Dr. Brant Pitre | Philippians 2: The Mind of Christ and the Secret of Joy

you Thank You Scott so much for that wonderful welcome and thank you all for being here it's great to be back in Steubenville I can't believe it's been a year already since our last conference together I love coming here every summer and I'm especially excited to share this morning some reflections on Philippians 2 although I will confess I am a little daunted whenever they ask me if I do this chapter and I knew that humility would be one of the main topics I thought okay you picked the wrong guy so dr. Bergman just told me he will pray that I do badly though so that I can grow in humility and then everything will work well alright so uh let's begin with a word of Prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Eternal Father in Heaven we thank you so much for this beautiful day we thank you for the opportunity the great privilege that we have to have the leisure to come together and to spend these days together studying your Holy Word studying your son studying the inspired words of st. Paul your Apostle in the letter to the Philippians we ask that as we turn our hearts and minds to the great mystery of the canosa's of Christ of the hem of Christ in Philippians 2 that you would pour out that Holy Spirit upon us to open our minds to open our hearts to everything you want to teach us about humility and about the secret of joy and so we pray to You Father in the words your son gave us our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil amen hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen st. Paul st. Torres in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen all right well I'd like to dive right in and begin by opening up your Bibles don't look at the handout oh by the way just make sure it does everyone have a copy of the handout here with you it should be Philippians 2 the mine of Christ and the secret of joy you want to take that out I'm going to be turning to it in just a moment also I want to let you know just like dr. Barbara did that if you stop by the verbal table over in the JC Center they've actually digitally uploaded these handouts that you have in front of you both my presentations today with all the hyperlinks to the Greek words the scriptural passages any commentaries that I might be used they can link into the verbum software so you might go over there and check this out it'd be a great way to take home your materials from the conference in a digital format all right so if you hold on for just one minute keep those handouts out but take your Bibles out and turn to Philippians chapter 4 I'd like to begin by just rereading a passage at dr. Holland mentioned last night it's in Philippians chapter 4 verse 4 and following where Paul exhorts the Philippians to have joy and he says to them rejoiced in the Lord when things are going well oh wait no mine rejoice in the Lord went but always again I say rejoice let all men know your forbearance the Lord is at hand have no anxiety about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and then the very famous verse and the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus now skip down just a few verses to verse 11 chapter 4 verse 11 then he says again not that I complain of want for I have learned in whatever state I am to be what content I know how to be abased I know how to abound in any and all circumstances I've learned the secret and the Greek there is moooo or we get the word Mysterio on four from mystery I've learned the mystery or the secret of facing plenty and hunger abundance and want I can do all things in him who strengthens me another very famous verse so the question I want to begin with in is Paul here is talking about a kind of peace that passes understanding he's talking about a joy that's constant in our hearts he's talking about the secret of contentment that is always present in us no matter what the outstanding circumstances are no matter what we're suffering no matter what we're undergoing now I don't know about you but that sounds great right that sounds like a fantastic goal right I also I don't know about you but I am so far from that it's not even funny right okay so the question is what is this secret of joy what is the secret that Paul alludes to when he's talking about a peace that passes understanding what I want to suggest in this presentation is that the secret of joy that Paul's alluding to in Philippians 4 is outlined in Philippians 2 in the hymn of Christ's self-emptying the canosa's the Christ him that he describes in Philippians 2 so we're going to go back to Philippians 2 we're going to work through chapter 2 with that question of the secret of joy and mine and try to ask what does Paul mean and how can we acquire it so on page 1 of your handout at the top we'll just begin with verse 1 of chapter 2 and look at the fact that Paul begins by exhorting the Philippians to the unity of mine and to the virtue of here's going to be the key humility humility first 1 Paul says this so if there's any encouragement in Christ any incentive of love any participation in the spirit any affection and sympathy complete my joy by being of the same mind having the same love being in full Accord and of one mind do nothing from selfishness or conceit but in humility count others better than yourself let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others so have this mind among yourselves which was in Christ Jesus dot dot dot he's going to go on to give the hymn in the next verses now pause there for a second when many people exegete or interpret Philippians chapter 2 many commentators and scholars want to rush into the famous hymn of Christ self emptying and exaltation but I think it's important to put that hymn in context the hymn isn't just floating around Paul's situating and in the context of his exhortation to the Philippians to embody the virtue of humility and to have the mind of Christ that's going to be revealed in the hymn so if you look at these opening verses Paul makes a few key contextual points number one first he calls them to unity of mine he says I want you all to have the same mind and the greek word there