with a letter from Paul, who these people have loved enough to communicate with him, and that's concerning giving and receiving once and again and even twice. When he was in Thessalonica, they thought about him, they prayed for him, they love him, and now everybody is gathering together to hear Epaphroditus or someone else read this epistle from the apostle Paul. Can you imagine what went on in their hearts and how emotional they were when they read that out loud? having a desire to depart, to be with Christ, which is far better, nevertheless. to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. Can you imagine someone telling you that they love you so much they're gonna stay here instead of going to heaven to be with Almighty God? That's what the lesson the church at Philippi is going to get. And as the apostle Paul is writing this epistle, you'll find that he's very gracious in this epistle. He's very thankful in this epistle for the people at Philippi. He thanks them in chapter four, of course, in chapter one he's told him how much he loves them and in chapter three he's gonna give them and we may preach on this throughout the course of this week he's gonna give them his own personal testimony and we'll talk more about that and as Paul is sitting in a prison and he's writing a letter to Philippi now many times Paul would write his epistles and he would have to jump on to people I mean, if you read the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul is just terrible. I mean, he's just all over the Galatian people. They've been adding Judaism to the gospel, and Paul is upset. And he says, when I was there, you loved me. You'd have plucked out your eyes from me, he said, but now I've so soon become your enemy because I preached to you the truth. And then he says this, I desire to be with thee. Not because I miss you. That's not what he says. I desire to be with you and to change my voice to you. In other words, he says, when I get there, I'm going to preach the fire down from heaven on top of you people, because Paul is correcting the church at Galatia. He does it all through the book in the two epistles to the church at Corinth. We know in first and second Corinthians, the apostle Paul is constantly correcting them and telling them how to fix the mistake and then getting on to them because they didn't fix the mistake that he told them about in the first book. But when you get to the book of Philippians, it's a book completely filled with love and thanksgiving and joy, and very seldom, only twice in the book, does the apostle Paul deal with anything that the church at Philippi needs to correct. As a matter of fact, the first time he deals with it, you don't even realize he's jumping onto them, unless you read the whole book all at one setting, then you realize, oh, that's what he was saying in chapter two. In this second chapter, the Apostle Paul is going to correct them a little bit. And by the way, as parents in this auditorium, we understand that sometimes we have to be like the Apostle Paul was to Galatia. Sometimes you have to be like the Apostle Paul was to Corinth. have to discipline every now and then do we not and think about this please let me help you with this don't let the world change the definition of the world word the Bible doesn't teach about parents punishing their children it teaches about parents disciplining their children with discipline comes teaching punishment is just corporal and so we discipline our children do we not and sometimes you think it's time to bring the hammer down on little Cindy or a little Billy other times we want to just sit down and have a nice little sweet teaching time with them because they need to learn something and sometimes those two things actually go together when my daughter was four it was in 2001 I believe it was it might have been 2002 in January because there's the change of the year Every year back then, for those of you who are a few years older, like me, by the way, for those of you who are interested, I turned 60 two Sundays from now, just so you know, I'm getting old now. I get letters from AARP and all that kind of stuff. I don't like that, I just throw them away, but I don't like that. But the truth is, when my daughter was young, there was a thing, I like college football. Now, I didn't like it yesterday. I told your pastor, I am not going to pick on Vols fans today because of what happened yesterday, as long as y'all won't pick on me for being a West Virginia fan because of what happened yesterday. Now, I will tell you, if West Virginia had beaten Oklahoma yesterday, I'd be talking some smack right now about the Vols. I'm just letting you know, I'm being honest with you. But that was a terrible day of college football. But I love college football, and I think some of you would be with me on that. Years ago, you didn't have all the different channels and you could watch all the different games and you didn't have an SEC network and an ACC network and a Big 12 network. As a matter of fact, you basically watched college football on ABC, CBS and NBC back in the early 2000s. And January the 1st was a great day, was it not? I mean, for those of us who like college football, January 1st was our high holy day, right? Because you had the Orange, the Cotton, the Rose, and the Sugar Bowl all back to back to back to back, all four of those games, one right after the other. And they were the best and the brightest. They'd gotten their invitations and they'd won their conferences. And so every