Jesus Christ, Our Great Example: Part 3

And as we read the holy word of God, in honor of God's word, oh, the greatness of the humility of Jesus Christ.

This is what Paul gets to. Hear the word of the living God. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the

Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like -minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

And then he says, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind.

Let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interest, but also for the interest of others.

He says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant, a bond slave, doulos, and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him the name, which is above every name, and that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. Let us pray this morning and seek the help of our

God as we worship him in this hour and look at what the scripture has to say from this chapter about the incarnation of Jesus Christ, his humiliation.

Let's pray. Father, you have glorified your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. There's none higher.

There's none greater. And he has glorified you, and that glory is one of the same.

Father, our desire this morning is to glorify you. That's our desire, to adore you, to exalt you, to magnify you, to worship you in our singing, in our praying, in our preaching.

Lord, we need the Holy Spirit to help us do this, because within our own strength, we don't have the strength to do it.

We're too weak. But Father, in our weakness, would you make us strong? Father, we are most pleased before you and your beloved

Son. Help us, O Lord, by your Spirit to glorify you throughout this worship as we look into these verses that's before us.

That we only see the beauty of Jesus, to see him in the fullness and his majesty, to look full in the wonderful face of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and we see God. The things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of that glory and grace.

Lord, help us remove any distractions from our mind. Help us, Lord, from the previous week.

May we totally, completely focus on Jesus, on you,

O Lord. So now, give us ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to receive, and a heart to obey the truth that is before us in your

Word. Help us, Lord, to apply it in our everyday living. Lord, we need your grace to do this and your help.

We do ask these things in the name that is above every name, and that every knee shall bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord. He is Lord. To the glory of God the

Father. Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Thank you so much. Let me begin in the introduction of a book that I have not read all, but I've read excerpts from it, and it is a wonderful book by C .S.

Lewis. For us to understand just a little bit, a little bit, of the great mystery and the great miracle of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, it's

C .S. Lewis' book called Miracles. He has a chapter in the book that's entitled

The Grand Miracle, which is a chapter on the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

And in that chapter, he draws some very rich analogies. And I love analogies.

I love to give us something feasible, something practical to take a hold of that has profound, deep theological, rich depth to it.

And C .S. Lewis had a way about words, and I love this, in which he gives these rich analogies for us by which we can view the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

So in this introduction, before we look into the theological content this morning in Philippians 2, 5 through 8, let me read to you somewhat an extended portion of what he says because it is so rich and profound.

And I quote him, C .S. Lewis, quote, In the Christian story,

God descends to reascend. He comes down, down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity, down further still, down to the very roots and seabed of the nature he had created.

But he goes down to come up again and bring the ruined world up with him.

One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden.

He must stoop in order to lift. He must also disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.

Or one may think of a diver first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in the midair, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through the green warm water into the black and cold water, down through the increasing pressure into the death -like region of ooze and slime and old decay.

Then up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting till suddenly he breaks surface again, holding in his hand the dripping precious thing that he went down to recover.

He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the light.

Down below, where it lay colorless in the dark, he lost his color too.

In this descent and re -ascent, everyone will recognize a familiar pattern, a thing written all over the world.

It is the pattern of all vegetable life. It must belittle itself into something hard, small, and death -like.

It must fall into the ground, then the new life re -ascends. It is the pattern of all animal generation too.

I love his analogies here. Listen to what he says. There is a pattern, a descent from the full and perfect organisms into the spermazone and ovum, and in the dark womb, a like at first, inferior and kind to that of species which is being reproduced.

Then the slow ascent to the perfect embryo, to the living conscience baby, and finally to the adult.

So it is in our moral and emotional life. The first innocent and spontaneous desires have to submit or total denial.

But from that there is a re -ascent to fully formed character in which the strength of original material all operates but a new way.

There is a principle here. Listen to what he is talking about. Death and rebirth go down to go up.

It is a key principle. Through this bottleneck, this belittlement is the high road nearly always lies, which it always lies, end quote.

This is profound. If you think of the analogy that C .S. Lewis has given, it approaches the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

It is a central miracle of Christianity. It is the central miracle of Christianity, and it is the most wonderful of all things that God has ever did in the miracle of the incarnation.

What a great mystery it is. I thank God it is a mystery because we can worship before that mystery today and know that we cannot figure it out within our own intellect.

We worship before God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and we say,

Lord, so be it for your glory. We may not be able to understand it, and I thank

God we can't. It is profitable for us. And it is the grand theme, by the way, in which the

Apostle Paul lays out before us in these verses this morning. This text before us we have been looking at is no doubt one of the greatest in verses, especially in this book, this little epistle of joy that speaks of the humiliation of Jesus Christ, and also, let us not forget, it speaks of the exaltation of Jesus Christ too, because it speaks of Jesus being humbled to the lowest low, but Jesus is also exalted to the highest high.

