The Humbled and Exalted Christ: Part 1

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Unity Through Humility: Part 2

Unity Through Humility: Part 2

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Saying that, I'd like to speak to you this morning about during this
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Christmas season as we approach to celebrate the birth of our
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Lord Jesus Christ from Philippians, Christ humble and exalted.
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In Philippians chapter 2, Christ's humility and exaltation is brought forth in clarity.
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So as we look at this, and from the book of Philippians chapter 2, this is known as the
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Epistle of Joy. The Epistle of Joy, this little brief letter is written by the hand of the
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Apostle Paul in a dungeon, a very cold dungeon, much colder than this building this morning, and very dark.
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He was in chains, but he knew that the Word of God was not bound. Apostle Paul, as so many people say, well, the
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Bible I reject because it's written by men, but it was written by men, but they were moved by the
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Holy Ghost. They were moved by the Holy Spirit. Small as it may be, this little epistle is jam -packed of the divine truth by the
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Holy Spirit of God. Keep in mind that this small epistle is one of the great portraits of our
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Lord Jesus Christ in Scripture. So chapter 2, beginning at verse 5,
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I'd like to begin this morning with verse 5 and read through verse 11. We've already pretty much, in the last past two
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Lord's days, we have looked at verse 1 to verse 4.
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Paul is speaking about unity within the church and how to have true unity through humility.
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And he's talking about unity within truth, the written truth, but not only the written truth, but the living truth, and that is the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Now he goes before, as his letter basically goes before the
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Philippian church, the believers will read this, and now he gives us the perfect model of humility.
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So here are the words of the living God. Beginning with verse 5, he says this,
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Have this way, this mind or attitude, way of thinking in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, also existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on a cross, therefore
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God also highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father. May God bless the reading of his word to our hearts this morning.
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Please bow with me in prayer. Our Father and our God, you have set, as Psalm 2 says, you have set your
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King, the Lord Jesus Christ, on your holy hill in Zion, and have glorified your beloved
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Son. Now Father, the choice is set before us, if we humble ourselves before your mighty hand, and kiss the
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Son, you will exalt us in due time. But Lord, if we refuse to kiss the
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Lord Jesus Christ, the Son will be ground to powder.
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Oh God, help us to see the seriousness of the word that you have for us this morning.
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Help us, dear Lord, to see the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ, the majesty.
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He who has humbled himself, you have exalted, you have glorified at your right hand, and now it makes intercession forever for his saints.
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Father, as the old hymn says, may we look full in his wonderful face, and then the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
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So Father, I pray, give us grace this morning to hear, to see, the hearts to perceive, to understand your word, your truth.
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Oh God, I know I cannot do justice to this text this morning, so I pray, Lord, your blessed
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Holy Spirit will do the work, be the interpreter for us, be the true teacher, and change us forever, and we ask this for your honor and glory in Jesus' name,
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I pray, Amen. Now the text before us this morning is no doubt one of the greatest portions of Scripture found in the
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Holy Bible that speaks of the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus Christ. It's very likely that verse 6 through 11 in this chapter was a hymn of praise to the early church.
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They sang this. We read it, but they sang it because it meant so much to them.
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And certainly the theme of all the Christian faith is summed up in this one wonderful hymn, this text in which we have seen that gives preeminence to Jesus Christ in all things.
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It basically has two parts to it. It's very simple, but it's profound. The first being the humiliation of Jesus Christ, and the second being the exaltation of Christ, His humiliation,
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His exaltation. It's summed up in that. So then this
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Lord's Day morning I would like to use these two parts basically that's found in verse...
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basically beginning with verse 5 to verse 11 as my heading. We will look at the humiliation of Jesus Christ first in today's message, and then
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I'll pick up with that Lord willing next Lord's Day and His humiliation to the point of death, to the death of the cross, and then we will look and gaze at His great exaltation, how the
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Father exalted Him, and how He rose again on high, and He has been glorified, and now
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He is forever the glorified Christ. He is exalted, and God has exalted
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His Son. Now the humiliation of Jesus Christ and the exaltation again are two great themes that make up, that sums up the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
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It sums up His sufferings, and it sums up the glory that followed
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His sufferings. May God help us this morning as we look into this great text, because beloved
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I'm telling you as I've been studying this this past week and the days in which I had to redeem the time and study this great text, it has such depth to it that I am profoundly,
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I have no words to tell you of the greatness of the person of Jesus Christ the more
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I study into His word, that as we look into His humiliation, all the way to His glorious exaltation, and as we think and contemplate on the person of who
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He is, and how great He is, and we're talking about folks, not another prophet or another person, we're talking about the second person of the
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Trinity that took on flesh, we're talking about the one that created all things.
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He created you, He created me, but not only in personhood, and He created you,
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He created all things, the universe. We exist for Him.
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Sin has blinded mankind from seeing this. And as we look into the depths of the person of Jesus Christ, and His person and His works, but we're going to look mainly at the person, it's humbling.
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It's humbling. I cannot have words enough to say. So may
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God help us as we look at this. Now the writer of Hebrews says this about Jesus, that He endured the cross, despising the shame for the joy that was set before Him.