January the 1st, and it's different now, things have moved and not everything's on the same day anymore, but January the 1st was my day. I mean, I would start the day on the love seat, I would have snacks, I would have my, I think I drank regular Mountain Dew back then, but all that stuff around me and I was just gonna sit there for 12 solid hours, I wasn't gonna move, I wasn't gonna do anything, there wasn't a honeydew list, there was nothing that was offered to me to do because my wife knew This was January the 1st, nothing was gonna interfere with me, but I had to pay a penance. Before I was allowed to watch all of those football games, something came on at 11 o'clock on ABC. Every single year it came on. Before I could watch those college football games, I had to sit through an entire hour of the Rose Bowl Day Parade. That is the most terrible waste of time in the history of mankind. You're going to listen to someone lecture you on how to take care of the environment while they drive floats running by diesel fuel and they picked about 12 million flowers to make their floats. That doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it has saved the environment by not having a parade and not picking all of those flowers, but I'm digressing and getting political there. I want to stay away from that. but I had to watch that thing. But something had happened. My wife, in her evil manipulation, had sat down with my precious little four-year-old daughter and had told her all about this amazing parade and how wonderful it must smell to smell all the flowers as they go down the road to Pasadena. And then she told her the words that every four-year-old girl wanted to hear, because the Rose Bowl Day parade had its own queen. When you're four, there is nothing more important to you in the entire world than princesses and queens. And my daughter was no exception. That Saturday morning, I'm sitting there. I've got all my stuff around. I'm on the love seat because it's directly facing the television. There's a couch up against the window over here. And my daughter comes out of her room with a little tiara on her head. in her patent leather shoes with her foldy down socks and she's all dressed up like a little princess and she walks in and sits down on the couch beside of my wife so they can watch the Rose Bowl Day Parade. I'm absolutely miserable. And when I get miserable like that, I say negative things. I'd like to not be, I'd like to be one of those sweet guys that says, I'm just so happy that you're both so happy today. That's just not me. I'm miserable watching this thing, listening to the silly commentary that's obviously been scripted because even when they try to tell a joke, their timing is terrible. And I'm just making all kinds of comments about things like that. Then they start talking about the princess, the Rose Bowl Day Parade queen and her court. And when we come back from commercial, we're going to introduce you to the Rose Bowl Day Parade queen and her court. My daughter's sitting up straight. She can't wait to see the queen. And I start making little comments about the queen, little comments about the court. I haven't even seen them yet, but I'm making some comments, and when you come back from commercial, they tell a couple of those silly little written down jokes, and they show the float before the Rose Bowl Day Parade Queen, and then they make sure you know something. They wanna make sure, even back then, and we're talking now 20 years ago, they were already politically correct, they wanna make sure that you know how this woman is chosen as the Rose Bowl Day Parade Queen. They said, no, she is not chosen based upon her looks. She is chosen based upon her social skills and her academic prowess. I started laughing out loud because that is so absolutely absurd to me. I said, yeah, that's right. She's chosen based upon her academic prowess and her social skills and But how come you've never seen a 300-pound pimply-faced, muumuu-wearing woman with 5,000 Facebook friends who gets straight A's as the Rose Bowl Day Parade Queen? That's not how she's chosen. She's chosen because she's attractive. And by the way, I am grown up enough to admit that. My daughter does not realize the sarcasm. She's not getting all of that. She's not getting that I'm being satirical about this thing. She thinks I'm talking about the Rose Bowl Day Parade queen. And you don't make fun of a queen in front of a four-year-old girl. She's looking at me and she's got the scowl on her face every time I made a little comment. And because I saw that she had the scowl on her face, I did it more. Oh, you say, Brother Harper, you should have just backed off. No, no, no, you obviously do not know me yet. I'm having more fun with you. You say, Brother Harper, did you actually get joy out of tormenting your four-year-old daughter? Absolutely I did. So here comes the float. There's the Rose Bowl Day Parade Queen. She's waving like this and all of her court are standing around in a circle around her and they're all waving. And they brought the camera in and there's a close-up of this woman and she was in fact a very attractive lady. Please understand I'm not being critical of that but she did have a distinguishing physical characteristic. She had a big nose. Now, it wasn't a Jimmy Durante nose, but it was relatively close, all right? She had a big nose. And immediately, I have to jump on that. I'm sorry, I just had to. I said, well, if she had a nose full of nickels, she could sneeze a fortune