Philippians 2:5-11, What’s Has He Caused?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

The Difference Between Causes and Effects

Philippians chapter 2 starting in verse 5 to verse 18, hear the word of the Lord. 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 made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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 and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain, even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.". May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, it's important to know what causes what, not to confuse causes and effects.

You know, it's spring and we're wearing thinner clothes or fewer clothes, we put aside the coats and sweaters, eventually we'll have none by summer, no coats and sweaters, not clothes. Is the warming weather caused by us taking off our coats and thus releasing our body heat into the atmosphere instead of keeping it to ourselves?

Is that the cause? Probably not. Probably the warming weather is causing us to leave our coats in the closet instead of the other way around. I'll go with that theory. In ancient times, people thought the sun rising in the east was the effect of the sun's movement around the earth.

Now, scientists had proved the earth was round centuries before they proved that the earth revolved around the sun. And so people would think during that time, before they figured out we revolved around the sun, people thought that the sun's movement was caused by the sun moving.

I mean, even the way I talk now shows the influence of that in our language. The sun's movement, it's really the earth that's moving. But the truth is the sun rising in the east is the effect caused by the sun rotating toward the east.

In science, determining cause is key. What causes your sneezing and being congested? Is it a cold or flu or allergies or bad air? The original meaning of malaria, mal area, bad air, or a curse or demons?

Both science and magic want to master nature, creation. The difference is that science seeks to do it by finding the true demonstrable cause. Science is magic with provable causation. Samuel Morse in the 1830s found that you could cause an electrical impulse at one end of a wire to have an effect at the other end.

So when in 1837, Congress wanted to set up a system to send messages as rapidly as possible across the country, Morse relied on science, cause and effect, proposed a telegraph. Finally, on May 24th, 1844, Morse sent the first long-distance telegraph between Washington, D .C. and Baltimore.

It was what hath God wrought. Quoting Numbers chapter 23, verse 23, thus the beginning of the telecommunications breakthrough. Well, sometimes we fail to see causes and wonder where the effects come from.

We'll drink a large bottle of cider every night and are surprised when we gain weight. We don't know why we got fat. It had nothing to do with drinking that cider every night, we thought. By we, I mean me.

Anyway, you find a lot of Americans excuse their fatness by saying they're just big-boned, or they have a slow metabolism, or something that's not the effect of their choices, it's not caused by them.

But I lived in Singapore for five years, in Ethiopia for two years, and you would hardly ever see any fat people there. And if the cause of obesity, using the nicer word now, sorry, kind of the rude term before fatness, obesity, the cause of obesity was something natural, that is something they can't control.

Why do so few Singaporeans and Ethiopians have it? Ralph Waldo Emerson said, shallow men believe in luck or in circumstances, strong men believe in cause and effect. Cause and effect says an effect, like any fat, has a cause.

If we dislike the effect, we can change the cause. Cut out that bottle of cider every night, eat less sweets or coke, drink less coke. If we want an effect, like to be fit and trim, we have to embrace the causes, eating well and exercising.

If you don't have the effect, either obesity or fitness, it's probably because you don't have the cause. Here in Philippians 2, we see causes and effects. We see what God has wrought, and we see them in three parts.

The Song of Christ’s Condescension and Exaltation

First, the song. Second, the salvation. And finally, the shine. First, the song, from verses 5 to 11. Paul gives an opening command, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. As he said in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 16, we have the mind of Christ.

That's how you come to know and believe the gospel. The natural, that is not born again person, cannot accept it because they don't have the ability. It's not in their capacity, in their mind to accept it.

But you did because you have the mind of Christ. You can think like him. How did Christ think? Well, Paul has a song to illustrate that, a song that they probably sang. As we mentioned last week, verses 6 to 11 was probably originally a song, which is called the Carmen Christi, the hymn of Christ.

