The Self-Humbling Servant (Philippians 2:3-11)

Kootenai Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

please turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter two. This is a bit of a longer passage than we might typically take, but taking in the full panorama, the full spectrum of what the

00:13

Apostle Paul is intending at here is gonna require us to step back and consider a bit of a larger passage than we might normally look at.

00:21

Our focus in recent weeks has been on the example of Jesus in his humanity, in his faith, his response to unjust suffering and affliction, his endurance and his reason for enduring.

00:32

And time and again in the last several weeks, my mind has been coming back to Philippians chapter two as I've thought about this and meditated upon it because in many ways there's a lot of overlap.

00:41

So this is going to be our passage this morning. Philippians two, we're gonna read together verses three through 11, and then we will pray.

00:49

Philippians two, beginning of verse three. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.

01:00

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men.

01:22

Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

01:29

For this reason also God 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

01:45

Lord to the glory of God the Father. Our Lord, we ask that as your people, this book be made alive to our hearts and to our minds.

01:56

You have given us eternal life. You have given us your spirit. You've given us an ability to understand your word that is communicated to us by your

02:04

Holy Spirit. And so now we pray that you would give to us understanding in this passage and that your spirit would be our teacher and that our time here would be well spent as we contemplate the great humiliation of our

02:16

Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen. There are two ways that we can view the

02:22

Christmas event, the events surrounding Christmas. We could look at it from the human vantage point or from the divine vantage point.

02:30

From the human vantage point, we would describe the events that are associated with the birth of Christ. And some of those events are familiar to us with the

02:39

Christmas story. The announcement of the angel to Mary and to Joseph, we read that in Luke chapter one.

02:45

The journey to Bethlehem because of the census that Caesar was taking. The shepherds and their visit to Mary and the angels appearing in the sky and singing over their heads.

02:55

No room for them in the inn. The donkeys, the manger, the swaddling clothes, Joseph and Mary taking

03:01

Jesus to the temple where he encountered Simeon and then Anna. These are the events that unfold around that story, that event.

03:09

And some of us even think, wrongly so, that the wise men were there just wandering around in the manger when

03:16

Jesus was born. The wise men were not there. They came later. They were not there at the night of the Lord's birth.

03:22

We think of the threat from Herod and the slaughter of the innocents. There are things that happened in time and in space from the human vantage point when

03:30

God stepped into time and space, all of these phenomena happens. We might call that the phenomenological effects of the

03:37

Christmas event. But then we could view Christmas from the divine vantage point and the perspective is quite different.

03:44

From the divine vantage point, we would have to describe the theology of the event. That when

03:50

God stepped into time and space, there are certain things that were happening and theologically speaking, certain events taking place in the heavens and in the heavenlies and in the redemptive predetermined plan of almighty

04:01

God. We say that God became a man and that is accurate in a sense, but it is not fully accurate because when we say that God became a man, we're not suggesting in any way that he ceased being

04:13

God or that he in any way conformed or changed his very essence and nature to become something that he wasn't, something different.

04:23

So it is accurate to say that God became a man or to describe Jesus as the

04:28

God -man that is theologically accurate as far as it goes, but we would also have to affirm that not only did

04:33

God become a man in the sense of living with us, but he never ceased being God so that we can look at the person who is the

04:40

Lord Jesus Christ and say, he is the God -man. He is both God and man. He is

04:45

Emmanuel with us, which means God with us. He is Emmanuel. John 1, verses 1 and 14 says, "'In the beginning was the word,' and that is a description of the

04:56

Lord Jesus Christ, a word for him. "'In the beginning was the word, "'and the word was with God, "'and the word was

05:02

God, "'and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.'" The one who was with God, the one who was

05:08

God, is God, became flesh and dwelt among us. Likewise, in Luke 1, which we read earlier, "'The angel answered and said to Mary, "'The

05:16

Holy Spirit will come upon you "'and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. "'And for this reason, the Holy Child,'' that's the language of humanity, "'the

05:23

Holy Child shall be called the Son of God.'" That's the language of deity. "'The

05:29

Holy Child shall be called the Son of God.'" Humanity and deity. It is appropriate to refer to him as a child.