our way, right? And when I say something like that, my daughter's folding her arms now. She's looking at me like this. Then I realized that I'd really gotten under her skin. And so I said, well, there is good news. I know it's Pasadena, California, but if it does start raining, nobody would get wet. They could just hide under her nose for shelter. My daughter had had enough. She slowly got up off of the couch. She walked over to the love seat where I'm sitting, facing this way, and she lays her right hand on my left knee and her left hand on my right knee. Then she leaned forward and went, yes yeah I know what you're thinking some of you out there actually thinking well I think you deserve that brother Harper no I didn't deserve that and I looked at her and I realized what she just done and I said did you just spit in my face I said charity go to your room And so she went to her room. Then I'm going to sit there and relax for a moment. I'm not going to go in there when I've just had spit in my face. I wouldn't go in there and act in the wrong possible way. And so I'm going to sit there and calm down. And my wife offers the editorial. She said, you know, she might not even know how wrong that is. And I thought for myself, she's an evangelist daughter. She's in church every single night of the week. All of her friends are pastor's kids and missionary kids. How would she learn that? And then I realized that she knew some deacon's kids. So that kind of explained it to me. So finally, after a few minutes, I walked into the bedroom and I sat down on a little rocking chair and I said, Charity, I said, I want you to tell me what just happened. She's sitting there on the edge of her bed, her little hands folded, sitting there like a little princess. And I said, Charity, what just happened? And she's very dramatic. And she said, Well, Daddy, you were making fun of the queen. And I walked over, and I was going to say, stop, Daddy. And bubbles accidentally flew out of my mouth. like you I was impressed with that I really was I'm sitting there trying to hold back a giggle because I thought this is pretty creative for a four-year-old daughter to come up with that but I also realized that it wasn't entirely true and so through the mixed laughter and anger in me I said so Charity you're saying that you were just going to say stop daddy and bubbles accidentally flew out of my mouth And I said, Charity, is that the truth? And she looked at me and she said, I'll never forget it, she said, do you think it is? now I'm in the bedroom and I'm laughing my wife is in the other room trying to figure out what is going on and so I explained to Charity because what I thought was going to be a big discipline for her spitting in my face ended up being a teaching moment now she did get disciplined for lying to me because as creative as the lie was it was still a lie and so she's never done that again she's now a schoolteacher and married and all that kind of stuff and as far as I know she's never spit in anybody else's face so the lesson went well and in this passage of scripture Paul is going to lovingly slap the church at Philippi on the hand so easily that you almost don't even notice it unless you read the whole book. Let's read the text because we become so enamored as we should be with verses 5 through 11 that we forget why that's there. Some of the most incredible passages on the exaltation of Christ are right here in this passage, and we don't know why they're there, for the most part, as Christians. Verse one, if there be, therefore, I want you to notice all the emotion in verse one. If there be any, therefore, any consolation of Christ, that's emotion. If any comfort of love, that's emotion. But then this is not emotion. If any fellowship of the Spirit, and then back to emotion, if any bowels and mercies fulfill ye my joy, that you may be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in loneliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men. Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. or for God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven of things in earth and of things under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father we read those verses about his exaltation and we fail to put together what Paul is really teaching there so for the rest of the Sunday school hour I'm going to teach on this passage of scripture let this mind being you. So let's have word of prayer before we begin. Father, we thank you for this morning, Lord. We thank you for our time together. We thank you, Father, for Pastor Savage and what you brought him through over the last year. Father, we're so thrilled to be here this week and looking forward to what you're going to do Lord have your will in your way in this Sunday school hour in Jesus name amen I want you as Paul does start with emotion but the emotion is not just for emotion's sake if there be any comfort of love any consolation of Christ any bowels of mercy there is emotion involved now Paul basically is using emotion here to help them because Paul has just been emotional with them because just a few moments ago they would have read those verses that we talked about I'm in a straight betwixt to Paul said I'm gonna stay here because I love you so much you need me so I'm going to be here and then Paul after breaking their hearts after their lump in their throat and the tears in their eyes he says since you know I love you don't you love me too there's any comfort of love consolation of