What’s your attitude?
Philippians 2.1-13
Have you got attitude? You have! Whether you think so or not. Sometimes we use that word negatively - teenagers have ‘attitude’ - though, to be honest, so do a lot of their parents! It may be a bad attitude – but teachers also talk about children having a good attitude. So, ‘attitude’ is a neutral word describing the way we think or feel about the world and, as a result, often how we behave. We communicate our attitude to others through our body-language, through what we say and do, and by our silence.
People have attitude; and so do organisations. Different schools, for example, have a different ‘feel’ to them, a different culture. They have ‘attitude’ - pretensions to grandeur, a sense of despair, a sporting culture or a focus on exam grades. And what’s true of schools is true also of churches.
Philippians 2 always stops me in my tracks, and particularly verse 5: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”, or, as in some translations ‘your attitude should be the same as his’.
Paul was writing to a church - to a group of Christians in fellowship with one another. And he was concerned about their attitude. They were not necessarily radiating the Christian virtues that Paul expected. The church at Philippi was a teenage church - and as such it may well have been having a teenage strop. But Paul knows the potential of this church that he loves - and he wants them, as he said at the end of the last chapter, to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” (1:27)
And, if they need a reason to do that, Paul reminds them, here at the beginning of chapter 2, that their attitude to life should flow from them being “in Christ”. Two little words, but fundamental. That’s why I often sign off with them, “Yours in Christ”. To remind me, as I send an email, that I’m not just doing this in my name. And, as he writes, Paul assumes, people of Philippi - people of Erbistock/Overton – that you are, as he says, “in Christ.” Well, are you? You see, there’s not much point in going on if you’re not part of the team. Paul assumes that he’s talking to people who have signed up, who are “in Christ”. I remember a television programme showing Siamese twins joined at the head, but still leading an amazing adult life. Being a Siamese twin joined at the head is permanent; you would die if you were separated. I think that being “in Christ” is something like that – it is permanent and life-giving. And it is definitive. Either you are “in Christ” or you’re not.
Being “in Christ”, Paul says, will bring you encouragement; it will offer you consolation; you will find in him compassion and sympathy. I wonder if that is your experience of the Christian faith? I think it is important to pause here, before plunging into the more familiar ‘hymn’ that forms the climax of this passage, because Paul assumes that our attitudes will be shaped by our experience of being “in Christ”. If we experience these things, then we will be more likely to have the mind of Christ. This is why the culture of any Christian community is important, because it shapes the members of it.
The Christian life is not always easy - not at all. Paul talks about the privilege of suffering with Christ in the first chapter of this letter (as we saw last week). But when Paul asks if the Philippian Christians have any encouragement from being united with Christ, he is surely reminding them of the truths which they were taught - partly by him - and which brought them to faith in the first place. Truths about the salvation Christ has won for them. Truths about the ongoing relationship they can enjoy with him, sustained by his Spirit. Truths about the power his Spirit gives them day by day to do the work God has called them to. And the truth that they are part of a loving and encouraging family, the church.
It is that family which is God’s chosen way of communicating the “consolation from love” of which Paul speaks, and where “compassion and sympathy” are shown. I think Paul is assuming that all these things will flow in Christian fellowship, and churches where love, tenderness and compassion are not to be found are poor witnesses to God’s grace and may not be worthy of the description ‘Christian’ at all. When we are at our most desperate, when life has treated us most cruelly, we need the comfort and support of our fellow Christians - and, thankfully, it is often as we look back at such times that we see most clearly how God has been at work in our lives through our Christian brothers and sisters.
And alongside all of these virtues of living the Christian life, Paul suggests that the Philippians will be “sharing in the Spirit”. Just in case we thought we have to make all this happen for ourselves, there is a reminder that it is God’s Spirit that energises and inspires us. We can’t do all of this on our own and being ‘in Christ’ means being open to the Holy Spirit.
So, if these things are true for you, Paul suggests that other things will flow; “be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”
And then he drops his bombshell: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Paul’s suggestions about the way we should conduct ourselves assume that we are taking as our perfect pattern Jesus himself. This is the challenge. We don’t have a list of rules to live by. We are not ‘under law’. Rather, we are called into relationship - with one another, and with God, in Christ. That is why Paul is concerned about unity, about putting others first - about considering others better than you. But it is not easy, is it, to have the right attitude? Sometimes we’d rather grudgingly or self-righteously do the right thing and be noticed for it; but to have the right attitude first, that’s a lot more difficult!
Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.” Surely God doesn’t want us to give up everything for him and for the people he loves? Surely, he does. Because surely, he did.
As a church - and as individuals - we must be willing to give, and to give up even what is dearest to us. Especially what is dearest to us. For it is that which is probably holding us back the most from entering fully into the relationship with God, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, which he is calling us to.
“Let the same mind be in you that was] in Christ Jesus.” If there is going to be a thriving Christian community in the Maelor, witnessing to the presence of Christ in this place in twenty, thirty, forty years’ time, then the people of God have got to be faithful to their calling now. Jesus came to serve the world. A king in heaven, he came to be an ordinary person who led a difficult life proclaiming the kingdom of God and who, mistreated and misunderstood, suffered an awful death, and died. That was his service, which Paul famously pays tribute to here. We must discern, together, what service God is calling us to. But whatever we do, under the Spirit’s guidance, we must do it in love, with the same attitude as Christ himself. Our attitude will speak volumes to a world in need, so may that attitude be like Christ’s. Amen.