05:36

It was appropriate to refer to him as the Son of God. That is his deity. Even in Hebrews, we have observed both the humanity and the deity of the

05:44

Lord Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews starts off his epistle in chapter one with these words, "'In these last days,

05:51

God has spoken to us in his Son, "'whom he appointed heir of all things, "'through whom he also made the world,'' it's the creator, "'and he,'' that is

05:59

Christ, "'is the radiance of his glory "'and the exact representation of his nature.'"

06:07

That is his deity. "'And he,'' that is Christ, "'upholds all things by the word of his power.

06:13

"'And when he had made purification of sins, "'he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.'" And then the author describes his humanity in the very next chapter,

06:21

Hebrews chapter two, "'Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, "'he himself also likewise partook of the same, "'so that through death he might render powerless "'him who had the power of death,'' that is the devil, "'and he might free those who through fear of death "'were subject to slavery all their lives.

06:35

"'Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren "'in all things,'' that is his humanity, "'so that he might become a merciful "'and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, "'to make propitiation for the sins of the people, "'for since he himself was tempted "'in that which he suffered, "'he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.'"

06:51

That is the full deity of Christ and the full humanity of Christ. Now listen, either the biblical writers were insane or Jesus Christ is fully

07:01

God and fully man. Those are your two choices. Either the biblical writers were insane and completely wrong, they were madmen, or Jesus Christ is fully

07:12

God and he is fully man. But these two truths do not seem compatible, do they?

07:20

How is it that one man can have two natures, both a divine nature, a fully divine nature, and a fully human nature?

07:29

How is that possible? It doesn't seem possible that somebody can be both limitless and limited, omnipotent and yet limited in power, omnipresent and yet personally present, so not omnipresent, that he can be omniscient and know everything and yet not be omniscient at the same time.

07:48

Because human nature means he is limited in power, limited in presence, limited in knowledge, limited in his capacities.

07:56

That's the nature of a human nature, and yet to have a divine nature means he is unlimited in all of those capacities and all of those attributes.

08:03

So how is it possible that one man can be both man and God, and if he is fully

08:10

God, how is it possible for him to live a fully human existence and experience all of the things that humanity and human beings are subject to?

08:21

How could he have both of those? If he is fully human, how could he possess a divine nature? And listen, these truths are things that you and I would only know if they were revealed to us in Holy Scripture.

08:33

These are not things that we could understand or comprehend if they were not revealed to us in Scripture.

08:38

And yet, Scripture affirms that Jesus, the man Christ Jesus, had a fully divine nature, so that everything that can be postulated of the essence of deity can be said of that man, and yet he had a fully human nature so that everything that is true of true humanity can also be affirmed of that man, and that these two natures existed in the same one person without conflict, without argument.

09:03

They were compatible, and they were never mingled, nor were they mixed at any point. That is what is beyond our comprehension, and that is what you and I can not know apart from divine revelation.

09:14

But I think that in Philippians chapter two, the Apostle Paul does as good a job as human language can do in describing this reality and how it unfolded.

09:25

So Philippians chapter two, we're gonna skip over for now, verses three, four, and five. We'll come back to those at the end, because that is our context.

09:32

We are going to observe here in the self -humiliation of the Lord Jesus Christ in verse six, the position that he left, in verse seven, the place that he took, and then in verse eight, the purpose that he accomplished.

09:47

The position he left, the place that he took, and then the purpose that he accomplished in doing all of that. Then we'll come swing back around to the end of that to verses three, and four, and five, and kind of look at the lesson that we are to learn from all of that.

09:58

The context is in verses three and four. The Apostle has an end in view. He wants you and I to do something, to adopt something, to move in a certain direction in terms of how we think and how we view our lives and ourselves in this world.

10:11

That's in verses three through five. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves.

10:18

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus.

10:26

And that's the command. Now, those three verses, by the way, will take you the rest of your life to try and work those out and exercise those and do that to a full.

10:35

Almost impossible in this world to do that perfectly. But that's the goal. But then I need an example of somebody who has done that, and there's no greater example of that than the

10:44

Lord Jesus Christ himself. And by the way, if we were to skip forward in the book of Philippians in the rest of chapter two, you're going to see the

10:51

Apostle Paul give three other examples of selfless living in chapter two, himself, Epaphroditus, and Timothy.

10:58

Those three men also demonstrated this very thing. That's the rest of chapter two. So this is the heart. This is the nugget.

