He Humbled Himself

Excuse me, when you're the guy who is, like, standing in front preaching and bringing the Word to others, one of the ways that you are blessed is when people sing to you. You know, you're singing to the Lord, but I'm hearing it, I'm being blessed by the words that you're saying. It's one of the reasons we sing psalms here, so I get to hear psalms sung to me.

If you turn to Philippians 2, this is a, I would call it a Christmas passage. which for some people, they like to go to the Luke account, the birth of Jesus in the manger and his parents. And of course, in our day and age, one of the things that you're going to hear and see right now is that Jesus was a refugee. Jesus was basically an illegal alien. and if you want to close the borders to your country you're basically like shutting Jesus out it's almost like that old Joan Osborne song what if God was one of us and we're all supposed to forget all common decency and the fact that God created borders of nations so I'm not afraid to go to those passages but I want to look at Philippians 2 so Paul has just exhorted the Philippians in the first chapter to a number of things about the gospel.

And he starts to get to the end and he's talking about the fact that he's suffering. And they know he's suffering. This is, I think, one of the prison epistles, they call it. So Paul was in prison when he wrote it. If you may remember from Acts 16, what city was Paul in when the Philippian jailer got saved? He was in Philippi, right? so this was a place Paul was familiar with the jail system and he tells the people in the end of chapter 1 to let their manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ in verse 27 and then he tells them something really neat he says therefore it's been granted to you in verse 29 that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake and so Paul promises these people you're going to suffer for Jesus Christ.

It doesn't exactly sound like the nicest way to start a letter. He says grace and peace to you at the beginning, but that's from God. He wants you to have peace with God, but in this world you're going to have tribulation. And so then he continues in chapter 2, he says, so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord of one mind.

Hey, brother. Come on in, man. Good to see you, Amacio. Hey, no problem, man. Yeah. No problem.

Glad you're here. And then, so he's telling them to have the same love and be in full accord of one mind. He's talking to the people. Maybe give him a book, too. So when we sing, thank you, sweetheart. And so what's happening is you have these Christians that are going to suffer, and he knows they're going to suffer, and they're going to suffer together, and they're going to be tempted in a number of ways.

When you suffer, you're tempted to complain. That's probably one of the first things we're tempted with, is to just grumble about your circumstances. Particularly, if you're like people in this church should be, if you believe in God's sovereignty, if you believe God's in control when you suffer he's the first one you're mad at in your flesh I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that's how we are because we know he's in control rather than trust his perfect goodness and his perfect wisdom and his all wise counsel, we think well he's got the power to get me out of this, why hasn't he? and so there's a temptation there and one of the other temptations we have will be to not be in fellowship with one another, to not have unity of mind while you're suffering.

So here we are in the United States of America. It's 2020. And I think there's problems right now in churches. Churches are divided about some issues that maybe are very important. I'm not saying they're not. But churches are divided about issues related to how to react to what the government is telling us to do. whether to wear a mask or stay six feet apart or whether to even meet at all and all the different things that are going on with this COVID-19 thing that's going on.

And what Paul was letting people know is, hey, you're going to suffer, but you're supposed to have unity of mind. And so he gives them some admonitions in verse 3. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. He says, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. So I would argue that even from a secular point of view, if you just simply considered others more significant than yourselves, you'd probably get along a lot better than you do.

I know I would Most of the time I have conflict with somebody that not just purely like theological I know I right and they just off It usually because I want something right then and I not getting it And the conflict is caused by me wanting what I want right now, when I want it, and I'm not thinking of them. I'm not outdoing others and showing honor. and Paul continues in verse 4 let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interest of others same concept he doesn't say don't look to your own interest I mean you need to look to your own interest but you have to also look to the interest of others and he's talking mostly about in the church here and now he gets to what is one of the most exciting portions of scripture you're ever going to find if you were sitting here and you said you know I want to start memorizing scripture I don't think I can do a lot what would be a good bit of scripture to memorize I'd say memorize Philippians 2 5-9 for extra credit go 5-11 so this is important he says have this mind among yourselves so he was just talking about their mind he says they should be in full accord of one mind in verse 2 verse 3 and 4 It's all about the thoughts you're going to have of others. He says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

So if you're a Christian, this is how you should think. And now he describes this man, Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. and that's what the Christmas message is the songs we just sang they repeated the same concept that he became a man we read from chapter 8 of the confession and if you went to chapter 8 of the Westminster confession or the Savoy confession like this is orthodox Christianity that Jesus Christ became a man and Jesus Christ was in the form of God now it doesn't mean he was in the form of God like he was sort of like God but he wasn't and then became a man. That's not what this passage is saying.

