
Remember that nice guys finish last.
Do not get mad, get even.
Do not be a follower, be a leader.
The world is a jungle out there, so remember it is the survival of the fittest.
Do unto others before they do unto you.
You have to get it while the goings good.
Do not miss out on your piece of the pie.
It is the early bird that catches the worm.
Nobody remembers second place.

If you have these kinds of attitudes toward life, and if these are the values upon which you base your relationships, then you will probably go very far.  You will probably be envied, and you most likely will be some kind of celebrity.  Your opinion will be sought after.  You will not only be famous, you will be rich.  Somebody might even write a book about you, or produce a movie about your life.  With these kinds of attitudes I have listed, you could have all that and more!


But you would not be like Christ.  You would not be letting your attitude to life be  that of Christ Jesus.  You would not be letting your actions towards others rise out of your life in Christ Jesus.  In fact, you would be the exact opposite.

Paul wrote at this point in the letter to the Philippians:  "As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did" (2:5).  Then, Paul went on to describe what Jesus' actions were:
He made himself nothing.
He did this by taking on the nature of a servant.
He was made just like human beings.
He appeared as a man.
He was humble and obeyed God completely.
He did this even though it led to his death.
Even worse, he died on a cross!

Paul told us a lot about who Jesus was in this short hymn or poem here in the letter to the Philippians.  If you want to know who Jesus was, and what Jesus' life was about, what Jesus based his character on, this is one of the best places to go to find that out.

We find out that Jesus was God and one with God.  But that Jesus gave all that up in order to become a human being.
"In his very nature he was God,
Instead he made himself nothing."
It is as if you were a four star general but you gave that up to become a corporal.
It is like you were the king, but you gave that up to become a homeless beggar.
It is like you were a lion and you gave that up to become a mouse.
It is like you were a nuclear power plant, but you gave that up to become a lump of coal.
It is like you were Denali, but you gave that up to be a prairie dog mound.
It is like… (you get the idea).

If you were going to chose the kind of attitude you would want for life, what Paul wrote about Jesus probably would not be it.  We would probably be more comfortable with some of the ones I rattled off at the start.  We are more comfortable with them, because they are the prevailing attitudes of our culture, and they impact us whether we admit it or not.  To go against such deeply intrenched societal attitudes, to totally empty ourselves as Christ did, takes a decision on our part, a force of will once that decision has been made, and the grace of God when we go back on our decisions.

But I want you to notice how Paul started out this section of his letter:  "As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did."  This whole part of Paul's letter is not primarily to tell us about Jesus—although it does that very well.  No, the main purpose is to tell us, as Christians, how to "think and act" in our dealing with each other!

Don't get me wrong.  As I said, we learn a ton about the nature and person of Jesus.  We learn a lot about who Jesus was and what Jesus' relationship to God was.  But instead, just as I also said, the primary reason Paul is writing this about Jesus is to make the point that we all have to find some way to relate to each other in the church.  For Paul, the best way to do that is look at Jesus, who he was before and after he came into the world, and what Jesus gave up just to come into the world, to us and for us.  And once we have figured that out, to act that way towards each other.

One of the most important words in Paul's Christ poem is the word, "humble," in verse 8.  In the Greek language Paul was writing, the word literally meant, "to be leveled," or, "be reduced to a plain."  The word then morphed into some more particular meanings that have to do with humility.  Some of those included, "to erase all pride from your soul."  Or, "to be empty of all haughtiness."

John Ruskin, the English art critic and social thinker of the 1800's once wrote:
I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his opinion. But really great men have a ... feeling that the greatness is not in them but through them; that they could not do or be anything else than God made them."

So, one way to put all that together is to think of a conduit.  Humility is not about who you are, but how much of a conduit you are.  Humility is not about you being the conduit.  It is about that which flows through you as the conduit.  Or, in the case of Paul's meaning, whom you allow to flow through you.  Thus, Paul described Jesus as the one who had the widest, most open flow of God through himself.

How can we be such a conduit, such a pipe for the flow of God through us to each other?  For Paul, it was in a word:  Humility.

In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. News of the disaster was further darkened when an investigation revealed the cause of the accident. It wasn't a technology problem like radar malfunction--or even thick fog. The cause was human stubbornness. Each captain was aware of the other ship's presence nearby. Both could have steered clear, but according to news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud to yield first. By the time they came to their senses, it was too late.

In our relationships with each other, that's what pride does—it forces us to run into each other in an awful collision.  Instead of being a conduit for God for each other, we end up banging on each other, rather than letting God flow through us.  Instead of being humble, and erasing all pride from our souls, or being empty of all our haughtiness, we push and posture ourselves into a terrible catastrophe.  And it all could have been avoided if we changed the way we act and think to how Jesus did.

Pride makes us become less than what God created us to be.  Humility brings out the best of what God created us to be, because it brings out God, not us.  And that is all up to you.