The words have a stately, kind of solemn ring to it. You can tell by the style, it's not Paul's usual style. And when it's read aloud in Greek, the stress gives a kind of rhythmical cadence. The song comes in two parts, the condescension and the ascension, and it breaks down into six stanzas of three lines each, beginning with, in the form of God.

That was his pre-existent condition. Before the universe was created and any human person existed, he was in the form of God. He had God's nature. Then he considered, then as in the form of God, he considered equality with God not a thing to be grasped or seized, the word to be seized, as in taking something that's not yours originally, taking is, you don't, originally you do not have a right to it, but then you take it.

We sometimes talk of the government seizing a bank account, or taking what's not originally theirs, or a mortgage company can seize a house that's not originally theirs, because something happened, failure of payment, lack of payment, they seize it and now it is theirs.

But Christ did not consider equality with God something that he had to seize. He had the right to be considered equal with God from the beginning. He didn't have to seize it, it was already his. He had all the worship, the glory, the manifestations of God, and so he didn't think it was wrong to be equal with God because he was God.

The mind of Christ is to cause our own. In Christ's mind, it was not wrong to be equal with God because that was his status. Now it's not our status. There's only one being in the entire universe for whom it is not wrong to consider himself equal with God.

And we sometimes criticize people, you know, but he thinks he's God. Maybe a boss behind his back at work, he acts like he's God. The way he acts, like he has a right to everything he wants, like he can't be questioned, can't be criticized.

Who does he think he is? God. It's wrong for us to think of ourselves as God, but there is one being for whom it is not wrong to think of himself as equal with God. God. His status of God is the background, the Christ status of God is the background for his condescension.

In the second stanza, beginning of verse 7, he emptied himself. Now, that's not that he gave up being God, but by taking on the form of a servant, coming in human likeness, he condescended. If that was his mind, even though he was God, how much more should it be our mind to empty ourselves, take on the form of a servant, when we're not God?

Now, we normally think, well, let the low people do the low jobs, be the servants, the moppers, the trash collectors, the table clearers. You know, that's kind of our natural mind. But here, Christ's mind was, even though he was God, he'll do the lowest job.

His mind should cause ours, and this is his mind, here described in the psalm. If we're not inclined to serve like him, if our lives don't show that effect, we have to ask if we have the cause, his mind.

Well, the third stanza, beginning of verse 8, being found, that is other people, the people who encountered him when he was on earth found him in the fashion or the scheme of a man, the undercover boss.

He humbled himself. He was the cause of his own humbling. He became obedient to death. He was the ultimate cause of his own death, the effect of his death. Now, was it ultimately caused by the plots of the religious leaders or the political cowardice of or the nails of the soldiers or our own needs?

It was caused by his mind. Indeed, death of a cross, that's the lowest, the worst form of death. The cross was the effect caused by the mind of Christ, which you have if you're a believer. The fourth stanza begins the second half of the song, the ascension.

Therefore, in verse 9, that's the divine therefore. God's therefore. What has God wrought and why has he wrought it? Therefores indicate effects. Means there was a cause which therefore caused this effect.

That's what the therefores are there for. The cause of Christ's condescension was the mind of Christ. The cause of his ascension was God, the Father, seeing the condescension. The condescension caused the ascension.

Therefore, verse 9, the effect of what Christ did in the first half of the song. Here's the transition in the middle of the song. Because of Christ's choice to condescend, God highly exalted him. Christ's exaltation is seen as an ascension.

In Acts chapter 1, Jesus was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. Now, that doesn't mean he just literally kept on going up into outer space and that heaven is some planet out there. The ascension portrayed his high exaltation.

It portrayed literally, physically, that God the Father had highly exalted him. Therefore, again the divine therefore, showing the effect of Christ's mind, God bestowed on him the name. The name is a major theme in the Old Testament.

You know, the name of the Lord. The third commandment is you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. It preserves the holiness of God's name. Psalm 138 verse 2 says, you have exalted above all things your name and your word.

