Bare minimum Christianity should bring genuine, holistic humility.
The first quality flowing from the life of a person who has truly encountered the risen Christ is not zeal, mission-mindedness, or even miraculous spiritual gifts. Instead, what flows out is a profound realization that you are low, Jesus is high, and others are yours to serve.
In Philippians 2:1, Paul urges his readers to understand and internalize that any relationship with Jesus calls for an extraordinary commitment to unity through humbling oneself toward God and others. When you meet Jesus, your entire life changes.
No longer are we consumed with what we desire, dream about, or aspire to. Our fleshly hunger is replaced with spiritual hunger. Our tangible blessings become means to bless others. Our relationships and daily interactions transform into avenues for love, service, and pointing people to Jesus.
If you meet Jesus and it never produces humility within you, you haven’t truly met Him.
So, how do we surrender ourselves to this kind of humility? You have the “same mind of Christ” through servanthood and obedience (Philippians 2:5–8).
The key to being a servant is serving the needs and desires of another.
You’re no longer looking out primarily for your needs and desires; you’re attending to someone else—often somebody you consider more significant than yourself. And this can only happen when we first recognize our worldly gains and surrender them to God.
Consider Philippians 2:6. Paul says that Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself.” Jesus knew what He had. He understood the value of it. Yet, He chose to surrender this “gain” to become a servant to God and others.
It’s only when we surrender our gains that we stop looking to others as a means to continue fulfilling and validating them. In Christ, we are no longer people who benefit from others but people who bless others.
Many people understand humility as self-deprecation or thinking less of oneself, but it’s actually through a patient submission to the Father’s will.
You may still have desires, dreams, and hopes, but you surrender to God. You don’t become a mindless robot following orders. You lovingly choose to walk in alignment with what He says is genuinely best for your life, trusting His commands are for your good, even if they don’t make sense.
When Jesus submitted in obedience to the Father, He knew it would end in a publicly humiliating death (Philippians 2:8). But He also knew that His Father had a greater plan and a greater exaltation for Him: one founded upon His identity as a beloved Son of God.
Instead of grasping to hold His rightful position and power, Jesus trusted God to bestow the honor and glory that was truly meant for Him. In the same way, God has great and glorious things for us—maybe on earth, but ultimately in eternity.
It’s only when we entrust ourselves to His loving direction and gaze upon the eternity and inheritance He has planned for us (1 Peter 1:3–5) that we can move toward an obedience of love and freedom.
Want to dive deeper? Check out our sermon series guide on the book of Philippians, or watch the most recent sermon from our Philippians sermon series
