Pulse
05 Jan 2026
Philippians 2:1-11
This sermon was delivered at the chapel service at Trinity Theological College on 27 September 2023
Our passage from Paul’s letter to the Christians at Philippi contains that great Christological hymn about the mystery of the Incarnation. The authorship and origins of this hymn are unknown to us, but the hymn must have been familiar to Paul’s readers.
There are two levels on which this hymn can be read and understood.
At one level, this hymn can be studied in isolation from the passage in Philippians 2. It is surely one of the most profound accounts in the New Testament of the incarnation of the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity.
If you have attended Dr Edmund Fong’s lectures on Christology, you will know how the Incarnation has exercised the minds of theologians throughout the history of the Church – and it still does!
This hymn in particular has been the basis of endless and convoluted theological debates in the past three centuries or so, especially among the theologians who write about the difficult idea of kenosis.
But there is a second way in which this hymn can – and we should say, must – be read. It must be read in the context of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It must be understood in the light of the purposes of the apostle for putting it there.
Seen in its original context, Paul’s intention in commandeering this hymn on the Incarnation is not to discuss the mystery about which it sings.
The intention of the apostle is very practical.
Paul points to the Incarnation in order to show the Philippian Christians what true humility and obedient servanthood look like. In other words, Paul uses this hymn to present Jesus Christ as an example – indeed the example par excellence – of Christian humility and service.
The focus of this passage is therefore not the exposition of the Church’s doctrine of the Incarnation. The focus of this passage is imitatio Christi – the imitation of Christ.
Paul begins the segment with an exhortation: ‘Let this mind be in you’. Paul urges the Philippians to have the same mindset, to have the same attitude that Christ had.
In other words, the apostle wants his readers to follow Christ, to imitate him.
But Paul is careful to stress that they should not only imitate Christ by their outward behaviour, but by their inner disposition and attitude also.
The apostle knows full well that true Christian discipleship cannot be reduced to religious externalism or moralism. He wants the Philippians to be truly transformed by the Gospel and sanctified by the Spirit.
He wants them to have the very mind of Christ.
What does this passage teach us about Christian humility? And why is humility so important – for the Christian life and for Christian ministry?
Allow me to share a few thoughts with you this morning.
THE VIRTUE OF HUMILITY
We begin with the Christian understanding of humility.
Throughout the history of the Church, Christian theologians as diverse as Chrysostom and Calvin have emphasised the importance of humility in the Christian life. Some writers have even insisted that humility is the chief virtue which makes all the other virtues possible.
The New Testament is replete with exhortations about humility. For example, in Ephesians 4:2 Paul exhorts his readers to ‘Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love’.
In a similar vein, the apostle Peter, writing to the Christians dispersed throughout Asia Minor, enjoins them with these words: ‘Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”’ (1 Peter 5:5).
Here, in this passage from Philippians, the apostle Paul wants to help his readers to understand what Christian humility entails. He does this by pointing them to the Incarnation.
In verses 5-8, he writes:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross.
In the incarnation, the second person of the Trinity, whom the ancient creeds describe as “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God’, emptied himself to become one of us.
The one who is co-equal with God – who ‘flung stars into space’, to borrow an expression from Graham Kendrick – ‘did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.’ He willingly set aside and let go some of the prerogatives of deity and became a human being.
Thus, in the incarnation, the unimaginable has taken place. God became a man, the Creator became a creature, the Lord and Master of all creation became a servant.
In the incarnation, God emptied himself. In the incarnation, God humbled himself.
By analogy, Christians should also be willing to humble themselves by not regarding themselves more highly than others. They should empty themselves – so to speak – so that their focus and their energies can be directed at others, and not at themselves.
This is what the apostle Paul wants to bring across when he pointed the Philippians to the Incarnation.
If the Philippian Christians had understood this, then they will ‘do nothing from selfishness and conceit’ (2:3). If they had understood this, then they will ‘count others better than themselves’ (2:3).
If they had understood this, then they will not be so self-absorbed. They will be sensitive to the needs and concerns of others.
In the words of the apostle, they will ‘look not only to [their] own interests, but also to the interests of others’ (2:4).
The spiritual writers of the Church have repeatedly emphasised that true humility starts with our relationship with God himself.
To be truly humble, we must first recognise our creatureliness before our Creator. We must recognise our finitude, our powerlessness before the Almighty One.