is fro Neto means to think to think the same way okay secondly and this is important he's not just asking them to change their thinking he's also calling them to change their will he's calling them to a unity of will to have the same love agape angry right so he wants them to think the same way and love the same way and what is that way that he's calling them to to do many things no to do some things no to do what everything in humility the greek word there is top onofre soon a right humility like saw fro soon a is wisdom top onofre soon a is humility it's like a state of mind whereby you regard yourself in humility now the question here immediately becomes what does it mean to be humble right there's lots of debates about this lots of misunderstandings right does it mean to be down on myself right all the time to constantly berating myself and criticizing myself well that's not what st. Paul says here look at what he gets at this is very important in the essence of humility for Christ he lays out three things number one count others better than yourselves number two do not look out for your own interests and number three look out for the interests of others that's the biblical vision that's the pollen vision of what it means to be humble now I hope you can already see the challenge that this lays before us right how easy is it for us to walk around and do what judge others right I don't act like that person I would never have said that I would never have done that right right and especially by the way if you've had a recent conversion have you ever met recent converts right oh yeah you know I'm talking about maybe you've been one right in that zeal of having recently converted to the faith it's like I can see all the sins and all the problems and all the faults and everyone else and I'm going to tell you about them now all right why else wear it Paul says on the pastoral letters don't let a recent convert be a bishop right because they'll be puffed up that's true he says it all right but you don't have to be a recent convert to be proud you just have to be human you just have to be human right because it's so easy to walk through our lives counting everyone else as less than us right or is not deserving what we deserve or is being second and third in line well we place ourselves first so for Paul the first key to humility is just to see the best in others and to regard them as better than yourself I've been reading the life of st. Teresa of Avila lately because his 500th anniversary of her birth and it's fascinating you read this great Saint dr. the church as she walks through her autobiography she's talked about these different people in her life various lay people that she had that were friends of her as a mother our Father who lived near who they would come and have conversations you know she always says about them there's so much holier than I am so much greater than hi right and she's not just feigning it she means it right because she's discovered the secret of humility to see others as better than herself right and part of the reason she can do that is because of the heat she embodies those next two things that Paul's talking about not just thinking differently about others but actually choosing differently having a different heart not looking out for your own interests but placing the interests of others ahead of yourself right that by the way is the definition of love to st. Thomas Aquinas it's to will the good of someone else right to look after someone else's interest to put their good ahead of yours that's what agape is okay so Paul's beginning his reference before he gets into the Christ him he wants to be sure that we understand that humility involves a change in the way we think and a change in the way we act right it's a mind and heart matter now with that said he's going to then move in to tell us that the ultimate example of humility is of course Jesus Christ and so he says that we should have the mind of Christ especially in two ways if you looked at your handout here first he calls disciples of Jesus to do everything in humility tappero to pay no for sunay and then in the him he's going to go on to use the exact same greek word top and not to describe christ doing what humbling himself secondly he's going to tell us - in order to have humility to regard others as better than ourselves and the greek word there is hey get oh my it means to consider or to make a judgment or to evaluate someone else right okay to consider them and you know we're all very good at that right I don't know if you've ever gotten on the internet social media boy the judgments fly don't they write all that about we were really good at evaluating each other okay so Christ here saying if you want to evaluate others evaluate them consider them as better than you why well Christ Himself made a judgment look he's going to say in the hymn that Christ did not hey gal MA he did not regard he did not consider his divinity his equality with God something to be exploited but he's going to pour it out he's going to empty himself in the Incarnation and then ultimately the cross so I bring these Greek words to your attention not just to make a good excuse for the student loans that I pay every month but but more to show you that if you read the letter in its original Paul's preparing his audience to link them up to the life of Christ he doesn't just want us to imitate Christ he's going to really call us to participate in the humility of Jesus which was displayed both in his incarnation and then ultimately in his his crucifixion all right so that's the preparation now let's look at the famous hymn itself now thankfully dr. Hahn talked about this last night so I'm not going to repeat everything he has to say but I'm going to try to make a few other points about it and work through it with you together so the second part of Philippians 2 is what's called the Christ hymn or in Latin the Carmen Christe and this passage is often regarded as either some kind of liturgical hymn of a poetic portion of the path of the material and in the chapter that Paul either got from early Christian worship or which he himself is waxing poetic and composing