Jim Wicker, Professor of New Testament at Southwestern Seminary, preached from Philippians 2, verses 1-11, in SWBTS Chapel on April 1, 2025.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Good morning. Thank you for the wonderful music this morning, and it’s a privilege to come and bring the message. I would like to thank doctors, Dockery and grace for asking me to preach this sermon on humility for three reasons. First of all, I’m in great company with our faculty that’s in this preaching series. I appreciate that. Then second, it is April Fool’s Day today, in case you weren’t aware. And as my sermon continues, you’ll probably know why they chose me for today. And the third reason is that, after all, humility is my very best quality. April Fools. Of course, I am just kidding. However, the preaching department did ask for me to use this sign during my sermon. They wanted me to hang it around my neck, but I think it’d be more appropriate if I just put it here in front of the pulpit. And please don’t all call it once.
Maybe take time as you do that. Our text for this morning is Philippians, chapter one, verses one through 11, as Dr Dockery already read, and the emphasis the theme is on humility. This is one of Paul’s four prison epistles he wrote, probably from house arrest in Rome, ad 61 to 63 and rather than complaining about a situation or trying to escape. Paul ministered to the needs of others, such as one us, and wrote these letters to three churches and individuals in need, and that includes this letter to the Philippians, where Paul really wrote a wonderful letter of joy to them. And we had the privilege of studying this as a seminary a couple of years ago and preaching through this. And Paul was, I believe, a great example of humility.
In fact, in these prison epistles in Ephesians 38 Paul called himself the least of all saints. I believe Paul really meant that because of his past, he didn’t try to make his past look better. He admitted his past where he used to persecute Christians until he had that encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. The Text we’ll look at this morning is part of a larger text in chapter one, verse 27, through chapter two, verse 18, and the focus there is on unity and mutual consideration for each other. But the key word here in the text, and what we’ll focus on this morning, is humility. The Greek word for that is tape No sophone A, and it’s hard to say, but even harder to live out, it’s a challenge to be humble. The qualities we’re studying this semester, most of which society back then appreciated Greco Roman society, Jewish society as well, but they did not appreciate humility in Greco Roman culture, they looked at this quality as being one that was of dishonor and shame. They tried to avoid being humble at all costs.
In fact, what they focused on was being honorable and having public praise given to you, and when it was given to you, then they expected it was given to your family as well. But what Paul focuses on here is the humility of Christ, and a key word is emptying kenosis, where Christ emptied Himself for us. Now the text naturally divides into verses one through four, and then five introduces verses six through 11. One through four focuses on Paul’s admonitions to them and how they should act as a church, but most of all, his focus was on humility. And then in verses six through 11, Paul used what most scholars think was a early Christian hymn because of the parallelism in it, because of the word usage, and it likely was. And even though it is a hymn by popular demand, I will not sing that. I will just talk about it. However, if you fall asleep, I will resort to interpretive dance.
And if you think I’m kidding, I actually do have props, so please stay awake for all of our concerns. In verses one through four, Paul focused on the spiritual realities in the church. At Philippi. And often it’s translated as it is here in the CF, CSB, if, then, if, if, if, in translating that Greek word A which is a fine translation, but these are four first class conditional statements. And often in a first class condition, which states a fact, you can translate it since, because in English, if we translate it, if it’s like, Well, is he sure? Is he not sure about that? We don’t know, but he is sure. So a way that you could translate this to understand that it may be better is since there is encouragement in Christ, and there is since there’s consolation of love, and there is since there is fellowship with the Spirit, and there is since there is affection and mercy.
So Paul is affirming that. And then, as the founder of the church at Corinth, and as really a parent, as he kind of acted like toward his churches, then Paul admonishes them as to what to do as a result. And so we see here, then in verses two and three, six different imperatives telling them what to do as a result. Because these were the spiritual realities in that church, as Paul mentions that in verse one, but then he says, make my joy complete. And then by giving these six admonitions, first of all, by thinking the same way, you could also encourage that, or interpret that as be like minded as King James does, and it talks about a compatibility of thought, not that you literally think everything the same, but by your giftedness that the Holy Spirit has given you, by your perspective, we all work together. Then though toward the moving in the same direction in thought, as far as the way that the Lord leads us. Then second, having the same love.
