Status is important to humans.  We want to know where we fit in any given social or professional situation.  If we are not satisfied with our rank and status, then we will instinctively work hard to gain status in our community for the purpose raising our rank.  That’s what status is and what it means to obtain it.  Status is defined as a social or professional position, condition, or standing to which varying degrees of responsibility, privilege, and esteem are attached.  Status is the relative position or standing of a person or thing. 

Given this information, what is your current status? What is mine? How much of our time is spent on clinging to our status with hopes of raising our rank in our people groups or in society at large?  What happens when we give our hearts, minds, and souls to Christ?  How does that affect our human status seeking behaviors?

Paul has the answer with an example!

Philippians 2, The Message

He Took on the Status of a Slave

2 ^1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

^5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

^9-11 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

Rejoicing Together

^12-13 What I’m getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you’ve done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience. Now that I’m separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.

^14-16 Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night so I’ll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns. You’ll be living proof that I didn’t go to all this work for nothing.

^17-18 Even if I am executed here and now, I’ll rejoice in being an element in the offering of your faith that you make on Christ’s altar, a part of your rejoicing. But turnabout’s fair play—you must join me in my rejoicing. Whatever you do, don’t feel sorry for me.

^19-24 I plan (according to Jesus’ plan) to send Timothy to you very soon so he can bring back all the news of you he can gather. Oh, how that will do my heart good! I have no one quite like Timothy. He is loyal, and genuinely concerned for you. Most people around here are looking out for themselves, with little concern for the things of Jesus. But you know yourselves that Timothy’s the real thing. He’s been a devoted son to me as together we’ve delivered the Message. As soon as I see how things are going to fall out for me here, I plan to send him off. And then I’m hoping and praying to be right on his heels.

^25-27 But for right now, I’m dispatching Epaphroditus, my good friend and companion in my work. You sent him to help me out; now I’m sending him to help you out. He has been wanting in the worst way to get back with you. Especially since recovering from the illness you heard about, he’s been wanting to get back and reassure you that he is just fine. He nearly died, as you know, but God had mercy on him. And not only on him—he had mercy on me, too. His death would have been one huge grief piled on top of all the others.

^28-30 So you can see why I’m so delighted to send him on to you. When you see him again, strong and strapping, how you’ll rejoice and how relieved I’ll be. Give him a grand welcome, a joyful embrace! People like him deserve the best you can give. Remember the ministry to me that you started but weren’t able to complete? Well, in the process of finishing up that work, he put his life on the line and nearly died doing it.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

If we love Jesus and want to be like Jesus more and more each day, we must lay the pursuit of our own personal status and the innate desire for prestige in this world.  “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness…” says Jesus, Matthew 6:33 “…and all these things will be given to you as well.”  What will be given?  All that God has—even His One and Only Son! 

The status we seek most demands that we wear the right clothes, drive vehicles that show high prestige, while we climb over everyone on the ladders of success in our profession.  We must be seen eating at only the finest restaurants.  Jesus addresses the aggressive stress this causes as we live a self-seeking pursuit of status, value, worth, and rank in this world.

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” –Jesus, Matthew 6:28-32

God knows we need clothes; God was Adam and Eve’s first clothing designers as I recall! (Genesis 3) God knows we need food to eat and provides ways to for us to grow it or buy what we need from each other.  In our country, we have more than enough, with enough to share! Jesus addresses our generosity as well!

Above all, Jesus sets the supreme example concerning status.  Paul explains and clearly lays in on the line for us:

“He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”

Because of His great love for us, Jesus willingly and obediently laid down his life for ours.  Let the humbling status that Jesus chose so that we could be redeemed and set free, sink into our being this morning.

What is our current status?  Pause to prayerfully consider what we seek most.  Are we living in “responsive obedience” to God/Jesus/Holy Spirit?

Lord,

May what you did for us permeate our hearts, minds, and souls all day long and into the night.  Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, refresh our souls with your new mercies for today, and restore the joy and peace of your salvation always at work with us to transform our thinking and ultimate behaviors.  May your Holy Spirit fill us and guide us with all the status that a believer needs—all of You in all of us/me.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen