A sermon preached by the Reverend Canon Dr. David Anderson, at St. Jude’s Church, Oakville on Sunday, September 27, 2026, The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Title: ‘Let the Same Mind Be in You.’ Texts: Philippians 2:1–13.
I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…”
There are passages in scripture that don’t simply teach us something—they recalibrate us. They take the compass we’ve been using to navigate our days, our relationships, our worries, and they quietly turn it toward Christ again. Philippians 2 is one of those passages. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t scold. It simply places Christ before us and says, “Look. This is the shape of the life you’ve been given in your baptism. This is the shape of the life to which you are called..”
Paul begins with a series of “if” statements—if there is encouragement in Christ, if there is consolation from love, if there is sharing in the Spirit. Paul’s not asking a question. He’s not doubting these things. He’s naming what the Philippians already know. They have tasted Christ’s encouragement. They have felt the consolation of being loved. They have shared in the Spirit’s life. Paul is saying: Since these things are true, let them shape how you live together.
And then he names the heart of it: “Be of the same mind,” he says. He’s not saying that we must have identical opinions. He is not calling for uniformity of thought. But he is inviting us to a shared posture—humility, mutual regard, a willingness to place the good of the other ahead of the self. It’s the kind of unity that doesn’t erase difference; it sanctifies it.
Paul knows how fragile community can be. He knows how quickly fear, pride, or exhaustion can make us curl inward. He knows how easily we can begin to protect ourselves rather than offer ourselves. And so he gives the church a picture—Christ’s own life—as the pattern of the Christian life.
A Story About the Shape of Humility
Years ago, I visited a small rural parish where the congregation had dwindled to a handful of people. The building was tired, the paint peeling, the furnace unreliable. But every Sunday, without fail, a man named George arrived an hour early. George was not a churchwarden. He wasn’t on the altar guild. He wasn’t a lay reader. He was simply someone who loved his church.
He would unlock the door, turn on the lights, and then—this was the part that stayed with me—he would walk slowly down the centre aisle, stopping at each pew. He would place his hand gently on the wood and pray for whoever might sit there that morning. He didn’t know who would come. Some Sundays, only three or four people arrived. But George prayed for them anyway. He prayed that they would find encouragement in Christ, consolation in love, and fellowship in the Spirit.
One morning I asked him why he did it. He shrugged and said, “Well, someone should. And I can.”
There was no drama in it. No spotlight. No recognition. Just a quiet, steady offering of himself for the sake of others. I think this is what St. Paul means. This is the mind of Christ taking shape in an ordinary life. Not through grand gestures, but through small, faithful acts of love.
Humility rarely looks heroic. More often, it looks like George—someone who simply sees a need and steps toward it.
The Descent of Christ
Paul then gives us one of the most beautiful hymns in the New Testament. Christ, who is in the form of God, does not cling to status or privilege. He empties himself. He takes the form of a servant. He becomes obedient to the point of death—death on a cross.
This is not humiliation for its own sake. It is love expressed as self-giving. Christ’s descent is not a loss of identity; it is the fullest revelation of who God is. God is the one who gives himself for the life of the world.
And Paul says: Let this mind be in you. Not because we can replicate Christ’s saving work. But because the pattern of Christ—this downward, self-giving movement—is the shape of Christian maturity. It is the shape of love.
The world teaches us to climb: climb the ladder, climb toward success, climb toward recognition. Christ teaches us to descend: descend into service, descend into compassion, descend into the willingness to place ourselves at the disposal of God’s love.
The astonishing thing is that Christ’s descent leads to exaltation. “Therefore God highly exalted him…” The way down turn out to be the way up. The path of humility is the path of glory.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
Most of us won’t be asked to make dramatic sacrifices. But we are asked to make daily ones. To listen before speaking. To forgive before resentment calcifies. To serve without needing recognition. To let go of the quiet insistence that our way is the right way. To see the person in front of us not as an obstacle or irritation but as someone Christ loves. Humility is not thinking less of ourselves. It may be thinking of ourselves less often. It is the freedom to be turned outward—toward God, toward neighbour, toward the work of love.
And this is where Paul’s final line matters so deeply: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you.” Over the years I’ve often wondered about what Paul meant here, what this looks like in real life. I don’t think that Paul is saying salvation is earned. He is saying salvation is lived. It is practiced. It is embodied. And the astonishing thing is that God is already at work within us, enabling the very life he calls us to live.
When Paul says that we are to “work out our own salvation in fear and trembling,” he does not mean it as a threat; it is a promise. God is not standing over us with a clipboard, evaluating our performance. God is within us, shaping us, strengthening us, nudging us toward the mind of Christ. “It is God who works in you.”
For St. Jude’s Today
In a parish like ours—full of people carrying heavy stories, hopes, disappointments, and quiet acts of faith—Philippians 2 is not an abstract ideal. It’s a way for us to be the church.
It means we resist the temptation to withdraw into our own concerns. It means we honour one another’s gifts. It means we bear one another’s burdens. It means we let Christ’s pattern shape our own.
And perhaps most importantly, it means we trust that God is not finished with us. The work of humility, compassion, and unity is not ours alone. God is working in us—nudging, strengthening, softening, guiding—so that the life of Christ becomes visible in our life together.
When we greet one another at the door, when we pray for someone who is struggling, when we volunteer for a ministry that needs help, when we choose patience over irritation, when we give generously to support the mission we share, when we show up even when we feel tired—these are the places where the mind of Christ becomes visible. They are small things. But they are holy things.
A Final Word
The mind of Christ is not something we achieve. It is something we receive. It grows in us as we turn again and again toward the One who emptied himself for our sake and was raised in glory.
So today, as we gather at the table, as we pray, as we sing, as we greet one another at the door, let us ask quietly: “Lord, shape my mind to be like yours.” And let us trust that he will.
Amen. +