But the effect of the Father's exaltation was a higher name. Not only does the New Testament repeatedly ascribe to Jesus Old Testament verses about Yahweh, the Lord, using the name that in the Old Testament, that Psalm had said, the name Yahweh, that said it had been exalted above all things.

Now, not only does it do that, ascribes that to Jesus, now it says that the name Jesus is higher. It's the highest name, even higher than what had been exalted above all things. Even we sometimes have some understanding, even in our culture, the importance of a name.

Shakespeare has Juliet declare what's in a name. That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet as though a name means nothing. And yet if someone says, you know, stop in the name of the law, you feel you must stop.

Must be a policeman saying that. The law is authority. A few years ago, we were told to do things like wear a mask, stand six feet apart, get shots in the name of science. Science has authority. We should do what it says, even if we don't understand it.

We're told to believe elections in the name of democracy because it is exalted. Politicians strive for name recognition. And so they spend a lot of money to put up signs that don't say anything other than vote for their name.

Well, why should I vote for this person? We don't know. The sign don't tell us. Just vote for the name. They want their name exalted. Here, God has given to Christ a name greater than all of those. The fifth stanza, beginning of verse 10, so that, or in order that, that this is the effect caused by God giving to Jesus the highest name.

Understand? God the Father gave to Jesus the highest name that caused the effect that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Now, should means that everyone now has a duty to bow to Jesus. It's their obligation to bow to him.

God has highly exalted him. And the effect of that should now be that every knee bows. Even the knees of capitalists who give their lives chasing dollars, or the knees of communists who say there's only matter and religion is the opiate of the masses, or the knees of Buddhists who already kneel to their statues and say Buddha gives better luck for their business, or the knees of ancestor venerators who say Christianity is an ancestor of denying religion, or the knees of those who instead kneel toward Mecca.

All those knees should now bow to Jesus because he has been given the highest name. The sixth stanza, beginning of verse 11, every tongue should confess. It's now their duty to agree that Jesus Christ is Lord.

People of every language, English and Mandarin, Indonesian, Amharic, Hindi, Tamil, French, German, Spanish, Navajo, Algonquian, Japanese, Cantonese, Fuchinese, what do you speak? Whatever language it is, you should now say in it, Jesus Christ is Lord.

Every knee will eventually bow to Jesus and every tongue will eventually confess that he's Lord. God swears, God already sworn in Isaiah chapter 45, verse 23, to me every knee shall. Now there it's not just should, but it shall.

Otherwise, it will definitely happen whether you want to it or not. It's going to happen. Bow. Every tongue shall swear allegiance. They shall eventually, but they should do it now. But whenever they do it, whenever you do it, now, gladly, or later, dreadfully, you will do it to the glory of God the Father.

At the very end of the song, notice how it ends. All this happens, this entire song, from verses 6 to 11, to the glory of God the Father. The Father, God, will be glorified. Everyone glorifies God in the end, one way or the other.

They either glorify God gladly now by happily singing, Jesus Christ is Lord, because, you know, they would say, look what he's done for the son, and they glorify him, or they will glorify him later by being, what Paul calls in Romans 9, objects of wrath, by demonstrating his holiness, that he will not be mocked.

God will demonstrate that the first cause of our salvation, the primary thought in Christ's mind in eternity past, when he was in the form of God, and he knew that he didn't have to seize equality with God, because he was God, but then he decided to take on the form of a slave and submit to death, even the worst possible death.

The main reason he did that isn't because we're just so lovable and adorable. We're worth it. He couldn't help himself. We deserved for him to die for us. No, the cross is not a testimony to how much we're worth, not a statement for our self-esteem, but it's to show how far God the Son condescended.

The cause of God the Son's condescension was the glory of God the Father. He came down to glorify the Father. The mind of Christ was, how can I bring glory to the Father? I will take on the form of a slave.

