© 2026 Evan D. Garner
Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not consider his equality with God a possession that he could not part with, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, adopting a human likeness. And, being found in the form of a human, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even [a slave’s] death on a cross. Through this [humiliation], God highly exalted him and gave him the Name that is above every name, so that, in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
He emptied himself. Humbled himself. Became obedient to the point of death. Even death on a cross—a death reserved for slaves. Yet through this very path of humiliation God exalted him highly. God gave him the Name that is above every name. So that every tongue should confess that he is Lord.
How do you hear those words this morning? How do you sit with them? How do you sit beside them? How do they reach you? How do they confront you? How do they penetrate you—your heart and your mind and your soul? What do they do to you? How do they leave you?
What about Paul? How do you think writing those words affected the apostle? How did they feel to the man who wrote them while his legs were in chains, while his own life hung in the balance? What did they mean to the prisoner who was waiting to see whether he would receive the sentence of death? And not the slow, tortuous, agonizing, humiliating death of a slave and a savior but the quick, merciful strike of the executioner’s sword upon the back of the neck. Were these words of praise written as encouragement for the Philippians or as the apostle’s own prayer for strength?
What did they mean to the community who heard them for the first time? When they heard them read aloud by Epaphroditus, a member of their own community who had returned after caring for Paul, did Paul’s friends in Philippi weep at the thought of the apostle’s struggle? Did his words confront them and their own failures, causing them to lower their heads in quiet resignation and shame? Or did the Philippians nod along, solidifying their intention to accept their own suffering as Christ had and as Paul now did?
Paul’s Letter to the Philippians is hard to read—not because the language is tricky or the theology is difficult but because the joyful, hopeful, encouraging message of the letter is presented as the reward of unavoidable suffering and hardship. Although hard to read, this should not come as a surprise—either to the Philippians or to us. We have been taught the Way of Jesus by the apostle Paul, who himself had come to know the saving victory of Jesus Christ only through the loss of status and privilege. Paul had once persecuted the church because he considered its way of welcoming and accepting sinners to be an unholy obstacle to God’s promised deliverance of his people. But he had been shown by the risen Christ himself that the way of the cross—the way of suffering and shame—was the very way that leads to salvation.
That changed the way Paul thought of his imprisonment. Instead of evidence of his failure or rejection, his chains became a sign of his salvation. Paul celebrated and rejoiced in his suffering as the means by which his life had become a witness to the gospel. And that’s why Paul was able to encourage the Philippians in their own struggles. Because Christ Jesus had emptied himself and had taken the form of a slave and had become obedient even to the point of death upon the cross, God had highly exalted him and had given him the Name that is above every name. And Paul knew that, if following Jesus meant accepting imprisonment and humiliation and death, it would also mean redemption and exaltation and glorification.
But, with these words, Paul gives us more than that. Yes, Paul presents Jesus’s redemptive suffering as a model for our own redemptive suffering and encourages us to reframe those hardships as channels for our redemption. But he also wants the Philippians to know how it could ever be possible for ordinary Christians like us to willingly accept that sort of suffering as a necessary expression of faithfulness. He wants us to know not only how to endure our hardships but how to rejoice in them. And for that he reminds us that we need the mind of Christ.
“Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind,” he wrote to the Philippian church. By this point, Paul was imprisoned in Rome. He had appealed his case all the way up to the emperor, as was his right as a Roman citizen. And, as much as he hoped to go and see the Philippians one more time, Paul knew that he might never leave Rome alive. So these words to the church in Philippi were his deepest hope for them—his last words of instruction and encouragement.
“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.” Too many times, Paul had seen what happens to a church community when egos take over. The Holy Spirit had been given to these Christians at Baptism, and often that Spirit brought powers and abilities that elevated ordinary people into extraordinary positions of leadership and authority. But the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, could never empower someone for ministry that was not Christ like. To belong to Christ and to be possessed by his Spirit was to become like him in every way—not only in exaltation but also in humiliation.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” Paul wrote, getting to the heart of the matter. Paul’s hope for the Christian community is unity, humility, selflessness, and love, and he knew that none of that would be possible unless the mind of Christ was in each of them and in all of them. But, for Paul, possessing the mind of Christ is not merely a question of intention but a question of identity—a question which is answered in Baptism.
A few years earlier, about the time Paul was teaching and preaching in Philippi, he wrote his letter to the Romans. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” he wrote. “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” That language of humiliation and exaltation—of death and resurrection—of suffering and glorification—which we also hear in Paul’s letter to the Philippians is inseparable from the theology of Baptism. Baptism is the means by which Jesus’s followers receive the mind of Christ because Baptism is how we are buried with Christ in his death and raised with him in glory. If accepting the way of suffering and hardship is what it means to be a faithful disciple, then the waters of Baptism, which is where our journey of discipleship begins, is where we receive the power to accept them.
It’s easy to accept the way of Jesus when it leads straight to heaven, but we follow the one who walks the way of the cross before he enters into glory. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” Let those words of Paul wash over you again. Hear them not only as a description of our savior but as a description of the one at work within you—the one whose mind you have been given in Baptism and whose fullness you now seek as his disciple, “for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.”