And so that’s pretty easy to understand. Third, united in spirit. In other words, be harmonious. That’s the our human spirit should be united because that’s because the Holy Spirit is in every believer. So to be harmonious in what you do, then intent on one purpose. In other words, we should, and this is again, in the context of a church, all be going towards the same goal. I think we can apply that here at Southwestern Seminary in TBC. We’re not a church, of course, but we are this local group of Christians, and we believe God has a specific calling toward us. We have specific goals that we’re headed toward, and I’m really excited these last several years, how God has really been doing some special things here at the seminary in college. And I really do believe we have a bright future ahead. So focused on the same goal, going in the same direction. And then Paul uses not this, but that in verse three, so number five, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, not that but this one, but in humility, consider your others as more important than yourselves.
And so I believe you could summarize these in this sentence. Just practice humility, because Paul then takes this main quality and then further describes it in verse four and then gives the illustration in verses five through 11. Verse four, everyone should look out, not only for his own interest, but also for the interest of others. Now Paul probably anticipated their response of hearing these spiritual realities and then these admonitions that Paul gave them a response like, okay, Paul, great, but how do we do that? It’s kind of like in my lectures, sometimes I’ll say, I’m glad you asked that question, even if you didn’t ask it. I think some of you may be thinking it so it then deserves an answer. So then Paul shows them better. Okay, how do you do this? And of course, he gives them the perfect example of Jesus. Now it reminds me of Sunday school class, and I want you to pretend for a moment that you’re all six-year-olds in a Sunday school class, okay, for some of us, it may not be that hard to pretend. All right, so class, who do we love?
Thank you, and who loves us? Who is our perfect example? What is this? Remember, you’re six, Jesus. Okay, that was a trick question. This is actually a squirrel. I do try to avoid trick questions. But the point is, we do teach our children early on, it’s all about Jesus. Jesus is the most important. And Jesus gives us the perfect example in everything, of course. So I mean, he’s the perfect teacher. You want to want to know how to teach and look at how Jesus taught. You want to know how to disciple people. Look at how Jesus discipled the disciples. You want to know how to act or react in a situation. Look at Jesus. And so that’s exactly what Paul does here. Be humble, and so let’s look at Jesus. In fact, when I was a pastor, I would often call people to look at Jesus in various situations. If you’re having a difficult time forgiving someone, look at Jesus. Jesus has forgiven you of every sin you’ve ever done and every sin you ever will. Do you have a difficult time loving a weirdo like me? Well, look at Jesus. Jesus loved everyone. There’s no one that Jesus turned away, the perfect example, and also including in humility.
So verse five, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ, Jesus. Then we see the hymn, verses six through 11. In six through eight, the focus is on Jesus humility, what Jesus purposely did to humble himself. And then in verses nine through 11, it’s focused on the exaltation of Jesus, and so we will focus on verses six through eight, because that’s the focus of the sermon that will that we’re doing in these Christian graces. Really, if I were preaching this in my church where I was used to be pastor, then I would actually divide this text into three sermons. So this would be, we’re going to focus on the middle, which would be sermon number two, the humiliation of Christ. So what did Christ do in this humility? Well, there’s really four steps. Verse six, who existing in the form of God. Did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.
Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant taking on the likeness of humanity. So first of all, Christ humbled himself by becoming human. Now that’s really difficult for us to understand what a huge change that was to be God and then to become human. Now, by the way, he didn’t stop being divine. Jesus continued being divine. And some translations of verse six sounds like Jesus let go of being God, and that’s not it at all. Jesus was in one position fully divine, but he had to leave that position to then go to the next position, what which was fully divine, but also fully human. 100% God, 100% human. In fact, at the first Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in AD, 325, they Well, they settled the issue. They had to settle it again a few times, but they settled the issue that Christ is 100% God, 100% human. In fact, this year we’re celebrating the 17th 100th anniversary of the council at Nicea.
