Untitled Sermon (5)

Who is the one we serve and what example did he leave us?

As James said we a very thankful that you all decided to join us today. It is a huge blessing to be supported by friends here and my hope is that you all are encouraged and challenged tonight.

I know most of us have had busy days, weeks, months or even years. In the world we live in, it is easy to get caught up in the bustling and business of our world. If I were to ask how many of us are busy, I am sure that we all would raise our hand. From work to church, to friends or family or even preparing for upcoming school, we all know what is it like to be busy. We all know the feeling of running around like a chicken with our head cut off. But that is not the only thing that we see in this life.

This world is often demanding and full of pressure. That pressure may be found in the unopened bills that sit on the counter, jobs that demand everything, pressure from parents to figure out when your degree will be done, maybe we find pressure from the society and even the church to be married or at least dating by now. And there are so many more things that can add as weights us.

Between the shear busyness of life and the pressures we all feel, how often do we find our focus wavering? How quick we all seem to put our energy into lesser thing. We all seem to in these busy times of life put importance on temporal and worldly things versus heavenly. And my entire goal in this time we have here is to hopefully serve as a reminder. A reminder that as Christians we have a lord that we are called to serve above everything. And it is my joy to look the reality of what our Lord did for us and the example he left.

So if you would, please open up you Bible to Philippians chapter 2. And through the writing of Paul to church in Philipi I would like to remind us of three things that our Lord did for us.

So go ahead and open your Bible to Philippians chapter 2 to verse 6-11. And here we will look at an amazing text. A text that is full of so much excellent meat. We could spend hours here and still barely scratch the surface. But do to time, I would like to look at just three things that proclaimed in verses 6-11 that we see our Lord did for us.

And the first is that

The first is that Jesus Christ left his exalted position. He left his exalted position. Let’s start in verse 6.

(NASB95)

6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

Now let’s stop there, we see in verse 6 and in part of 7 that when Christ came into the world he abandoned his exalted position. We see first the word who. That who is referring back to Christ Jesus as said in verse 5. So Christ Jesus, then, is the theme of this passage, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what does it say about Him? The first phrase: “being in the form of God.” Now listen to me – this is without question the heart and soul of the Christian faith. The affirmation of the deity of Jesus Christ is the crux of all that we believe.

Let’s break this down a little bit, we see Christ’s very nature and being in the first phrase. He existed in the form of God. That is his whole being, from eternity past Christ is God. It refers to the innate, changeless, unalterable character and nature of Christ. For example, men may look different, but they’re all men – that’s their nature.

In the same way man will always be man, Christ is and always will be God. It is the same reason we see in , Jesus refer to himself as the ‘I am’.

But in the middle of this phrase we see the word form, which is an interesting word. This word generally gives the idea of a material shape or resemblance, but it is far from that. The Greek word here is the word Morph, this word has to do with the deep and inner most essential parts of something. So when we see this word in this context here it is the unchanging inner most parts of who Christ is. At the core Christ is God. But look at the end of verse 6. it says that

‘ he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,’

Jesus Christ left his exalted position.

What does that mean, well we all would agree that Satan was a created being, created angel and he was inferior to God. But in we see him 5 times says I will be like God. He felt like it was something he could obtain. But Jesus didn’t.

Why?

It is because he already was God, why would he need to cling onto or grasp at something he already was. He had no fear of needing to grab at something he already was and had no fear of losing something he already was.

This is plain and simple just an awesome statement affirming that Christ is God.

But then in verse 7 we see that he emptied himself. He poured himself out.

Now the reason, we spent time looking at verse 6 is that we need to acknowledge the fact that Christ is God and that he was exalted. His exaltation is affirmed in verse 6 and in verse 7 we see that position being abandoned. He abandoned the position, but the text never says that he abandoned his deity or his divine attributes. He could never release these things because they are at the essential core of who he is. So what does it mean that he poured out or emptied himself?

It means that gave up things up things to become a man. He gave up the manifestation of his glory, we see that in Jon 17:5. He gave up his honor, numerous times he was rejected, mocked and scorned. He even gave up a favorable relationship with the Father. We see Christ on the cross crying out to his father.

He emptied himself of these things and yet still remained as God. He did not give up his divinity but he truly was God in a bod. Now I am not going to pretend to fully understand this deep and profound mystery fully. But I would like to say that this shows volumes of the character of Christ.

Listen to this quote from John MacAurther

“Jesus had all the privileges of glory, and He had no obligation to us. He was equal with God. And yet it says so much about His character that He chose to use His privileges to build the Father’s Kingdom and to reach lost sinners.”

How amazing is that. Our Lord Jesus Christ left his exalted position.