it has a kind of credo formula to it and in these key verses Philippians 2:5 through 11 we read these famous words what's the heart of the chapter have this mind among yourselves which was in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he did what humbled himself that's the key word he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even death on a cross therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name 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 is Lord to the glory of God the Father alright we'll stop there now as you might imagine there are lots of debates about the Pat interpretation this passage one of the most famous ones is whether Paul here is talking primarily about a kind of carnation amiss tree of Jesus where the eternal Sun is choosing to become man or whether he's alluding more to the story of the fall of Adam Adam grasps at divinity right and the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and therefore falls I'm not going to go into the details of those debates I'm going to be looking primarily at the traditional interpretation that focuses on the Incarnation leading to the crucifixion but you can find out more about that and some of the resources I've cited in the footnote so if you turn to page 2 let's look at this traditional interpretation of this canosa's hymn hymn of the Incarnation and crucifixion and try to work through it point by point it is a very dense text all right so on page 2 at the top here a couple of key questions number one what is Paul mean when he describes Christ as having been in the form of God right number two what is Paul talking about when he describes Jesus's equality with God and number three this is the big one what does he mean when he says that Jesus is emptying himself right emptying himself does that mean he's giving up his divinity right what is the meaning of this expression and how does all of this shed light on what means for us to try to be humble well if you look there are four key points I'd like to make about the hymn number one when Paul says that Christ was in the form of God he's using the greek word there morphe a morphe right and we still have that word in English you see certain words like metamorphosis right changing form and that's basically what it means in Greek morphe a has to do with kind of outward appearance of someone so for example in a parallel passage in mark 1612 and Christ is resurrected it says he appears to them in another form right well that doesn't mean he's not human what happened in that resurrection appearance his appearance was different than it was right and he had walked around within with them in his earthly ministry I think here of the famous story of the road to Emmaus remember that where Jesus walking with the disciples and it says their eyes were kept from recognizing him so morphe has to do with appearance is outward appearance right and scholars have long to be what it means but in the context of the passage here Paul's using a Jewish form of literary rhetorical device known as synonymous parallelism where in order to explain one expression the form of God he's going to give another expression equality with God so point number two there he says although being in the form of God he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped right so the Greek word there ISA literally means equal right or equality to be equal with God now this is a very important passage for us as Catholics to be familiar with because you as you may know there are many people out there who claim to follow Jesus Christ but do not believe that Jesus is divine right have you met people like this and you encountered them before I'll never forget one time I had some Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door right and they you know they knocked on the door and I said okay kids here we go that is going to answer the door might be a minute okay and and they came in you know they said hello and I said hello and you know they asked or you know who are you are you know what religion you belong to I'm a Catholic and we start talking and of course we immediately get into the question of the identity of Jesus and they said we want you to know that we believe in Jesus we follow Jesus and I said oh well that's great do you believe that he is fully God and fully man do you believe he's fully divine because I knew they didn't and I want to go straight to the point cuz sometimes they'll try to mislead you into thinking we believe in Jesus right and get you to think well that's means we have the same faith but it doesn't they don't because they deny his full divinity they actually believe that he is the highest of the angels he's the Archangel Michael okay so I said well I believe Jesus is equal to God do you believe that of course they started to get a little sheep oh no no that's not actually willing so I said well let me tell you why and we began to go through passages in the Bible John chapter 20 sorry it's what I do for a living right you know uh they'd have asked me to do 20 push-ups I wouldn't have been so successful alright um okay so we began to go through the passage course John 20 where Thomas is my Lord and my god right which of course they said meant oh my god like it's Jesus um I'm not quite sure that's it right but I also immediately went to Philippians 2 because it says that Christ did not regard equality with God something to be exploited right so the the eternal son Christ the son is equal to God the Father says it right there in the Greek and my brothers and sisters we need to be clear about this and we need to tell people about the divinity of Jesus there may have been a time where you could assume everyone knew Jesus was divine you can anymore all right and Paul knows that - we need to affirm need to propose we need to proclaim the divinity of Christ so point three then he goes on to say even though Christ was equal with God he did not regard that as something to be grasped and the Greek word there is for pokémon and as dr. Han pointed out last night there's debate about how to interpret this some people think it refers to something Jesus already possess some people refer to it