Good morning, Calvary. My name is Josh Laack, and I have the honor to serve as one of the elders on your elder board team. I like to make this announcement whenever I can. I’m always open for, as Brian, pastor Brian would say, questions, comments, or wisecracks. So, if you see me in the hall or in the gym, or if you want to send me a note, I’m always happy to connect with you and chat about the church or about faith or any of those things. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve had three different messages. Pastor Kyle preached the last message of the Advent series, then preached for services on Christmas Eve. And then, Jason, another member of our elder team, preached the last message of the year on the 28th and first, Kyle talked about the righteousness of Christ and how that becomes ours. Because of God’s plan and our need, in turn, we become a new creation in Christ. Then on Christmas Eve, the Christmas message of how and why Jesus came and how we can accept him went deeper into how we gain this new life in Christ. Last Sunday, Jason gave us a message on peace with God and hope for the future, because we are now reconciled with God through Christ. And that all leads us to today. In this first message of the New Year and thinking in this new year about this new life that we have in Christ, how should being reconciled to God through Jesus affect us? How should we commit to living in Christ? And this seemed very appropriate for me to talk about today, because I am terrible at committing to new ways to live.

Um, I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore, and I think I’ve probably mentioned that here before, but I don’t make them because I’ve never had one survive past January. The problem isn’t just with New Year’s resolutions. I have this bad habit of getting excited about new things and starting them and not finishing them. I watch hours of YouTube videos on how to do a new thing, and I will read books and articles and just about everything I can find. And I will be so excited and I will burn out very quickly in the project. To my shame, I have a pile of things all spread out throughout my basement and shop, some of which I moved from my last house into this new house and they still sit there. The first time I brought Kate, my wife, to my house, I told her I had remodeled the whole thing and so she drove to this house expecting to be impressed. And pulled up to a home that had siding missing and falling off all over the place because I had done an addition and finished most of the inside so I could live in it and hadn’t gotten around to doing the rest of the siding.

Sometime later she begged me and I did go back and do the rest of the siding, but since she knew this about me, we started a new project together in which I told her I needed to build a house, and she told me no. Um, she did come around, but she had some stipulations. And one of those was very wise, in which she said, there will be no projects left in the main part of the house, or we will not move in. Now, I share all that at the beginning here, thinking of this new life in Christ, because the interesting thing about that project is that I learned that I could do it. I learned even with a complicated project and a long time window. It took me 18 months to build this house. I completed it and actually mostly on schedule. So what was different about this project than all of the ones that still sit in my basement? Two things come to mind. One, I was strongly invested in the outcome of living in my future home. And two, I was motivated by the example of and the accountability to my wife Kate. And in Christ, we have a very similar thing. We have a new life that we are meant to live, and we live that way. Following the example of Christ and accountability to Christ in that life as our Savior.

My point for us today is this the new life in Christ is not just a momentary spiritual change, but a new life lived out both now and for the future. The new life in Christ does begin with a momentary spiritual change, which is the gift of God given to us by faith. But life is not just the moment it begins. Life is something that is lived. In other words, we have a new life and all that that entails in Christ. And then we can’t continue to live as if we were still part of the old life. Today we’re going to explore why we should want to live a new life in Christ, how we actually do that. And we’re going to look at the example of that life lived out by Christ himself. And we’re going to find those today in our passage from Philippians two starting in verse one. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy. Now the context of chapter one is Paul speaking of how the church at Philippi should live, whether Paul is there to see them or not. And Paul’s hope is that the church will stand firm in the spirit, that they will live out the gospel, the good news that they have both heard and received in Jesus. The readers of the letter Paul identifies as the saints at Philippi.

