The Believers Imitation of Christ

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Aspiration

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One word sums up the believers aspiration in these verses, "humility". Paul lists three things that we should aspire for, the experiencing of these three things will develop humility.

1. Encouragement or consolation. This is available to all Christians through prayed and the claiming of God's promises. Sometimes it comes through a friend, sometimes through a sermon and sometimes it comes through Bible reading.
2. Participation with the Spirit. Feeling His presence, being led by His enlightenment, and communicating with God through His leading.
3. Pangs of affection and sympathy. Hugging someone out of love, crying with someone, out of sympathy. Showing your concern for people in times of need.

Paul says that if we have experienced these things, we cannot help but be humble and it will also keep us of the "same mind", placing Christ ahead of our selves, having the "same love", mutual love, Christ like love, loving and accepting love. Being of one accord for the purpose and work of the Lord.

How can we do this? What must happen first? Paul lists three things:

1. Do nothing out of selfishness or conceit. This requires humility and the putting of pride behind us.
2. Count others better than yourself. Who is Paul kidding? This would mean that we would have to acknowledge our faults and worse, be kind to the judgment of others. Can we do it?
3. Prioritize our interests. Put our interests on the level as the interests of others. That means that we must make our neighbors case, our case. That means that I should pray and be concerned for things that I am not concerned about.

Then, and only then, can we consider ourselves to be what God wants us to be, and that is HUMBLE. Putting our aspirations on hold will make us, in a small measure, what Paul describes as "Christ like".

Verses 5 thru 11 describe what became an early confession of faith. It describes what the believer believes about Christ and about God. First, what we believe about Christ:

1. Even though He was the Son of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He did not flaunt His divine nature, nor did he brag about it.
2. He humbles Himself. He took on the form of a servant. He was born in the likeness of man, He became obedient unto death even death on a cross. He did this voluntarily.

These self-less traits we must aspire to imitate and if we do, God will, in some manner, do you us what He did for Christ.

Now lets see what we believe about God:

1. He highly exalted Christ because He humbled Himself. God exalted Christ in both His human and His divine nature.
2. God bestowed upon Him the name which is above every name, The Christ, the Messiah, and at the sound of that name every knee, in Heaven and on earth, shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord.

All creation is subject to Christ. God, the Father, bestowed upon Jesus all power and honor and ultimately, every tongue will confess this. This last statement has caused some conflict as to its meaning. Some, of our more liberal friends, believe that this means that eventually all will be saved. Others believe that this simply means that ultimately every nation will hear about Jesus. Still others believe that as John writes in Revelation, the time will come, at the last judgment, when everyone, the saved and the lost, will know that Jesus is the Christ, some to their glory and some to their ruin.

All of this was done for the Glory of God. Whatever Jesus did, whatever we do, it was done to the Glory of God and for the Glory of God. So what should the Christian strive for? Christ-like humility.

Application

In these verses we see how we should "apply" what we have "aspired" for. Here, Paul gives us some hard rules that we should apply to our lives, rules that will aid us in the living out of this salvation that we have received as gift from God. They will help us to advance in our assignment and our aspirations.