as something Jesus has not yet possessed he doesn't yet possess divinity so he's going to cease at it but the traditional interpretation has always been that it is something in Christ already possesses as the eternal son and but it's something he's not going to exploit right the NRSV does a good job with this he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but rather number four he emptied himself the greek word there is Canosa s-- right to pour out he emptied himself in becoming man now a couple of points about this first this does not mean that Jesus emptying himself of his divinity that he somehow became undividable right rather what it means is that he takes the form of a man he takes human form by being born in the likeness of men in the Incarnation in assumed our human nature a fully human nature he remains divine this is the great mystery of the Incarnation as Paul will say elsewhere in Romans chapter 8 verse 3 he came in the likeness of human flesh I think about that for just a minute what would it have been like to actually be with Jesus to walk with Jesus right thirtysomething year-old young man right who is also the one who made the universe what a mystery the mystery of his emptying his canosa's of coming down to our level as humans in order that he might raise us up to his many centuries ago st. John Chrysostom wrote a commentary on Philippians it was a homily that he delivered in the church in Constantinople in the fifth century and this is how he expounded this words these words of Paul st. John Chrysostom said Christ was not only human which is what he appeared to be but also God we mean we humans were soul and body but he is God soul and body for this reason Paul says in the form and so that when you hear of his emptying you may not suppose that he underwent change or degradation or some sort of annihilation of his divinity but remaining what he was he assumed that's the key language he assumed what he was not becoming flesh he remained the Word of God I forget who brought this up to me but once someone said someone asked the question it might have been Fulton sheen do you ever wonder why Jesus was a carpenter right in the Greek a tech tone why was he a builder it could have been any number of you know occupations why was he builder because he's the one who built the universe the hands that built homes in the first century gallantly are the same hands that will the Stars right you know what else his dad was a builder too see it all right it all makes it's almost like it's all true right all right okay so this is the mystery of the Incarnation so this is the eternal son of God the one who made the universe becoming fully man and yet remaining God but he doesn't stop with the mystery of the Incarnation he goes further in his humiliation he goes further and not counting himself better than others because he goes all the way to the cross as Paul said being found in human form and he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even death on a cross now why does Paul say even death on a cross well I mean I think most of us are clear on the fact that crucifixion was a horrible way to die if you ever saw Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ you saw a pretty realistic description of what it was like the brutality of a Roman crucifixion right and most of us when we think about the crucifixion that's what we focus on the extreme physical suffering that Christ would have endure but there was another aspect to crucifixion that we often forget but which is crucial for understanding the Philippians him and that has to do with the humiliation of being crucified in the 1st century AD last year I came out with this book Jesus the bridegroom the greatest love story ever told and in and I have a chapter where I take you through in detail what was crucifixion like in the first century to try to show you not just the brutality of the ancient crucifixion but the shame involved and also how Jesus crucifixion actually parallels an ancient Jewish wedding well as I was working on that this this really hit home to me that this cross that Jesus under wit was absolutely not just the most painful way to die but the most shameful way to die consider a few quotes here from the 1st century AD to explain what Paul means by saying Christ humbled himself for example the Roman writer Cicero referred to the Roman cross as quote the of shame that's what they called crosses trees of shame another Roman writer Seneca said this why was it called the tree of st. Shane he said I see crosses there not just of one kind but made in many different ways some have their victims with head down to the ground some impale their private parts others stretch out their arms on the jibbety with Seneca describing here well he's pointing out the fact that when Romans would crucify you they didn't just do it to kill you they did it in as humiliating away as possible right so they would for example flip people upside down and just leave them hanging there to die right this was of course how st. Peter chose to die they were going to crucify him he asked to be crucified upside down why he didn't think he was worthy to be crucified in the same position as Jesus he wanted to be more humiliated than Christ had been right sometimes they would impale their private parts that would stretch out their arms and oftentimes the standard Roman custom was to crucify people naked in the nude so that you would literally be stripped of all human dignity and your shame would be paraded in front of everyone as they all watched you die that's why they would do it in as public a place as possible - not just as a warning to everyone but to increase the shame so that as many people as possible would see you in your humiliation now think about that for a minute think about the shame of just having your clothes stripped off of you in front of a group of people much less being stripped naked in order to die in front of everyone this was the ultimate act of shaming and the eternal son of God who made the universe went there chose to die in that manner in order to save us dionysius of halicarnassus points out that the reasons it was so shameful because was