May 2022 | Philippians pt. 4
Philippians 2 | “the humility of Jesus”
Start this study by reading through Philippians chapter 2 — but before you do, take a few moments to slow down and connect with yourself and God’s Spirit. I encourage you to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, feeling with your body as you breathe. As you breathe in and out, note that Spirit is present, is with you, and is experiencing God’s Word with you.
The “hymn of Christ” (v. 6-11) is the central point of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. And how beautiful! The focus is on Jesus. It’s important for us to remember this point as we continue on in our study. As Paul’s words transition to exhort the Philippians in their new way of living, we must remember that it is the personhood of Jesus who provides the basis for the new way of life. As this hymn emphasizes the ways Jesus became that which we can relate to - a person - it both inspires us to gratitude and connects us with a Savior who is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).
And this is where I want us to focus for this study. I’m wondering what comes to mind when you read the word “weaknesses.” What’s it like to read that Jesus can sympathize with our weaknesses? How do you view being or feeling weak? And how has being “weak” helped you connect with others in your life or led to feeling alone?
If you’re like me, feeling weak has often not been a point of receiving and experiencing grace or connection, especially with Jesus. Instead, it’s been an experience of internal shame, self-criticism, and doubt, leaving me isolated from people I love and from the life I want to live.
And if you’re like me, it’s really easy to read these verses in Philippians with our own experience of weakness being in the forefront of our minds and even our bodies. We end up reading our own experience of imperfection/weakness into the rest of Paul’s words in this chapter. For example, when he encourages the Philippian church to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”, I’ve not often read that verse and understood an obvious connection to grace. Just from first reading, it seems like Paul writes this beautiful hymn about Christ and about his personhood, his sacrifice of salvation and the ways God has glorified him for all eternity… then all of the sudden it can feel like a swift change to a message of “Annnnd for you? Live scared of God and scared of failing him.” Ouch. Doesn’t leave much safety for being or feeling weak, does it?
So let’s zoom out together and focus on this passage. What if this phrase about working out our salvation isn’t focused on our behavior in order to be connected with God but instead recognizing the connection we have been given with God through our shared weakness with Christ? Let me expand -
In this letter, Paul builds up to and then draws away from the central point and focus, the humility of Jesus. We are blessed not only because of the action of Jesus’ obedience but his selfless nature in choosing the path of servanthood - of weakness, vulnerability, and sacrifice. So even as Paul bases his words to the Philippian church on the person of Christ, he is basing it on the ways in which the humble nature of Jesus brought about the act of obedience, giving us the gift of salvation.
To Paul, the result cannot be separated from the character of Jesus. Another way to say that is to say that Jesus’ behavior, what we see outwardly, was authentically connected to a humble and loving spirit.
So where does this leave us with our weakness as well as this exhortation to notice how we live and “work out” living in right relationship? Well, to me, it causes us to just the same connect our inner beings with our outward action. That is to say, our weakness, or our vulnerability, inherently has a place in our action of following Jesus and experiencing the fruit of our salvation, connection with Jesus and eternal life.
I remember the first time these words in Philippians started to sound different to me. I was still in my Masters program and preparing to meet with a client. New to counseling, and new to even learning about emotion and vulnerability, I had no idea how to experience my own. As I sat there in the office that day, I was so scared I would go into the session, not know what to do, freeze up, and ultimately be rejected as a counselor who is most certainly not good enough.
To protect myself from this threat of rejection, the amount of preparation I had done was crazy. I reviewed all my notes, looked over my training notes, listening to training tapes… it was extensive. I was doing so much to protect myself from this one moment of risk. And isn’t that how it goes for some of us? Something that seems maybe small or specific because huge in our inner experience and how we view ourselves - and how we are scared someone else will view us.
But even after doing all of that, I still felt anxious. Has something like that ever happened to you? Where you were really scared of feeling like a failure and did everything you could to not feel like one, but it still wasn’t enough to take away the ‘risk’?
Finally, it got through to my brain that my prep wasn’t actually helping my emotions and I ended up turning to this book in my Bible. I was sitting there, feeling afraid, telling myself that I had to get it exactly right in order to be accepted and valued. Yet here was the story of Jesus telling me instead that living obediently, getting it right, means accepting I don’t have to be perfect to be safe. Instead, I saw this path of a Savior who chose weakness and vulnerability over power and who actively took on suffering in humility instead of succeeding in obvious glory. He chose the path of weakness and it is his path I am to model in my obedience. And it his path that leads to freedom and eternal life.