There was none that went lower, and there was none that ever went higher, and there never will be.

Fully man, fully God. Or, as some theologians would rather say, like R .C.

Sproul, I agree, truly God and truly man.

Both is very relevant. It is very likely that these verses 6 -11 were a hymn of the early church, if you study this.

And isn't it wonderful to know that the early church would sing this? They would sing it as we were singing this morning,

Hark the Herald Angels Sing, a joy to the world, or as we will sing in closing and silent night, just the same.

It was a hymn of the early church. It's certainly the theme of all Christian faith.

It's bound up in this wonderful hymn, and it has basically two parts, and the first being the humiliation of Jesus Christ, and the second being the exaltation of Christ.

This morning our focus will be on the humiliation of Jesus Christ, verses 5 -8, in which we will look at.

Those are two great themes that always makes up the life and the ministry of Jesus Christ.

His humiliation, which incorporates

His sufferings, and also His exaltation, which incorporates the glory to follow, in which

Jesus prayed in John 17, to restore, that the

Father would restore basically the glory in which He had with Him before He came to this world, and took that long downward descent.

That's what Jesus prays. Restore that to Him. And God did. God did restore it.

Look, Christ is now exalted high in the heavens, with the saints worshiping

Him forever and ever, that He shall reign forever and ever and ever. The writer of Hebrews says of Christ that He endured the cross, despising the shame for the joy that was set before Him.

The joy. May we never forget about the joy that was set before Him. Jesus went to the cross knowing within His mind that the

Father would restore that joy back to Him, that He had with the Father. Christ understood

His sufferings in the light of His exaltation. And beloved, we must think of the same thing.

We must understand as a Christian, as we walk in this world, we must be humble and humble ourselves before God, but we also must understand that we have a cross too to bear, and we must also see the joy that is set before us.

Keep that in mind. And that will help you to be an overcomer in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ endured the pain and the sufferings, just not the physical pain of the cross, but the spiritual soul pain that He endured before Him.

He could see the joy that was before Him. And that was before Him, and now

He enjoys it. Forever. And so the Apostle Paul is showing us here both of the humiliation of Jesus Christ and the exaltation of Christ.

But you will remember also that his purpose here is not simply to detail the humiliation and exaltation of Christ, but to use this section as an illustration of a particular point.

What is that point? Notice verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

In other words, we are to have this attitude in ourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus.

He is the ultimate example. He is the perfect example. And then

Paul the Apostle even goes to describe Christ as humiliation and exaltation.

In other words, it has application. We not only see great deep theology here, we see practical application.

Rightly so. We should have this same mind, this same attitude, which was also in Christ Jesus.

What is this attitude? The attitude is actually of one of humiliation and humbling himself in order that one may be exalted.

Jesus said it. You must abase yourself before you are exalted.

If one exalts himself, he will be abased. But if you abase yourself, you humble yourself, you will be exalted.

That is the principle. One of the two. You know, that is the attitude.

We are to humble ourselves before God. And Scripture says God gives grace to the humble.

He resists the proud. So Paul begins by giving us the great example, or should

I say the greatest illustration of all, by pointing out to us the humiliation and the exaltation of Jesus Christ.

That is really what his focus, that is the heart of this chapter, because it focuses on Jesus Christ and who

He is and how He humbled Himself and how God exalted Him. That is the point.

Paul points out to Jesus' humiliation and then His exaltation.

So verse 5 connects to the exaltation found in verses 1 -4, which we have been looking at for the past two weeks, the past two

Lord's Days. Now we have the hymn. We go into the heart of this.

We have the hymn. Really what Paul is doing is addressing within the church of Philippi the pride that lies at the root of the

Philippian discord. In context, this little church in Philippi was having some discord.

And Paul basically is saying it is because of your pride. That is what he is saying.

And you see this in verse 27 in chapter 1.

Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or I am absent,

I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

That was Paul's concern. It should be every pastor's concern.

It should be every Christian's concern. But here within this hymn we have, and I like to call it the hymn of Christ, really.

Keep in mind that the early church was singing this at one time. Isn't that wonderful to think that?

They were literally just singing the Scriptures here, which Paul speaks of as the hymn of Christ.

They celebrated this great truth. They believed this great truth. They sung this great truth. They practiced this great truth.

And this great truth of Christ's humiliation and Christ's exaltation begins, like I said in verse 5, as one of the most significant statements of all

Scripture on the nature of the Incarnation. Verses 5 -8.

And the fact that God became man and through this wonderful description of Christ, Paul now vividly illustrates the principle of humility.

