Love

Introduction

Well, good afternoon…Listen, we’re excited to have you here…to be able worship alongside of all of our brothers and sisters. Guys, I absolutely love Christmas time…I love the advent season because it’s reminder to us what we have to be grateful for…that, just as some of the other pastors have already mentioned, we have hope…peace…love…joy…right? The advent season, it’s a reminder of the Savior we serve.

Listen, at our church…for the past four months, we’ve been walking through Paul’s letter to the church of Philippi…and as I prayed through this morning’s message…I couldn’t shake Philippians chapter two from my mind. I believe in that chapter…Paul gives one of the richest and most descriptive pictures of who Jesus is and just how much He really loves us. Because that’s what we’re after this afternoon, right? We’re here to look at the love of Christ.

His coming…the Christmas story…it not only gave us hope as we navigate this dark world…it didn’t just give our restless hearts…hearts that are always oriented to evil and sin…it didn’t just give us peace in those areas…but it demonstrates the fullness of God’s love for His creation....It’s why in the Christmas accounts there in Luke, that it says the angels are in awe…they just can’t believe the love that God demonstrates by sending us His Son.

And so, listen, instead of looking at the traditional Christmas story…I wanna look at what Paul says about the love of Christ. And so, if you have a Bible, turn with me to Philippians chapter two…we’re gonna read Paul’s words starting in verse 5…He says this, “5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Now listen…if you’re a part of First Baptist, then you know this passage…there’s a ton here that we could talk about…we could preach from these verses for months. It’s one of the most majestic peaks there is in Scripture. I mean, it just really paints a picture of Jesus’s heart, right? But for the sake of time this afternoon, I wanna just focus on verses 6 through 8. I believe this, the most, really shows us the love of Christ. And there’s two things I want you to see today…the humility of Christ…and the obedience of Christ. And then, we’ll bring everything together to show you how it relates to the love of Christ.

1.) The Humility of Christ

Look back at verse 6, Paul writes, “who (talking about Jesus here), though he was in the form of God.”

Now let’s stop right there because we have to understand this statement here to understand the rest of this passage. This is one of those areas that’s impossible for our English language to translate accurately. And honestly, it’s really misleading here if you don’t catch it. The Greek word used here is the word Morphe, and the word, Morphe, it implies internal consistency. But listen, the word “form” that’s used here in our English Bibles…in English that word actually implies external similarity or consistency. Meaning, when I say the word “formed,” most of you think of shape, almost as if Christ was just in the shape of God…that He’s not really God Himself. And listen, this is important because you misinterpret this and you completely misunderstand who Jesus is and the rest of the Christmas story.

Listen, there’s just no word in English to describe an internal form of something…it’s just the same word for both. And we know Paul’s talking about an internal form here because of the word he chose to use. In the Greek language there’s a whole separate word that’s used to describe the external consistency of something…But listen, Paul chose to use the word Morphe…and he chose to use it because it was the best word to describe exactly who Jesus was. Jesus wasn’t just acting like God...He didn’t just look like God…Jesus didn’t just do God like things....What Paul’s saying here is that in His very nature, Jesus is God.

How is it that Jesus, being truly God, became truly man? I love the way Augustine put it. He said, “Christ emptied himself, not by losing what he was, but by taking to him what he was not.” In other words, we could think of it this way. The incarnation wasn’t a subtraction, where Jesus quit being God and became a man. The incarnation was an addition, where the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, took to himself a human nature. He assumed a human nature.

And guys, the reason that’s important is because it reminds us that Jesus is 100% God and He became 100% man…And listen, the center piece of Christianity is that this God-man, He died a tortured death in our place…and that message has massive implications for us today. And listen, the reason that matters to you this morning…the fact that Jesus is God and not just some great moral teacher or some prophet…Guys, it shows the great love He has for you and I. Paul makes this point about who Jesus is because it shows this great example of His love…its because of Jesus being God. You understanding what I’m saying? What makes the message of Jesus so much different than any other religion out there is that He doesn’t announce how we should live our life to find acceptance....no instead, He announces what He’s already done for you and for me and that all we have to do is believe and repent…That truth makes us acceptable to God and it’s that truth that changes us. We can be unified in humility because of who Jesus is. He’s God Himself who’s come down to His own creation to redeem us from our sin…and He did it…He humbled Himself because He loves us.