Christ, bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy. Notice how much emotion is there, but nestled in the midst of emotion, because a lot of times we're dealing only with emotion nowadays. Even in Bible-believing fundamental churches, it's all about emotion, but with the emotion comes action. because all of that emotion is based upon that third thing, the fellowship of the Spirit. This fellowship of the Spirit is talking about action, not emotion. And by the way, we ought to love one another, Christian, but there is a certain level, a certain different kind of love we have for those with whom we have the fellowship of the Spirit. You know, people talk about all the time about lowering the number of church services that we have a week. Well, let's cancel Wednesday night. Let's cancel Sunday night. I don't know why anyone would ever even think about that because what their whole argument is, well, it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of work to go to church. It shouldn't be work to come to church. This is the one place in the world where we are truly loved, where we're loved for who we are. We're loved not for what we were, but who we are, that we're all brothers and sisters in Christ. We shouldn't be looking for ways to have less church. We should be looking for ways to have more church, because as the day approaches, we should not forsake the assembling ourselves together. Paul told the children, the Hebrews, assuming Paul wrote the book of Hebrews. But the truth of the matter is we shouldn't be looking for less church. We should be looking for more church. This should be the one place in the world where there's no opposition. Oh, we might disagree. We might not all just run around and grin with a Pollyanna grin on our face 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Understand that. We might even have things that we discuss and may even once in a while get heated in those discussions. But when we finish those discussions, we're still brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the one place, and I don't wanna say we can let our hair down, but that's what I'm kinda indicating. This is the one place where you can be you, because we're blood-bought children of Almighty God, and we have the fellowship of the Spirit, and because of that fellowship of the Spirit, we should have the comfort of love, and the consolation of Christ, and the bowels of mercy. They should be there. Paul doesn't say, you owe me. He said, no, no, no. Because we have the fellowship of the Spirit, you love me, and I love you. So many times nowadays, it's all about emotion. Well, let's just go and have an emotional service. We'll sing for an hour and a half and have a 12 minute message and we'll all be uplifted. It's not just about uplifting. Where does fellowship come from? Remember in Acts chapter two on the day of Pentecost, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and in fellowship. The fellowship is hinged upon the doctrine. And so the fellowship of the spirit means we have the right doctrine. You go to work and everybody in your office comes in on Mondays with the hangover talking about all of the terrible things they did all weekend. But there's one guy in your office that you know went to church. Now it's not a church like your church. It's not a church that preaches the Bible like your pastor preaches the Bible. But that's the one person you can talk to because they're not cursing and they're not talking about all the stuff they did over the weekend. And so you're having a conversation with them and you say something about, Oh, my pastor preached a great message on eternal security. Oh. You realize that's not what their church teaches. How many different topics are there that you have to navigate around because even though you agree on some things, you don't have the fellowship of the Spirit. But when you come to the house of God, you should be able to have the fellowship of the spirit, which results in the consolation of Christ and the bowels of mercy and the comfort of love. But Paul uses emotion here. And now I have to respect the apostle Paul using emotion here. If you love me and you love the Lord, fulfill you my joy. because there's consolation of Christ, comfort of love, and bowels and mercies, and the fellowship of the Spirit. So number one, he talks about emotion, but then he talks about the enlistment. This is what he wants them to do. Because I love you, and because you love me, and because we have the fellowship of the Spirit, the next step should be easy. The next step should be natural, but it's not going on at Philippi like it's supposed to. Fulfill ye my joy, that ye may be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind listen Christian if we have one Heavenly Father if we're all part of one family the truth of the matter is if we were all perfect we would always all have one accord one mind and one goal in everything that we do. But there is the problem of sin. Sin does creep in every now and then, doesn't it? I mean, I think every now and then is a little bit of a downplay of how often sin creeps in. But the truth is, sin has crept in to the church at Philippi. There are two ladies named Eudeus and Synthese that are causing some problems, and Paul is going to name them. What would happen to a Bible-believing pastor in a Bible-believing church if he got up and acted like the Apostle Paul on a Sunday morning? This whole church is going to be gathered together reading, and as they're reading, Paul has written in this