As I (truly, God’s Spirit) connected this truth to my inner experience, it helped me in several ways. It helped me connect with my fear, the big emotion behind my protection. I was so scared of being rejected! And everything in my body was telling me that if I just went in there as myself, plain old Gabby, that it would not be enough. And as I shared this fear with God in prayer, I found he was inviting me to remain in my vulnerability, the exact opposite of what felt instinctual to my body. He was teaching me there is a way I could feel afraid of rejection, share it with him, and choose to enter that meeting vulnerable and present instead of protected.
Because it is our vulnerability that connects us and ultimately changes us, not our protection.
Consider just the story of Jesus in this chapter as an example. Imagine if he had never left heaven and left perfection - it would be a lot harder to feel connected to him! We would miss out on the ways Jesus lived in weakness, with limits, and in vulnerability. The ways he needed time alone with God, how he wept over the loss of his friends, how he ate and drank and had a personality and lived. And I believe the life of Jesus perfectly models the same reality for us - that vulnerability leads to connection and ultimately to life. Because just as the gospel story tells us, it is the weakness of Jesus that led to God glorifying him and restoring relationship with all of humanity through him.
Just as Paul exhorted the Philippian church, we are invited to consider Jesus’s way of integrated living as we reflect on the ways in which we live - or the ways we miss out on it.
Reflect / Take a few moments and consider the following questions.
Think of a time someone was vulnerable with you. How did that feel to you? How did affect your desire to be connected with this person?
Think of a time someone wasn’t vulnerable with you. Maybe instead of being vulnerable, they were defensive and angry or maybe they were withdrawn and seemingly uncaring. How did this affect you and your connection to them?
What’s it like when you try to be vulnerable? And how comfortable are you feeling your own vulnerability?
As I reflect on these words today, I’m able to recognize what happens for me when I’m feeling afraid of rejection. When my body senses potential rejection is coming up, my next move is to do everything I can to protect from the risk. I study harder, work longer, sleep less - or sometimes I just talk more to keep myself from coming across as frozen and incapable. All throughout this moment, my body is feeling with me - I get knots in my stomach and I feel restless, like I can’t calm down.
I was recently talking about my protection with my counselor and she said something so important - protection is there for a good reason. When we feel fear of being rejected or alone, we long to protect. And of course we do. That’s a God-given instinct! Protecting ourselves is wired into our DNA. Our bodies inherently know we need a safe place for our vulnerability to land. Just as I felt that day, we all need the comforting presence of someone to understand our fear and be with us.
The gospel story tells us that Jesus not only understands our vulnerability but he longs to comfort us in those experiences. Just as the author of Hebrews reminds us, Jesus is able to validate and sympathize with the human experience. He gets it! He too felt rejection, betrayal, abandonment, doubt, anxiety, and sorrow. He felt all that it means to be human and he is the safe place for us. He shows us not only the path of feeling all that it is to be human, but also how his humble path led to connected relationship, with God the Father and with us. Vulnerability is a part of beautiful connection and the hymn of his life demonstrates the same reality for us as spiritual beings following in his path towards experiencing real life.
Reflection
1.In this study, I articulated my emotional process when I feel fear of being rejected. I’m wondering what it would be like for you to walk through your own emotional process when you get triggered, too! Let’s walk through it together:
As you read my story, what experience came up for you? Maybe it’s a memory or specific situation where you feel the threat of disconnect. Can you picture it? Cool, let’s start there and place the following elements of your experience with me -
Your Trigger | This is the event, situation, or specific moment when this emotional process starts for you. It can be preparing to go to a meeting and imagining the other person looking at you, the things your parent says to you with an angry tone, the way your partner stops talking and leaves the room during a conflict, etc. Can you identify it specifically?
Meaning | What do you say to yourself in that moment? How do you believe that others view you (or will view you) in that moment? And where are your thoughts leading you?
Body response | How does your body respond to this moment? What do you feel in your arms, your legs, your gut, your chest? How would you describe the sensations?
Emotion | What are you feeling in that moment? Is there an emotional threat you can place? Do any memories come up where you have experienced this before?
Protection (Action) | What do you do next? What does your body tell you that you need to do to protect yourself from any threat? And what is the impact of this action on you and your relationships?
Good job! What’s it like to start to put together your emotional process?
2.Can you identify any ways Jesus is inviting you to lean into your vulnerability instead of your protection? What would that be like? Would it bring about anything different for you? Share about this with Jesus in prayer.