11:03

This is the nut right at the middle of this, where the Apostle Paul is now unfolding the greatest demonstration of self -humiliation and self -humbling that the mind can possibly conceive of.

11:15

And that is the Lord Jesus Christ, verse six, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.

11:23

There are two statements in verse six that affirm the full divinity, deity, godhood, godness of the

11:30

Lord Jesus Christ. That statement that he existed in the form of God, and the second statement, he had an equality with God that he did not regard as a thing to be grasped.

11:39

Those two statements are two ways of describing his full divinity. In verse seven, he's going to talk about him taking upon himself full humanity.

11:48

Let's just look for a moment at verse six, his full divinity. That phrase, he existed in the form of God, that word form, it is difficult in English to translate that word because of the significance of it and the shade of meaning that is very significant in this passage.

12:05

There are a number of words that the Apostle Paul could have used that would have described the shape or the appearance or the form of something, probably three or four words, any of which could have been used or could have been translated as form here.

12:17

But the Apostle Paul uses the word morphe, the word morphe describes something that has an outward appearance, which outward appearance is reflective or indicative of its very true nature, what it is in truth.

12:30

So that word morphe describes a visual form, but a visual form that reflects something true of an inner nature.

12:39

It is an inner reality that is expressed in an outward form, not just the shape and not just the appearance, but an outward expression of an inner nature.

12:50

Why is that significant? What, why? Well, if you're standing outside on a summer day, imagine when there's more than just one cloud in the air, you're standing outside on a summer day and there's all these clouds in the air, you might look up and you might see, do you see the dog in the clouds?

13:05

And your friends would all look up and they would see a dog in the clouds. You could point out the snout and the top of the head and the back and the four legs there.

13:13

And you would say, look, it's a dog in the clouds. There's a dog up there. But is there really a dog up there?

13:20

No, there's the shape of a dog, but there's not actually a dog up there. The clouds are shaped like the dog, so they bear an image or a form of a dog, but they don't bear the morphe of a dog, that is, it's not an actual dog.

13:32

But let's say this afternoon that I wanted to give my wife a dog for Christmas. I wouldn't do that because I'm not insane, but let's say

13:38

I wanted to give my wife a dog for Christmas. So she came out after cooking Christmas lunch for me and the family, and there standing in front of the

13:45

Christmas tree was this thing wrapped in paper. It has four legs and it's all wrapped up, and you can see the four legs, you can see the body and the head and the snout, and even the ears are all wrapped up individually.

13:55

And it's standing there underneath the Christmas tree, wagging its tail, kind of looking around. You can't see anything about the dog because it's covered in paper.

14:02

And my wife might look at me and say, that present is in the form of a dog. Now, if she unwraps the present and it is genuinely a dog, then we would use the word morphe for that.

14:15

It had the outward appearance of something that communicates its actual essence, its actual nature.

14:22

But if she unwraps that and it's a vacuum cleaner, which would be another mistake, if it's actually a vacuum cleaner in the shape of a dog, then you would never use the term morphe to describe that.

14:32

You would never say the present was in the form of a dog because though it was shaped like a dog, it didn't have the actual nature or essence.

14:40

It wasn't actually a dog in reality. So you wouldn't use the term morphe to describe that. You would use one of the other

14:46

Greek words that you would use to describe, for instance, a statue or an image that is struck or a painting or a portrait or the outline of something like Alfred Hitchcock and the outline.

14:56

There are other Greek words that we could use to describe a form here, but this word morphe means he was in, had possessed the outward appearance of God because he was in fact what?

15:10

God, just like the dog under the tree, an outward shape that, an outward appearance that communicates something that is true of the nature.

15:19

So in the case of the dog that is under the tree, the appearance would not be deceiving at all, but rather the appearance of what the present is would actually indicate what it is in reality.

15:29

See, the present was in the morphe of a dog because when you unwrap it, it's actually is a dog.

15:37

So this word morphe doesn't mean he simply appeared as God or he simply acted as God or he simply imitated

15:42

God or that he was very God -like. It means he was nothing other than God. He is

15:48

Yahweh. In an outward appearance, that's what you would have seen if you could behold him as the angels beheld him.

