Philippians 2:4

Philippians 2:4

Courtesy.

I. Courtesy is the expression in outward manner of deference for the most delicate susceptibilities of others. It is doubtless, on the one side, a habit; it is practised instinctively; its forms are caught by unconscious imitation; it is inherited like other habits, so that it seems sometimes a native characteristic of particular blood. On the other side, like other habits, it has been generated originally by the feelings and the will. While it is practised it reacts on the mind and heart, and fosters and keeps alive those feelings from which it sprang. If the feelings which renew and vivify it die away, it will become an empty shell or form: a part will drop in here, and a part there. The hasty observer may not detect the change. The gracious manner will remain as an ornament in the public eye; but those who know the man behind the scenes will know that even the manner is forgotten when he is most truly himself.

II. Courtesy, then, if it be a virtue of manner, is an essentially Christian virtue; that is, it rests on ideas Christian in origin: (1) first, on the universality of our relations to mankind, in the sense that all men are of one blood, one Father; (2) secondly, on the special claim of the weak upon the strong, the claim for sympathy inherent in pain, even in the little pains of injured susceptibility, the paramount claim to tenderest consideration of childhood, of the weaker sex, of the poor, of the wronged, of the dependent. Graft upon these the idea inherent in the highest types of the Christian character drawn in the New Testament, the idea of self-respect,pride turned inwardly as a motive and exacting standard of personal high living, and we have complete the chivalrous conception of a gentleman's courtesy. We find the best pictures of it in two characters put before us in the New Testament: (a) in the writings of St. Paul; (b) in the acts and words of One greater than St. Paul.

E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons,p. 82.

Christian Self-sacrifice.

I. Christian self-sacrifice necessarily takes two forms, for, on the one hand, there is a self-sacrifice for the sake of ourselves, as it were for our own self-discipline; there is a self-sacrifice which gives up a great deal which otherwise we might reasonably keep in order that we may more entirely devote our whole souls to God; there is a self-sacrifice the purpose of which is closer communion, the purpose of which is to live in our thoughts and in the impulses and emotions of our hearts more entirely in the Lord's presence, close to Him, drawing in, as it were, into our souls the light of His love. This self-sacrifice has high honour, and, from certain points of view, it stands above all others. But, on the other hand, our Lord's self-sacrifice was more markedly of another kind: self-sacrifice not for His own sake, but for the sake of others.

II. The commandment of the text ranges from the highest to the lowest; it embraces the largest and it embraces the smallest thing that we can do. It penetrates because it is a spiritual force; it penetrates even into all the details of life; and it bids the man be self-sacrificing as in great things, so in small things, because what is asked of men is not the self-sacrifice itself, but the self-sacrificing spirit, which is sure to issue in self-sacrifice perpetual.

III. This spirit of self-sacrifice, as it is the duty of individuals, so is it the duty of the Church as a body. The Church as a body is called upon to labour earnestly for the good of men and the good of those who have been brought by baptism within her pale, for the good of those who are still outside. The Church is called upon perpetually to that self-sacrifice which made the Lord stretch out His hand all day long to a disbelieving and gainsaying people.

Bishop Temple, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxviii., p. 337.

Sectarianism.

I. Our first association with religion is its bearing on our own souls and their salvation. He that has been struck by a great conviction is for the time isolated from his fellows. All the world for him centres round the single question, "What must I do to be saved?" For a time the Church and general interests are lost to view, just as the whole world would be to a man who had fallen into a crevasse, and who could have leisure for no other thought than how to extricate himself and how to get others to help him into safety. Such a man must for the time look on his own things, not on the things of others. There are those who think that Christian separateness consists in being very unlike other men. Rather it should be said, Live in faith and prayer the same life that others live without them, and you have entered the true separate state of consecration to God.

II. There is the sectarianism of the congregation. We say, This is my Church; these are our forms of worship; this is our effort to do good. Without such appropriation of truth no Christian work can thrive. But if we mean that the work is ours to the exclusion of others or to the prejudice of others, sectarianism at once begins. We should try to see and to know each other's work, and to take part in common effort.

III. There is a denominational sectarianism. There are three things in which the advantage of amity among the denominations maybe seen. (1) The first is that which occurs to us all: that, while we maintain a separate and defiant attitude, we waste our energies in collisions that cannot be avoided, and we are much weakened for all good purposes. (2) If we would deal with one another in the confidence of Christian brotherhood, our mutual influence for good would be increased a hundredfold. (3) Ministers and Church rulers of all denominations should ask themselves this question: how they will answer to Christ if they build up His people into the image of their own exclusiveness, instead of the image of the world-embracing love of their Lord.

W. H. Fremantle, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 385.

References: Philippians 2:4. A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country,p. 158; W. Bennett, Church of England Pulpit,vol. v., p. 105; G. W. McCree, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 357; T. T. Lynch, Sermons for my Curates,p. 147; Forsyth Hamilton, Pulpit Parables,p. 66; J. Fraser, Church Sermons,vol. ii., p. 209.