He's saying he was equal with God. He had the sameness as God. And so some people will twist the words, particularly sometimes English translations don't capture the wording as well as they should or could, and they make it easier for cultists, basically, to run off and start their own religion. But Jesus Christ, really being God, didn't count equality with God a thing that he should hold on to.

So the idea becomes this. And I want to be careful here, because it's not like there's this debate in the mind of God, like we have to make decisions. God doesn't have to do that. He simply decreed. But it's as if Jesus Christ, who is God, eternally self-sufficient in perfect unity and love and affection with the Father and the Holy Spirit from all eternity. and it was as if.

Now this is not how it actually happened. So just understand as in kids, this is not what really happened. But it's like there was this moment in time, which God's outside of time. It's a made up story. But it was like someone came and said, Hey, you could keep being God and have no suffering whatsoever. Perfect joy.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience. These are things that Christ has possessed forever. He is these things. They said, or you can come and you can become one of these people here. And what do you choose? And you know, it'd be one thing if they said, and you know what we'll do?

We'll stick you in a royal family. And we'll have you born at a time when there's flush toilets and electricity and air conditioning and air travel and cars. Cards with heat and air conditioning, so depending on where you live, it's all good. And you'll have nice shoes. You could be born to the richest guy. He could be Jeff Bezos' adopted kid.

He'd pick the richest guy in the world probably right now. The guy that owns Amazon. And you can have all the possible creature comforts this world has to offer. The best food that's offered in this world. Unlimited amount. and it would have been infinite condescension for Jesus to have done that to have become the very best human being that could ever have lived like creature comfort wise it would have been more condescension than we can even fathom because being truly God being the very God himself it was already perfect and yet he said I'm going to come 2,000 years before some of this stuff's invented.

I'm going to come when it's, when we have to mix wine with water so it doesn't give you, you know, bowel problems all the time because of the sanitation at the time. I'm going to be born out of wedlock in a society where that was extremely frowned upon and I going to be born in this area There arguments about whether it was really a barn or a manger Some of these Greek scholars argue things, and, you know, okay, that's fine. But he certainly wasn't born in a nice hospital with doctors.

He didn't even have to argue religious rights about a vaccine or not, right? you can just say he didn't want it and they didn't have him anyway yet. And here he comes and he's born in this situation. And even worse, born to sinful parents. So if you imagine as a parent how many times you have made a mistake with your children. How many times, let me use a strong word, how many times you've sinned against your child because of your sinful nature that you still carry.

And just imagine that Jesus endured all that. His parents most certainly sinned against him. His brothers most certainly sinned against him. It's extra biblical information. I can't tell you for sure what it was, but I have no doubt that Jesus was sinned against. And yet he was submissive to his parents. so this is an amazing amazing god who would do this for us but then we look at verse 7 he says but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself humbling enough to become a human humbling enough to have sinful parents that he would obey humbling enough to have to eat our garbage food but it says he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross so now there you have the ultimate ending of the Christmas story is that this Jesus who came into the world this Jesus who never should have had to even taste the very best food that ever is offered in this world, and he certainly didn't get the best food.

The man who said foxes and stuff can have a bed to sleep in and the Son of Man doesn't even have a place to lay his head, that man humbled himself to the point of death. Death is the most unnatural thing. A lot of people say, well, death is just part of life. No, it's not. Death is the interruption of life. Death is a horrible thing that was introduced into our world by our sin.

It isn't a natural thing. It's not a good thing. And none of us want to taste it. We all hope Jesus returns before we die. Some of us think, well, I at least want other people to be saved, so we have a little bit of hope and unsolvageness for others. But nobody wants to actually sense that death.

Yet Jesus was willing to sense death. He was willing to experience it. And then it says, even death on a cross. And there's a lot in here. But the cross was a horrible, shameful death. So the man who hated sin, the God who hates sin more than we can even imagine, it's so separate from Him, He cannot even look upon it with His holy eyes.

He actually became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And He went and died on a cross. So it sounds like, oh, well, yeah, there's a cross, and then there's Easter and we have eggs and the bunny. We've perverted everything in our society now of what God did and what Jesus did. But when you remember, the cross was a symbol of the worst punishment imaginable.

You ever heard of the word excruciating? That comes from the Latin word for cross because it was excruciating. It was so painful. And it was shameful. You were publicly on display for everyone to walk by and see that you were being punished for something horrible. No one would have walked by and thought, oh, that guy, he must have stole a loaf of bread because he was hungry.