I'll submit to the cruelest death in order to buy worshipers who will glorify him. And the rest, who do not do what they should do now, they will glorify God too, by showing his wrath, demonstrating his power, or perhaps more precisely having it demonstrated on them.

The effect of Christ's ascension is that everyone glorifies God. You will glorify God one way or the other. You should do it now. That's the psalm. Next is the salvation, beginning in verse 12. Therefore, another effect.

God's therefore, in verse 9, is here matched by the Christian's therefore, in verse 12. The effect of all of this on us, who confess Jesus as Lord now, is first, he calls us beloved, we're loved. Second effect should be our obedience.

The Philippians were obedient, we should be too, even if Paul is absent from us. Third effect should be that we, he says, work out our salvation with fear and trembling. The assumption is that we already have it.

Work it out. It's already been worked in. We've confessed Jesus as Lord, we've obeyed him in baptism, and now we need to work it out. It means to, the word work there, to affect by labor, to bring about by our hard, continuous work.

Frederick Douglass said a man or a woman is worked upon what he works on. You need to work on your salvation so it works on and out of you. And we do this work with fear and trembling, that salvation was brought, or I should say bought, at the cost of the son's condescension.

It's a holy, glorious thing. So we're supposed to remember the Lord's Supper. This salvation came at the cost of his flesh being torn, his blood being spilled. It's not a slight, trivial thing. It's not cheap fire insurance that keeps us out of hell and lets us live then any way we want, assurance given out for repeating a prayer, even if we don't really know what it means, don't really care, and we show no interest in God, and we live a life bored with his word and with the church.

But yet, because we said the words, the magic words, the magic prayer, we get to live the rest of our lives at ease, unafraid of hell or judgment. No. If we have the mind of Christ, we see something of what he did in his condescension, and we're awed, we're contrite.

His condescension causes our contrition. We're not smug and self-assured like a cousin I had who responded to a gospel tract with, well, I took care of that already. We have reverence. We work out our salvation because, not that we need to earn it, we need to work for it.

It doesn't say work for your salvation, it says work it out. It's already worked in, now you need to work it out. In verse 13, another way of talking about the cause of the effect that is our salvation, we do that only because of what has been done in the past, because of what God is doing now.

He says God is working. He is working you. It's present tense. God's ongoing work causes our ongoing work. If he's worked in us, then we work it out. That's the first thing. That's past tense. Now, second thing, if he's currently working, is at work now, his work causes us to keep working, and he's working in us to will.

It's an interesting phrase, isn't it? To will and to work. To will, to choose, that his will be done. His choices will be accomplished. The word there is just the common word for will. I choose to go to McDonald's, or I choose vanilla ice cream.

God is working in us to get what he chooses. Now, it's the big theological issue, the big debate as to who has free will, and a lot of people are very concerned that they have free will. They're very earnest about defending their free will, and someone needs to defend God's free will.

Is God's will free? I mean, one of our wills have to determine the other. Who has free will? God or us? Now, if God wants to save every sinner, as some say, and yet a sinner can choose not to be saved, then the sinner's will is the cause, isn't it?

And it's overriding God's will. I mean, God says he wants to save everyone, and yet, let's say a certain person, and that person says, no, I don't want to be saved, then that person is in charge, right?

That person's will is causing, the sinner's will is causing the end result. Is it God's will that is ultimately done, or can we thwart God's will if we will? To put it another way, whose will causes the others?

Which will is a cause? Which will is in effect? Does our will cause God to accept us? As long as we say the right prayer, we get to go to heaven, ultimately because we said it. We made the decision. Is our salvation the effect of our ultimate choice?

Our choices ultimately determines what is done. Or does God's will cause us to accept God? That is, our choice of him is the effect of his prior choice of us. It's like whether the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa.

Do we revolve around God, or does he revolve around us? Well, here, the Word of God says that God is working in us to achieve his will. He's at work, who's working to will. What hath God wrought? So if God wants us saved, he will work in us to will, so that we will want to be saved.