Only when we recognise our true status as God’s creatures and humble ourselves before him can we in turn be humble in our relationship with our fellow human beings.
As the Baptist theologian, Gavin Ortlund, puts it: ‘All true humility starts before God himself, then trickles out into other relationships.’
However, as Ortund is careful to stress, the converse is also true. ‘[A]ll pride, before it is directed to other people, is first directed to God’.
Paul urges the Christians at Philippi to look to Christ, to consider his humility, and to follow him.
Today, the Word of God enjoins us to examine our hearts, and allow the Spirit of God to interrogate our souls.
It urges us to allow the light of God’s truth to shine on our very being and to expose the sometimes-subtle presence of falsehood, of pride and of self-idolatry.
And it urges us to repent.
HUMILITY AND OBEDIENT SERVICE
If the first lesson from this passage has to do with the importance of humility and what it looks like, the second lesson is that humility is indispensable for obedient and sacrificial service.
In 2:8 we are told that the Son of God, who has emptied himself in the incarnation, further ‘humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross’.
This verse teaches that humility is the conditio sine qua non (the indispensable condition) for obedient service.
We are told that Christ willingly humbled himself and became obedient. Neither humility nor obedience was forced upon him.
Reflecting on this statement, the great Danish philosopher and theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, writes: ‘Christ humbled himself – not, he was humbled’.
Kierkegaard goes on to stress that ‘there is none in heaven or on earth or in the abyss that could humble him! He humbled himself’.
So, for our sakes Christ chose to humble himself in obedient service.
The Gospel of John is replete with the statements of our Lord concerning his self-abnegation, submission and total surrender to the will of the Father.
In John 5, Jesus said ‘I can do nothing on my own authority … I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me’ (v 30). In a similar vein, Jesus said in John 8: ‘… I do not seek my own glory’ (v. 50).
In pointing to Christ, Paul stresses that the Christians at Philippi must learn to humble themselves if they are to serve one another. Humility is indispensable in Christian ministry.
Humility, however, is a virtue that is often overlooked or downplayed in current discourse on Christian ministry and leadership.
This is because our understanding of ministry and leadership is sometimes influenced by secular accounts.
The leadership consultant, John Baldoni, is surely right to observe that ‘Humility just might be one of the most overlooked attributes in leadership, but it just might be one of the most important attributes a leader can possess’.
‘Organisations want their leaders to be visionary, authoritative, capable and motivational’, he adds. ‘Nowhere does it say anything about being “humble”’.
Yet, our passage insists that without humility there can be no obedient and sacrificial service.
Paul says that Christ ‘humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!’
The Bible commentator Kent Hughes rightly states that the expression ‘even death on a cross’ is ‘the crowning shudder’.
It is the crowning shudder because it emphasises the extent to which Jesus is willing to go to obey the will of God the Father and to serve others. It is the crowning shudder because it emphasises the uncommon humility that is required for selfless service.
This is the example that Paul urges the Philippians to follow. This is the cruciform ministry that God has called all of us to embrace.
But what does this attitude and posture look like?
I think the best expression of this attitude and posture is found in the Covenant Prayer of the Wesleyan Tradition. Allow me to read the words of this prayer.
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you.
Praised for you or criticised for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and fully surrender all things to your glory and service.
And now, O wonderful and holy God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, you are mine, and I am yours.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth, Let it also be made in heaven.
This is a difficult prayer to pray. It is a prayer that demands so much from us. It demands radical self-denial. It demands radical self-emptying – kenosis.
But those who are willing to pray this prayer and allow its demands to shape their lives would manifest something of what Paul has called ‘the mind of Christ’.
CONCLUSION
How can we cultivate this Christlike humility and surrender?
The theologians of the Church have given much thought to this question.
Although these writers have suggested many different ways of cultivating this virtue, they generally agree that nothing is more important than the contemplation of Christ.
This is exactly what Paul urges the Christians at Philippi to do.
He urges them to look at the Son of God. He urges them to allow Christ’s example to inspire them, and his Spirit to so mould them that they too may have the mind of their Lord.
This is what God’s Word is urging us to do today.
In 1707, Isaac Watts wrote a magnificent hymn which brings this out very well. The hymn speaks about the transformative effect of contemplating on our Saviour.
The title of the hymn is ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’. Let me read the first two stanzas of the hymn as we bring our reflections to a close.
When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
save in the death of Christ, my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them through his blood.
May the words of this hymn become the prayer of our hearts!
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.