And so he didn’t stop being God. He continued doing that, but then he took on now again, it looks like he didn’t exactly become human, assuming the form of a serpent, or was he not fully or the likeness of humanity? But no, he fully became human. So Jesus was fully divine. But then he also at the Incarnation when, as John calls it, then Jesus, in John 114 He became flesh, alright, took on human form, but it was fully, fully human. So not just look like it. But I think the point Paul makes is when you looked at Jesus back then, you just thought he was a human. I mean, he looked human, he looked like any other human. But of course, he was also divine, so he emptied himself of his position of being fully divine, and then added to that position of being fully human as well. Now with this kenosis, I’ll leave it to the systematic theology department to further tell you about what all the emptying involved. But if you take my New Testament one class, I’ll give you my perspective on that. So I cordially invite you to take that but this wonderful miracle of Jesus, then becoming human, and then able to die for our sins and make that atoning death, because he was fully divine and fully human. So first of all, then he became a human, but not just any. Human. Verse seven says, assuming the form of a servant.
So Jesus became a low human, now a servant. Well, actually several ways he was Jewish. Back in the Mediterranean world, back at that time, the Jews were all servants of Rome. They were the overlords. But more than that, Jesus was the servant of the Father. Jesus says in John what the Father said and taught him, that’s what he did, what the Father showed him, that’s what he did. And he was also a servant of others, a servant of his fathers. Jesus said, in Mark 1045, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many, again, it’s hard to wrap our minds around God, becoming human. I mean, think about maybe you becoming a stick figure, but that doesn’t do it justice. What about you becoming a.on a page that doesn’t even do it justice as well. I mean, we live in a three dimensional world. A puppet lives in a two dimensional world, a dot lives in a one dimensional world. But we hear from Christian astrophysicists that Jesus was and God is in some kind of maybe 11 dimensional world, we don’t know.
But it’s hard for us to understand or even appreciate how low it was for him to just even become human, but then to become a slave, and then, as if that’s not enough, then it goes further down then verse eight, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. So third, Jesus died again, the stair step of how he lowered himself. He humbled Himself. And of course, as we see throughout the New Testament, that’s the only way that salvation for us could be accomplished. Was for the God man perfect, willing to die for us, and yet, not just any death. Fourth, he died on a cross, a despicable way to die, an embarrassment to the Jews, because there the Scripture says, Cursed are you if you hang on a tree? Paul talked about later how that’s a stumbling block to the Jews, how the Messiah came to die and to die. The most despicable form of death there is this agonizing, excruciating death. It typically took two or three days for a crucified person to die.
That’s because Rome had perfected the art of crucifixion. They did not want you to die quickly. They wanted to be slow, agonizing. So families would walk by and parents would say, Look, if you don’t obey the law. This might happen to you. I mean, it was a public punishment, hopefully as a deterrent to crying. And what they did in crucifixion, they got you to the point where you really wanted to die, or hoped it would come and they’d pull you back. And that happened time and time and time again. When you’re crucified, you get a breath. You have to push up. You have to push up and then go back down. It’s constant. You can’t stop if you don’t push up, somehow get up, then you’ll die of asphyxiation. And so think about Jesus crucifixion, after he’d been beaten so badly, up and down his backside every time he pushed up, that bloody body would push against that cross for every breath. It’s interesting to me, though, as terrible as crucifixion was, the Bible really doesn’t give us many details about the physical aspect of Jesus’ death doesn’t say that much about it. We learn more about it from historians who observed crucifixion, and many Christians were crucified after that time.
But what the Bible focuses on, I believe, is the spiritual situation of Jesus’ crucifixion, as bad as the physical was, I believe the spirituals a lot worse, as He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf, I can’t imagine that. Can you imagine being sinless, and even just your your own sin that you’ve never experienced before, all of that being put on you at once. That’s hard to imagine, but then imagine the sins of the whole world for all of time put on Jesus. It’s mind boggling. So I believe as bad as the physical was, the spiritual was much worse. But how much does Jesus love you? Jesus did that. For you, humility, difficult to live out. Now, it’s not embarrassment, by the way. Now, if you’re like me, I get embarrassed all the time by things that I do. One time at Baylor, I was on a date, and I was going to introduce her at this Baylor mixer to someone else, and I forgot her name.
