A Sermon for Palm Sunday

[Here is a condensed version of the sermon that I preached this Sunday, April 5, 2009. I don't think that I'm a particularly great preacher but I think that I do fairly well at it. I try to preach what I think I would need someone to preach to me. Hopefully I'm enough like other people so that what I need to hear is similar to what they need to hear. The sermon, you will notice, is largely influenced by Luther (yes, I know I just opened myself up the charge that I should be largely influenced by the text). His explanation of Philippians 2:5-11 in "Two Kinds of Righteousness" is, in my estimation, one of the greatest theological treatises ever written. I don't plan to regularly post sermons here, but I thought some might be interested in reading it and I get a blog post out of it...win, win.]

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text today is the epistle lesson.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so 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 Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).

There’s a theory in ethics called egoism. It’s a pretty simple theory really. It essentially says that all ethical decisions whether good or bad are ultimately for personal gain and benefit. It claims that there’s only one motive for all your moral actions: self-interest. It’s easy to see how self-interest is behind wrong moral actions. A thief steals because he or she is selfish. The person is only thinking of themselves and not how it will hurt the person that has been stolen from. But what about good moral actions, or, acts of kindness? Well, in these cases, the theory of egoism says that you have a self-interest, too. You give someone a gift because you want to feel good or be thought of as a nice person. You give to charity because you pride yourself on being a better person. For any moral action you can think of there is a selfish motive involved, says egoism.

But our epistle lesson says something different. It speaks of actions which are totally empty of self, and says that we are called to act in a way that can’t be explained by self-interest. Our text begins telling us about Christ who has equality with God. He is full of righteousness, wisdom, power, and glory. He had no selfish reason in coming to save us. There was nothing that he needed; so he could have held onto those things. But St. Paul tells us, he didn’t consider these things something to be held onto. He didn’t hold tightly to them, but he made himself nothing by taking on humanity for our sake. He gives himself to us and we now have his righteousness, his forgiveness, and his resurrection life. We have Christ himself. His life is ours and ours is his. This was done for our benefit, not for his. He didn’t need us. We needed him. What he did, he did with no concern for himself. He simply loved sinners for their own sake. As our gospel lesson said last week: he didn’t come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for us. Christ did not sit in his righteousness, holiness, power and glory and ignore the world. He gave up what he had for our benefit, and served us in a completely selfless way.

Our text tells us the have this same mindset as Christ. What does that mean? It means that you have all the righteousness of Christ, too. All the greatness of Christ is yours because his life is your life. You are in the same position he was. But you aren’t given grace to make you selfish by keeping it for yourself. Having Christ’s life means that, just like Christ, you are free from self-concern. To have his life is to not hold onto the benefits of Christ for yourself but to empty yourself and take on the form of a servant.

Scripture teaches us of two kinds of righteousness: the first is the righteousness which Christ has given you as a gift apart from works. It belongs entirely to you. “The second kind of righteousness (a life of good works and love toward one’s neighbor and meekness and fear toward God) is the product of the first type, actually it’s fruit and consequence….Therefore it hates itself and loves its neighbor; it does not seek its own good, but that of another, and in this its whole way of living consists.”

Notice that Paul doesn’t just tell us something simple like “Be like Jesus.” He doesn’t just give us some law. He gives us gospel as well. He tells us where this demand to be like Jesus in our actions has been provided by Jesus himself. In other words, he tells us about the grace that we already have. He says in verse 5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” This mindset is yours in Christ. How so? Having been given all things in Christ your pursuit for your own righteousness. Your effort to do good for yourself is over. That is a life that you don’t need. You are free from the need for self-concern. Seeing then that you are free in Christ, you are free to give your life to others. You have no need to be concerned for yourself because you have a savior who is concerned for you. Its right there in his word, he made himself nothing for you. He proved that he cares for you and that he works all things for your good. So now you can look away from yourself and to look to others just as Christ did for you.