In fact, that's the only way you can be saved. God has wrought it. If he doesn't work within us to change our will, we will never want to be saved. That's just what it means to be sinful. The natural man cannot accept the things of the Spirit, but then God works within us to will what he wills.

Now, it's not that we don't choose. We do. We make choices. But what determines our choices? Well, that's why now we have the desire to work out what he's worked in. Why do we want to follow Christ? Because he worked in us to will what he wanted to will.

If we want to believe, we want to be baptized, we want to worship, we want to live in a way that's pleasing to God, that is a way that's more like Jesus, that's because God is working in us to will. He's doing that.

He's doing the willing. He's doing the working in verse 13. And he's doing it, here's the reason why, for his good pleasure. That is, he does it because he wants to, because he enjoys it, willing, working in someone so that they will what he wants them to will, so they glorify him.

God makes his good pleasure our good pleasure, so you want to work it out. Our salvation and our working it out is the effect of God working in us for his good pleasure. Why did the mind of Christ choose to condescend, to be kind of portrayed at the Lord's Supper, why did he choose to do that and obey death?

Not because we're a good investment, because they're just worth it, they're just such great people, going to help himself. That would take no love. If we're worth it, we're just a good investment, then our salvation is God being selfish.

It's like you investing in a stock that you are sure will make you wealthy. You don't do it because you just love the company you're investing in. You do it because you want the return. But God loved us because of his glory and his good pleasure, which is another way of saying because he wanted to, because he enjoyed it.

Shining as Lights in a Crooked and Twisted Generation

Now third, the final effect, shine. In verses 14 to 18, Paul describes the effect, the effects of God's glory and pleasure that they should have on us. First, do all things without grumbling or disputing.

I think the ESV had questioning, would be like disputing, like arguing. Grumbling comes from thinking too highly of yourself. You think you deserve better, having to do that chore, having to put up with that irritating person.

Why do I have to put up with this? I deserve better. But if you have the mind of Christ, who condescended, who put on the form of a servant, so then you put on the form of a servant and you don't grumble.

Now you can disagree, says without grumbling or disputing, doesn't mean without any disagreement, but you can disagree without having to dispute. Do that in order that, that is for the effect, in verse 15, you may be blameless.

That is people who can't be blamed. No one will blame you for acting arrogant, like you're better than everyone else, because you don't have that attitude. You have the mind of Christ. And so you take the form of a servant and innocent, that is sincere.

You really believe at the bottom of your heart that your Lord condescended. And that shows in your sincerity and you're being willing to condescend. You're like a child of God. You're faultless. You're unconformed to a culture.

It's all about money and pleasure and ego. But you're not like that at all. Even though the society around you is crooked and twisted, he says, it's perverted. It seeks money first instead of God. Now it should be promoting good things like discipline and self-control and family and humility and service and sacrifice and love.

Instead, it promotes self-indulgence and greed and lust and selfishness and pride, expressive individualism. It's so twisted. It teaches, by example, that money making is more important than worshiping God.

You can't go to church on Sunday morning because you've got to make a few more dollars. It's crooked. It's bent in the wrong way. That's what something is. It's crooked. It's bent the wrong way. It's contorted out of shape, out of its proper shape.

It teaches kids that life is about stuff and wealth and feelings instead of what's good and true and lasting. In the midst of that culture, he says, shine. Shine as lights in the world. Shine like in Daniel 12.

When the resurrection happens and it has already started with Christ, then those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above. That it shines so bright, you turn a dark world into daylight.

Those who turn many to righteousness, in Daniel 12 verse 2, shine like the stars in the sky forever and ever. So if you turn others to God and they turn others and so on, then the shining keeps on going, doesn't it?

It lasts as long as the stars and longer. So you shine and you turn many to righteousness by holding fast to and holding forth out the word of life, the gospel in verse 16. You shine by holding fast to it, holding on to it, when people try to discourage you from believing it.

