Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost The Significance of Insignificance
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Epistle from Philippians chapter 2, St. Paul is not so much talking about the unbelievers in your life as he is the Christians. Paul is so serious about the way you treat your fellow Christians—and about the way you allow your fellow Christians to treat you—that he speaks in the form of a command: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Today’s focus is upon that second and main part of what Paul has commanded: “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.” That is, consciously, carefully weigh the facts and come to the conclusion that each of your fellow Christians is more important than you in every way; that they are above and beyond you; that they are superior to you. Dear Christian friends, Most of you have learned from your childhood, the divine command to love your neighbor. As you already know, Jesus has called love for neighbor the second greatest commandment, second only to love for God Himself: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:37-40). Jesus also makes it clear to your love for your neighbor is nothing less than your love for God; that your treatment of your neighbor is nothing less your treatment of your God, that no one can honestly say, “I love God” while harboring anger and hatred toward his neighbor (cf. 1 John 2:9). Jesus makes your love for your neighbor equal to your love for God when He says to you, “As you did it or did not do it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it or did not do it to Me” (Matthew 25:40, 45). In today’s Epistle, speaking to you in Paul’s sermon to the Philippians, Jesus adds a little spice to the stew. Once again, he is speaking about your Christian neighbor in particular when he says to you, “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.” With these Words, Jesus pushes your love for neighbor beyond mere task of treating your neighbor a certain way. With these Words, Jesus makes your love for neighbor something more than a good attitude in your heart toward your neighbor. “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.” With these Words, Jesus requires you to be entirely dependent upon—and completely defenseless toward—your neighbor’s love for you. Stated another way, Jesus wants you to love your neighbor so much that you trust your neighbor likewise to love you. Stated yet another way, while you are counting your fellow Christians more significant than yourself, Jesus wants you to hope and to trust that your fellow Christians will likewise count you to be more significant than themselves. “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Come to the conclusion that these others around you are more important than you in every way; that these others are above and beyond you in importance for your life; that these others are superior to you. Very un-American, I know, yet exceedingly Christian! I am hard-pressed to think of a way that God could speak His law to us in harsher terms: · Some Christian employers will scrape more skin off your back than they ought, then they will throw you to the curb when you are no longer useful. Do not fear. They will render their accounts to God. For your part, “Count others more significant than yourselves.” · Even though he is a Christian, your husband still sometimes acts like a jerk. Not to worry: the living Word of God is at work on him, too. While you are waiting for your husband to be the man he ought to be, “Count others more significant than yourselves.” · Your older brother or sister constantly acts like the pope of your house. They rarely give you a break, but remain devoted to getting the biggest and best piece of the pie. Like you, that person also needs to grow up. While you wait, “Count others more significant than yourselves.” · Some Christians in your life continually require more from you than they will ever give you in return. Perhaps there are Christians who will even take advantage of you. “Count others more significant than yourselves.” There are at least three gifts Jesus is giving to you when He says to you in today’s Epistle, “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.” · First, Jesus is showing you your disease, so that you will seek the cure that only He can provide through the forgiveness of all your sins. When Jesus says, “In humility count others more significant than yourselves” He is showing how truly impossible it is for you or me or for any other person in our lives to keep the Ten Commandments as we ought. Jesus wants us to sacrifice everything for our neighbor, including our own self-respect. But who can do that? Lord, have mercy upon us! · In addition to giving us a reason to cry out to God for grace and mercy, on account of all that we cannot do, these Words in today’s Epistle also show us how we may live together in true love and peace with one another. I repeat what I said earlier: Jesus in today’s Epistle requires you to be entirely dependent upon—and completely defenseless toward—your neighbor’s love for you. As it was also written by God in today’s Epistle, “[be] of the same mind, [have] the same love, [be] of full accord and of one mind.” There is only one way to achieve such unity among us: each of us “count others more significant than yourselves.” In other words, I must love you with everything I have (even my pride) and I must trust that you will love me in the same way. · There is yet a third gift Jesus is giving to you when He says to you in today’s Epistle, “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.” This third gift is the greatest of all. By counting others more significant than yourself, you end up standing very close to Jesus. Today’s Epistle cuts out the best part of Paul’s message to the Philippians. In the verses that were skipped between verse 4 and verse 14 of Philippians 2, Paul focuses your attention upon the Christ who considers you more significant than Himself: Though He was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8). Stated another way: no matter how much you may humble yourself, Jesus has made Himself more humble even yet; no matter how low you may go, Jesus has already gone lower; no matter how much more significant others may be, YOU are more significant than Jesus; no matter how much you may end up losing for your sinful neighbor’s sake, Jesus lost more for you. Though He was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8). “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Here is the significance to your insignificance: you end up standing next to Jesus. Jesus needed no self-vindication and neither do you. Jesus had a resurrection and so also do you. No one ever walked this earth more humbly and insignificantly than your Lord Jesus, and guess what happened to Him! “God highly exalted Him!” (Philippians 2:9). Jesus’ humility is indeed your humility, in the same way that Jesus death for your sins is likewise your death, so that you will never die. Jesus’ insignificance for you will never fail to power your insignificance toward your neighbor, by means of the “word of life” (Philippians 2:16) that sustains you. Hold fast to the “word of life,” Christians! Jesus’ humility and insignificance alike were laid upon you in your Baptism—and they are given anew to you by the “word of life” in every worship service. Jesus’ insignificance for you means that you do not need to muster or manufacture any insignificance of your own. Your insignificance and mine, like every other good thing, comes from Jesus alone. Rejoice when you find counting yourself more significant than yourself. That is when you are standing closest to Jesus—and Jesus will raise you up. The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