Boy, don't we need this in the church today, beloved. We need a good revival of humility.

True humility. God help us. God save us from ourselves.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. And we're going to look at which was also in Christ Jesus.

All godly action begins with renewing our mind. We see this constantly in Scripture.

Day by day we're to renew our mind. Why? Because right thinking produces right actions.

That's where it begins. The battles in the mind. That's the spiritual warfare.

Our actions are the fruit of our deepest thoughts. You know, thinking and being like Christ are requirements.

Not only for the individual, but also for the corporate body of believers. This is important.

And together, together in one spirit, one mind, in one accord, we need to think, we need to act like one being.

And how are we to act like and think like? Jesus Christ. And that's what Paul's getting to.

He says, Jesus is the one I set before you. So let's look at verse 6.

Let's begin with verse 6. I'm not going to finish all this, but we're going to just look a little into this great theology of the study of God, the study of Christ, the second person of the

Godhead. Who, being in the form of God, did not consider robbery to be equal with God?

Oh, that's just humility. Who, being in the form of God, did not consider robbery to be equal with God?

The question, who is Jesus Christ, still remains the single most important question to be answered.

Who is Jesus Christ? Matthew 16, 13,

Jesus Himself asked His disciples, who do men say that I am? The Son of Man, I am.

It's amazing, He threw that question out there first to lure them in to see what they were thinking.

They responded, well, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others say

Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Interesting, isn't it?

That Jesus first, He knew how to pull them in. And then, in verse 15,

Jesus gets right to the great question personally to them, what they think about who

Christ is. Isn't it beautiful? Jesus knew in a question form how to get to the very heart and the motive and the core of their thinking.

He said to them, but who do you say I am? That's the question we should ask every person.

Who do you say Jesus is? You want to know how people think about God and Jesus? Ask them that question.

And on behalf of the apostles, Simon Peter, which was really the head apostle, he was the spokesman, he answered this, he said,

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Beloved, that's the greatest answer

I think ever told because he did not think that up himself. Jesus answered him and said to him,

Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.

It was revelation. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. You did not learn this from men.

It came from heaven. Because Jesus underscores it. What does Jesus say? But my

Father who is in heaven. It came from the Father. It was a revelation of who

Jesus is. You are the Christ. You are the anointed one. You are the Messiah.

The Son of the living God. Peter's understanding has been given to him from above.

From above. Going beyond what he can discern of his own.

The great revelation did not come to him, like I said, of his own thinking, of his own intellect. Nor today do we sit here knowing who

Jesus really is comes to how smart we are. It is not of pride.

It is not of flesh. It is of the Spirit of God. It is of God and that should humble us.

It was revealed from the Father. Just as only the Son can reveal the Father, so only the Father can enable anyone to recognize the

Son's true identity. Who is Jesus Christ? You know, really, that's the question we should be asking people this time of year, all the time of the year.

But this is a window of opportunity as you go about in the marketplace.

I was telling Brother Keith this the other day and it really grieves me. You hear these songs. We were singing Hark the

Herald Angels Sing and hearing that great theology and it brings tears to my eyes and my heart overflows with joy.

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity. I hear that played about in the stories, don't you?

And then the next song comes, Frosty the Snowman, something that's irrelevant of Christmas. But when

I do hear those songs, I look about and I see people just not even paying a bit of attention.

And I'm sitting here thinking, Lord, thank you for giving me ears to hear. Not that I'm any better than these other people that's around here, but by your grace,

I understand what is being said in those words. And almost I want to cry out and stop and say, people, listen to this.

The Son of the living God. This is why we celebrate Christmas. Stop the frenzy.

Stop and meditate and worship. But of course, they're in darkness.

They need a light to shine among them, to see the true light. You know, who is

Jesus Christ? Who is Jesus? This is the first thing we have to confront in the statement of Scripture.

Who is Jesus? Oh, doesn't that humble you? When we begin to think

He is God? In flesh? Beloved, that's humbling.

Last night we went to a nativity, a live nativity. And the children went to see it.

And I love how they do live nativities. It helps us reflect of the birth, the humble birth of Jesus.

This particular girl was there, and I so badly wanted to give her the gospel, but I couldn't.

And I said, I couldn't because she was talking. She was a constant talk. And every time I tried to interrupt her, she just kept talking, kept talking.

It's like, isn't that the way the world is? They're talking so much they don't know how to shut up to listen.

And we need to do the same thing. Be swift to hear and slow to speak.

Paul's affirming that Jesus Christ here in this text, when it speaks that who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.

Did not consider it robbery. He speaks of His perfect essential being, beloved.

That's what he's talking about. His personhood. God is unchanging. God is immutable.

