Willing to be Humbled

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Well good morning and welcome. I'm Pastor Mike Duchesne. I've actually been worshiping with you guys here for about three, four months since we moved down to sunny Florida from Michigan and this is pretty cool. You guys, this is just an incredible, incredible church. The music, these guys, these guys rock. They really do. They do, they do. And the fellowship, you know, just a few more hard-boiled eggs out there would really help. Well again, what a blessing it is to be here today. Usually they don't ask a guest preacher to wrap up a sermon series, but I'm going to give it my best shot today. How many of you have actually read this book yet? Oh, okay, good. I got to tell you, this is a great book. It's one of those books where after you read it, you went, oh, I act like that? Well that hurt. I'm going to rip this page out, but that's the beauty of the love that our Lord has for us. He's not offended by when we do the things in this book, is he? Well this last five weeks, this has been a great series. A couple takeaways, I don't know if you guys have, everybody takes different things away from sermons, but a couple things that I took away from the series, one of them is that most people, and I was included, we think that we are entitled to our anger, don't we? Yeah, yeah. It's okay, it's my anger, I'm entitled to it. I like what Pastor John said in week two. How many are Superman fans? Marvel Comics, Superman? Okay, my son Jacob definitely raised his hand on that one. What happens to Superman when he's confronted with kryptonite? He's paralyzed, isn't he? Well Pastor John brought up, and it just hit me right between the eyes, that anger is kryptonite to a Christian. Remember that from week two? Yeah. Well, today's reading comes from Philippians chapter two. This is this great letter that Paul sends to the church of Philippi, a group of people that are not unlike us here today. But before we get into that, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much. What a blessing it is to be here and to share your word with these brothers and sisters. But Lord, as we continue to look in that mirror of our own sin, help us to take your word to heart and be less offended by those who aren't like us. And Lord, as we hear your word this morning, be with us. Open up our hearts and our minds. And we ask this in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Well, I want to get to our readings today. It's Philippians two. If you brought your Bibles or if you are high-tech and you want to look in your phone, I won't think you're playing some kind of game. Philippians chapter two, we're going to look at verses one through 11. Well, Paul writes, therefore, if any encouragement from being united in Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one spirit and in one mind. I mean, the sermon could be right there if I didn't go any farther. But then he goes on to say, don't do anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility, we should highlight that word, value others above yourselves. Not looking to your own interests, but to the interests of others. In your relationships with another, have the same mindset of that as Christ Jesus. This is that part of the book of the Bible, easier said than done, if you didn't know that. You being in very nature God, do not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. For God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess to the glory of God the Father. You get that? Okay. You know, today's reading is, there's so much, there could be a series just in this reading. But I want to open this morning and ask you guys a question. This is your fifth week in this lesson, but let me ask you a question, and don't worry if you get it wrong, I'm not going to tell Pastor John, I'm not going to take notes and tell him that you got the question wrong, but the question is, if you could describe Jesus, if you could describe Jesus, but I only want you to use one word, what would that word be? Wow. Yeah, that's a pretty quick default answer, isn't it? How about God? How about Lord? How about Savior? Right? All of these, if any of these were your answer, then you would not be wrong. Remember, as we often do, we go in a different direction. I have a word for you, it's a noun. Probably not a word we would typically assign to Jesus, if we had to use one wo...