Having the Mind of Christ
Kingdomtide
Rev. Dr. David M. Oliver
First United Methodist Church
Massillon, Ohio
September 27, 2026
Text: Philippians 2:1-13
Opening Prayer: Almighty God, your Word is authority and power and your way is love, grant unto us clear minds, understanding hearts, and willing spirits so that we may wisely appropriate your Word of Truth. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
The passage we read this morning continues Paul’s recommendations on how followers of Jesus Christ should live (1:27–30). Last week we discussed how to live in a manner worthy of the gospel. This week we talk about living with the mind of Christ.
If you wish to complete the sermon listening guide, please take it out at this time.
The apostle emphasizes the need for unity: “be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (2:2 NRSV). The Greek word translated as “in full accord” is homothumadon, (pronounced hom-oth-oo-mad’-on) meaning of one mind, passion, or impulse. It pictures people moving together with a single, unified passion and purpose, like musical instruments playing in perfect harmony.
A related Greek word is sumphónésis (pronounced soom-fo’-nay-sis) from which we get the word symphony where many different instruments play together to create something that is greater, more wonderful and musically meaningful than the different parts.
Essentially, Paul’s ideal for Christ-followers is harmony, to be one in intent and disposition.
“Being of the same mind” does not stifle creativity or differences of opinion. Paul is not trying to remove all the differences in the body of Christ. Those differences help to create the rich tapestry we are as a church. Finding new perspectives, new ways of looking at the same things, is part of the excitement and joy of living in community.
How can a diverse collection of humanity—like the church—achieve this unanimity of thought? Paul begins by grounding Christian unity in what believers have already received from Christ: encouragement, love, fellowship in the Spirit, compassion, and mercy. Because God’s grace has joined us to Christ and to one another, the Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation. Paul calls the church to be united in love, purpose, and devotion. This does not require identical opinions or personalities; it means allowing our common loyalty to Christ to be stronger than personal preferences, rivalries, or divisions.
In our mindset toward others, Paul commands humility: we are to do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but to regard others as worthy of serious care. In fact, Paul says that we should “count others better than ourselves” (Philippians 2:3).
Some of us may think that Paul is going too far with that command. The truth is that each of us has a strong tendency to put ourselves first, to think that we are almost always correct in our views, and that our judgments are accurate.
Paul is correcting this tendency to over-focus on ourselves by telling us the we need to count others better than ourselves. In this way, we come closer to the behavior and mind of Christ, who humbled himself from being the Son of God to become a son of man, a human being, with nearly all our human limitations…all except our sin nature.
Adopting this mindset of Christ and counting others better than ourselves does not mean pretending that others are always right. It doesn’t ignore wrongdoing or permitting abuse. Rather, it means refusing to make ourselves the center of every relationship. In practice, humility listens before speaking, seeks to understand, gives credit freely, shares responsibility, notices people who are overlooked, and asks not only, “What do I want?” but also, “What will serve my neighbor and strengthen the body of Christ?”
In our mindset toward Christ, our attitude should be one of worship, trust, and obedient imitation. Jesus did not cling to status or use divine privilege for selfish advantage. He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, entering fully into human life, and he humbled himself in obedience even to death on a cross.
The mind of Christ is therefore revealed in costly love. To honor Christ is not merely to admire his humility but to follow his pattern: surrendering our demand for recognition, using our influence to serve, obeying God when obedience is difficult, and trusting that God—not public praise—has the final word about a faithful life.
Christ’s humiliation was followed by God’s exaltation of him. Jesus was given the name above every name. His name means “Yahweh is salvation” or “God saves.” In the coming age when the kingdom of God comes fully upon the earth as it is in heaven, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.
The Christian’s attitude toward Christ therefore includes reverence and allegiance. His lordship must come before our ambitions, our fears, our loyalties and our reputations, everything. A practical question for daily decisions is, “What would it mean in this situation to honor Jesus as Lord?” That question has implications for our speech, finances, work, relationships, use of power, response to conflict, and treatment of those who can offer us nothing in return.