He is, in His nature, the very form of God. Speaking of Christ. He is

God. And you know something? This is something the Jehovah Witnesses will deny and come to you and tell you that Christ is not

God. That's why they're occult. That's why they're anti -Christ. That's why they're on their way to hell.

And they can talk about spiritual things all they want and even present to you the kingdom of God, but they don't understand who

Jesus is, and that makes them occult. And I'll tell you why. Because Jesus is

God. Beloved, think about this. This is why Jesus was hung on the cross.

Because of His claims of being equal with God. They said, oh no, it wasn't because of the great miracles.

We can carry... Oh yeah, He did great miracles and everything. But He claims to be equal with God.

He commits blasphemy. That's the reason why they hung Him on the cross.

That He is in the very likeness and express image of the Father. Now, that brings up a question before us as we look into this verse, as we worship our

God. And I pray this is a time of worship, and just not theological facts, but deep, profound study of God to understand who

Jesus is. The issue is, what does the word form mean? We need to understand this.

Form. Who being in the form of God.

Look at this. This is very important in Holy Scripture. As a matter of fact, the

Greek word is morphe. It always signifies a form which truly and fully expresses being.

You know, you hear R .C. Sproul talk about this a lot. We are becoming. Only God is being.

Because He's uncreated. We are created. We are creatures of the dirt. And this is what

Paul so wonderfully is going by the inspiration of the Spirit and the leading of the Spirit of God.

And he takes us right into who Jesus really is in His humiliation. He is being which underlies exactly the truth

He's given. It refers to an underlying reality and not to just the appearance only.

What do we mean by that? Jesus' being in the form of God means that He is divine and just as taking the form of a bond slave.

That's what He did. He not only emptied Himself, but He took something up. He took up a being of a servant.

A bond servant. The original Greek there is doulos. He was a bond slave.

You know, when Jesus came, He was borrowing constantly.

He who is God of the universe, when He became man and walked among us in the

Middle East, notice He even said that the foxes have holes, the birds have nests, but the

Son of Man has no place to lay His head. He was rich, became poor for our sake.

That we who are poor might become rich. Isn't that great? And Jesus took the form of a bond slave.

A bond slave that basically humbled Himself, embracing that identity in the incarnation that He took flesh.

He identified with us in flesh. Not in the sin of Adam because he was sinless, but the effects of flesh, you see.

He would cry. He would be a man of sorrows. He would hurt. He would understand that as we understand that.

He would take that upon Himself. He had pain. He understood pain. He understood hurt and loneliness.

Yet, without sin. It is the essential nature in the character of God that it was visible, it was manifest, and revealed.

And beloved, that's why Jesus answered Philip that day. The question came to Philip, and he comes to the

Lord, and he said, Lord, show us the Father, and it will be sufficient for us. What did

Jesus say to him? Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me,

Philip? Now, he's not saying he's the Father. He's saying he's

God. He said, he who has seen me has seen the

Father. See, there right there is a separate from the Son and the Father. If you see me, you've seen the

Father. Basically, what he's saying is, I am that exact representation, the reflection of the

Father. I'm not the Father, but I'm God. The Son, but I'm God. That's what he's saying.

And then what did Philip say? Show us the Father? Jesus said that.

How can you say, show us the Father? And the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father.

But what Jesus is saying, again, that the Father and I are what? One. Now, we don't understand all this, the mystery of the

Trinity, do we? But we do know that being one God and one

Lord, there are three persons. We believe that.

As a matter of fact, if you don't believe it, I don't believe you can be a Christian. Because the Trinity is seen all the way through the whole entire

Bible. Jesus was basically telling Philip that day that he is

God. That's what he was saying. He is deity. And that's what we're looking at in this chapter.

He is divine. He is deity. As the Nicene Creed puts it, quote, fully God and fully man.

One person, yet we're two natures. It goes on to say this, One Lord Jesus Christ, the only

Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God from true

God, begotten, not made. Of one being with the

Father, through Him all things were made for us and for our salvation. He came down from heaven, was incarnate of the

Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became fully human. That's exactly based upon Scripture.

If you want to read in your... Let's go to it. Let's look at Colossians 1. Chapter 1.

In the book of Colossians. If you want to go there. It's just the next book over. We're too close not to bypass this, right?

And I don't think we should bypass it because it's extremely important who we see, who

Jesus is. Notice verse 15 through 18. Verse 15 through 18. He is the image.

Notice what he says. He is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn over all creation.

And then he says, For by Him all things were created. Almost exactly what John says as Ben was reading this morning.

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

And then he says, All things were created through Him and for Him. This is Jesus. And He is before all things and in Him all things consist.

And don't you love this? This is the theme of redeeming grace church. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead and that in all things

He may have the preeminence. In other words, He is to have first place in all things.

