GROW PLAN
March 2-8, 2026
Day One
Exaltation
Jesus told His disciples over and over again that if they wanted to be great, they must humble themselves and become servants. This was not just a theory to Jesus; it was something He did. He led the disciples in this Himself. The first verses of this hymn Paul cited show how Jesus humbled Himself to become a man and to die a horrible, humiliating death to serve us. The last few verses of this hymn show how Jesus is exalted because of what He has done. He became the greatest of all by humbling Himself and making Himself a servant. The Lord God Almighty has elevated Him to the highest place and given Him the name that is above all names. His authority and glory may be disputed now, but in the future, they will be acknowledged by everyone. Every person who has ever lived will come before His throne of judgment, and they will all bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We can trust Jesus in this because He knows. He has done this. He knows that the way to glory is not to try to exalt ourselves, not to try to convince others how great we are, not to try to amass power and praise for ourselves. If we want to please God, to share in His glory and reflect that brilliance, we have to do what Jesus did — humble ourselves and serve others. Remember that Paul introduced this hymn by telling us to make our own attitude the same as Jesus. We need to adopt His humility and His willingness to serve.
Pray about this and examine your heart. Ask the Lord to show you how and where you can humble yourself and make yourself a servant of others.
Day Two
Working Out
Paul told the Philippians to “work out your salvation.” We don’t work to obtain our salvation. Jesus gives it to us. But we put our salvation to work. We work out physically to keep ourselves flexible and to strengthen our muscles. We work out our salvation to grow stronger spiritually. We read in Ephesians 2:10 that we were created “in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.” Doing those good works that the Lord has prepared for us is how we work out our salvation. We do what the Lord assigns us to do. But what if we don’t want to do what the Lord wants us to do? This is where it gets really good! Paul told us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” Why fear and trembling? Because is it God Himself who is working in us. And He works in us “enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose.” We don’t even have to depend on ourselves to want to do our work. The Lord is working in us to enable us to desire to do what He wants us to do. All we have to do is submit to Him, grow closer to Him and let Him do everything necessary to equip us to do the work He wants us to do and to motivate and lead us to do that work.
Commit to growing closer to the Lord by spending more time with Him and ask Him to build a desire in you to do the work He has prepared for you.
Day Three
Stop Complaining
As we work out our salvation, we are to do everything without grumbling and arguing. Paul has pointed out the importance of unity, contending as one person for the Gospel. That unity is strained when someone is grumbling and arguing. Arguments cause division. We are to work in unity and with glad hearts because the Lord is enabling us to desire and work out His purpose. If we humble ourselves like Christ, and serve others doing the work He has prepared us to do, and we do it gladly because He has enabled us to want to do it, we will be blameless and pure children of God. It’s not just what we do but how we do it that’s important. We serve gladly. We serve not to get thanks or praise from other people but to please God. So, if the people we serve aren’t grateful, and we don’t get credit for what we do, we don’t react badly because our purpose is to please the Lord. The world doesn’t work like this. The world believes that people only serve themselves and their own goals. If they serve and do something good, they want credit for it from other people. If we don’t follow this pattern, if we humble ourselves and do what the Lord asks us to do gladly, without regard for what people say, then we stand out from this crooked and depraved generation. If we follow the pattern of Jesus rather than the world, then we will shine like stars.
Pray for the Lord to show you when you tend to grumble or complain and help you turn from that habit.
Day Four
Joy In Sacrifice
Paul finished his thought by saying that we are to shine like stars in the midst of an evil generation as we hold out the word of life. People don’t know to come to us for the word of life if we blend in with the rest of the evil generation. But if we shine like stars because of the way we live our lives, then they will be drawn to the Word we offer. Paul told the Philippians that he took a very personal interest in the way they lived and served. He wanted them to shine so that he would know he didn’t run for nothing. Their spiritual success made everything that he had gone through worthwhile. Paul had been beaten on multiple occasions, stoned and left for dead, jailed and imprisoned for years. He told his brothers and sisters in Christ that even if he was “poured out like a drink offering” on the sacrifice of their faith — if his life was expended to help them come to Christ, he would be glad and rejoice. These were his priorities. What truly matters is that he lead people to Christ and those people went on to mature in Christ and to serve Him. If that happened, he rejoiced regardless of what happened to him. And he wanted the Philippians to rejoice as well. Be glad and rejoice with him because he has been faithful and has done what the Lord wanted him to do.
How does this match with your priorities? Are you seeking to grow and help others grow to maturity?
Day Five
A Close Friend
Paul told the Philippians he was sending Timothy to them so that Timothy could report back to him and he could be encouraged by the news about the church in Philippi. Remember what we know of Timothy from Acts. His father was Greek, but his Jewish mother and grandmother had taught him the scriptures and then he came to trust Christ. When Paul wanted him to come on a mission trip with him, Timothy became circumcised so that the Jews would not take offense at him. He became very close with Paul, so close that Timothy’s name is listed with Paul’s as the co-author of six of Paul’s letters. The apostle used Timothy as a replacement for himself when he couldn’t go to Corinth or Philippi. The praise Paul gave Timothy here was very high. He wrote that while everyone else looked out for his own interests, Timothy looked out for the interests of Christ. Timothy followed all the advice that Paul had been giving to the Philippians as well as churches in other cities — to look out for each other rather than yourself, to focus on the Lord rather than your own needs and desires. Timothy put this in practice in his life, and he “proved himself” to his spiritual mentor.
Have you proved yourself to your spiritual leaders? Would they say that you are focused on the interests of Christ rather than yourself?
Day Six
Epaphroditus
Paul was sent Timothy to help lead the Philippian church, but he also sent Epaphroditus home as a hero to be honored. Epaphroditus was a member of the church in Philippi, and he had been selected to take a gift from the church to Paul to help cover the apostle’s expenses in Rome. We know that Epaphroditus was very sick while in Rome, so sick he almost died. We don’t know what his illness was or how he got sick, but it seems from what Paul wrote that Epaphroditus took an extreme risk to reach Paul with the gift. Paul says that he risked his life to get to Paul. There is probably an interesting story here that we aren’t able to recover. Paul wanted the Philippians to know that Epaphroditus deserved honor when he returned home because he had put his own safety aside in order to support the work of the Lord. We can also see that all the people involved here put the needs of their brothers and sisters first. Epaphroditus cared more about Paul’s needs than his own health. He cared about the Philippians who were worried because they had heard about his illness. The Philippians cared about helping Paul and about Epaphroditus. Paul is concerned that the Philippians are stressed over the health of Epaphroditus and wanted to bring these friends together. This is what the church should look like, everyone looking after each other.
Pray that the Lord would make you and your brothers and sisters in Christ as focused on each other’s needs as Paul, Timothy, Epaphroditus and the Philippians were.