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It's a great verse. And that's basically what the pattern in which God had for Christ.
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But first, there's always His humility. And He came from heaven, from glory, into the darkness of this world in which
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He created. But sin has darkened it. And He is the great light, isn't
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He? Isn't it? What it says, when the Messiah would come, He'd be a great light in great darkness.
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So Jesus Christ is that great light. Christ understood and experienced His sufferings in the light of His exaltation.
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He knew this. He endured the full weight of the cross before Him. And the reason why and how
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He could endure the cross is because He could see the joy that was set before Him.
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The exaltation. This is how He endured the cross. And this is how we will endure the cross.
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It's for the joy that is set before us. Paul is now going to uphold, or hold up,
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I should say, in the eyes of the Philippian believers, an example of the Lord Jesus Christ in both of His humiliation and His exaltation.
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Now keep in mind, this is a church that's been in great discord and is having a problem with unity.
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And He goes to Jesus Christ as the perfect model to uphold before the eyes of the
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Philippians. And I don't know about you, if this church was in discord and arguing and quarreling and having some issues, and then
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He gives an exhortation here of how to be an encouragement in Christ and any consolation of love, any fellowship of the
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Spirit, and any affection of compassion. He says, fulfill my joy that you think the same way by maintaining the same love, being united in spirit, and thinking of one purpose.
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Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain glory, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves.
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And then He goes to the example who lived that out, and that is
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Jesus Christ. And that's where we go.
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This is where we land. And at this point to this section of Scripture in chapter 2, and this is
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Paul gives this purpose and detail to Christ's humiliation and exaltation in this section as a perfect illustration of a practical point.
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Now keep in mind that when he's thinking of humility by the
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Holy Spirit, we're talking about perfect humility here. We're not talking about anything flawed in Jesus because in Jesus Christ there was no flaw whatsoever.
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Perfect. And then he begins in verse 5, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
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Basically, in the LSSB, have this way of thinking. It's an attitude.
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In yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. This is the foundation in which he begins before he unpacks everything about the person of Christ.
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What kind of attitude did Jesus exhibit? What characterized his behavior toward others?
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You ever think about that? Greg King put it this way. He described the bond and the attitude of the
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Lord Jesus Christ as a selfless mind. He also had a sacrificial mind.
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A servant mind. Selfless, selfless, sacrificial, servant.
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That's the way the Christian is to think. And Jesus, this is the way he lived this out in his days as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and in his perfect life as he fulfilled all righteousness.
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He lived that perfect life and he was the perfect model. And this is where Paul goes to. The Lord Jesus consistently thought of others.
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He never thought of himself, even to the point when he was praying in Gethsemane, the great drops of blood wasn't for his own.
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It was for us. It was for his people. Lord Jesus lived a perfect, holy life.
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In other words, this text basically speaks of his humiliation, exaltation, and it has personal application for us, by the way.
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And we should have this same mind, the same attitude, which was also in Christ Jesus.
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He's the master, isn't he? He's the Lord. He's our Lord. We are his slaves.
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We are his servants. We are his followers. And there should be no self -centeredness in our lives whatsoever.
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And that's why we are to take up our own cross. First of all, Jesus said, deny your own self and take up your own cross and follow him.
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Well, Jesus gave us the perfect example of humility. Scripture says, we are to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God so that he would exalt us in due time.
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Jesus says, everyone that humbles himself will be exalted, and he that exalts himself will be humbled.
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So here Jesus gives us the example. You see, the humiliation, the exaltation, that's the order in which
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God has. That's the lesson. That's the point. That's the attitude. That's the attitude.
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And the apostle begins by holding up the perfect model, an example of Christ's humiliation.
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Look at verse 5. So verse 5 again connects. It connects to the exhortations that's found in verse 1 -4, which we've already seen last
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Lord's Day. Now we come to the hymn of Christ, and this is the heart of it. So in essence, what
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Paul is doing here, he's directing and being moved by the Holy Spirit, and he's addressing the pride issue, the discord issue, that is among the
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Philippian believers. And keep in mind that pride is the very root of the discord. And after he brings this out, this section out, it literally destroys pride.
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It destroys it. It comes to the hymn of Christ, verse 6.
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Who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God? That's what the text says.
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Now what does that mean? Notice how he begins here. He says, who? You know, that's a very important word.
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Who? Who's he speaking of? Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ?
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Who is Jesus Christ? I believe that that question still remains the single most important question to be answered.
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Who is Christ? Peter, as you know, in Matthew 16, by the revelation of the
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Father, cried out and he said this to Christ. Christ says, who do you mean? He first begins by saying, who do men say that I am?
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And they answered. And he pulls them in into this. And they're thinking about this. Who do others say?
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Some Elijah. Some Jeremiah. Some John the Baptist. And then Jesus gets to the point. Who do you say that I am?
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Who do you say that I am? And Peter says, they are the Christ. The Son of the
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Living God. Thou art the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of the
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Living God. Jesus said, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. This is not something that you thought of,
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Peter. That came from a revelation from the Father. That's the confession of the church, folks.