In our mindset toward ourselves, Paul calls for sober humility. He is not promoting self-hatred on the one hand or elevated self-importance on the other hand. We should neither exaggerate our importance nor deny the gifts and responsibilities God has given us. To “work out” our salvation with fear and trembling means to take seriously the grace already at work within us and to let it shape our conduct. We do not earn salvation through our own effort.
Paul says work out your salvation, not work into your salvation (Philippians 2:12). Working out our salvation is our grateful response to the magnificent grace we have received from Christ through faith in him. Working into salvation would be a useless, failed effort at performance-based religion, trying to become good enough to be forgiven for sin and holy enough to save ourselves without Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. That would be bad news instead of good news. Sadly, I have met people who struggle with this and live as if the love of God was for everyone but them.
We are to respond to God’s saving work with attentive, disciplined obedience. We examine our motives, confess sin without despair, receive correction, practice spiritual disciplines, and remain teachable.
Paul closes this section with encouragement: God is at work in believers both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Christian growth is therefore neither passive nor self-powered. We are able to act because God is acting in us. When our desire is weak, we can ask God to reshape what we want; when obedience feels beyond us, we can ask for strength to take the next faithful step. Prayer, Scripture, worship, the sacraments, Christian fellowship, and acts of mercy on behalf of others become means through which we cooperate with the grace of God.
Living Philippians 2:1–13 means beginning each day under Christ’s lordship and carrying his servant-minded love into everyday decisions and choices. Toward Christ, we bow in worship, trust his way, and follow his obedience. Toward others, we pursue unity, listen, serve, and protect the vulnerable rather than seeking advantage. Toward ourselves, we practice honest humility: secure in grace, serious about our own growth, and dependent on God’s power. The goal is not to think less carefully about ourselves or to erase our differences, but to share the governing mind and purpose of Jesus which is love that gives itself for the good of others and the glory of God.
The achievement of such an ideal would be valuable in and of itself. However, Paul states that, by following his advice, the congregation in Philippi would make his “joy complete.” Paul’s exhortation is thus relational; it is borne out of a personal concern and investment in those to whom he is writing.
“Joy” is, in fact, one of the key words of this letter. As I mentioned last week, we need to bear in mind that Paul writes these lines during his imprisonment in Rome. What keeps him going is his apostolic mission to the churches he has helped to form and nurture on behalf of Jesus Christ.
On the one hand, he is proclaiming the gospel message to other prisoners and the imperial guard (1:12–14). On the other hand, he remembers those whom he previously visited during his travels and hopes that the gospel message stays alive among them so that his efforts as a missionary are not in vain (2:16). Despite his precarious circumstances, Paul’s joy is grounded in his mission for Jesus Christ; nothing else. He hopes his feelings of fulfillment and joy are contagious. He writes, “ … in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me” (2:18 NRSV).
The state of harmony that Paul exhorts leads to peace, conveyed by the Hebrew word shalom. Such peace joins together the experience of comprehensive and corporate well-being, wholeness, health, security, and salvation. It has a theological dimension. According to the Hebrew Bible, only God can grant real and lasting peace. The Aaronite blessing conveys in graphic fashion that it is the result of being in the presence of God, literally in front of the face of God. Many of you will recognize Numbers 6:24–27 which says,
“The Lord bless you and keep you;the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
Just as such a blessing is contingent on the presence of God, so Paul conveys that God grants the state of harmony to which he is calling Chrit-followers. “For it is God who works in you, enabling you both to will and to work according to his pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). It would likewise be possible to translate this passage “it is God who gives you energy;” the Greek term employed here is energeo, denoting power, action, and work.
Paradoxically, such “energy” or “power” is not about the realization of one’s own potential or strength. Rather, this energy which comes from God is directed outward toward others. Paul writes, “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” (Philippians 2:3–4 NRSV). Paul is proclaiming an “energy” from Jesus that helps to realize the potential of others and thus builds a godly community.