because crucifixion was the way you killed a slave not a Roman citizen Roman citizens had a dignified form of death that would be decapitated st. Paul being another example but non citizens slaves of the Empire they get crucified this is what's Dionysius rights a Roman citizen having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death delivered him to his fellow slaves to be led away and in order that his punishment might be witnessed by all they directed them to drag him through the forum and every other conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him the men ordered to lead the slave to his punishment having stretched out both his arms and fastened them to a piece of wood which extended across his breasts and shoulders as far as his wrists followed him tearing his naked body with whips I don't know if you've wrote about this but Isis just did this to one of their enemies recently they were they were going to execute the leader of one of their opponents so they stripped him naked and they walked him through the streets as they brought him out to be hung a walk of shame it was called they didn't make that up the Romans did the same thing okay and why would did they do this because in some ways shame is even worse for an even worse form of suffering than the physical suffering right it's a very deep way to inflict harm on someone to shame them and you know this is the case if you've kept up in the media with some of the social media shaming that goes on now amongst young people you know I'm talking about or they'll take humiliating pictures of one another and they'll post them on the Internet or they'll do videos and what did some of these young kids do when they get shamed like this they kill themselves because the pain is too deep to live with the pain of being humiliated in front of everyone hurts too much to even stay alive so they kill themselves that's the kind of shame they wanted to inflict in crucifixion and that's the kind of shame our Lord willingly took for our sake and for the sake of our salvation so when Paul's laying out this hymn here about the Incarnation he's showing us that Christ doesn't just descend to our level by becoming human he descends into the depths of what was considered at the time the lowest form of humanity possible the shameful execution of a slave by crucifixion now turn to page 3 and what is gods of God the father's response to Jesus's willingness to go into the depths of human shame and human suffering exaltation resurrection ascension so Paul says in the next verses therefore verse 9 God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every other name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that he's the Lord to the glory of God the Father now if you look at the pip top of page 3 we want to break down these terms that Paul uses first the language of God greatly exalted him if you look in the Greek there it's Hooper oops so oh right and you see the word hyper there we get in English right it's like a hyper exaltation so the fight despite the fact that Christ goes so low on the cross what does God do he hyper exalts him by bestowing upon him the name above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee is going to bow and every tongue going to confess that Jesus Christ is not a duelist he's not a slave he's not less than human right that's what the Romans wanted to say with crucifixion you are no body no he is the correos he is the Lord he's not just the creator of the universe he's the one who rules over the universe now what's so striking about this in a first-century context is guess who else was called coreos at the time caesar the emperors they were held as Lord right so there's also a kind of anti Roman rhetoric going on in paul's philippians him who's the true lord is it caesar or is this man is it this man who was crucified in a loincloth in a little town out in the middle east jerusalem a little podunk village it's christ so he hyper exalted him so that his name would be revealed to be the kurios the lord now in making this statement it's really interesting you can you can show here that paul recognized the fullness of the recognizes the fullness of Jesus divinity not just by the fact that he actually says - he's equal with God but also by the Old Testament passages that Paul alludes to in this hymn so in this hymn he's drawing language from two key passages of the Old Testament they may be two of the most monotheistic passages in the Old Testament the first one is from Isaiah chapter 45 so look at this passage here with Paul's words in mind for thus says the Lord God who created the heavens I am the Lord when you see the all-caps there what's the Hebrew word Yahweh right why HWH the sacred Tetragrammaton the name of the one god he who is so I am the Lord and there is no other there is no other God besides me a righteous God and a savior there's none besides me so turn to me and be saved all you ends of the earth for I am God and there is no other by myself I have sworn from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return to me meaning to meet Yahweh every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear isaiah 45 verse 18 21 through 23 so pause there notice Paul just said in the hem that every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus is coreos and yet here we have Isaiah saying in chapter 45 that Yahweh is the one God the one creator there is no other so what is Paul doing here he's taking the language of the one god from the Old Testament and saying it applies to Jesus of Nazareth so he's revealing the mystery of the Trinity here that there is one God but there are three persons the Father the Son and we'll get to him elsewhere the Holy Spirit right so here he's focusing primarily on God the Father and God the Son one of the reasons I bring this up is because there are certain scholars who have argued in recent times um that Jesus did not I mean Paul didn't actually think Jesus was fully divine and he kind of understood him as an angel right very much like the Jehovah's Witnesses right he was an angel who after his willingness to go to the cross God made him divine he divinized him he exalted