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That Jesus Christ is the Christ. He's the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of the
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Living God. The first thing we have to confront in the statement of the Scripture here is that who is
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Jesus Christ? So Paul is going to affirm that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God.
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He's the Living God. He is the Christ. He's always been God and that He's perfect, essential being,
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His personhood, He's unchanging, immutable, unaltering. His nature is in the very form of God and that's what
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He says in the text. Now in saying that, He brings up the most important question in a sense here.
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We could say a question is the issue what does the word form mean? Now this is very important.
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Notice what He says. Although existing in the form of God. Let's look at this.
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What does that mean? This is a very important word. The Greek word basically means morphe.
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Morphe. It always signifies a form which truly and fully expresses being.
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It's His being. Which underlines it. It refers to underlying the reality and not the very appearance only of who
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Jesus is. That He is in the form of God.
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Notice in verse 7, He's the form, taking the form of a slave.
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A slave. A bond slave. The form, the morphe of God means that He is divine just as He's taken the form, the morphe, the bond slave,
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He's entailed by humbling Himself, embracing that identity in His incarnation when
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He was made flesh. This is deep waters, folks. We're talking about God who always existed.
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The one great God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Three persons.
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But we're talking about the second person of the Trinity. That's God. And then
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He comes in the incarnation and is made flesh. A great descent of humiliation here.
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It is the essential nature and the character of God that is visible, manifest, and revealed in all that who
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Jesus Christ is. And that's why He says, who, although existing in the form of God.
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You know, if you remember, I believe it's in John chapter 14 as Jesus answered
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Philip's question. And Philip's question was this, Lord, show us the
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Father and it will be sufficient for us. And Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long and yet you have not known
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Me, Philip? He who has seen Me, Jesus said, has seen the
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Father. So how can you say, show us the
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Father? You remember what the Scripture says earlier in Matthew, it says,
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Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus is Godded with us.
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He's the second person of the Trinity that left and sent by the Father to the world for a mission.
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So the Father is not the Son, by the way. The modalists basically believe this.
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This is, by the way, the Oneness Pentecostals that basically believes that Jesus is the
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Father and He's the Holy Spirit. That's erroneous. That's heresy. He's the second person.
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Even though He's God, He's the second person of the Trinity. He's not the first and He's not the third person.
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He's the second person of the Trinity. I know it's a mystery but, and He's God.
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So the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father as the modalists believe and those who are the
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Oneness Pentecostals reject that. But what Jesus was saying to Philip is
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He is, He and the Father are one. That's what He's saying. The Father is
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God and Jesus, the Son is God and the Holy Person, I'm sorry, the
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Holy Spirit is God. We talk about the Trinity here. It's, again, a great mystery but He's deity.
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He's divine. Let me give you some, let me give you a little something that the early church fathers put together from the
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Nicene Creed that was absolutely critical because this heresy that was going around at that time and it's still around as I just mentioned to you from the
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Oneness Pentecostals, the modalists, that was back in that day. And they had to attack it and the
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Nicene Creed, they had to formulate a creed from the scriptures to combat this erroneous teaching of who
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Jesus is and how they believed Jesus was. Listen to what the
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Nicene Creed says. It's fully God and fully man. Jesus Christ was in the form, the morphe of God.
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So He's His very essence. So we learn that He existed from all eternity as God.
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More to say on the Nicene Creed in a minute. So it does not mean that He merely resembled
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God. Don't think of that. He's just not the resemblance of God but again, He is actually God in flesh.
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He's the express image of God. And in the truest sense of the word, Jesus Christ is one person yet He's the only person, by the way, that has two natures.
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And that's what we must keep in mind. One Lord Jesus Christ, as the Creed says, the only
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Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one being with the
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Father. Through Him all things were made for us and our salvation.
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It goes on to say He came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became fully human.
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That's the Creed. And that's based upon Scripture. So the Nicene Creed says that and in case you wonder where our early church fathers gets this, it's basically from the
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Scriptures, Colossians. Listen to Colossians chapter 1 verse 15 to 18, which he says, the
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Apostle Paul once again says, He, speaking of Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for by Him all things were created that are in heaven, that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether there be thrones or dominions, principalities or powers.
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All things were created through Him and for Him and He is before all things and in Him all things consist.
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And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning of the firstborn from the dead and that in all things
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He may have the preeminence. That means He is to have first place.
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Praise God. Praise His name. Because He is, in all things,
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He is Lord. Right? Notice how many times He says all things. All things were created.
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All things were created through Him, for Him, before all things and in Him all things consist.
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All things. All things. Jesus Christ is the essential, very form of God Himself.
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So Paul is saying here that Jesus Christ exists to His very nature in the unchanging character of God.
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It's great. This is an incredible theology. But He's equally with God, one with God.
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He's always one with the Father. So Jesus Himself can say that He did in John 17, that I and the
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Father are one. We're one. Why is Paul bringing this out?
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There's unity in the church. Or disunity. Or should
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I say, He's bringing back unity. This is the way unity is to happen.