book, and by the way, Udias and Synthesis, they're troublemakers. They were probably standing there. Can you imagine how we would act today if you came to church and pastor said, boy, we had a really good Sunday last Sunday, and if it wasn't for John and Cindy Schwartz, boy, we would have had an even better Sunday. If he named them by name, what would happen? A third of the church would say, yeah, I don't like them either. Another third of the church would say, oh, how dare you that you would say that. And another third of the church would say, pastor, you should have handled that privately. And next thing you know, a third of the church is gone. The other third of the church is mad. And the other third of the church is excited because the third of the church that's gone is gone. We don't do that nowadays, but Paul's gonna actually name the problems. He's gonna name the people in this epistle in just another chapter or two and tell you exactly what they're doing wrong. But right now he's saying, listen, in a soft and gentle and kind way, it sounds like just an encouragement, but it's a correction. Let's have one mind. Let's have one accord. Let's have one spirit. Let's all work together. Stop having some people that stand out. And then he explains to them what the problem is. Let nothing be done for strife or vainglory. Now notice he does not say, you Philippians are a bunch of lazy people, you need to get to work. No, no, stuff's happening at the church at Philippi. Things are being done at the church at Philippi. They're just being done for the wrong reason. Church members who come to church and their whole goal is to just make sure that when they do the slightest little thing that someone announces it from the pulpit or puts their name in the bulletin. By the way, I'm not a pastor. I've never been a pastor. Hopefully, I'll never be a pastor. I can't imagine any congregation ever voting me in. It would be a tragic thing for them. But the truth of the matter is, if I were a pastor, I don't know that I would have a bulletin. You know what a bulletin is? It's a glorified bookmark in your Bible. I can't tell you how many bulletins I have in my Bible. You know, we use the bulletin. By the way, I'll just say this for the record, and I know I'm gonna get in trouble. Whoever prints the bulletin here, don't get mad at me. But the only reason you have a bulletin, I mean, bulletins don't work. Did you ever think about that? Because what's in a bulletin? The announcements. So what happens in every service? you make announcements and you read basically what's in the bulletin and after you've announced the men's fellowship that's coming up whatever day it's coming up it's been in the bulletin for three weeks pastors announced it for every single service for those three weeks the day before someone says are you going to the men's fellowship oh I didn't know about that the only reason most people read the bulletin is to look for mistakes I said that one time in a church in Welcome, North Carolina, and over in this section, the whole section is laughing. And after the service, I walked up to the guy who was laughing the hardest, and he reached in his pocket and pulled out a red pen. He said, I use this every week to circle the mistakes in the bulletin, because that's what he did. Christian if you're serving the Lord because your heart is for the Lord and you're you want to serve the Lord and your name gets mentioned in the bulletin more power to you but if you're serving the Lord just so your name gets in the bulletin or just so pastor announces and if someone leaves you out and doesn't mention your name if you get mad and say well I I shouldn't have cleaned those restrooms anywhere and anyway nobody appreciates it and as Jesus said to the Pharisees they have their reward you did it for the vain glory, or you did it for strife. We're in churches, a lot of churches, and obviously your church is beautiful and always so clean, but a lot of churches, they have, I don't know if you do this here, if you do, again, more power to you, but they divide it up. In the first week, the Smith family cleans, in the second week, the Johnson family cleans, in the third week, the McGillicuddy family cleans. and the third week, the fourth week, the Schwartz family cleans, right? And if you're the McGillicuddy's and your goal is to clean the church so that when everybody walks in and go, oh, the McGillicuddy's must have cleaned. It's always so much cleaner when they clean. Then you're doing it for strife. It's not that they're not doing anything at Philippi. They're doing it for the wrong reason. They're doing it for strife. They're doing it for vainglory. They're doing it so that people can talk about how wonderful they are, what great martyrs they are, and how much better they do than everybody else. That's not the reason to serve the Lord. We don't serve the Lord to get a pat on the back. We serve the Lord to serve the Lord. Serve the Lord so that one day he'll say, well done. Notice carefully, please, we saw number one, the emotion. Number two, the enlistment. Number three, though, the example. And by the way, every problem in every single local church would go away in an instant if we just all obeyed the first few words of verse five. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. If we had just all grabbed a hold of that and lived by it, and by the way, once again, we're back to that sin nature. That's why we don't live by it. But if we could all just do that, we wouldn't have a single problem in the entire New Testament church, would we? But we don't, and we understand that. But I want you to know this, those of you who teach Sunday school, and I know we've got some Sunday school teachers and some preachers in the auditorium, the Apostle Paul is going to use what we preachers call parallelism so well in this passage of scripture. Matter of fact, it's just, as you read it, it just jumps off the page at me as I read it. We use different things like that. Like I could get up and preach a message on the 5K and that I had a good time and it was really hot. If those were my three points, by Sunday afternoon, no one remembers those three points. But if I got up and talked about the run, the fun and the sun, you'd remember that until tonight, wouldn't you? But the truth is, we use parallelism, alliteration, and similar things like that to help get our point across, to help make sure our messages are understandable and explainable. And so, Paul is going to do that right here. He said, look, nothing be done for strife or brain glory, but in loneliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. What an interesting concept. It's the complete opposite of the concept of the world, isn't it? The world says you better get yours and take care of number one. God says you better not care about number one. You better be able to care about everybody else. So Brother Harper, wait a minute. If I'm not looking out for me, who's gonna look out for me? The other 150 people that are here should be looking out for you. Shouldn't be walking into church as we so often do. I'm going to church looking for a blessing. Now you can expect a blessing when you come to church, can't you? But you should be coming to church looking to how to be a blessing. It's the other way around. Don't do it for your own things. Don't look on your own things. Look on the needs of others. Esteem others better than themselves. That's what Paul says. And then he gets this example of our Savior. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Now watch what he says. Who being in the form of God, not robbery to be with God, but made himself of no reputation. Isn't that interesting? What's the first thing Paul said? Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory. So on one side, you have a Christian, two that we know for sure in this passage, in this book of the Bible, we have some Christians that are doing it for strife. They're doing it for vainglory. They want to be the preeminent one. They want everyone to know that they've done something for the Lord. But they're supposed to have the mind of Christ. And if they have the mind of Christ, they're gonna do it for no reputation. Notice the complete opposite. He's saying you're doing it for vainglory. Jesus did it for no reputation. You're doing it so that people will worship you and he did it in a lowly manger with no one around except some animals and some shepherds. Notice carefully please, Paul continues on with this. He says, don't do it for strife or vainglory, be like Christ, do it for no reputation. And then it says this, and took on him the form of a servant. What did Paul say after strife or vainglory? Let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man on the things of others. If you tomorrow got a telegram or an email that said, not from some Nigerian prince, but from a legitimate organization, that you had just inherited from a long lost great aunt that lived in, Norway, and you have just inherited $100 million. I don't know what you would do with $100 million, but if I had $100 million, I would hire me a butler. I would have a servant. I don't know who it'd be. I mean, in North Carolina and in Tennessee, we probably would name him Bubba. I think in Tennessee, you might name him Lane Kiffin, just so you can tell him what to do. I am correct here, he wasn't very popular here, is that right? You guys didn't like Lane Kiffin? That's correct, thank you so much. I thought I'd get some amens there, I really did. And so, I know you didn't root for Georgie yesterday, but you had to love Lane Kiffin getting just demolished. But anyway, back to the message, I've digressed into college football again. But I would hire me a butler. Can you imagine, I'm sitting in my house, and I'm just relaxing. It's 11 o'clock at night. I'm watching reruns of Andy Griffith on my giant, I've got $100 million. I've got a giant television, right? All of a sudden, I decide I want some popcorn. I pick up the little microphone or whatever, and I says, excuse me, Bubba, I would like to have some popcorn while I enjoy watching The Sheriff of Mayberry and Andy Griffith. And he says, nah. I just made myself a grilled cheese. I'm in for the night. Make your own popcorn. What's the first thing I'm going to do the next morning? I'm firing Bubba, right? Because what is a servant supposed to do? He's supposed to look on my needs, not his. He's supposed to look on the needs of others, not himself. Isn't that what the Bible tells us here? It says you as Christians, there you are in Philippi, you're doing it for strife and vainglory. You should be like Jesus and have the mind of Christ and be doing it for no reputation. You're doing it because you're looking on your own needs, you're looking on your own things, you're taking care of your own self when you should have the mind of Christ. And what does it say about Jesus who came as a servant? He's not just teaching them this wonderful passage of scripture about our Savior. It's got a reason for