him to the status of divinity as if divinity was something kind of pass out and all right well you did a good job here I'll make you divine I'll make you God know that what Paul is expressing here in the hymn is what one scholar Richard baulkham is called a Christological monotheism right it's still monotheistic he's quoting the monotheistic passage of the Old Testament but God is revealing that the monotheism that of the Old Testament is in fact one that is going to be revealed fully in the Trinity God the Father and also God the Son both fully God from all eternity yet one the son the coming man and going even to the cross and if you have any doubts about this what about the language of every knee bowing to Jesus and in heaven on the earth and under the earth where did Paul get this image it's kind of a weird thing to think about right every knee in heaven is going to bow so how many knees are there in heaven who's up there right may get the angels right so every knee on earth is going to bow this is obviously all of humanity but every knee lie under and under the earth so he's talking about the realm of the Dead there so basically it's a way of expressing all of creation the entire cosmos this is so exciting to me to think about one day they're gonna admit we're right sorry there's my pride coming through I told you one day all of creation no matter what's going on right now no matter what's going on in the Middle East no matter what's going on the White House right no matter what's going on in the in the in Planned Parenthood one day every knee everybody's going to get down and recognize that Jesus Christ is cordials that he's the Lord to the glory God the Father amen amen and if that doesn't make you joyful I don't know what will right so we have to remember that Christ has the victory right he's already wanted but it's being worked out in us it's being worked out in the world it's being brought out into her he wants the humility that he already had to live in us so we might be lights in a world that is so dark and so brown so Paul gets this language from Exodus 20 you shall not make for yourself this is the Ten Commandments a graven image or any likeness of anything that's in heaven above number one or that's in the earth beneath number two or that's in the water under the earth and you shall not do what to them bow down or serve them right so here from Exodus 20 the most well-known passage in the Old Testament the ten commandments God explicitly said you don't bend your knee to any creature you only bend your knee to God and yet in the Philippians him Paul says every creature is going to bend their knee to Jesus of Nazareth to Jesus Christ because he's not just man he wasn't just a prophet he wasn't just the Messiah right he wasn't just the new Moses or the new David or the new Adam or any of those things he is kurios he is the Lord he is the God who made the universe and we're all going to give him the worship that is due to God loan this is something that's real close to my heart lately I just finished writing a book called the case for Jesus the biblical and historical evidence for Christ and I wish I could sell that book to you now but it's not going to come out till February alright so keep your eyes out for it but one of the things I began realizing is in our day and time there's a rising tide of atheism right and I have a lot of friends who teach in Catholic schools and they'll tell me that a large number their high school boys and sometimes I school girls too although it seems to be more prevalent among the boys well not just have doubt about the faith they'll come out and tell their teacher first day religion class look I just want you to know I'm an atheist alright I'm coming in this Catholic school because I'm a parents of Catholic and they sent me here but you need to know that I do not believe not just in Jesus Christ but in God right and so I realized oh man things are different than when I was younger when I was younger we were all fighting with the Baptist's and fighting with the Protestants in you know getting locked in all these struggles about the papacy and Mary and those are all important questions to answer but it's important that we also recognized at some point we have to go back to basics and just argue why should we believe in Jesus at all how do you know he is God how do you know he is who he says he was what makes him different than Buddha or Muhammad or any these other leaders of these various world religions all right so I wrote this book the case for Jesus again we come out in February just to go through the evidence for why Christ is divine right one of the things I'll show there is that we don't just believe Jesus is God because st. Paul said so although that's important we believe that he's got because the miracles of Christ and the prophecies show the Christianity isn't a made-up religion right because Jesus Christ is the only leader of any world religion who was ever pre-announced here listen there's no prophecies of Mohammed there's no prophecies of Buddha right they didn't fulfill any prophecies but Jesus fulfills prophecies written down centuries before he came because this is a revealed religion of God and we need to recognize that we can no longer assume that everyone knows Jesus is divine we can't uh assume it we need to propose it we need to share that truth with others amen amen all right and Paul knew that too and that's what he's doing here in the Philippians him now now that he's laid out here and and by the way as dr. Hahn said last night what does it mean to be Divine Christ shows us what it means in the humiliation and humility of the Incarnation and in the humiliation and the humility of the Cross that's what true divinity looks like it doesn't look like Caesar it looks like life-giving love poured out even unto death for the sake of others sacrificial love kanata Club self-emptying love a love that doesn't count itself as better better than others but puts other people's interests ahead of its own because that's what Jesus did with us right he was more interested in our salvation than he was in preventing himself from suffering and being stripped and