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Disunity in the church, but unification comes through Jesus Christ. He's the
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Lord of the church. And He could say, Jesus said, you've seen
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Me, you've seen the Father. He's the Word. He's the Logos. He's created the world.
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He is the Word. He was with God. And the Word was
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God. He's the Morphe. He's the form of God. Beloved, that's the wonder and the mystery of the
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Incarnation, is it not? And that's what we look at Christmastime. That's what we need to teach our children.
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Who is Jesus? 1 Timothy 3 .16 says it without controversy.
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Great is the mystery of Godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the
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Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in the glory. Did you see that?
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Did you see the pattern? Did you see the order? Great is the mystery of Godliness.
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God was manifest in the flesh. He comes in the flesh. He descends.
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He humbles Himself. He's born in a feeding trough, in a manger. Then eventually
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He goes to the cross. And it's not upward, it's downward. Then it's upward.
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He's received up in glory. Beloved, that's what the writer of Hebrews says, that Jesus is the express image of the invisible
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God, verse 6. And that where Paul starts, as the foundation is laid for what true humility really looks like.
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And from the glorious presentation of the deity of Jesus Christ, now the apostle begins to track that mystery of the incarnation of Christ.
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There's a tracking here. He establishes that Christ is God in verse 6, and then
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Scripture so clearly says, in many places in the Bible, that as verse 6 says, who being in the form of God, He did not consider it robbery.
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He did not consider it robbery, or regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.
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Robbery to be equal with God. Why? Because He is God. He is
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God. Even though Jesus Christ is God, and being in the form of God, and His nature and essence, then
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He says, He did not consider it robbery. I want you to think about this. Something to be held on to be equal.
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He did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped. He did not regard equality with God.
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But here is the great plunge, beloved. Here is when we begin to see the condescension to take place.
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Right here, it is of utmost importance, I should say, to distinguish between personal and positional equality with God.
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This is so important. As to His person, Christ always was.
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He always will be equal with God. But it would be impossible for Him to give that up, but positionally equal, equality is different.
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This is what we must understand. From all eternity, Christ positionally was equal with the
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Father. Enjoying the glories of heaven that He made.
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The same authority. Because He is God, right? He is the Word. He is the
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Logos. But the word here, grasp, helps us. It is an important word because it basically means that Christ did not consider this position something that He had to hold on to at all costs.
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When a world of lost mankind needed to be redeemed, He was willing to relinquish, that means to give up,
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His personal rights, His positional equality with God. All the comforts and the joys of heaven,
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He did not consider them something to be grasped. In other words, He did not cling to it.
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He did not hold on to it, but He let it go. Folks, we're talking about the
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One that created all of it. And yet, He says, I'm going to let, we haven't even seen how glory looks like.
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It's so awesome. And even from the words of Scripture, Paul said, when he had a vision of it, he says,
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I came back and I saw the third heavens. And he says, he was so humbled by it, he says it like this, it's even so great, it was unlawful for me to even utter it.
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He did not have the words. Jesus created all of it.
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We're not talking about an angelic being, folks. We're talking about the Creator. He left it all behind for one purpose.
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First of all, the first purpose was for the glory of God. The second purpose was for your eternal redemption.
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Our salvation. He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.
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Jesus did not grasp all the glories of heaven, all the privileges he enjoyed, though he created all of it, did not consider it robbery.
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For example, let me give you an example here. It's a little example, but it helps us a little bit.
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A robber. When a thief comes, what does a thief do? He doesn't tell you when he comes, and he sure doesn't give you a telegram when he's coming in to break in your house.
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I had this happen when I was a child. We had no idea that a thief was going to come and rob us, basically after some weapons, expensive weapons my father had.
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We had no idea. My mom and I went to town. We came back, and the whole house was ransacked. Turned upside down.
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But that robber didn't give us a telegram when he was coming. He came in, and what were they doing? They were grasping for things they wanted.
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Right? That's what a robber does. That's what a thief does. He runs in, he grabs, he grasps, he runs, he clutches, and he steals the treasures.
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Came to mean something he clutched to, something he held tightly to, because it starts out with the robber who's hanging on tightly to whatever he's after, and he steals.
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Right? Because he's very greedy, and that's what he wants, and he figures he's going to get it.
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And they get it. Well, Jesus Christ, that's an example. Jesus Christ is being in the form of God, and equal with God, refuses to cling or grasp to all that He created.
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He did not consider it robbery to clutch to it, to cling to it, to that equality.
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He refuses to cling to the privileges, the rights, that go along with the equality.
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Jesus refuses to grasp it and clutch it. All the glory, the glorious realities that He created.
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He lets it go. He gives it up. And keep this in mind, He gives it up for a season.
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Because He goes back to it. That's where He's at now, right? He's at the right hand of the Father. He's back to what?
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But He made a full circle, and now He's there in flesh glorified, in a glorified body, representing
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His people, making intercession. He's praying on the right hand of the
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Father. Here's a great verse Paul gives, speaking of the incarnation, it begins with the unselfishness of Christ, how
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He volunteered, lays down aside, and lays aside all the privileges, aside all those glories, for our sake.