15:54

If you could see his glory, if you could manifest and be able to see the manifest brilliance of who he was in his essence and his nature, you would say here is one who visibly strikes all of the senses as Theos because he is in fact

16:07

God. He is in fact Yahweh. That's what the word is describing there. Look at verse seven, the very same word is used.

16:17

When Jesus emptied himself, he took the what? The form of a servant. Now the apostle does not mean that he simply appeared as a servant, pretended to be a servant, imitated a servant, but that he was in fact in his humiliation took the very nature, the heart, and the essence of what it meant to be a servant.

16:36

He wasn't pretending to be one. He was one. That's why the apostle Paul uses that word morphe there.

16:41

The second phrase that describes his equality with God or his deity is the phrase in verse six.

16:47

He did not regard his equality with God a thing to be grasped. The word grasp there is very important.

16:53

It means to hold onto by force or to seize or to retain by force. It can describe taking what does not belong to you, something illicit, like you steal or grasp something that is truly not yours.

17:04

It can also be used, that word can also be used to describe having or possessing something that is yours and holding onto it or retaining it by force.

17:13

So the Lord Jesus did not regard equality with God, which he possessed because he was in the form of God, as something that he would use force to retain or to hold dearly to himself.

17:23

Now there are some people who think, who say that what is being described here this is how Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons would answer this passage.

17:30

They would say that this passage is really just describing the humility of Jesus who did not exist as God, but he didn't regard deity as something that he aspired to, that he wanted to grab onto and possess in and of himself like Satan did.

17:46

But if you're not God and you don't make any moves to be God, is that really humility?

17:52

If I stand up before you and I say to you, look, I'm not the President of the United States, so I don't act like the

17:58

President of the United States. I'm obviously more articulate. I don't wander around wondering where I'm at.

18:03

I'm not the President of the United States. I'm not pretending to be the President of the United States. I'm not aspiring to be the President of the United States. I don't claim to be the

18:08

President of the United States. You wouldn't look at me and say, look at the humility of that guy. He doesn't have that office and he's not even trying to get into that office.

18:14

How humble is that? The only thing that makes Jesus Christ an example of humility is if he was truly God, but he did not regard his position of equality with God as a thing to be held onto, the position of equality, as a thing to be grasped or held to himself and used for his own advantage, though he did possess it.

18:35

He did not refuse to come into the world and to do the will of the Father, to serve, to suffer, and to die, and he did not refuse the humiliation of taking the role of a servant, and that is his demonstration of humility.

18:48

He didn't clutch or grasp his position, his prerogatives, the power that he had, and instead, he made himself the form of a servant, came in the likeness of man and was found in appearance as a man.

19:00

Notice the language that the apostle uses in verse six when he describes equality with God.

19:06

Now, in the first phrase, he said he actually possessed the nature and the essence of God. Then he says he did not regard his equality with God as a thing to be held onto at all costs.

19:15

We're gonna look at what that means here in just a moment, but notice the language that the apostle used to describe his equality with somebody else.

19:22

This is Trinitarian language because it identifies for us that there is one who is

19:27

God with whom Jesus Christ is equal, with whom the Son is equal. This one who is

19:33

God, he is equal to, so there is another whom we call God to whom the Son is equal in nature, in essence, and in being, but the

19:42

Son is not that person. This is the only language you could use to describe that there are three persons in the

19:48

Trinity, that the Son is one of those, and that the Son is equal to God, and yet the

19:54

Son is not all that there is to God. There are three other persons. In other words, though Christ possesses fully the divine nature, he does not solely possess the divine nature, for the same divine nature, essence, and being is possessed by the

20:08

Father and by the Son as well. This is the same kind of language that we read in John chapter one earlier.

20:15

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. That means there's another one there. There is

20:20

God, and the Word is with God, beside God, as it were, and the Word is God. The Word was

20:26

God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So there's multiple persons that whom we call God, and there's equality amongst those persons.

20:35

So this is the statement of Jesus Christ's full divinity, his deity. So how is it then that we can affirm also his full humanity?

20:43

That's in verse eight, sorry, verse seven. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death.

20:56

What does it mean that he emptied himself, verse seven? He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Let me tell you what it does not mean.

21:03

It does not mean that he ceased to be God, and here's why it cannot and does not mean that, because God cannot cease to be

21:08

God. God is self -existent. He is immortal. He is immutable. He is unchanging.