1. Paul says that obedience is rule #1. It is necessary for the application of our commitment. Paul suggests that there are two types of Christians. Those who are "good" on Sunday and "bad" the rest of the week, and those who strive to be "good" (obedient) all seven days of the week. Your attitude toward obedience is reflected in all areas of your life, both in the workplace and at home. Paul tells the Philippians that it was more important for them to be obedient now, than it was when he was with them. Why? Because disobedience when the "boss" is not around, is a worldly trait and believers are not suppose to govern by those traits now, it destroys their witness.
2. Working out your own salvation is rule #2. Paul says that we should do this with fear and trembling. Some believe that this supports their belief in apostasy and that we are actually charged to work for our salvation, thus supporting the belief in "Justification" by Works". These people take this verse out of the context of the whole book of Philippians or any of his other books whose basic theme is "Justification by Faith". How do we work out our salvation? Paul says that we should use it like a tool for the Glory of God. I believe Paul was talking about the process that we call "Sanctification", or growing in Grace. Constantly seeking to become more Christ like in fear and trembling. We often over emphasize God's love and under emphasize His wrath. We should, as Christians, realize that God chastens those who He loves and we should fear that chastisement. Therefore we should, by being obedient and sincerely motivated, "work out our salvation" to the Glory of God.
3. Do all things without grumbling or questioning is rule #3. This requires an attitude of love and trust. The Lord loves a cheerful giver and a cheerful worker and we must do all of this without questioning His reasoning.
4. We are to be "blameless" and without "blemish". Paul is not speaking about our condition in the eyes of God, for by accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are blameless and without spot in His eyes, covered by the "robe of righteousness" and presented faultless before the thrown. He is talking about our condition before the world. Sin will destroy our witness. Satan will use the evil that is a part of us to destroy our credibility. We, as Christians, are suppose to be different from those who are lost. We are suppose to "shine" as lights in a wicked and perverse world.
5. We must hold fast to the "word of life". To do this, we must first know what it is. Study the Word, know what it says about the things that come up in your life. Knowledge of the "truth", will keep you from being led astray by false teachers, but remember this, with knowledge comes responsibility. The more you know, the more you are held accountable.

So Paul says to the Philippians, and us be obedient, work out your salvation, do so without grumbling and questioning, seek to be blameless, hold fast to the Word and I, Paul, will be proud of you knowing that I did not labor in vain. Some day you may see a soul in Heaven that you were instrumental in leading to Christ. I believe that God will allow you a minute of pride, undeserved I might add, especially if your witnessing to that person cost you something. It cost Paul his life, but he could say in truth, "I am glad and I rejoice in your salvation".

If you are going to "apply" your salvation, if you are going to "work out" your salvation, it is going to cost you something, maybe not your life, but something. The believers application then is obedience.

Ambition

The believers ambition should be to be like Christ, but who can be like Christ? Well at least we can try to be like other people, perhaps like Timothy or Epaphroditus. These were two beloved friends of Paul. Timothy, whose name translates "honored of God", was a companion, assistant, translator and "son" to Paul. Paul mentions Timothy in 11 of his 13 letters. You recall that he lived in the Derby-Listra area of Asia Minor. He was converted to Christ on Paul's first Missionary Journey. He was the son of a Greek father and a Jewish mother.

Paul wanted to send Timothy to Philippi for two reasons. One, so that Timothy could report back to him about the conditions that he found there and secondly, because Paul had no one else to send who would have been as genuinely concerned about their welfare.

Timothy has been described as a young man with excellent spirit and a tender heart. Sincerity in our concern of others is a "must" in our witness. The church at Philippi knew Timothy well. All the churches that Timothy had visited with Paul, knew that he had been tried and found true and faithful and just as concerned for people as he appeared to be. Notice in verse 18 of chapter 1 that not all people who witnessed were like that. Some were concerned only for their own interests.

So Paul intended to send Timothy to Philippi and just as soon as he found out about his own fate, he hoped to go with him. Timothy's life from this point on is not clear. In Hebrews 13, the author announces that Timothy had been set free from prison in Rome. This appeared to have occurred after Paul's death. We have no record of him going to Philippi, however, history records that Timothy went to Ephesus and became the first Bishop there.

The second example that Paul holds up for them and us to immolate is Epaphroditus. His name translated means, "charming". Epaphrodus was originally from Philippi. He was sent, by the Philippians, to assist Paul and look after his needs while he was in prison in Rome. While there, he became very ill and almost died. When he recovered, Paul sent him back home. The Philippians knew of his illness and were quite anxious about him.

He was considered the "best" that the Philippians had. They would send Paul nothing but their best. It pleased Paul that God saw fit to heal Epaphrodus. He felt responsible for those who waited on him while he was in prison. So in verse 25, we see that Paul is sending him back to Philippi with this letter and expected them to give him the respect that he deserved, "Receive him with joy and honor, for he nearly died for the work of Christ." It should be our ambition to be like these two men.

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