Beloved, Jesus Christ is the essential very form of God Himself. That is to say, He is unalterably

God, unalterably God. He is God in His essence. He is unchangeable.

He is in His being. He is divine. And He can never change.

He would never change. Jesus Christ, that is what it says in Hebrews. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever.

So Paul is saying here that Jesus Christ exists as to His very nature in the unchanging character of God.

He has equality with God the Father also because He is God. He is God the

Son. And as fully being fully man, that is why

He describes Himself as the Son of Man. The Son of Man. We have been studying

R .C. Sproul and foundations on this and he talked about that, didn't he? He said that Jesus Christ used that title of Himself more than any other title.

The Son of Man. The Son of Man. Because He is fully man. Jesus Himself can say,

I and the Father are one. And He can say, you've seen Me, you've seen the

Father. Think of that. He is the Word made flesh.

He is the Word who created the world. As Brother Ben read in John 1 this morning.

He is the Word who was with God. He was the Word who is

God. He is the Word who became flesh. He is the Word, the Morphe of God, the form of God.

That is the wonder and the mystery of the Incarnation. The Apostle Paul says it very clearly in 1

Timothy 3 .16. Without controversy, and without controversy, there is no argument to it, in other words, great is the mystery of godliness.

God was manifested in the flesh. He was justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the

Gentiles, believed in the world, believed on the world, received up into glory. That's the

Word of God. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 1, Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible

God. You see that in Hebrews. Go with me to Hebrews 1.

Let's look at this. Isn't it wonderful? All the whole entire Bible is about Jesus Christ.

You understand that as a Christian, you start reading it from one page to another page, from one book to one book, and every verse you see

Jesus. Notice what he says. This is a supreme revelation of who

Jesus is. God, in verse 1 of Hebrews chapter 1, God who at various times, in various ways, spoke in time past from the fathers, by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom

He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, who being in the brightness of His glory, in the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power.

He upholds all things. All things is held up by Jesus. When He had

Himself purged our sins. Isn't that one of the greatest things He's done? He purged our sins. Sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

And for to which the angels did ever say, You are my son.

Today I have begotten you. He's quoting from Psalm. And again,

I will be to Him a father, and He shall be to me a son. But when

He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, let all the angels of God worship Him. And the angels,

He says, and of the angels, He says, who makes His angels, spirits, and ministers a flame of fire.

In verse 8, but to the Son He says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is a scepter of Your kingdom.

And you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your

God, has anointed you. He's the anointed one. With the oil of gladness more than your companions.

And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain. And they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak you will fold them up.

And they will be changed, but you are the same. Praise God. And your years will not fail.

Isn't that wonderful? It's all about Jesus. Well, Jesus is, in every sense, equal with God.

Well, let's go. The very form of God. He's equal with God. And He even refuses to cling to that equality.

Now, Jesus could have easily, when He was here in the world in His ministry,

He could have easily fell back on His deity. He even said, Don't you know that I have the authority to call 10 ,000 legions of angels to my side to rescue me?

All He could have done is just speak the word, and He could have been easily swept up into glory right there.

He didn't have to go to the cross, but He willingly went to the cross, because that was the will of the

Father. And that was one command that He came to do. He came to die in this world for sinners, for ruined sinners, but He died for God.

He died. He's the Lamb of God. We need to understand that. Jesus refused to cling to the privileges, in other words, to the rights that He had to go along with that equality with the

Father. It's hard for us to understand this. It's so beyond us. In other words,

He refuses to grasp, to cling to it, to clutch to it, to all the wonderful heavenly glories that He possessed, that He made.

He gives them all up. Now just think about that alone, beloved.

Isn't that a humbling thing? That Jesus gave up all the privileges and the rights, and He was not clinging to that.

But let me say this. He only gave it up for a season, because He got it back.

Glory. The incarnation begins with the unselfishness of Christ.

He voluntarily lays them all aside for our sake. That's what it means in 2

Corinthians 8 and 9. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's grace, actually.

That though He was rich, Scripture says, yet for your sake, for your sakes

He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

That's the gospel. It all began with Jesus being willing, willing in His love,

His great love, to let it go, to let all those divine privileges go, not

His deity, beloved. He didn't let that go, because He remains deity. But what

He did let go was all those privileges. See? And that's the way we should look at it as a

Christian. We give up the privileges for Jesus' sake, right? The privileges. They say

Amy Carmichael was a... I don't believe she ever married, but if you read her life story from Elizabeth Elliot, A Chance to Die, she was a very wealthy woman.

She came to a... In her time, very wealthy. Beloved, she gave every bit of that up and became a missionary to identify with poor

Indians. Isn't that wonderful? It's like, yes, she forsook all the privileges and the things of the world.