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2 Corinthians 8 and 9 says this, For you know the grace of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.
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Wow, did you hear that? You know the grace, that's what made it happen, is
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God's grace. God is rich in mercy, He's rich in grace, grace of God, the grace of our
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Lord Jesus, that though He was rich, He made the glories of heaven, He owns it all.
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I would say Jesus is the richest of all, isn't He? He is the treasure, but yet all that He created,
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He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.
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We'll look at that later in closing. But it all begins with Jesus in His love and grace, being willing to let go of all the glories of heaven that He had with the
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Father for a season. He did not clutch or grasp to that glory like a robber would, but He let it go, to come to this dark, sin -cursed world to redeem a people for Himself, so that He would have a people to worship
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Him and love Him for His very own, all for the glory of God, and that's where Paul goes, it's all for the glory of God.
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It's God's glory, it's not about us, it's about Christ, it's about what Christ has accomplished.
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Verse 7, But made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond slave and coming in the likeness of men.
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Listen to that. Literal translation here is, but He emptied Himself. The question immediately arises now, of what did the
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Lord Jesus Christ empty Himself? That's a great question. What did He empty
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Himself of? The word empty Himself basically is the Greek word that comes to the theological word, kenosis.
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It means, kenosis basically means, it's the doctrine of Christ's self -emptying in the incarnation.
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In answering this question, one must use great, great care, beloved. And for the reason that there are so many different interpretations on this.
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Many human attempts to define what it means that Christ emptying has often ended up by stripping
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Christ of His attributes of His deity. Some say, for instance, that when the
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Lord Jesus Christ was on earth, He no longer had all knowledge, all power. Even some say,
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He was subject to the limitations of all men and that He became liable to error. He accepted common opinions and myths of His day.
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That's what some say about the self -emptying. But these opinions of men were utterly, we deny, beloved.
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And I'm going to tell you why. I say this based on the Word of God, the authority of God's Word, that the Lord Jesus did not lay aside any of His attributes of God when
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He came into this world in the sense of what it means that, again,
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He did not empty Himself of His deity. He was still divine. He's God.
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In other words, He did not exchange His Godhood for manhood. He's the
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God -man. Again, Jesus has two natures. And He's the only one that has two natures.
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That's why He is the most important person in all of history. And without Jesus Christ, and this is why
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Jesus said this, it's an absolute truth, and we must tell people this. He says,
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I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Me. Religion don't get us to heaven.
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Coming to church doesn't get us to heaven. By turning over a new leaf doesn't get us to heaven. Our good works doesn't get us to heaven.
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It's the works of Jesus. It's the person of Christ. That's why Christ, He says, without Me, you do not get to heaven.
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He is the only way. And people don't like hearing that. And especially in our day, when people say, well, this religion gets us to God, this religion gets us to God, we deny that.
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Only one way to heaven. He's not the best way. He's the only way. And when you tell people that, they buck up against it, and they say, that cannot be.
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It must be other ways. But I'm telling you, it's without Jesus Christ. If we don't believe in Jesus Christ, if we don't repent of our sin, and come to Him, and trust
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Him as the only Savior and Lord, you perish. People don't like to hear that.
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But He is the only way. Actually, the great mystery of the incarnation of Christ is that our
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Lord Jesus is that one person with two natures. As the creed once again says, very
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God, a very God, and very man, a very man. In other words, I'll paraphrase it in my own words, not 50 -50,
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He's 100 -100. Again, the self -emptying of Christ is that He emptied
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Himself of His positional equality with God the Father. In other words, the glory was veiled, the deity.
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At times you read in the Gospels that it's held back. But there was one time on the
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Mount of Transfiguration it was bursting out, and the apostles,
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Peter, James, and John was there, and they saw it, and they beheld it. And that's the way it's going to be when
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He comes back again, and you're going to see Him in all power and in all glory as He comes back with all the holy angels.
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Pastor John MacArthur says this about the kenosis. He says this, the doctrine of Christ's self -emptying in His incarnation, quote, this was a self -renunciation, he says, not an emptying of Himself of deity nor an exchange of deity for humanity.
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Jesus did, however, renounce or set aside His privileges as laying that aside, end quote.
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Now, I used an outline that he has, and I'm going to use it here as an application.
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I think it's really wonderful, and it'll help us all here how to apply this. What is it in His privileges, and what did
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He set aside? Let's look at it. The first thing that we see that He did set aside is
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His heavenly glory. His heavenly glories. His heavenly glory.
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He set this aside. While on earth, He gave up the glory of a face -to -face relationship with God the
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Father. Continuous, outward display of a personal enjoyment of that glory which
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He had with the Father. What does it say in John 17, 5? He prays to the Father, and He says this,
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And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
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Right there. He's basically making a proclamation in His prayer.
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He shared that glory with the Father. He gave that up. He gave it up.
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The second thing He gives up is He lays aside, for a season, is that He had
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His independent authority. He lays aside His independent authority. During His incarnation, Christ completely submitted
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Himself to the will of God, to His Father. Right? What does it say in Matthew 26, 39?