being shamed that's how much he loves us so much he loved us all right so that's the hymn of the Philippians letter to Philippians now with that in mind Paul doesn't stop there he doesn't just stop at the Gloria Jesus he also wants to then go on to the Philippians and say that's how you have to live you want to be Christians know me a little Jesus's alright well then get ready to climb up on the cross of humiliation and humility right so look at what he goes on to say in the next verses number three living with the mind of Christ therefore and we ever see the word therefore you should always ask what it's there for I know you've heard this joke those of you who've been here years yeah like come on make up some new jokes right all right but the reason I highlight is because the therefore points back to the hymn so this is going to be the implications of the hymn what are the implications of what Jesus has done in the Incarnation and on the cross what does it mean for my life therefore my beloved is you've always obeyed so now not only in my presence but much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for God is at work in you both to will and to work for his group good pleasure right so when we see the humility of Jesus Christ it should make us a little scared right because if you know yourself even a little bit at all you'll know that's not how I love right we don't love selfless illy like that we tend to love selfishly right you make me happy I'll make you happy you stop making me happy guess what relationships over so there there's an element here of daunting nests of the gospel how could I possibly ever be like that how could I possibly ever love like that when I'm so proud and I'm so selfish but as soon as he tells us to be fearful and trembling in the very next words he gives this consolation because God is at work in you you're not doing it through your own strength it's not you're not pulling yourself up to heaven by your your own bootstraps God is the one who's going to show you and work in you the humility that was manifested in Jesus Christ and therefore keep going verse four oh I hate this first do all things without grumbling or questioning oh no grumbling everybody notice it's not it's not like a suggestion it's a command do everything without grumbling right I have a friend of a friend who's who uh whose kids you know you know kids I'd like to complain you makes up you slave away the stove you make some supper they don't like some food they don't like they start complaining right and she tells them don't complain about your food because you know what God did in the Old Testament to the Israelites when they complain about the food he sent snakes to kill them right okay so no grumbling at this table right um here come to come the water moccasins right um our copperheads wherever you live whatever the snake may be right so 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 perverse generation look everybody in a world out there get on the internet everyone's complaining it just doesn't stop we need to be different Christians should be different do everything without grumbling without complaining so you can be light in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you should shine as lights in the world holding fast to the Word of Life so then the day of Christ I may be proud Paul says that I didn't run in vain or labor in vain even if I'm to be poured out as a libation upon the sacrificial offering of your face I'm glad and I rejoice with you all likewise you also should be glad and you should rejoice with me this verse is so convicting to me because I am so tempted to complain all the time right all the time it's one of my major faults complaining complaining complaining but if you think about it for a second if you've received the grace of salvation in baptism what in the world do you have to complain about right think about it this way if you've ever committed a single mortal sin just one what do you actually deserve to be eternally separated from God forever in hell that's what you earned that's what you married if you've ever committed even a single mortal sin full knowledge deliver consent on it so no matter how bad it's going in your life right Michaels laughing relax what you've earned is hell but what you have is salvation in Christ right so no matter whatever suffering comes your way think about it for a second you haven't yet been separated from God you have the grace you have the sacraments you have the Scriptures right you have the models of the saints you have the love of Jesus what do you actually have to complain about and if you're complaining because you're suffering if you step back from it for a second think what is it that Christ is calling us to the cross suffering shouldn't be a surprise to us as Christians right if you read any of the saints they'll tell you when suffering comes your way it's a paradoxical sign that Jesus really loves you because he wants to draw you in to the mystery of Calvary he's telling you I want you to get close to me I want you to get closer to me than you can ever get if you don't taste suffering the only way you can really get to know who Jesus is is to climb up on the cross with him and suffer with him to climb into his wounds right and be washed in his blood and feel his love so when the suffering comes we have to reorient our thinking we have to have the mind of Christ about our suffering and begin to do what offer it for others like he did not to constantly be worried about ourselves and our interests but to put others above ourselves not to waste the suffering that God gives us but to offer it for world who needs us to offer our sufferings in union with Jesus for the salvation of others amen well I'm running out of time but and the rest of Philippians they're basically Paul goes on to give two practical examples of this and I'll close with this just one last comment so first he refers to Timothy to give examples of this kind of love he says I hope in the Lord Jesus verse 19 to seen Timothy to you soon so that I may be cheered by news of you I've got no one like him we'll be genuinely anxious for your welfare they all looked after