21:14

He is transcendent. He can't cease to be what he is. He can't minimize himself. He can't get greater than he is.

21:19

He can't become lesser than he is, because if there is any change in God, either in any way whatsoever, then he is either changing and becoming better, or he is changing and becoming worse.

21:29

So there is no changing in God. He is immutable, and therefore Christ did not morph into something else, as if he started off as God, and then slowly morphed over time, or went through a metamorphosis, and then became a man while laying aside his deity.

21:44

That's not what it means. It doesn't mean that he ceased to be God. It doesn't mean that he set aside his deity, and this is the language that some people use, as if he set aside his deity, took off his divine nature, as it were, and sort of left it in heaven, and then came here and became a man, and his deity was waiting for him back in heaven.

22:01

Deity is not like a robe that you can put on and take off. That's not how deity works. If you are deity, you cannot cease being deity, and so Jesus didn't cease being deity and lay it aside like a garment or a backpack.

22:14

Instead, it says he emptied himself, and this is a very important word. It is kana 'o. Kana 'o means to empty or to pour out, to drain out, to make void, to nullify, and notice that it does not say that he emptied something out of himself.

22:27

Notice that. What does it say? He emptied himself. It is himself that he poured out.

22:34

What's self? All that it means to be God is in essence poured out in an act, which is the humbling act in verse seven, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man.

22:50

It is himself that he drained out, being fully God, being fully divine.

22:56

He poured out his divinity, not emptying himself of it, but pouring it out, laying it out, as it were, in this great self -humbling act.

23:06

How did he do this? By adding something to himself that he did not have before.

23:12

Let me ask you a question. It's a trick question, so don't raise your hand or mouth the words to me because then

23:17

I'll have to mock you and I don't want to do that. Is Jesus Christ, has Jesus Christ always existed?

23:24

Has Jesus Christ always existed? In a sense, yes.

23:29

In a sense, no. His divine nature has always existed, but the man

23:36

Christ Jesus came into being at a point in time in human history, at the incarnation.

23:42

So the divine son, the divine essence that the son shares, who dwelt, that dwelt in Jesus Christ, that is an eternal essence.

23:50

There was never a point where it came into being, but the man Christ Jesus did come into being at a point in time.

23:58

A body thou hast prepared for me so that I could do your will is what the Psalm says. That's what Hebrews says. So the body came into being, the human nature came into being, the man

24:08

Christ Jesus in which these two natures resided without conflict or division and without mingling, that man

24:15

Christ Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, he came into being at a point in time, though the divine nature had always existed and pre -existed him.

24:23

So how did he humble or empty himself? How did he pour himself out? He did so by becoming a servant, by taking the form of a servant and being made in the likeness of men.

24:33

He emptied himself by adding to himself true humanity. Bruce Ware in his book,

24:39

The Man Christ Jesus, I recommended this to you a couple of weeks ago. If you haven't bought this book yet, I would encourage you to see me afterwards so we can start church discipline process on you.

24:49

The Man Christ Jesus by Bruce Ware. Here's what he says, Christ Jesus existing and remaining fully, who he is as God accepts his divine calling to come to earth and carry out the mission assigned to him by the father.

25:01

As the eternal son of God who is himself the form of God, he must come in the form of a servant.

25:07

That is, he must come fully as a man and as a man, he must live his life and give his life as one of us.

25:14

In so doing, Christ pours himself out, all who he is, as he takes on, in addition to his full divine nature, a full human nature.

25:27

He becomes less in a sense than he was before, without really becoming less than he was before because he actually becomes in another sense more than he was before by taking a human nature.

25:40

How is that possible? Let me give you an illustration that is also in the book that you need to buy. You buy this week, right?

25:46

This is also in the book. Let's say that this spring you decide that you are going to purchase a new vehicle.

25:52

So you go to local car lot and you see a nice, beautiful one. Let's say, man, you're going through a midlife crisis and it's a sports car.

25:59

It's beautiful, it's shiny, it's bright. It's all tricked out. It's got all kinds of bells and whistles. It's a beautiful vehicle.

26:05

And as it sits in the sunlight on that May day, it's just beautiful. It shines with a radiance that just knows it's gonna catch everybody's eye that drives by.