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As He went a little further, He fell on His face in the Garden of Gethsemane, by the way, and He prayed, saying, O my
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Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thy will.
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The will of God. The will of the Father. The will of the Father. John 5, 30 says this,
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I can of Myself, Jesus says it, I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the
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Father who sent Me. Hebrews 5, 8 says, Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience.
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Let's underscore that. He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And in verse 9, it goes on to say, and having been perfected,
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He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey
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Him. Obedience to His will. So Christ did not need to suffer in order to conquer or to correct any disobedience.
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MacArthur says right here, in His deity, His Son of God, He understood obedience completely.
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And as the incarnate Lord, He goes on to say, He humbled Himself to learn. He learned obedience for the same reason
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He bore temptation. To confirm His humanity, experience the sufferings,
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MacArthur says, to the fullest. Christ's obedience was also necessary that He could fulfill all righteousness in Matthew 3 .15
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and thus prove to be the perfect sacrifice to take the place of sinners. And He was perfectly righteous, the righteous one whose righteousness would be imputed to sinners.
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The third thing that we see that He laid aside is His divine prerogatives.
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He set aside the voluntary display of divine attributes. He submitted Himself to His Father and to the
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Spirit's direction. Remember at the baptism, He was, the
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Father spoke from Heaven, said, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And then the Holy Spirit comes upon Him in what?
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A form of a dove. He's filled with the Spirit of God. There you have the Father speaking from Heaven, the
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Son submitting to the will of the Father, then the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in the form of a dove.
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Then He goes into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And actually, the Spirit drives
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Him in the wilderness. He set aside and He voluntarily displayed of all
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His divine attributes, submitted Himself to the Spirit's direction. Matthew 24, 36, but of that day and hour no one knows and even the angels of Heaven, not even the angels of Heaven, but my
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Father only. At that time, He was on Earth. He did not know that, but now
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He knows that, right? Me and Brother Ben was talking about that the other day. And it's important for us to understand.
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So Jesus sets aside those divine prerogatives. What else does
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He set aside? Fourth, He sets aside His eternal riches.
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His eternal riches. We looked briefly at that earlier, but while on Earth Christ was poor,
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He owned very little. Again, 2 Corinthians 8, 9, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake
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He became poor, that through His poverty you might become rich.
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Isn't that great? Though He was rich, a reference there to the eternity, the preexistence of Christ, second person of the
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Trinity, Christ is as rich as God is rich, because He is God. He owns it all.
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He possesses it all. He has all authority, all power, all sovereignty, all glory, all honor and majesty.
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He lays that aside for our sake. Isn't that wonderful?
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Do you see that this is not something we do in our salvation? This is something
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Christ has done. And isn't that where Christ and what He's done in Christianity has set
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Christianity totally apart from all the religions of the world.
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Because religions of the world will tell you this lie. It's something you have to do to get to Heaven.
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But Christianity says it's something God has done through Jesus. And we receive it by faith and believe it and trust.
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And beloved, I'm telling you, it doesn't just stay there. It goes to obedient faith. And it goes to changing faith.
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And it goes to sanctifying faith. And it's living faith. And it's dynamic faith. And it forever changes us.
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It's just not a doctrine that's in our head. It's something that transforms our lives. He became poor.
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Think of that. So that we might become rich in Christ. You know the prosperity gospel of the
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Word of Faith movement takes that and literally talks about, oh yeah, Jesus forsook all that and came into this poverty so we could be rich and have big houses and homes.
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And notice where their mind is. On earthly things? God help them.
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Jesus says where your heart is your treasure will be also. And that's where their treasure is. And that's why they're false teachers.
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And that's why they're wolves in sheep's clothing. Because they love money and they love the praises of men.
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And it's all about them, beloved. But it's not about Jesus as far as it's concerned. And they may say Jesus but they got another
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Jesus. It's not the Jesus of the Bible. Because the Jesus of the
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Bible is the way of the cross and the way of suffering. And they don't preach that. You see,
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He left, He took on human form. Jesus died on a cross like a common criminal. Why? Profound question, isn't it?
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That you might become rich. That you through His poverty might become rich. Believers become spiritually rich.
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What are we rich in? We're rich in salvation. We're rich in forgiveness. We're rich in joy. We're rich in peace.
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You can be the poorest pauper on this earth and if you have Christ, you got it all. Because if you have
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Him, you're rich in joy, peace, glory, honor, majesty, and awe. And you're heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
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And you may be poor on this earth but you got all the riches of heaven in Jesus. You're a rich man. You're a rich lady.
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The last thing that we see that He laid aside is His favorable relationship with God. His favorable relationship with God.
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Jesus felt the Father's wrath for human sin. And here's a great verse here, folks. And you've heard this, you that know
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Redeeming Grace Church, we love this verse, don't we? 2 Corinthians 5 .21 Here you have the gospel basically in 17 words.
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For He made Himself who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
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Fifteen Greek words. I say seventeen. I'm sorry. Fifteen Greek words. Expressed the doctrines of imputation and substitution.