their own interests not those of Jesus Christ right so notice here he's using Timothy as a model of humility as someone who looks after other interests other people's interests first and not his own but Timothy's worth you know how as a son with a father he served me in the gospel I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me and I trust in the Lord that I shortly myself will come also then he gives a second example with Hafford itís who is not just a humble and focused on others but willingness to suffer for Christ I have thought it necessary verse 25 to send you a pad for died as my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier and your messenger and ministered to my knee for he's been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard he was ill indeed he was ill near to death but God had mercy on him and not only on him but on me also unless I should have sorrow upon sorrow I'm the more anger to send him therefore that you may also rejoice at seeing him again and that I may be less anxious so receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men for he nearly died for the work of Christ risking his life to complete your service to me so in other words in order to put some flesh on his teaching he gives Timothy as an example of someone who's more concerned about others than he is about himself and then he gives a Pafford itis as an example of someone who's willing to suffer to be sick and to risk his life for the sake of the gospel so let's see how the whole chapter fits together when closing them I want to give you one last example what I mean here so what does this mean for us what kind of humility is Christ calling us to what kind of humility is Paul calling us to and how do we find the secret of joy in that well I don't know about you but one of my favorite Saints the Saint Torres Lucy I'm sure most of you are yeah she's like super populist but if you if you read through her sort of soul um at one point she really manifests the role that the gift of humility gate played in her life it's the famous story of the Christmas miracle the Christmas grace she called it you know talking about it was one one night it was a Christmas Christmas night they gotten home from midnight mass okay they came home late and everyone was tired and heard father bless Louie who's by the way gonna be canonized by Pope Francis in October right Louie and zeliha amen I love Lou in Xela we have a devotion to them - Mary Mary Saint husband-and-wife canonized together on the same day so awesome they're such holy people anyway well they came home and despite being a future Saint Louie was a little tired and they had this little ritual with the shoes where they would put gifts in the shoes on Christmas night and the girls would come home they'd take the gifts out and they get all excited you know and because Torrez was the baby they had done it for her right so she goes up the stairs to take off her hat and she hears her daddy say he's tired thankfully this will be the last year we do this right and she was crushed she started to cry right because she overheard you know his destino he was just getting his aggravation and saleem her sister said don't go downstairs while you're crying you'll break his heart right and Torrez said at that moment Christ gave her a grace to be more concerned about her father than about herself and it totally changed her life right so this is her words I just read this last point and it'll stop she says on that night began the third period of my life the most beautiful and the most filled with grace is from heaven the work I had been able unable to do in 10 years because she was very selfless child very precocious very focused on herself very needy was done by Jesus in one instant contending himself with my good will which was never lacking he made me a Fisher of souls and I experienced a great desire to work for the conversion of sinners a desire I hadn't felt so intensely before so notice what she's saying my heart turned from being inward and focused on me now what to others and then she says this I felt charity enter my soul and the need to forget myself and to please others since then I've been happy I forgot myself then I was happy that's the secret of joy she discovered it there that's what humility is that's the kind of humility Paul is calling us to in the Christ him to stop being so focused on pleasing ourselves and to turn our hearts outward to others and when you begin to do that when you willingly accept the suffering that others are going to cause you and they're going to cause you suffering then you'll learn to be content in whatever Life brings you right because you can run from suffering but you can't hide can you right suffering is going to track you down and find you in order to teach you how to love and humility and love are just two sides of the same coin so may God give us that grace if you're a mother your child wants you right forget yourself look into their eyes give them your time if you're a father and your daddy just want you know your little girls just want daddy look at me all right forget yourself lean into her if you're a brother or sister I forget yourself and learn to love your siblings your co-workers your family and when you do that and when you can develop the habit of that then you'll have joy then you'll be happy amen amen in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen Lord Jesus thank you for the gift of st. Paul thank you for the gift of yourself and your incarnation and on the cross please teach us the secret of your humility so that we might taste the joy of your resurrection glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without an amen in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit amen thank you very much thanks if you like say Torres oh thanks if you like st. Torres check out my CD set in the bookstore spiritual theology on the stages of the spiritual life god bless

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

Views: 202,929

Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization, Youth

Id: pSrmS3bxOAk

Length: 56min 45sec (3405 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2016