As you know, today is Palm Sunday. If you want to know what Palm Sunday is about, here it is. Palm Sunday is about Jesus Christ being concerned with you and not about himself. Christ came into Jerusalem riding lowly on a donkey with no thought of self-importance. Here is the king of the universe entering a city in a way that no other king would enter. Caesar would never enter a city without great attention on himself. When Roman emperors road through a city they were out to impress you with their greatness and power. But Christ’s entrance was as unimpressive as one can be. He was riding on a peasant’s animal, not a king’s animal. He had no military might riding before him to indicate his power to crush his enemies. Jesus’ reputation had gone before him. John’s gospel tells us that the crowd that saw him raise Lazarus from the dead had been spreading the word about him. And now they heard he was coming to Jerusalem. All these people were expecting someone with a great display of greatness. Surely a man who could raise the dead would be impressive. He would surely make some grand entrance. But Jesus puts none of the attention on himself. Instead he is focused only on what has brought him to Jerusalem—giving himself for the benefit of you and me. Here he was receiving praise one moment as he enters Jerusalem but yet he was ready to endure the horrible suffering and death to follow because his concern for others. And so Paul tells us that we can have this mind because Christ had this mind for us. Do you want to worry about something? Don’t worry about yourself, you’ve got a Savior that already took care of what you think you needed to worry about. If you must worry, worry about other people. Be concerned for them.

The first epistle of John chapter 4 tells us something very similar to our text today: “By this is love perfected with us…because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.”

We have received the love of Christ and we are transformed to be toward others as he was toward us. We have no fear of punishment but we love others because we have received Christ’s love. We can be emptied of ourselves and serve freely because Christ emptied himself for us and served us freely. “Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.”

I suspect that most Christians don’t think of acting for other people the way I’m talking about it today. How do most Christians think about good works? I think it probably goes something like this: “God has told us about all these things we are supposed to do and not do and we need to be good people and follow them because they are right to do and he punishes us if we don’t do what he has said.” I don’t know if many people would admit to thinking this but it’s definitely the standard way that most Christians operate. The problem with this is that has the wrong motives. There is fear of punishment from God and Scripture is quite clear that we have nothing to fear before God. Punishment has been dealt with in Christ. As 1 John 4 says…”There is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment.” What motivates a lot of Christians to do “good works” is their desire to please God and their wish to not displease him. A person with this mindset is also motivated being thought of by others as a good person. We want them to think well of us so we do things so that they will notice us.

But our text tells the right way to think about good works. It tells us that the standard Christian motive for doing good works is deeply wrong. It is flawed through and through. In fact what can look like good works are not good works at all, but are an expression of selfishness and focus on one’s own benefit. Think just a moment about how this works. A person thinks to themselves: “I don’t want God to be angry at me, and I don’t want to be punished for doing the wrong thing. Furthermore, I like being thought of by others as a person who does the right thing. So I’m going to help you.” When this is our motive we want to be noticed for having done the right thing. If someone else got the credit, it upsets us.

Now in case you are thinking to yourself that you’ve never done this, ask yourself if you’ve ever done something good that you wouldn’t have done if someone didn’t know it was you doing it. You wanted the credit. You wanted them to know who did it for them. But Christ tells us that a right motive doesn’t seek self-glory. He says in the Sermon on the Mount:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

We’re all guilty of doing good works with the motive of getting glory from others. But this is just more self-focus. We don’t need self-focus when we have a savior so focused on us. Because we are righteous in God’s sight, our motive can now be just on the benefit of others. You can now be motivated simply by the needs of those around you. As Luther writes, “The soul no longer seeks to be righteous in and for itself, but it has Christ as its righteousness and therefore seeks only the welfare of others.” The person that has received mercy doesn’t think of himself or herself any longer and can now give attention to others.

So the final word today is that salvation frees us from self-pursuits. Any righteousness, any wisdom, any power you have belongs to others just as Christ’s righteousness, wisdom and power was not grasped for himself but became ours. As Luther writes, “For you are powerful, not that you may make the weak weaker by oppression but that you may make them powerful by raising them up and defending them. You are wise, not in order to laugh at the foolish and thereby make them more foolish, but that you may undertake to teach them as you yourself would wish to be taught. You are righteous that you may vindicate and pardon the unrighteous, not that you may only condemn, disparage, judge, and punish.”

So I declare today to you here. You are free in Christ. You have been given all of his gifts and if you know this then look away from yourself to see the needs of those around you and serve with a focus only on them. To quote Luther again: “You should be as inclined and disposed toward one another as you see Christ was disposed toward you.”

You have the greatest motive of all to give yourself in concern for others without selfishness. The motive is that Christ has freed you by giving himself to you. Only believers in Christ can have this motive because only believers in Christ are freed by Christ.

Maybe you’ve never thought of salvation this way: that all need for self-concern is over and you can now direct it toward others. This is Christ’s gift to you. May continue to give us grace that we may have the self-giving mindset among ourselves which is ours in Christ Jesus. God grant this unto us all. Amen.

And now may the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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