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Sounds like big words but Jesus took our place. That's the gospel. He took our place. He was to substitute.
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He took your place because it was you and I that deserved to die and go to hell and suffer the wrath of God but Jesus took our place on Calvary's cross and took the wrath of God.
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He took it for you and me and that which we deserve. And a lot of people don't like to hear this but actually if you look at people and honestly and say we all deserve hell.
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We do not deserve heaven. And if anybody were to say yeah, if there's something good in me that I could get to heaven with that person does not understand the gospel whatsoever.
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And they have actually opened their mouth and proved that they're lost. Because when you're found and when you're saved and when you're a true believer you understand that you deserve the wrath of God.
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Oh my. Well, what does it mean? That he knew no sin he to be sin.
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The God the Father used in the principle of imputation here means to reckon it. To count it done.
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That's the heart of the gospel. The doctrine of justification by faith alone whereby God, the almighty
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God declares the repentant sinner notice what I said there the repentant sinner as one believes and trusts in Jesus Christ that Christ becomes his righteousness
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Christ takes our sin he washes it away and you have now accounted in your credit to you the righteousness of Christ.
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Isn't that glorious? He covers you. He covers you.
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He covers you. He covers you. He hides you in Christ. And folks,
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I'm telling you that if we're not hidden in Christ on the day of judgment the wrath of God is going to fall and the fire is going to fall and we will perish with the righteousness of Jesus Christ we're dressed in.
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The moment the sinner the repentant sinner places his wholehearted living faith active faith in Jesus Christ alone in his sacrificial death that's imputation.
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That's imputation. God treated Christ as if he were a sinner. That's what
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Spurgeon said. A substitute. The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world to pay that awful debt.
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You see the more we see this in the gospel the more that we see we're guilty sinners we deserve to die.
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There had to be a payment, folks. God will always pay that.
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Why? Why? Because he's just. He's holy. On the cross
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Jesus did not become a sinner, by the way. As some people would suggest. He remained as holy as ever.
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But God the Father treated him as if he were guilty of all the sins ever committed.
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Wow. Listen to that. Though he committed none whatsoever. It was your sin. My sin.
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All the filth of the world. All that pornography. All that trash. All that lust.
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All that anger. All the sin. Jesus took it upon himself. Then the
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Father crushes him. The Father bruised him.
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Doesn't that show us how much a holy God hates sin? Yes. Spurgeon so wonderfully said.
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I love this. He said, I can sum up my theology in four words. Jesus died for me.
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Can I get amen? Jesus died for me.
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That's a seal of. Listen to that. This is what this Bible is all about folks.
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From Genesis to Revelation. It's all about Christ. And how he humbled himself. Notice the righteousness of God in him.
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Justification by faith alone. Imputation. Notice the thief on the cross. That's how he was justified.
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He had no good works. He couldn't get down from that cross and do anything.
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But he was justified. And the man that justified him was the just one right next to him.
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As the other one was rejecting him. This one thief says. He turns to Christ and he says,
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Lord. Lord. Lord. He calls him Lord. Remember me when you come into your kingdom.
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Jesus assured him. This day you will be with me in paradise. Isn't that great?
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J .C. Rowell says that is the comfort of the dying believer on his death bed.
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Justified. Righteousness is God's righteousness. Christ's righteousness is credit to the believer on account of the very righteousness of Jesus Christ.
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God's beloved Son. The gift of God is to believing and to the repentant sinner as He treated
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Him. God treated Christ as if He were a sinner. But yet He wasn't a sinner.
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So believers who have not yet been made righteous until glorification are treated as if they were righteous.
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It's the great exchange, isn't it? It's the great exchange. God treated Christ as if He committed the believer's sin and treats believers as if they did not only the perfect righteous deeds of the sinless
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Son of God. Isn't that incredible? If you are in Christ today, God looks down at you and you see you're not condemned.
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You're righteous. He sees His Son. He sees the blood. And that's all that's going to matter on the day that you and I leave this earth, beloved, and we stand before a holy
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God. Does He see the blood? And if He sees the blood, He will pass over you.
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Death can't touch you because you've already died in Christ. Isn't that glorious?
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The fear of death is taken away. Look at verse 7. But He made Himself with no reputation, taking the form of a bond slave, coming in the likeness of man.
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And He became... See, the God -man became... He was fully God, fully man, but He never exchanged deity again for humanity.
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He's both. Much to be said. Very moments when
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He was crushed by God the Father, under the full judgment of the wrath of God, taking upon Himself the sin of the world, bearing that sin as the
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Lamb of God, He never ceased to be God. Isn't that glorious?
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He laid aside all those prerogatives freely and willingly. What wonderful love is this?
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What wonderful love is this? Look very quickly at verse 8.
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"...being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross."
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We're going to pick up on this, Lord's Day next week, God willing.
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But He comes as a bond slave. He humbles Himself, becomes obedient to the point of death, from the manger to the cross.
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I do have one more quote by MacArthur, and I love this, and I couldn't help but write this down.
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But let this bless you. He says this about Christ's humiliation.