When they don't believe it, they don't think it's worth coming to church to hear about. It's not worth closing the shop. They think it's not worth getting it to their kids or coming themselves and supporting it.

And you see that people around you act that way. They treat the gospel like that right in front of you. And that's discouraging. But you hold on to it. You hold it fast and securely. And so by doing that, you shine.

You're giving testimony by your life, by your lifelong cherishing the gospel, that it's true. And also you hold it forth as you hold it out, like a light put on a stand not under a basket. You tell it to others or you support those who do tell it to others.

You support the church that does. We have Jim Jr. here. We have Jim this afternoon. And we have material on the table to encourage you. If you can share it, encourage you to go out and to tell others.

So you and we all can shine. Now for the Philippians, their shining was caused by Paul, who was caused by Christ. Paul wants the Philippian church to shine so that this is the effect in the middle of verse 16, that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

The Philippians not grumbling or disputing, having the mind of Christ, shining is the effect which proves that Paul had the cause, the ascension, the condescension, the salvation. If they shine, if you will shine, that proves that the chain of causation hasn't stopped with him, hasn't stopped with those before you.

And so his sacrifices haven't been for nothing. Even if I am poured out, verse 17, that is, if it turns out that I too have to be emptied like Christ. Remember Christ, there's one little difference there.

Christ emptied himself, but Paul can't boast that he's in control of his own fate. He's the passive one here. He's being poured. If he's poured out and emptied like Christ was, but different from Christ, it's because someone else poured him.

Because God offered him, God may be offering him now, like a drink offering, drink offerings that were offered in Israel's sacrifices. The offerer in Israel's sacrifices offers the sacrifice, the main event, a ram or whatever, a sheep.

And then on top of it, might pour a drink offering to go along with it, pouring out a cup of wine onto the sacrifice. And Paul is saying that even if it comes to him departing and being with Christ, we talked about in chapter one, getting his head cut off, because understand that's what he's literally talking about here, getting his head cut off.

If that happens, then he's a drink offering. He's an added little extra on the main offering, which here is the church's faith. The church's faith causes them to offer themselves as living sacrifices so that they are living their whole lives as acceptable acts of worship to God.

And Paul is saying, well, if he dies, if I get my head cut off, then I'm the drink offering on top of your main offering on the offering of your lives given to God. And if that's the case, he says at the end of verse 17, you remember what he's actually saying here?

If I get my head cut off, if that's the case, I am glad and rejoice with you all, with you all. And so even if it comes to that in verse 18, the effect on you should be likewise. Otherwise, just just like me, just like I'm going to be glad if I get my head cut off, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

His death might make them grieve for a while, but it should also cause them joy because he was poured out just like Christ. Joy is the effect caused by our sacrifices. The mind of Christ thought that the church was worth condescending for, dying for, even the worst possible death, not because the members who made up the church is innately worth it themselves, that we deserved, that we have a right, that we could see salvation.

No, the mind of Christ saw that condescending and dying, the worst possible death, was the cause of the ascension, the divine therefore, that transition in the middle of the song, the son's condescension caused the father to produce an effect, the ascension.

The effect on us is that now every knee should bow, even those that don't yet, and every tongue should confess, even those who curse him now. The effect on us is the salvation that he's worked in so that we could work out.

The mind of Christ saw that cross, that it would have the effect of that salvation, that we could work out what he causes has an effect. What hath God wrought? Some people say that God can do a cause in their life, condescend for them, ascend over them, salvation in them, and yet that not have any effect on them, that they can not love God or his word or the church.

They can say they've taken care of God, but the salvation they say they have doesn't cause them to fear or tremble. But if the son's condescension caused the father to do something, here us send him, it will certainly cause you to do something, to shine.

The effect of the cross was Jesus' ascension, that every knee will glorify God. Now, what effect does he have on you?