26:14

They're all gonna envy you. And you think, I'm gonna take this one out for a spin. So the salesman gives you permission to take the car for a spin.

26:20

You take it out on the back roads of North Idaho and it's a typical May. They're covered in dust and mud. And so you take it out and you think, man, this really handles around the corners in the mud like this.

26:28

And you think, I'm gonna take it up to Bonner's and go to the mud run up at Bonner's. You take it up there, take it down into the mud pits and you go there for a couple of hours and you bring it back onto the lot and the thing is covered with mud.

26:39

And the salesman may look at you and say, what have you done to my vehicle? And you can't at all honestly answer,

26:45

I have taken nothing away from your vehicle. In fact, I've added something to it.

26:51

What you have added to it masks its glory, right?

26:57

You don't see the shine anymore. You don't see the glory of it anymore. But if you change the car, not a bit.

27:04

You've added something to the car, but the car is still the car. All the bells and whistles are there. All the shine is there.

27:11

All the capacity to radiate in the sun, it's all still there. It is now just covered with mud.

27:17

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity. Pleased as man with men to dwell,

27:24

Jesus our Emmanuel. The glory is still there. The capacity to shine is still there.

27:32

Nothing of the divine nature has changed, but you have veiled it in flesh.

27:37

You have covered it over in human mud as it were. And so you've taken away the shine, but you have not taken away the ability for it to shine.

27:47

And so in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, you see these glimmers of divinity. As he says to one of his disciples,

27:55

I saw you when you were under the tree before you even heard my name. Where he says to the woman at the well, you've had five husbands, and the one you're living with now is not your own.

28:05

How does he know that? And yet he also is walking through a crowd and says, who touched me?

28:12

I felt the glory or the power come out of me. Who is it that touched me? He knows, but he doesn't know.

28:19

In order that the one who is divine could live and experience all of humanity's experiences and live as a man, it was necessary for that glory to be veiled, for that car to be covered in flesh or mud as it were, so that the shining forth of that would not blind us, and so that he could live and experience life in the dirt with you and I, but the capacity to shine and all the brilliance of it remains unchanged.

28:45

This is what it means that he emptied himself. He poured out his divinity in the sense that he added humanity to it and now covered it with mud.

28:52

This is the humbling of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bruce Ware in his book says, apart from the incarnation, there was nothing to hide or conceal his full deity.

29:01

So before the incarnation, when the angels are looking at him, all they see is the brilliance and the majesty of the one who is in the form of God.

29:10

So apart from the incarnation, there is nothing to hide or conceal his full deity, so it could show forth in full brilliance.

29:16

But when he became also a man, he covered himself with a created, limited and finite human nature, so that even though Christ is fully

29:24

God in the incarnation, he cannot express the full range of his divine qualities or attributes owing to his having also taken on full human nature.

29:34

While the glory of Christ's deity is still fully present and intact, the manifestation of that glory is not allowed full expression, covered as he is in human nature.

29:45

Close quote. Why did he do this? That's what it means to empty himself. And why did he do this?

29:51

Verse eight, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

29:58

Taking to himself full humanity, he has a human nature, though sinless, he has a human nature so that he could experience all of human experiences, life in this world, limited as it was, powerless as it was, weak and frail as humanity is, especially compared to his deity, so that he could become obedient to the point of death, even the apostle says, death on a cross, even death on a cross.

30:27

In fact, if we were to take each of these phrases, there is a stepping down from the one who existed in the form of God all the way through to the lowest and worst humiliation that anybody could endure, and that's death, even death on a cross.

30:39

So there's no higher point from which he could come, and there is no lower point to which he could go, and that is the nature of the humility of the

30:47

Lord Jesus Christ. He existed in the form of God, verse six, he died, even death on a cross, verse eight.

30:55

Mark 10, 45 says, even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

31:00

You and I, we cannot and we ought not try and separate the babe in the manger from the man on the cross, because the minute we divorce those two, and they're two different images in our minds, we do damage, we do irreparable damage to our perspective of who the

31:14

Lord Jesus Christ is. The babe in the manger is the babe in the manger because he would become the man on the cross, and he is the man on the cross because he would become the

31:22

Lord in resurrection, and he is the Lord in resurrection so that he could be the Lord in exaltation, and the same one who was the baby in the manger, the man on the cross, the

31:30

Lord in resurrection, exaltation, is coming again as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. This is all one person, this is all one redemptive work that God is doing, predating the

31:41

Lord Jesus in the manger, and going all the way through to his coming again as reigning King of kings.