But look at how Paul finishes verse 6…He says, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.”

And so, what’s Paul saying here? Well, in context…if we were studying this whole passage…Paul’s showing these Philippians of their ability to love others like Jesus and he takes us to the greatest piece of theology there is, to Jesus! Listen, this is short but it has so much weight. If Jesus is God and He became a servant and died on a cross for you and I, then guys, you matter. He loves you and you can experience this love through a relationship with Him.

2.) The Obedience of Christ

But it’s not just the humility of Christ that shows us His love…look at the obedience of Christ.

Jesus didn’t count equality with God a thing to be exploited. In fact, He did the complete opposite…Look at verse 7, “but [He] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” And verse 8, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Look at that again…Jesus made Himself nothing and then He took it a step further and humbled Himself. He didn’t just come in the form of any man…He could’ve been a rich man, a powerful man…no, He came as a servant and then went to a cross to die. The cross was one of the most embarrassing ways to die. He would’ve died naked and exposed. I think especially the emphasis here on “death, even death on a cross,” for those original Philippian readers, citizens of Rome—because they were Roman citizens, they couldn’t have been crucified. This was a death that they couldn’t have experienced. Even Paul himself couldn’t have been crucified, because he was a Roman citizen. Crucifixion, it was reserved for slaves. Crucifixion was reserved for criminals…reserved for the scum of the earth. Only the worst sorts of criminals could be crucified on a cross, and yet Jesus descended all the way there, so that he was treated like the scum of the earth, he was treated like a criminal, as he was nailed to that cruel tree, becoming disfigured before the eyes of his disciples, before the eyes of the world, and as they said, “Behold the man,”...what were they seeing? They were seeing a man who was being disfigured beyond all semblance. People could barely recognize that he was even a man.

Just reflect for a moment on the beauty of this and the mystery of this, the mystery of the incarnation, that He who is characterized by eternal glory accepted the obscurity of becoming a man. He stooped from majesty to meekness. He went from power to weakness, from invincible might to suffering and pain. He who was life and light himself descended into darkness and into death. He did that without ceasing to be God for even one millisecond, so that in a very real sense there was a moment in time where the Son of God, the eternal Son of God, was at one and the same time upholding the universe by the word of his power, even as He was just a pinprick of an embryo conceived in the womb of his mother, Mary. I mean just think about that…it’s amazing!

He made Himself nothing and then humbled Himself in that nothingness. That’s an example of great love. That’s the example that Paul says happens in us when the gospel impacts our lives. The incarnation of Christ, the humility of the incarnation, it should strike our hearts with wonder, and it should cause us to wanna humble ourselves as well.

Closing

That’s the love of Christ for us. That’s the heart of the Christmas story…the heart of the gospel. Listen, I know we’re not in church right now…I know you came for the soup and the fellowship…but I think it would be a disservice to God if we didn’t just take a moment and reflect on this.

Would you just bow your head and close your eyes with me.

Listen, when you were still a sinner, Christ died for you. When you were rotten and inclined to evil…Christ loved you. That’s why He came. That’s the reason for Christmas…And listen, the Bible says that the only thing we have to do to experience this love and this grace…it’s to repent and believe…it’s to turn from ourselves…turn to Jesus…to ask Him for forgiveness…it’s to believe in Him…that He is in fact the Son of God.

Listen, where you’re at…would you just take a moment, reflecting on the Christmas story…the gospel…how it’s impacted and changed your life. Think about the beauty of Jesus’s love. And in just a moment I’ll close us in word of prayer.

[Prayer]