it. He's saying, listen, you're too filled with vainglory. You should have no reputation. You're too full of looking at your own things. You should be a servant and look on the needs of others. then I find in this example, this is amazing to me, because when you start reading in verse six, he's in the form of God, thought it not Robert equal to God, but made himself of no reputation. The God of the universe made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men. Do you realize, we look and talk about the greatest thing in mankind and mankind this and mankind that, But the difference between us and God, you ever seen a little kid, they don't do it very much anymore, they all have their phones and their iPads now. You ever seen a little kid playing outside after a rain and making mud pies? That almost comes close to explaining part of the difference between God and us. We're a mud pie to him. He created man out of the dust of the ground. and breathe in him the breath of life. And he came from heaven, never being hungry one time, never being tired, thirsty, never being criticized, no one ever telling him he did his miracles through the power of Beelzebub. And he took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. But then, being found in fashion as a man, After all of that that he's already recorded, then it says this, he humbled himself. In other words, all the humility from heaven to mankind, all the humility from being king of kings to being a servant with no reputation in the form of a mud pie, that doesn't even count compared to the humility that is to come. After all of that, He humbled himself and became obedient unto death. And I realize this is my own vision here, but I picture the Apostle Paul at that moment, setting down the quill, backing away, wiping his eyes, and then writing the words that the Holy Ghost had laid on his heart, even the death of the cross. notice number one we saw the emotion number two the enlistment number three the example and number four the exaltation wherefore wherefore because of all that God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name understand we read this and we say wow Lord is certainly going to be exalted, every knee is going to bow, everyone who's ever denied Him is going to bow, every atheist that shook his fist up toward the heavens and said there is no God is going to bow, yes, that is certainly right here in this passage of Scripture, but what is Paul teaching in this passage of Scripture? He's saying listen, don't do it for strife, don't do it for vainglory, have the mind of Christ, do it for no reputation, but Don't look on your own things. Have the mind of Christ. Come as a servant. Humble yourself. Don't look for the glory. Don't look for the preeminence. And then God will do the exalting. You ever noticed how he exalts us? What does he say? When we stand before him and he says, well done. Watch it with me. Thou good and faithful, Servant! Thou hast been faithful over a few things. You didn't do it for strife. You didn't do it for vainglory. You came for no reputation and you served others as the form of a servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee a ruler over many things. That's the lesson being taught here, yes. Please, for all that's in you, glory and worship. And verses nine through 11 about the exaltation of our Savior. But remember why it's there. It's there because Paul is telling you, if you'll humble yourself here, you'll be exalted in heaven. No one ever humbled themselves like Jesus, therefore no one is ever going to be exalted like Jesus. What he's teaching us is, the level of your humility is directly in proportion to your level of exaltation in other words you can have all the bulletin printings with your name in it and all the compliments from the pulpit if that's what you want you can get that here but would you rather have your name in a temporal bulletin that you'll use as your bookmark until next Sunday Would you have to have your name echoed by the one that sits on the throne and says, Well done now, good and faithful servant. He doesn't say, Well done now, good and faithful person who sought the limelight. Well done now, good and faithful servant who took care of number one. Nope. A good and faithful servant has been faithful over a few things. I will make thee a ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. Christian, there's gonna be a lot of things that are tried by fire. Everything that we've done will be tried by fire. The fire of God will fall. Every man's work shall be tried of what sort it is. Some will burn up. Those are the things you did for strife and vainglory and self. You still served the Lord, but they're not gonna end up with a reward. Others are gonna have gold and silver and precious stones. They were the ones that were serving with no vainglory and looking on everyone else's needs. What an incredible passage of scripture it is, especially when you include it all together. Paul teaching. take care of others for take care of yourself. And if you're doing that, by the way, one more thing and I'm done. If your whole goal is to serve others, would you have any problems having the consolation of love? Would you have any problems being of one mind of one accord? Of course not. It all fits together when we do it God's way. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Lord and Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for our time in Sunday School. Lord, bless the morning service to follow, in Jesus' name, amen.