You may consider “humble love” to be redundant. True love by definition must be humble. But we use this term to emphasize this fact, that we are not loving people if we are not humbling ourselves before them. Jesus did this. And now, in today’s passage, we have three more unique and powerful illustrations of “humble love.”
·
Paul: the drink offering, v17-18. The term drink
offering in the NKJV is in italic meaning it is not actually in the
text. It’s the word for “poured out”
that tells us the writer is speaking of the drink offering. Under the Law the drink offering was poured
on the animal sacrifice as it burned (Lev. 23:12f). What David did in 2 Sam. 23:16 (pouring out
the water from Bethlehem) and what Mary did in John 12:1-8 (anointing Jesus’
feet) are acts of worship based in the drink offering idea. Three things can be said: the drink was
totally consumed by the fire, it added nothing to the meat sacrifice, and it
was totally for God going up in smoke as an aroma pleasing to the Lord. This is how Paul humbled himself for the Lord
and His Body: he was willing for his life to be totally consumed in ministry;
his sacrifice added nothing to Christ who was everything to Paul; and Paul did
this for God meaning it didn’t matter how the Philippian believers responded.
·
Timothy: the like-minded fellow-laborer,
v19-24. Most Christian leaders (by which
we mean the famous Christians) are people who have charted out their own,
unique path of ministry. You could say
Paul was like that: he had a calling from God that was different that the rest
of the Apostles and he would not let anyone get in the way of his service for
Christ. But we know Timothy, not because
of his new and unique ministry to the churches.
We know him because of his connection to Paul. In v20 the word “like-minded” is literally equal in soul. To get some idea of what this means read 2
Tim. 3:10-11 about all that Paul and Timothy experienced together. It was truly deep. But it meant that Timothy had to be the kind
of person who was not the inventor of new things but rather who determined to
know Paul and to serve Paul as Paul led.
He had to be the type of person who did not seek his own things but
those things which are of Christ Jesus.
That is humble love!
·
Epaphroditus: not regarding his life,
v25-30. Epaphroditus had been the one
who delivered the offering to Paul from Philippi. Surely he was an encouragement to Paul and
both men were full of joy in being together.
But the time came when Paul saw that Epaphroditus’ mind was somewhere
else. He was longing for you. And
why was he longing for the folks back home?
Because he had been sick, almost to death, and he knew his friends knew
about it and it bothered him. This
describes the mind of someone who, like Paul, did not count his life dear to himself, who could say in truth: For to me to live is Christ and to die is
gain! His care about the feelings of
others showed the humility of his love.
We need godly examples to mentor us; here are
three to follow as we follow Christ.
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