Nobody would have thought that about you. These robbers that were next to him, that died with him, the thieves, these guys weren't guys that just stole a couple things. This was capital punishment. And if you think about how hard it is to get somebody to be caply punished in our society now, it takes a lot for a society to say we're going to crucify this guy publicly.

We're going to make an issue out of him. But Jesus Christ, he was willing to do that because of his great love. And that's why Paul says, having the same love in verse 2, being in full accord of one mind. He says if there's any encouragement in Christ in verse 1, he's reminding us that the love that Jesus had for his people was a love that was willing to not only die for them, but he was even willing to suffer shame.

He was willing to be seen by the people as a sinner and actually treated by his father as if he was a sinner The very thing he hates the most he was willing to take on for the sake of others but he did it perfectly and that's what we rejoice in today and it only happened because he came as a baby he was conceived in his mother's womb he was a real baby and he was in the womb and John the Baptist looked for joy in his mother's womb when he was around him it's a beautiful picture of God's love for babies and he was born and we have the story of his birth and I know Christmas isn't a biblical holiday but we have the story of his birth it's not like we're making it up God saw fit to give us this history and part of why this is so important is that it's real history and you little kids in here, you're going to be told by people and you adults too, hopefully you're grown out of being persuaded away, but you're going to be told by people, Jesus never really was here. People are going to say to you, Jesus never walked the earth. Now, even secular historians that hate Jesus admit he walked the earth, like he's a veritable fact that he walked the earth.

But there are people who, they just hate God so much and they love their sin so much, that they're going to tell you Jesus never was born, that he certainly wasn't sinless, he wasn't born of a virgin. They're going to say that the story of Jesus was stolen from all these other religions that had similar stories. And they're going to show you these pictures of these weird looking guys with horns and weird stuff.

And they're going to say that Christianity just stole Zoroastrianism and other things from around the culture. And they just made up a new religion for themselves. And it's going to sound a little persuasive at times. But if you go to the Word of God, and we have the real history of the world here. That's why we read Genesis on Sunday. You're reading the real history of the world from an eyewitness. so as you think about Christmas today remember Jesus' humility remember that he's the one that came into the world and he's the one that put himself under authority in that sense, he's the one that wanted to do what was necessary to redeem his people and he wasn't going to fall short he wasn't going to do half of it, he wasn't going to get tempted by Satan and all of a sudden just give in to Satan because Satan promised him something in his early ministry he had a purpose that he was going to fulfill the plan of God in the fullness of time redeeming the people that he had always intended to redeem for himself and so I encourage you to meditate on that I encourage you to really think about what Jesus did for you and then you should have a couple actions as a result so maybe your take home is you should worship him you should worship him privately you should worship him with your family you should worship him just as husband and wife you should worship him corporately on a Thursday night, on a Sunday he should be worshipped you should worship him when something bad happens to you next week or tonight, or tomorrow he is worthy of worship and he has done more than necessary to prove it secondly you should want to tell others about him.

I think that you should be compelled by his love for you to tell others about him. If you had a bad back and I told you about a chiropractor or a physical therapist and he helped you out, you'd tell the whole world. You'd go on Nextdoor or Facebook and you'd say, yeah, Dr. So-and-so helped out my back. You should go pay him money to help you with your back too.

You'd be happy to brag about it. we're all evangelists about the things we care about. So the question is, why, if you're not an evangelist for Jesus, why not? Is he just not that important to you? Is he not that exciting to you? Is it because you know people are going to hate you when you open your mouth about them? I get it.

It's scary. It's hard. It's really hard to have someone you thought loved you and was your friend or your family member and tell them about the grace of life that God offers to sinners through His Son Jesus, the one mediator, and then for them to get mad at you and then start accusing you of things, start telling you all the things they never liked about you anyway.

I mean, I've been through it a bunch of times. But God is worth bragging about to me. And those people are worth hoping they get saved. So tell other people about Him. And then thirdly, you be a servant as well. Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

So take care of yourself. I'm not saying like starve yourself to feed everyone. Look to your own interests, but not only to them. Look to the interests of others. So worship Jesus Christ because he's worthy. Serve others, particularly in the household of God and within your own home.

And tell other people about Jesus. And I say within your own home. The worst thing in the world would be for someone to stand up at your funeral and give you a eulogy that talks about what a great person you were. And your own family sitting in the front rows says, who were they talking about? Okay, it starts at home. So serve people, love people at home.