Philippians 2:5

Philippians 2:5

The True Imitation of Christ.

Consider two or three simple instances of the mode in which we may catch something of the true mind of Christ, and carry out into our lives something of a true Imitatio Christi.

I. There is, first of all, the readiness to forego, for the good of others, things to which we feel we have a fair claim. It seems a very homely lesson, yet so strong is the tendency to self-assertion and pride that we find both the Apostle and his Master laying on it an exceeding stress; a homely lesson, yet one which, strange to say, may bring opportunities of drawing near to the mind of Christ, occasions in little things or in great.

II. Is not this a field in which we may seek for the mind which was in Christ Jesus? I do not mean only by being ready to do our appointed work with our whole hearts, but byrecognising it as being the work set us by Him who sent us all into the world to work while it is day, by facing readily and cheerfully all that is distasteful and wearisome in the work, even as He bore the perpetual association with unsympathising dullness, with human ignorance, with scenes of misery, of disease, wretchedness, and sin.

III. Remember, too, another point in which we need the mind of Christ. Our work, our occupations, our recreations, are apt to take entire possession of us, to overwhelm us, to model us into their shape, to reduce us to their level; they cling to us like our shadows; they keep us from rising out of them or above them. Remember that He is recorded as having gone up from the crowded plain to the quiet hill, and there continued all night in prayer to God; and that we are told how the disciples went to their own home, but Jesus went to the mount of Olives. Surely we cannot fail if we wish to keep Him before our eyes to find even in the busiest life some still time for thought, for looking backwards and forwards, for withdrawing ourselves for a moment from the throng of common cares and pleasures to some peaceful hillside, from amidst the swarming and noisy flats of life, where we may snatch short times of insight and resolution which may be worked out in days of hurry or perhaps of gloom.

G. G. Bradley, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiii., p. 177.

I. St. Paul sees in the Passion of our Lord the crown and climax of the stupendous act of condescension which began in His incarnation. Being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient, submitted Himself to the will of the Father, even to the point of drinking the cup, to His true human nature the bitter cup, of death. We may notice two points which St. Paul emphasises. (1) The condescension has its roots in our blessed Lord's conception of the scope and value of His own Divine prerogatives. It was He through whom all that is is,yet to Him that pre-eminence was not a thing to set store by in itself. From that infinite height He stooped to the level of the creatures of His hand, that He might serve. The Creator valued not His creative power, laid aside readily the Creator's prerogatives, that He might help, might serve, His creature. (2) The condescension was complete, not measured or stinted. The cup was drained to the dregs. He came to do His Father's will, and He did it "felt all, that He might pity all," bore what to man is the extremity of pain and shame, that He might save man from pain and shame.

II. There is something of the sense of passing from infinite differences to infinitesimal ones, of turning the eyes from light so bright that nothing for the time is visible after it, when we pass from contemplating this infinite self-humiliation to think how we can in any true sense imitate it. Yet St. Paul bids us so pass. It is his very purpose in so painting the Divine condescension: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." The consciousness of this infinite condescension of God for us must transfigure life to us, break down once and for all our pride, show us the true proportions of things, open our hearts to Him who has done so much for us.

E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons,p. 35.

References: Philippians 2:5. E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation,vol. ii., p. 191; Church of England Pulpit,vol. v., p. 185; R. W. Church, Ibid.,vol. xx., p. 181; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 323; H. D. Rawnsley, Ibid.,vol. xxix., p. 298; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 273; Preacher's Monthly,vol. x., pp. 164, 180, 193, 201; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons,p. 157; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. viii., p. 107.