You know why? Number one, God called her to do that. It was a divine call. And what a testimony she gave.

They said even on her deathbed, they said when people came in there, she was not even thinking of herself.

And they said people could just see her glowing with the radiance of Christ upon her countenance.

Could you imagine you being that way on your deathbed? I believe Candace was the same way.

Because they see Christ. They see the true riches of glory. They don't see all the...

In other words, everything in this world was like trash, a dung heap. Because they've seen something greater.

You know, isn't that the way we should be as Christians? We see something greater. We're passing through this world for a short time.

We don't clutch to these things here and Jesus did not clutch to the divine privileges. He gave them up, became a body servant, a bond slave.

All that glory that He had with the Father before the world began and that He created, He gave them up.

The heavenly glory with the Father for a season, He did not clutch to that. All that glory.

Kind of like a robber, right? He let it go. He had it.

He made it. But He let it go. To come to this sin -cursed world, beloved, for our sake to redeem us from our sins.

Just not to save us from hell. I like what MacArthur says. That's a great benefit. It's a good one. I think that's a wonderful privilege and a benefit.

But the greatest why Jesus came is to save us from our sins. Look at verse 7.

We're not going to be able to get through all this but we'll try to touch it. But made Himself of no reputation.

This phrase could be translated, He emptied Himself. Jesus Christ emptied

Himself. Christ did this by taking on the form of a bond slave.

A mere man. And doing this, He did not empty Himself of any part of His essence as God as we already looked at.

But He, as doing that, He came in the likeness of a form of a bond slave coming in the likeness of man.

Now, again, understand this text that means that, but He made

Himself of no reputation. He emptied Himself does not mean that He emptied Himself of His deity. We need to understand that.

He did not exchange His godhood for manhood. No. He was deity but He was humanity.

You dwell on that for a little bit, you'll be on your face. Humanity is the great, and this is the great mystery of the

Incarnation, beloved, and it's a mystery. We don't understand that Jesus Christ being one person, two natures.

God -man. God, He's the God -man. That our Lord Jesus is one person, two natures, very

God of very God, very man of very man. He was not 50 -50, He was 100 -100 mingled together.

That's the best way I can put it. At times we read in Scripture that His glory was seen and witnessed by the apostles,

Matthew 7, Luke 7. The record of Scripture says that He took His disciples to a mountain, the

Mount of Olives. In one occasion it's almost like He pulled back

His human flesh just for a brief moment and the shining glory burst forth in blazing light and it was blinding.

And it's like that doesn't happen a lot but Jesus shows them a glimpse of that glory.

It's amazing. Peter, James and John witnessed this and that's why He says we beheld

Him, we saw Him, we handled Him, the very Word of life. They were there, they fell on their faces and they heard the voice of the

Father. Matter of fact, they were traumatized. Wow. Could you imagine being there?

You try to place yourself in the apostles' shoes by what they saw.

But what Paul is saying here, Jesus never exchanged

His deity for His humanity. He did not cease to be

God and never will cease to be God. He's always God, He always was God and always will be

God. Even hanging on the cross in the midst of suffering in the very moments when He was under the full judgment of the wrath of God taking upon Himself the sin of the world and bearing that sin and your sin and my sin taking the wrath of God He did not cease to be

God hanging on the cross. Man died.

Jesus died as a man for our sins. MacArthur said it like this, the issue is not that He divested

Himself of deity but that He did not demand His rights as deity. End quote.

Wow. Now beloved, there's the perfect humility right there. He laid aside the prerogatives when

He said to Pontius Pilate, He said, I have the power. In other words, and this is in the face of the governor,

Pontius Pilate. And Pilate was bragging, he was being arrogant. He said, don't you know I have the right to crucify you or not?

And Jesus basically answered. Many times He didn't answer but this time Jesus answered. He says,

I have the power, the right to lay my life down and I have the right to take it up again. Even when they came to arrest

Jesus and when Peter wanted to fight and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest,

Malchus, Jesus even said there, Do you think that I cannot now pray to my

Father and He would provide more than 12 legions of angels as I mentioned earlier? Wow.

He could have easily right there called them to stop the whole thing. But He went a little further.

Praise God. He went a little further. How then could the

Scriptures be fulfilled? How can the Scriptures be fulfilled? Jesus fulfilled every jot, tittle of the

Scriptures. Verse 8 Being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself.

Think of that. He humbled Himself. Became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Now, see how much time I got left here. My time is almost gone. Jesus humbled

Himself on the way of becoming a bond slave. This was the man of sorrows acquainted with our grief.

Again, MacArthur says, He was always borrowing. He had to borrow a place to be born.