What is this power that changes humans so they can live in harmony? Paul gives a clear answer to this question. The role model and power to live this way is from Jesus. He says, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (2:5). Here the apostle inserts verses from a Christological hymn. We encounter here a sample of the liturgical tradition of the early church. If Paul wrote his Letter to the Philippians between 61 and 63 A.D., then this hymn was probably composed just one or two decades after the death of Jesus.
In concise phrases, the hymn sketches the entire mission of Jesus Christ, starting with his preexistence (Philippians 2:6), continuing with his incarnation and life on earth (v. 7), highlighting his death on the cross (verse 8), and concluding with his exaltation and universal adoration (verses 9–11).
Scholars refer to this hymn as kenosis which is the Greek word ‘to empty.’ Methodists interpret kenosis through the lens of practical holiness, leadership, and relational theology. While maintaining orthodox Christian views on the incarnation, the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition shifts the focus from what Jesus gave up to how believers should live.
Christ’s self-emptying is a mandate to “lead like Jesus.” Leaders, both lay and clergy, are expected to willingly set aside their personal desires to focus on the needs of those they serve.
Kenosis, this selfless, self-emptying love has everyday implications:
Renouncing personal will for God's will
Choosing not to retaliate or demand the last word in disagreements
Rejecting manipulation or power struggles
Methodist theology tightly links kenosis (emptying) to koinonia (holy fellowship). By emptying oneself of ego, pride, and self-interest, space is created for authentic Christian community. It transitions individual humility into collective, shared life—where believers bear each other’s burdens and share resources.
God’s very nature is self-emptying love. Rather than controlling every historical event through absolute power, God graciously limits God’s own power in order to grant humans genuine free will.
Jesus’ life is the supreme example for the attitude that Paul endorses for communal harmony. It displays how Jesus went from the summit of divine glory to the depths of human suffering and death…all for you and me and every other human being. This is both remarkable and truly good news!
Paul endorses humility in verse 3, and Jesus is his perfect example. In addition, Jesus died “for us,” as Christians have confessed over the centuries. He did this for the benefit of humanity. Jesus died to save us. This illustrates that Jesus was looking “to the interests of others” (verse 4). Hence, those who seek to follow and continue the mission of Jesus learn a unique lesson for how to live in harmony with self-giving, servant leadership as a hallmark of our life.
Humility is considered an important virtue in the Christian Church. Humility and personal submission should not be forced upon individuals or groups of people in order to establish or perpetuate structures of domination or oppression.
The humility to which Paul is referring is not imposed by others on us. It is created by Christ Jesus within us. This humility is not a ‘have to’ mandate inflicted upon us from the outside, but a ‘want to’ opportunity on our part to reflect the true nature and beauty of Jesus who died that we might live.
Here is a brief summary of what this Scripture tells us and instructs us to do. How we go about becoming more like Christ, having the mind of Christ, may be different, just as each of us is different. But we all seek the same Christ, the same kingdom, the same hope. This is what being in full accord means. It means thinking, acting, and being as much like Christ as we can day by day.
That is what causes Paul to break into song in this passage. He hopes that one day we won’t have to wonder what Jesus would do, because we will all be doing it, not because we are forced or coerced, but because it was what we all want to do. It is the natural response to any situation— the loving response, the caring and giving response, the Christlike response. May it be so!
As we close our sermon time today, I invite you to join me in what is called a breath prayer. As you breath in, say in your mind, “Unite us through grace.” As you breath out, say in your mind, “to live and love like Jesus.” Let’s pray this four times in the silence.
(Breathe in) Unite us through grace, (breathe out) to live and love like Jesus.
Amen.
I hope that you will pray this prayer throughout the week, paying attention to how our shared journey in grace leads us back to one another to praise, exalt, and set our minds on Christ in full accord. Amen.
Comments