Lets move onto point 2.

2. Christ adopted a selfless posture.

We two aspects of Christ adopting this selfless posture. We see one in verse 7 and the other in verse 8.

Lets look at the first in verse 7 of who Christ became.

He accepted a servant’s place. Verse 7 tells us that he took the form of a bond servant. When He became a man, He didn’t become a king as a man, or a great ruler, or great leader, or great master, He became a servant. The moment that He let go of His robes of majesty, He clothed with a servant’s apron. He came to do the Father’s will and that was to have Christ accept a lowly position.

Here is our word form again though. It is still the word Morph. He took on Him the inner essential nature of a servant. He became a real servant, a true servant, a genuine servant. This reminds me of telling us that the Son of Man came to serve not to be served.

Christ willingly became a servant to work out God’s plan in redemption. but to do this he became a man. I know we have already talked about this but it is important to bring up because the text explicitly that he became into the likeness of man. Now the words being made that you in your Bibles could really be translated to the word becoming. The idea is not that he was created at that moment but the fact that he always was God, but became a man. He was eternally God, he wasn’t made. He became a man. The verse is saying that Jesus, who always was in the form of God, was becoming in the likeness of men. And it was a process; He was born, and He grew in wisdom and stature. He was becoming in the likeness of men. Now the word likeness is very interesting. It gives the idea that Jesus was becoming the same as man, He was in every sense in the sameness as men. He was a genuine man. He had the essential attributes of humanness. He wasn’t just God in a shell; He was fully man, just without sin. Now to be without sin does not mean you are not human by the way. Adam lived without sin and he was a really human. Jesus was without sin but was no less of a man.

Jesus was born into this world, had a mother like we all do, had family, he ate, he drank, he slept, he dealt with emotions and physical aliments. He was human.

So he abandoned His exalted position, he was a human and had a servants place.

But then we get to verse 8 and we see what Christ did in his selfless posture.

Let’s read.

(NASB95)

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

That is true humility and selflessness. Christ who was humbled by even abandoning his exalted position, then was born into this world. And not born onto gold but he was born in a filthy stable. He lived a life as a servant and then topped it all off by abiding by the Father’s plan and dying. But not just dying but dying for a people who did nothing to deserve it and dying the death of a criminal.

The maker of man, the ruler of all, the ones who holds all in his hands, the bread of life, the overflowing well, the judge, the way, the truth, and the foundation of all was hung on a cross. He lived a humble and died an even humbler death so that we may live.

Now that is true humility.

Our Lord Jesus Christ abandoned a exalted position, became human, had a servant’s place, then did the ultimate selfless act. But, there is one more point. One more thing I would like us to see in this passage and it is

Point 3 Jesus Christ ascended a supreme prince. He ascended as a supreme prince.

After verse 8 what is God’s response.

Let’s read

(NASB95)

9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The one who was humble was exalted above all, above every name.

And look at 10 and 11

Every living thing, every living creature in this world will confess Jesus Christ as Lord. The demons and the damned, the redeemed, the holy angels, all will bow, all will confess, sooner or later. The issue is when. If you wait until the judgment, it’s too late. But if now you confess Jesus as Lord, you enter into His Kingdom, His salvation. Now or later – the choice is yours. You can bow the knee now in adoration and love. You can confess Him as Lord now, and enter into the joy of salvation forever. Or you can resist and say “no,” and someday you’ll bow the knee because you’ll be forced and you have no choice, and you’ll be condemned. My prayer is that all here have knelt down to Christ, but if not, if you know that you have not submitted your life to him, I plead with you to get right with Christ today, before it is to late.

Let’s bring this home. How does this apply to our lives.

Or you can resist and say “no,” and someday you’ll bow the knee because you’ll be forced and you have no choice, and you’ll be condemned.

Well this whole section on Christ is an illustration for verse 3 and verse 5. We are called to have the same attitude of Christ.

Let’s read what verse 3 says.

(NASB95)

3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;

This is the mind of Christ. We see that clearly. We are called to imitate Christ.

Whether that means, being like Christ and giving up your rightful position. Or washing the feet of others. We are called to be like him in all humility. I speak to myself here, I know that struggle with this. I know that I need to apply this. That is part of the reason why this has a been a tough passage for me. We all, definitely including myself need to keep others as more important. We need to be a people who serve. We need to to admit that we do not know everything are willing to strive after accountability.

I would encourage us all to let this passage sit on our hearts. Please go back and meditate on these verses and see how they apply each of us.

Even in the midst of a tough world and busy lives, lets remember who we serve and let that propel us to serve others, with the heart ad mind of Christ.