He had to borrow a place to be born. He had to borrow, he said, to lay his head. He had to borrow a boat to ride in and to preach from.

He had to borrow an animal to ride in the city of Jerusalem. He had to borrow a room for the

Passover. He had to borrow a tomb to be buried in. And He is all people, as all people who ever lived, the one who had the greatest rights but waived them.

He goes on to say, He is the heir of David's throne. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. But He came to serve

His Father and those who were His Father's children by faith. End quote. Now think of that.

Jesus, the one whose God of the universe, was here among us, borrowing from the creatures in which

He made. Beloved, is that humbling? The very purpose of His coming, the very purpose of His incarnation, to die upon the cross, to seek and save the lost.

And yet, He humbled Himself. He humbled Himself in a manger.

And I like what MacArthur says here. I paraphrase this. But he says,

It wasn't the stench of the animals that was repulsive there. It was the stench of man's sin.

He was already humiliated when He lived as a child, as a young man.

He was already humiliated when He was born in the manger. Beloved, He took that all the way to the lowest humiliation when

He died naked upon a cross. He was already humiliated just being on the planet earth.

He was already humbled when He came down to heaven and left His throne of glory for us and to wash us from our sin.

He didn't have to. But He did it. He was humbled, but as far as it was going,

He went to the furthest point of humility to the death of a cross.

He did not come down from heaven and say, Look, that's as far as I'm going here. I'm here.

I'm not going any lower. That's it. No. Scripture says

He became obedient to the point of death. Think of that now for a second. He became obedient.

He had to learn as a man, yet He knew within Himself this was His purpose in life.

This was His mission. This was His command from the Father, was to die. We will never understand the depth of the cross and the sacrifice that Jesus really laid down for us.

He became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. That's why in heaven we will be singing, Worthy is the

Lamb that was slain, who is worthy to receive power and glory and thanksgiving.

And the sevenfold doxology that goes on, we will sing that forever and ever because that is our song.

His hour has come. He dies at the death of a cross. Jesus goes all the way to execution of a criminal's cross.

He died as a criminal. By the way, He was treated as a criminal. Now, I want you to think of this.

He didn't have to do this. He could have easily said by His word, Father, take me up now.

And it would have been justified and the Father would have done it. But no, He came to fulfill the

Father's will, to die on the cross to be the Lamb of God, to take your sin and my sin to the depths of the cross.

And He died the execution of a criminal's cross as thieves and slaves do.

I don't have time to get into the depth of this, but this is the most shocking feature of Christ's humiliation.

It was a crucifixion. No one had ever thought that this would be the way the

Messiah would come. And by the way, they didn't get it. They didn't understand it.

They thought all hope of their Messiah was gone because when they took Him to Calvary's cross to die, they hid themselves.

They thought it was over. Oh beloved, it wasn't over. It was just beginning.

It was just beginning. Jesus would do exactly what

He said He would do. They would crucify Him. He said sinners would crucify Him. But three days,

He said He would be buried and I will rise again. And He did. The Messiah would come and work out

His plan for His coming kingdom and this is the way He would do it through His death. Oh, crucifixion.

Don't you think about this for crucifixion in conclusion here. And I don't have time. Like I said,

I'm going to try to get the rest of this later on. Crucifixion was the most horrific way to die in that time period.

Nowadays, me and Brother Keith talks about this. We throw each other pictures about an electric chair.

You don't see people wearing an electric chair around their neck, right? But really, when you talk about a cross, it was the most horrible way to die in that period of time.

Crucifixion was, by the way, for the scum, for the thieves, for the riffraff, for the non -Roman citizens, for criminals.

Crucifixion was developed. It was perfected by the Persians. You could study this.

The Persians are the ones that invented this. The Romans basically picked it up in the form of execution.

It was as Christ, when He came in that time period in history, that He was in history, that Spartacus, who rebelled against the

Roman Empire, and what was left of his army, thousands and thousands were crucified.

Well, the Romans definitely picked this up, and it was the most painful, most humiliating, the most cruel way of form of death possible.

It was a slow death. It was not fast. It was basically when a person basically was nailed by hands and feet on the cross, a wooden cross, which then was dropped into a socket, ripping and tearing the flesh to pieces.

Sorry to be a little graphic there, but even words will pale if we actually were witnessing this morning, as we were sitting, to look at a person literally be crucified.

The body slumping and being held basically only by two wounds through the hands and the feet, usually nailed together with one nail, suffocating them.

And against the wounds in the feet, the victim hanging on the cross is pushing up, trying to catch his breath.

Most of the time the sun would be blazing hot. Mouth would be parched.

Great amount of blood loss, in which Jesus took after the cat of nine tails upon His flesh.