I mean, who does that? And so I acted like I was choking. And so I continued to drink my Dr Pepper. And it was Dr Pepper, by the way, I was not drinking alcohol, and so until I finally remembered her name, and then I cleared up and could say her name. But I mean, things like that happen all the time. When I was a doctoral student here, this was in the days, the early days of personal computers, and most of us did not have one, and so I paid a typist to type my seminar papers, dollar a page. And it’s back in the 80s, dollar a page, and the type I gave so I hand write it. And then my typist called me, and she said, I hate to ask this question, but, and by the way, the paper was on the crucifixion of Jesus. She said, Did you mean to spell crucifixion wrong throughout your whole paper? She said, I asked my husband, is should it be spelled that way? He said, honey. He’s a doctoral student. He knows what he’s doing. I had misspelled crucifix in the whole paper, so fortunately, she called and asked me and got it spelled correctly. I’m thinking, well, how can you be that dumb?
Well, again, embarrassment is not humility. It’s just for some of us, it just seems to happen all the time. Even last week, I’ve had a problem this last week with allergies, and last week in class, as I was teaching the middle of a lecture, this long, drool of snot just comes dripping down my nose. I mean, I look down and horror is about that long. I mean, who does that? I It reminds me of one of my favorite poems, when you kiss your honey and your nose is running. You may think it’s funny, but it’s not. Anyway. Back to the text. I’ll give you five ways to apply this based on the humility of Jesus. First of all, put aside pride. That’s really hard to do. God hates pride. James 46 says God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Ask God’s help to put away that pride. Don’t be like the famous boxer, Muhammad Ali. He was on a flight to a boxing match, and as he was seated there, the flight attendant came up to him and said, Please fasten your seat belt. And he looked at her and said, Superman, don’t need no seat belt. She looked back at him and said, Superman, don’t need no airplane, so don’t have that kind of attitude. Putting aside pride is hard. Last Thursday, I saw Dr Yarnell after a chapel, and he said he’s praying for me. And I said, well, thank you. I appreciate that.
And figured he’s talking about preaching the day. And as he said that, I was thinking that I thought, I don’t even know who’s preaching Thursday. I’m so focused on I’m preaching the day. I didn’t even look up to see who’s preaching Thursday. And I’m having all this thought at once. I’m thinking, well, maybe I should admit it to Dr Yarnell, but maybe he’s the one preaching, and how embarrassing would that be? So I went back to my office and looked it up, and he’s preaching Thursday. I mean, it’s hard to put aside pride. And Dr Yarnell, I have prayed for you and repented of my pride is very difficult. Hard to put aside your criticizing others, I believe can often be a form of pride, because what it’s saying is I’m better than that person. Criticize that because I’m better. I could do that better. Read a testimony of a woman recently.
Her name is Tina Gooding. Tina went to a volleyball match of her daughter, and was sitting in the stands and watching her daughter play so excited, but she heard two moms nearby criticizing her daughter. Well, as tall as she is, she should do better than that. Oh, she missed another ball, and they kept criticizing. And then they said, Why didn’t that coach pull her out? Well, Tina was heartbroken, because that was her daughter they were talking about. But she didn’t figure that she could say the right words in response to them, so Jesus moved away where she could not hear them, and then later she wrote down what she wished, wished she’d been able to say to those two moms to say, Do you realize that’s my daughter? Do you realize she spent the whole. Summer, week after week, practicing volleyball, and the reason it’s so hard is she’s blind in one eye. She has no depth perception. It’s difficult for her even to hit a ball.
Do you realize that she cried for days and days and days thinking that she’d never make the volleyball team? But do you realize she’s amazing, and she’s my daughter that really touched me, because brought this thought back years ago, our first born Jessica is she was born profoundly hearing impaired, didn’t hear a word till she was five years old and got a cochlear implant. But think it was not long after that, we, Dana and I, were at a lunch, and there’s Baylor, and there are several men there making fun of a hearing impaired student, and we were just crushed. They didn’t know us. They didn’t know we have a hearing impaired daughter, but and I couldn’t even say anything in response. We just sat there, not saying anything, being in shock, and just went on. But when I read that, I thought, you know, those are some things I’d like to have said back then. Do you realize our daughter can’t speak right now, and I hope that one day people treat her better than you’re treating that person now.
I realize that they knew that they probably wouldn’t have said that. But think about that. Put aside pride and put aside that unwarranted criticism. Second, focus on Jesus on the cross. That’s what Paul did here. Look at how Jesus humbled himself, to become human, a low human, to die and to die on the cross. When as we focus on the humility Jesus went through for us, it’s hard for then us to be prideful or to think how great we are. Third, ask yourself, What would Jesus do? That’s based on First John two six, Charles Sheldon wrote a book on that back in 1896 called in his steps. Just think about in this situation, what would Jesus do. And a great application to that hit me a few years ago, and that is that through Jesus three year ministry, often it was a ministry of interruption. Look at how many times Jesus ministered to people and it was interrupting what he was already doing. Jesus was healing. Jairus interrupted him about his daughter.