Paul recognizes these men and women as people who have begun this new life in Christ that they have received from Christ. This momentary spiritual change. And now he’s trying to tell them to teach them how they live it out. And he’s asking a rhetorical question here, phrased this way, to encourage the church to consider the reality of this new life that they’re in, the experience that they have already begun to receive and to and to have in this new life, so that they will recognize that the call that follows the instruction that follows is meant for them because they have received this experience. They know that the teaching is also for them, and that applies for all of us as we think about our new life in Christ, and we think about what we have experienced, the changes that have begun in our life because of our relationship with Jesus, then we can know that this teaching that’s about to follow is also for us to live as well. And Paul lays this experience out here, I think, in the perfect way. He lays it out in the order in which we experience it. As we make the change from our old life to the new life in Christ. And while we are in the flesh before we know Jesus, our life is nothing but discouragement as we discover time and time again that the things of the flesh, things of the earth, they cannot satisfy.

Food is good, but we’re hungry again very quickly. At least I am. Wealth. Happiness, pleasure. All of it is fleeting. The older we get, the more we recognize how fleeting those things really are. When we experience life in the flesh and in the world, we inevitably will be discouraged. Eventually, we discover the same thing that Solomon discovered as he explored all of the earthly things he could and came to a conclusion. And Solomon tried it all. He tried more wives than any person should ever possibly consider. He tried all the food and wealth and power and privilege and all of it. And here’s what he said in Ecclesiastes one verse 14, I have seen everything that is done under the sun. It’s a lot of things. And behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. Solomon found the truth that there is no lasting value in the things and the experiences of the earth. It quickly fades away like a wind that gusts and then is gone. All that you have earned. The beauty of youth. The storehouses full of grain. The wisdom you have gained. It all wastes away. Becomes irrelevant or dies with you. Now imagine into the midst of this search for value in anything someone comes and says, I can offer you something that will last for this life and for the life to come, for an eternity to follow.

That is the encouragement, the hope that we find when we first learn about Jesus and about what he can offer. The hope we find when we know that there is a good God who cares about us and wants something better for us, a God who has promises that will last for eternity. And the first light of hope. Encouragement shines in our lives Now knowing that there is a way to have a life of meaning and that there are promises available is encouraging. But encouragement is not enough. We must experience the result of the love that God puts into our lives. And Jason shared with us last week from Romans five verse eight, that God’s love is displayed for us in that Christ died while we were still sinners. Not just that he died, that he died specifically for us. When we accept Jesus as the only way to have a life of meaning, Paul is suggesting that the experience is this experience of comfort from love. Love that is poured out freely toward us. And this is the next step of walking into this new life in Christ. Jesus expressed this self-sacrificial love when he went to the cross. We experience it when we enter into a real and personal relationship with him by believing what he has shared and the good news that we can know and have a life in him. Accepting this good news means that we have moved from death to life.

We don’t just have encouragement now, we actually have life. We were dead in our sins before Christ, destined only for destruction. But now, in the love of God, we have become heirs with Christ of eternal life. But we still must live in this world, this life, for now. So God does not abandon us to try to live this new life in our own strength. Rather, we are provided with a helper, the Holy Spirit. And Paul says here that the next thing we experience, the next thing that happens after we receive the love of Christ, is we receive participation in the spirit, the helper who can help us to live out this life as we are meant to. And the final thing we experience now that we have the Holy Spirit in us, guiding us as we begin to have a mindset shift away from ourselves and toward affection and sympathy for other people. The point of Paul sharing all this is that if you have experienced these things in this order, in your own life, by receiving the free gift of God, accepting Jesus and your need for him, then you have taken the step to begin a new life in Christ. Now notice I said, step to begin. Paul is giving this list as a rhetorical question in this way because it is a beginning, not an end. Now he wants all of those who have experienced this life in Christ to respond to it, to live in it.

And he says, complete my joy, then by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. And here we see the shift from why to how. And what we find is that the response matches the new life that we have been given. Why we should want to live this way comes directly from what we have received from Jesus. And what we do to begin living it out is to take what we have received, and to turn it back around and give it out. We didn’t deserve this new life. We didn’t earn it. We can’t possibly afford to pay it back, yet we receive it from Christ in faith for free and the very things that we have received, that is what we should use to live out this new life. The same love we have received from Christ. It is with that same kind of self-sacrificial love that we then should love God and love others. The mind of Christ, with which he chose to sacrifice himself in this way for us, is the same way that we should think about how to live this new life in him. This mindset, this way of life. And it’s not just an individual thing. This is a corporate thing. This is how the church is meant to live out this life together.

The whole body of Christ, all of us meant to live in this love for each other and for God. Now, this same mind or one mind idea here does not mean exact sameness. Rather, it carries the idea of different people with different gifts and different abilities and different personalities, unique individuals. And yet all of us coming together with one focus, one purpose, one desire. We know the body of Christ is meant to be made up of different people. In fact, the Holy Spirit that we. Paul says we have participation in gifts us all differently as he sees fit, and yet we are all to use those different gifts, our different personalities, our uniqueness together to build up the church and to invite others into it. This is the goal for living out the new life while we are still here on earth. That we would receive and then spread the love, hope and reconciliation that we have in Christ. The best analogy that I know of here is one that the Bible uses frequently to think about our relationship with God and how we live it. And that analogy is marriage. My wife, Kate and I have been married for ten wonderful years now, and I still remember the excitement, the initial joy of finding somebody who I thought I might want to spend this life with, and who might want to spend this life with me.

I remember long nights of conversation, getting to know one another and planning a life together. But as good as that talk was, as those planning moments were, our marriage would not be where it is today. If all we had done was talk and plan. We had to choose to actively live as a married couple to make good on the plans that we had made to live for each other. Before I was married, I made all of the decisions about my life as a bachelor for myself and in my own strength. I decided where to spend money, how to save it, what color siding not to put on my house. Now Kate and I together have to agree. We have to work together toward a shared goal, a shared purpose of building a family that is centered on Christ. We decide together the things that matter. Two different people with different gifts, building one life, sharing in similar goals and love and purpose. And in much the same way, becoming a Christian is not just a momentary agreement. It’s not talk and planning. It is being part of Christ and of His church and of what he is doing, of using our gifts and our individuality for a shared purpose. But what exactly does that mean? How do we practically live this out as believers? All this talk of same mind, one mind and mind of Christ tells us that this will involve a mindset shift.

This is not how we naturally think. This is not how we naturally are as human beings. If we’re honest with ourselves, our innate desire as humans is a selfish one. How do I get ahead? How do I have pleasure and success and power and all that? The mind of the flesh is all about me. A marriage cannot survive this mindset and neither can the church. Both must be other focused, not self motivated. And so Paul says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. The whole economy of the new life is different than the old. Before knowing Jesus, our best hope at gaining anything of value for ourselves was to amass wealth and power and privilege without him, without hope for a future life in him. It actually makes total sense to be self-serving, to seek after the things that we can gain for ourselves in this life. Because if Jesus was not raised from the dead, Paul says in another place, if we do not have new life in him, then we as Christians are most to be pitied. If we do not have new life in him, then these earthly pleasures, the things we can get here, are the best that we can possibly hope for, and we should spend our time seeking after them. Van Halen singer David Lee Roth is quoted saying, money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.

If all we have to look forward to are the things of this earth, then seeking after those things makes sense. But if we have hope for a life of great value beyond this life, if we have hope at something that is infinitely bigger than any earthly pleasure or treasure that we can gain, then a life focused on those things would be foolish. And Paul points to the experience of the new life in Christ as evidence for us that we do have this new identity, this new reality, to show us that living out this life makes sense because there is already beginning in us, through Christ, an experience to show us that it’s real. To show us that we have hope and reconciliation with God. And so we can know through experience that God’s promises are real and we can know personally because of the encouragement, love, participation in the Holy Spirit and the changes that are happening in our own spirit as we begin to live out this life for others. So how does God’s economy compare? How is the mindset of Christ different from that of the world to God and to those who follow him? People have more value than stuff, and God rewards those who treat his valuables with the respect and honor that they deserve. Each of us should be seeking to live lives that are outward facing, not selfish.