I was taking yesterday, I was thinking just a little bit about it, and I stay in shape by throwing thousands of pounds of milk per day.

And yesterday I was taking big pieces of wood from the storm we had from the bottom where it fell on our power line, and the

Georgia Power came and cut it down. I was taking chunks of logs as hard as I could up the hill to my place where I burn stuff.

And I'm telling you, just a small portion of where I was taking that just exhausted me.

And I thought, Lord, how did you take a huge cross up the hill after being lacerated and flesh and humiliated and without falling and passing out under it?

But Jesus took it all the way. He had some help because of His exhaustion.

I couldn't help but think of that when I was doing some labor yesterday. And then on top of that they mocked

Him and they put a crown of thorns, unthinkable, inhuman way to execute a people in that time period.

To crucify someone on a cross was the most unthinkable, humiliating thing that we can ever think of.

But yet Jesus chose to die this kind of death because in the plan of the eternal decree of God, it was planned and chosen and agreed upon in the covenant relationship before the world was ever laid.

Now folks, this is what I want to leave you with. This was in the mind and the plan of God. This brings us to a place of worship where the

Lamb of God was slain before, before the foundation of the world. That's what it means.

It was not applied yet. But in the eternal mind of God, the

Father, the Son, the Spirit, it was already planned. God knew that Adam would fall.

He knew our sins and yet He loved us still. The Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world.

Redemption will be applied in history and this is where it takes us. And Christ is humiliation.

This, beloved, was the great mission of the triune God. The first missionary is

God. To rescue ruined sinners like you and me.

Unworthy, stinking, sinful people.

And yet the Father would make this accomplished.

That's why Christ came, beloved, to seek and save the lost. Want to read a beautiful story about that?

The plan of redemption and God's redeeming love. Read Luke 15. He humbled

Himself. He became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. He who knew no sin became sin for us.

The just for the unjust was crucified for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

Beloved, that's what we should be telling people. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.

Let me close with this. I don't have a lot of application. I'd probably like to maybe get to this on application later on.

But go with me to one closing story because I'm already over my time.

Go to Luke chapter 2. And tell me if you do not see within the gospel here the recorded

Scriptures of Luke chapter 2 of the humility of Christ when

He came to this world in His incarnation. And I leave this with you.

I want you to think that He comes in great humility and this is what the

Word says. And I'd like to read in closing also

Thou didst lead, Thou thronged. But very quickly, listen to the Scripture. Now in verse 8, There were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. And Cain appeared to the shepherds first.

And they were greatly afraid. They were trembling. I would be too, wouldn't you? Then the angel said to them,

Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people.

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you.

You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. There is the great humiliation. And suddenly there was an angel with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising

God and saying, Glory to God in the highest. This is what they were singing. Glory to God in the highest.

And on earth peace, good will toward men. So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another,

Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the

Lord has made known to us. And they came with haste, they came with haste, and found

Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. And now when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this child.

And all those who heard it marveled at the things which were told them by the shepherds.

They were missionaries. They went out and told everybody. Verse 19, But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.

And then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen as it was told them.

We should be missionaries. As Brother Keith said, We are either a missionary or an imposter.

A true Christian is a missionary. Listen to these words as I close. Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown when thou camest to earth for me, but in Bethlehem's home was there found no room for thy holy nativity.

Heaven's arches rang when the heavens sang, proclaiming the royal decree, but of lowly birth didst thou come to earth in great humility.

The foxes found rest and the birds their nest in the shade of the forest tree, but thy couch was the sod,

O thou Son of God, in the deserts of Galilee. Thou camest,

O Lord, with the living word that thou shouldst set thy people free, but with mocking scorn and with crown of thorn they bore thee to Calvary.

When heavens shall ring and the angels sing at thy coming to victory, let thy voice call me home, saying,

Yet there is room, there is room at my side for thee.

My heart shall rejoice, Lord Jesus, when thou comest and callest for me.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time of worship. To just look at a few

Scriptures of thy holy word, of the great humility.

Father, the descending of your Son in the fullness of time, born under the law, in the fullness of time, born under the law,

He came. He lived. He was born. He lived.

He died. O Lord, today we thank you and we worship you that Emmanuel, God with us, is the meaning of Christmas to us.

Take away Jesus Christ. You've taken away everything. Taken away our hope.

Taken away everything that we live for. But now,

Father, we have this living hope that abides within us. May we be like missionaries blazing like the angels, ministers of fire to tell the world abroad there's good news.

The greatest news that they will ever hear. That Jesus Christ came to die for them, for sinners.

Unworthy sinners. May we take this message of the great, wonderful good news.

We rejoice in it this day. And thank you that Christ was born unto us.

Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen and amen.