"Also in you": Looking to Jesus for a Spirituality of Transformation ~ Philippians 2:1-11

Our text today is probably the most important one for the book of Philippians, the cornerstone of Paul’s message to the church. And the number of books and articles is massive, the challenges of the Greek are difficult and technical, the theology challenging. But don’t worry I’m not going to try and talk about all of that today. Rather, I just want to talk about one thing: how do we change? What is necessary for a spirituality that experiences and embodies all of the elements of vss. 1-4?

We currently find ourselves in an interesting moment with lots of opinions, ideas, feelings, activism, swarming all around us like angry bees. But here’s the truth. We strive to be a people who follow Jesus, to become like Jesus, in order to what Jesus does. But how does that happen? How do we get there? What will truly allow us to change and become “like Jesus”?

You can’t think your way out of this you must be transformed.

It’s interesting to recognize how much of religious belief is chalked up to having the right thoughts about God. We learn, memorize, and organize a lot of facts and store them believing that they will transform our lives. Now, I’m not down on education but what we’re learning is a life, a language, a dance – and that doesn’t come by facts alone. And even the Apostle Paul will recognize that knowing the correct things doesn’t necessarily mean that we will “do” the right things (Romans 7:14-20). It’s interesting that Paul’s plea for unity that begins chapter 2 is not a plea so much for having correct doctrine, or sharing all the same thoughts, but about making the right connections and connecting with the right experience: united with Christ, comfort, sharing in the Spirit, having the same love, being of one mind, being humble, not being conceited, considering others more important. And it’s easy to focus on these things believing that through sheer will-power one can make these happen. I know many people, I’ve been there, who tried to achieve these with no avail. I’ve seen pastors who know right behavior and then do terrible things, who could quote Bible verses (chapter and verse) with seemingly no real transformation in their lives. I meet so many people who claim to have the answer, but they themselves were not the answer – there was no manifestation of that Christ-likeness in their life. My conversion with “anger.”

So what is the answer? If Paul is not suggesting a sort of self-help plan but it’s very antithesis (not looking to your own interests), not grasping for control, then how are transformed? Well, ancient Christians saw in this early Christian hymn about Jesus and it’s description of surrendering the key to a Christ-like life. That Jesus, though he was God, lived a transformed human life, not through actively grasping for power, control, prestige, and fulfillment. But through a downward spiral of letting go – surrender.

It’s simple but not easy. Your work is to surrender yourself, like Jesus.

Paul does not directly say, think as Christ thought.  What he literally says is be like Jesus. Vs. 5 is translated “Let what was seen in Christ Jesus be seen also in you.” In other words, he is not simply saying love your neighbor like Jesus loved your neighbor” but follow Jesus’ way so that “what was seen in Christ Jesus (might) also be seen in you.” And Jesus wasn’t transformed by his divinity, by “advantage” but descending into his humanity finding union with God, and “being made” and “formed.”

Paul uses the text of a great hymn of praise to the humility implied in the incarnation of Christ not to tell us so much about Jesus’ divine pedigree but to teach us how to be transformed so that we can be LIKE Jesus. The Greek word that refers to emptying, kenosis, has never been added to those charts of love the Greeks understood on which Christian love has so often been compared and contrasted, but it seems like it ought to be.

So I would like to offer you a radical discipline that will place you in the cross-hairs of such love and real transformation. It’s so simple that you will actually want to dismiss it. I know that I did. But there has been nothing more powerful and more challenging what I’m about to teach you and it follows this downward spiral of surrender seen in Jesus’ life. It’s a spirituality that finds its center in Jesus’ own teaching and his very life.

This is not because the discipline itself is the source, God is. The discipline, however, helped me consent to God’s presence and action within. It’s not found in hearkening to greatness, clinging to power, aspiring to win, but discovered in letting go, remaining still and silent, totally open to what God wants to do.

Not because thinking is bad, but because God is greater and because thoughts can pull you back to yourself and away from God’s transforming work. When you do this, you are offering your intention to surrender, to not grasp, to not control; and what God does is between your innermost soul and God; that place where Augustine once said, “God is closer to your soul than you are to yourself.” You will often feel nothing – but in that stillness you do not grasp or our acquire but will be infused with Christ and the mind of Christ. This is a prayer of consent and intention. Every time you let go of a thought you are “emptying” or dying to self. Remember the four Rs: Resist no thought, retain no thought, react to no thought, return to the sacred word. The only thing you can do wrong is to get up and walk out.

Often it would seem to us that transformation is what we grasp and control, what we work, but Jesus' life reveals that the transformation of redemption cannot proceed in a way differently from how it was received. If salvation comes by grace – then so does the transformation of our lives. The sacred word is not a mantra – but a symbol of your consent for God’s Spirit to transform your life. If you say it 10,000 times then you have consented 10,000 times to God’s transforming work. If you think about it, that's an amazing prayer.

You do this practice for twenty minutes, then you simply get up and move on with your life.  Shall we try it. Let’s try 3 minutes together. Have questions? Call me. Let’s meet. Or join our centering prayer group.