In fact, Paul says nothing. Do nothing from selfish ambition. This doesn’t mean we don’t earn money or even enjoy the blessings that God has given us, but it does mean that our motivation has to change. I don’t pile up money so that I can be rich. Kate and I together save wisely so that we can care for each other so that we can be generous when the opportunity arises, so that we don’t become a burden for other people in our old age, so that we can leave a legacy behind for the next generation. All of those interests are ultimately motivated by a concern for others rather than a concern for myself. All of them are decisions not that I made as a person by myself for myself, but decisions made together with Kate, both for our good and for the good of others. And that’s why Paul says, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. This makes it clear we do still have our own interests, and it’s not wrong to plan wisely for your family and for and for yourself in how you can care best for that family. Saying all earthly things are evil would fall into the Gnostic heresy that teaches that all possessions, all earthly things, the body of flesh, all of it is evil, and that the only way to get back to God, to the divine, is some secret knowledge that lets you avoid every earthly thing.

That’s not what Paul is advocating here. Paul is advocating for proper focus on earthly things and heavenly things. He’s advocating for proper order, right balance between three things caring for others, enjoying what God has given, and planning for the future. So it’s fine to enjoy a good meal, but if you eat fancy meal after fancy meal while Lazarus starves at your gate, your focus is wrong. If you work all the time so that you can have a fancy house and a big boat you can’t afford, and you don’t spend any time with your family because all of your time is focused on getting toys that you can play with. Your focus is wrong. If, however, you are spending as much time as you possibly can so that your family has a roof over their head and food to eat. Your focus is not on yourself, on others. Even if you have enough money to buy a nicer house and to have that boat, but you’re using them to host others and to spend time with your family, that is a blessing to you and to them, and you’re using that to bring neighbors over and share the good news with them as you take them out for a boat ride. That focus is on enjoying the resources God has given you, but using them for his kingdom and for his purpose.

That’s outward other focus. If you work hard, then you should receive some of the benefit of that. But a new life in Christ is not an inward focus, but an outward focus. So in all of this, Paul is looking at income and outgo in our lives and asking a question we should all ask ourselves. Thinking of what I have received in Christ in this new life, does my love and care for others flow out of what I have received, or does it flow out of my own worldly desires and selfishness? That is the mindset of Christ and He is the who the example that we should be seeking to follow. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus. That’s the mindset shift, and it is the mindset that Jesus himself best displayed for us. If he had chosen to be selfish instead of selfless, we would have no encouragement, no love, no sharing in the spirit, and no new life at all. Instead, he has given us all that he had as the ultimate example of how God’s economy is lived out. He gave us this new life, a mindset shift, the spirit and all that we need in order to be able to live this new life. And he did all of that while living it himself as the firstborn Son of God. And he did it completely for us because he didn’t need to do it for himself.

He had nothing to gain. Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Jesus already had ultimate riches. He had everything he needed in the perfect, loving embrace of the Trinity. He had love and power and eternal life. All of it was already his. And if he had focused only on what he had on keeping that for himself, our story would be very different. It would have ended before it even began. Instead of grasping at this power and position that Jesus was in, he considered the whole world as more important than himself. He didn’t grasp, but emptied himself. Verse seven by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. Jesus went from full authority and power to the weakest human, a baby. I think even here some people imagine this powerful baby, this powerful Christ child. And I’ve seen paintings from the Renaissance that are this baby sitting up straight in a golden halo around his head, and he’s probably already talking at one month age. There’s a Christmas song about no crying he makes. In reality, he had to have his butt wiped and he cried like every other baby when he was hungry, when he wanted to be held, when he was scared. Jesus went from ultimate power in the universe to someone who could do nothing but rely on Mary and Joseph for everything that he needed in that moment, Jesus completely emptied himself.