31:47

He humbled himself by pursuing the reason that the father sent him was that he would come here, that he would offer his life for his sheep, for his bride, for his people.

31:55

The angel said to Joseph, you will name him Jesus, or he will save his people from their sins.

32:01

How does he do this? He did this by living an absolutely perfect life and obeying the law on your behalf and on my behalf so that we could be made righteous before him.

32:11

Then he offered up his perfect and sinless life as a sacrifice on a cross, as our sacrifice and our high priest, so that he might pay the price for sinners, pay the full price for the sin of any and all who will trust and believe upon him.

32:27

And then he rose again the third day, and he ascended to heaven, and he is coming again to judge the living and the dead.

32:35

That is the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is good news for sinners, that God loved the world so much that he sent his son, whose equality with God the son did not consider as something to be held onto.

32:48

He left that position with his power and his prerogatives and the glory and the worship of angels. And the father sent the son into the world so that the son may live that perfect life and then give that perfect life as a sacrifice for sinners.

33:02

What does God demand of you? He demands that you repent and that you believe. Repentance is turning from your sin.

33:08

You have to recognize I'm an unworthy sinner and I deserve the judgment that God poured out upon his son. That was the judgment that was due to me.

33:15

And then you have to come to that savior, the Lord Jesus Christ in believing faith. You must trust him that his sacrifice was sufficient to pay the price for your sins and call out to him.

33:25

And when you do that in repentance and faith, he will forgive your sin. He will give you his righteousness and he will take you to heaven to be with him.

33:32

Now that is the beginning of the application of this passage, but that is not the end of the application of this passage.

33:39

In the language of Hebrews 12, verses nine through 11 is the prize that was set before him.

33:45

Right, that was the glory that was set before him. This is describing a similar event here, which you can see why it is that my mind kept coming back to this.

33:52

But let's not miss the whole point of the apostle's example here, which takes us back up to verse three.

33:57

Here is where the application for it continues. We are to emulate this, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.

34:04

The word empty conceit there is kanao doxa. It means kanao from emptying or poured out.

34:10

He poured out himself or emptied himself, same word there, but they're combined with the word for glory and it describes an empty glory.

34:16

And here's the irony. We have no glory whatsoever. Our glory, as it were, is empty.

34:21

And yet as fallen men and women, we act as if we have all the glory that God has and is owed.

34:28

But we have no glory. Our glory is empty. So the apostle Paul says, do nothing from your misconceived idea of your vain glory, your glory that you think everybody should bow down to.

34:39

Instead, you are to, with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves.

34:45

Notice the language of the mind here. This is a way of thinking. There is a way of thinking regarding ourself, regarding our own glory, regarding the way we regard one another.

34:55

With humility of mind, that's an exercise of the mind, we are to regard or think of other people as more important than ourselves.

35:02

Now, it might be the case that somebody else is not in fact more important than ourselves, but we are to act that way.

35:08

We are to think that way. We are to regard them that way. However lowly they might be, however insignificant they might be, and no matter what position of power and authority and brilliance the

35:19

Lord has given to you and I, we are to regard others as if they were more important than we are. This is a way of thinking, which is why he says in verse five, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus.

35:31

We're talking about a way of assessing other people in comparison with ourselves. This is what

35:36

Jesus did for the good of his people, for the glory of the Father, for the glory of his people whom the

35:41

Father had given to him. He left his glory and came here to humble himself, become a servant, and to die in the stead of unworthy sinners.

35:51

That is how one considers others as more important than themselves. This is a mindset. It is a way of thinking.

35:58

Was Jesus selfish? No, he didn't operate out of empty conceit. In fact, he didn't operate out of empty glory at all.

36:03

He laid aside all of his glory so that he might take human nature. By the way, just in case you're wondering, his humanity is united with his deity in the person of the

36:14

Lord Jesus Christ for all of eternity. He never lays aside his humanity. He will be united with us in his humanity for all of eternity.