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He said He was always borrowing. Always borrowing. He had to borrow a place to be born.
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He had to borrow... He said He had to lay a place to lay
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His head. He had to borrow a boat to ride in, to preach from. He had to borrow an animal to ride on in the city of Jerusalem.
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He had to borrow a room for the Passover. He had to borrow a tomb to be buried in.
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He is all people that ever lived, the one who had the greatest rights, but waived them.
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He is the heir of David's throne, and He is the King of all kings, and Lord of all lords. But He came to serve
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His Father and those who were His Father's children by faith. Wonderful.
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The very purpose of His coming in the Incarnation was to die on the cross of Calvary, folks.
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And that was His passion. He came to seek and save the lost. If you're lost here this morning, if you don't know
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Jesus Christ, the good news is He came for you. He's already humiliated when
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He came when He was born. Then He humbles Himself, even to the point of death, to the death of the cross.
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He came from heaven, left the glory and the throne of glory. And how humbling is this?
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And His humiliation, He even goes further, even after He was born in a manger, in a feeding trough.
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King of all kings, Lord of all lords. And think of this, how far does He go? He goes to the point of humiliation,
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He became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Jesus goes all the way to the criminal's cross of execution.
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For thieves, for sinners. That's the most shocking thing, isn't it? And no one would have ever thought that this
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King of glory, the Messiah, the Anointed One, would come and go to a cross.
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Crucifixion, the most horrific way to die, a slow death on shame, naked, nailed to a cross, was really for the scum of the earth, the riffraff, the criminals, the thieves.
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And let me close with this. Go with me to 1 Corinthians 2. I want you to see this.
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The Apostle Paul speaks about the Christ. And listen to how he comes to the church and he speaks and he says this,
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When I came to you brothers, I did not come with superiority of words or wisdom, proclaiming to you the witness of God, the testimony of God.
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And then he says in verse 2, I determined not to know anything, nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my words and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the
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Spirit and power, so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
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Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature of wisdom, however, not of this age, who are being abolished, but we speak
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God's wisdom in a mystery. The wisdom which was hidden, been hidden, which God predestined before ages to our glory, which none of the rulers of this age has understood, for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the
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Lord of glory. And just as it is written, Things which eye has not seen or ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love
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Him. But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
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And listen to this question, for among men knows the depths of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him.
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We can't know those things, right? And he says this, even so the depths of God no one knows, except the
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Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God.
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Of which depths we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the
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Spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words. But the natural man does not accept the depths of the
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Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined.
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But he who is spiritual examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one.
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And then he says this, but who has known the mind of the Lord, that He would direct him?
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And then he says this, the answer, but we have the mind of Christ. And isn't that what he said in Philippians 2?
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Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Beloved, my exhortation to you, if you have not come to the point, if you have repented of your sin,
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Scripture makes it very clear, if you repent, you will not perish.
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But you must repent, or you will perish. The way of not perishing is repenting, believing the
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Gospel, trusting in Jesus. The kingdom of God, the time is fulfilled,
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Jesus said. And saying the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. In other words, when Jesus arrived on this earth, the time was at hand, the last days.
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Now He's coming back soon. And there's going to be a judgment. That is,
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I guarantee you, that by the authority of God's Word, it's going to happen. A lot of people out there may say, no judgment, that's what they said in Noah's day.
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Then God washed the whole entire world away, and only just a few were saved, in what?
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The ark. Jesus Christ is that ark of safety from the judgment of God.
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Make sure you're in the ark. Make sure that you're in Christ. Make sure that you have repented of your sin.
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Make sure you have believed in Christ. Repent, or likewise perish.
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That's the exhortation, beloved. That's the exhortation. Jesus says, come unto me and take my yoke upon you.
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Rest. I will give you soul rest. I will give you soul rest, for I am meek and lowly in heart.
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Amen? Jesus is the one that we go to. Fly to Him.
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Let's pray. Our Father, and our great God, how deep is
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Your love. How deep. How great. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus.
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Lord, it's beyond the depths. We cannot even grasp this unless the
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Spirit of God applies it to our minds. As you said, Lord, He who is spiritual discerns all things.
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He examines all things. He Himself is examined by no one.
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But, Lord, the Spirit opens up our eyes to see these great depths.
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Father, we praise You. We thank You and give You glory for bridging that great gulf, that great chasm that separated us, that separated our sins, that separated us between You, us and You.
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Thank You, Father, for bridging it through the blood of the cross, bringing reconciliation through the blood of Your Son, Your dear
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Son, through the cross in which He endured for the joy that was set before Him.
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Now, Lord, may we take courage today in Jesus Christ and His great example in dying in His humiliation for our sins, taking them on the cross, burying them in the sea of forgiveness, rising again for our justification.
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All of our hope is resting in what He has done and who He is. All of our hope of eternal life is in Him and Him alone.
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Lord, this is where we come to. On Christ, the solid rock we stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
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Thank You, Father, for Your unspeakable gift. We praise You, glorify You, honor You, bless
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You, for You are worthy. We pray this in Jesus' name.