And if that were not enough, he lived his whole time on earth through suffering and struggle and ended his time dying, not just in any way, but in one of the most humiliating ways possible to the Jews, a way that was considered a curse. Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Not death for something he deserved. Jesus died a humiliating death while innocent so that the guilty could live. The humility of leaving behind heaven and becoming a man was only the beginning of his sacrifice. He both lived and died in a way that no human being could or would. We heard this read last week’s message Romans five seven about how we would live in the same position, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. At most our human nature would allow us to die for someone we loved or die for somebody we thought was good. Yet the crowd around Jesus cried out, crucify him! And Jesus died for that same crowd. While we will never be as good as Christ, he set for us an example of humility and of seeking to live in that humility for God’s purposes in our lives.

And that’s God’s desire for all who follow him, all who have experienced his love and have relationship with him. And it is this kind of humility that will ultimately receive the greatest reward in God’s economy. Jesus made the sacrifice, emptied himself of glory, and went humbly to the cross and then to the grave. But the father did not leave him there. The father raised Jesus and gave him even greater rewards for his humility. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Jesus emptied himself of heavenly glory that he shared with the father, lowered himself lower than any other human before him, and then was rewarded with the full return of the heavenly glory. And on top of that glory that he always shared with the father, he was rewarded with all earthly glory, power, and position. All of this new glory that Jesus receives, he didn’t do it even for himself. But even this he did ultimately to increase the glory of God the Father. I love the picture that Paul paints here of the expanse of the glory that Jesus receives. You have all the knees on earth, or basically everyone who’s still alive, and then you have all the knees in heaven and under the earth.

I don’t know for sure, but I read this as those who are waiting with God and those who are waiting for judgment. In any case, Paul is describing a reality in which it seems that all the knees and tongues that ever existed all will bow before Jesus and recognize him. Some of them probably very begrudgingly, but they will all give him the glory he is due in living this out. Jesus shows us that living God’s way in his purpose and in humility does not end in a bad outcome, even if it can be hard along the way. Rather, living God’s way results in more joy, in more glorious life, not just now, but for eternity. Hebrews 12 two tells us that for the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross. Jesus sacrificed himself for a greater purpose, and that purpose was seeing all of those who would follow after him and who would have life in him. We know it can’t have been for selfish purposes, because Jesus already had everything he ever could have wanted. So this joy for Jesus was about us, not himself. This is the same joy that Paul was talking about all the way back in verse two, where he said, complete my joy by having this mind. Because the Philippians, who Paul shared Christ with, were living this way. Paul had joy in sharing in their humility and in their reward.

Living God’s way brings joy not only to the person living that way, but to those who have helped them to grow and ultimately joy to God himself. The whole Christian life is a life style and focus change, not a one time decision. So the new life in Christ is not just a momentary spiritual change. It’s a new life, lived out both now and for the future. Therefore, because of that, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Because it is a new life that is meant to be lived out. And it is a life worth living out both now and for the future. Then do it not just because Paul or someone is watching. Do it because it is the right response for what you have received in Christ. Do it because of your future hope, and do it because it is what your God desires of you. So we already have this new salvation, this participation in the spirit, this showering of the love of Christ in us, one that we cannot earn find on our own, but we can receive it. And now we can live it out to the best of our ability. And look at this. Even in this, it cannot be a way for us to earn or repay what God has done.

It is acceptance of what God is doing because it is God who is doing it in us. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. All of it ultimately not for our glory, but for God’s glory. God makes a way through. His son, gives us the spirit to guide us, showers us in his love, explains how he wants us to live, and then helps us to live that way, preparing even the good works that we do for us in advance, giving us the mind of Christ and working in us to be able to live this way for us, then what is left? The example and the experience of Jesus in our lives should give us both the drive to want to, and the accountability needed for us to just say yes to what God is doing in our lives. To step into this new life. So I would ask you to examine yourselves this morning. What is your motivation for how you choose to live? Not just today, but every day? Is your focus on God, family and others, or is it still on yourself, on what you can gain on your earthly treasures? New life in Christ begins with saying yes to the grace that God offers in Christ, but it continues with waking up each day and choosing to live in that grace for his glory and for others good. Please join me in prayer.