36:22

We will worship the God -man, the Lord Christ Jesus, and he will have a physical glorified body for he is the second person is forever united with humanity.

36:33

Jesus possessed this way of thinking and prioritized the interests of others so that he lived for others.

36:40

He obeyed the law that you and I might have righteousness. He died a perfect death so that you might have forgiveness.

36:47

He rose again so that you might have life and he exalted to the right hand of the Father so that he might pray for you and he is coming again so that you might be with him.

36:56

So that everything he does in his redemptive act, everything he does in his humbling and humbling himself in being humbled as it were, he has done for the sake of others.

37:05

Now, this theology of incarnation and this theology of Christmas demands our humility.

37:13

It demands it. At no point and in no way should you and I think of ourselves as more highly than the

37:21

Lord Jesus Christ thought of himself. If anybody had an excuse or a reason to think highly of themselves, it was the second person of the divine trinity.

37:32

He had every reason to think highly of himself. For countless ages, the angels had worshiped him.

37:38

He had been in fellowship with the Father. And so this theology demands our humility.

37:44

We cannot possibly comprehend just how low he stooped. We can't.

37:50

It's beyond our comprehension to know, experience, to think, to grasp with the mind what it means to go from a position with the privilege and the prerogatives of deity and to humble yourself to the point of taking the role of a servant, a slave, coming in the likeness of men and then dying even death on a cross.

38:12

That is the highest that one can come from and the lowest to which one can go. That was the nature of his humility.

38:19

You and I have no right to anything. We are owed nothing whatsoever. And so our command in the passage is that we are to gaze upon Jesus Christ as it were, to see that example, and then to follow that example.

38:34

To do nothing from selfish conceit, emptiness of conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another is more important than ourselves.

38:42

So I ask you men, what does that look like with your family and with your wives? What does that look like?

38:49

I'll tell you what it looks like. It means that the position of leadership and authority and responsibility that God has granted to you, you will use that not for your own self comfort, but for the comfort and the good, the blessing and the sanctification of your wife and your children.

39:09

Wives, what does it mean that we do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit? It means that we lay aside our own interests so that we might do good to others and consider others, even those in our own household, who may not necessarily be as important as we are, as if their interests are more important than we are.

39:28

Look, when my children were small, they were not nearly as important as I was. And I say that with no sense of self aggrandizement whatsoever.

39:36

I was the one who earned the money. I was the one who fixed the stuff around the house. I'm the one that planted the garden in terms of their sustenance and what they needed.

39:44

I was far more important than any of the four of them. All four of them combined were not as important as I was to the functioning of that household.

39:51

But my responsibility as a man, your responsibility as a woman is to look at those who are not as important as you are and to regard them in your mind as if they are more important than you are so that you can use the position, the responsibility, the power and authority, the prerogatives that God has given to you so you could serve them.

40:08

It's for their good. This is what it means to consider others as more important than ourselves. God has given to us all kinds of arenas where we can apply this.

40:17

In our church meetings, in our ministries, in our fellowship, in our worship, in our small groups, in our home, at the office, doing so for the glory of Christ.

40:27

This is not natural and we have to pursue it. How do we do it? To borrow the language of Hebrews chapter 12, consider him who existed in the form of God but not regarded his equality with God as a thing to be grasped, to held onto for his own sake.

40:43

But instead he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That's what it looks like. How are you transformed into that image?

40:51

By just gazing at that example, meditating upon what that means and then saying by the grace of God, I will do that.

40:58

Recognizing that whatever I give up of my own interests, it cannot compare to the humility and the humbling of a

41:05

God who would live as a man, suffer as a man, die as a man so that you and I can be saved.

41:13

My father, we thank you for the marvelous grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot even begin to comprehend the humbling that that is, the humility that that takes.

41:24

And at no point did he ever consider himself but only looked out to the interests of others, even those whom you have given to him from eternity past.

41:34

We thank you that he came, that he lived, that he died, that he rose again and that he has offered salvation to us.

41:41

Thank you for the grace, the spirit who has regenerated our hearts and opened our eyes and our minds to see these truths so that we may respond to them appropriately and glorify you.

41:51

We pray that you would strengthen us and encourage us with this example so that we might live for others, considering the interest of others is far more important than our own, but not operating at all out of our vain conceit.