So Jesus went to go help his daughter, and on the way, a woman been bleeding for 12 years interrupted Jesus on his journey, and Jesus ministered to her, and then ministered to Jairus daughter. And it really helped me see things in perspective that, you know, what I might see as an interruption of the day that I had planned out maybe the most important thing God has for me to do that day. If anybody could have said it, it would have been Jesus to say, I’m God. I can’t be bothered with this. So what would Jesus do? Fourth, and maybe more practical in thinking through this practice, purposeful humility. Go out of your way to do things for others. Now I’ll give you a simple example. Open the door for someone. As you open the door for someone, you’re saying you are important to me, and I believe as you do small acts of humility, then it helps you to be able to do larger acts. And so as I was thinking about this sermon this past week, I’ve had four seminary professors, including the President, open a door for me.
Now, first of all, I really do think we have a humble faculty. I really do appreciate our faculty. We love you as students, it’s a privilege for us to be here. We’re really servants to you, and we treat you nicely because you fill out SRTs on us, and then one day we at graduation, we send you off to higher paying jobs. But it’s a privilege to be here, and I really do believe one of the main reasons we are humble is we follow a very humble president, even he was one of those that opened the door for me. Now maybe they opened the door because I look so frail and decrepit, or maybe it was because usually I’m pulling my computer bag in one hand and have a Dr Pepper in the other, but it still touched me that they did that acts of humility, acts of kindness, so purposeful humility. For instance, when I was a pastor at potlucks, you know, usually this, Oh, Pastor, you go first. You and your family go first. And I didn’t want to do that. I looked for ways to practice purpose. US for humility.
So I would just go to talk to people in line and work my way to the back of the line. And again, it’s just something maybe simple and small. But I really believe, as we purposely do those things like that, of putting others before us, of putting their needs in front of ours, then I believe we’re living out what the text tells us to do today. Fifth, any time you get a compliment, then deflect that to God. Deflect that praise to God. Great sermon, Pastor, well, thank you, but it’s a wonderful text that I had today. And don’t we serve an awesome God. I believe, as you deflect that praise to God, it helps prevent, then pride from coming into your life. Now I don’t mean false humility. Oh, I’m but an humble servant, lowly sitting at the table waiting for the crumbs. No, be genuine about that, but, but I believe, as you are genuine, then it helps to then influence what you do. Sixth, and this is bonus, all right, this is just from me.
Embrace your weirdness. Embrace your weirdness. It’ll keep you humble. I mean, my ears, one’s higher than the other, my eyes, they don’t always open the right length. Sometimes snot dribbles out my nose. But embrace it. In other words, embrace who God made you to be, embrace the wonderful you once in awe, and as you do so, then I believe you’ll be able to appreciate what God has for you to do in serving Him and also serving others. Now, as I mentioned the second half of this hymn, I would normally preach in a separate sermon, but let’s look at nine through 11 in closing, for this reason. For what? Well, because Jesus obeyed God and humbled Himself and then made that atonement for our sins on the cross. For this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Does it say everyone is saved?
Well, of course not, because the Bible says you need to make a personal commitment to Jesus to be your Savior, and that must happen before death, because after death comes judgment. We read in Hebrews, but one day, everyone will have to admit that for those that did not make that commitment to Christ before death, it’s too late for them, but one day, they’ll see the truth. But meanwhile, for those of us that have already made that commitment to Christ, and we have that ability to walk in Him and to walk as Jesus did, let us walk humbly before Him, being his servants, touching the lives of others with the love of Jesus Christ, so that through our lives, Jesus will be exalted. Let me lead us in prayer
God. We, thank you for the privilege of having your word as you give us guidance through it. We, thank you for the Holy Spirit who helps us put it into practice. I, thank you for the perfect example of Jesus, and I pray that you would guide us as we strive to live as Jesus does touch others, as Jesus did, live lives that are humble. For I ask this in your son Jesus’ name. Amen.
