Be Obedient to Death

Intro

I cannot put into words how honored, grateful, and how unbelievable it is for me to be standing in this pulpit. I never fathomed that I would stand here before all of you. I want to thank you for allowing me to be here today. It is with great honor that I deliver this message to you today, but I will do so with apprehension and trepidation. I do not feel this way because I am concerned about how you will receive or react to what I speak here today, but I do so out of a fear of our Heavenly Father. The punishment for twisting the word is more than I could possibly bear. With that being said let us go to the Lord in prayer.

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father,

Lord we come to you today with thankful hearts for this day and this opportunity to praise and worship you. Lord, I pray that the message that I speak today is from you and not of my own understanding but an understanding that you have revealed to me. Lord, I pray that this message would reach anyone who needs it Lord. I understand that I’m not here to save anyone, but to deliver your message. I pray that you would open our hearts and minds to hear, understand, and receive here today. Lord, I pray for those who are sick and in need of your healing hand. Above all Lord, I pray that you are glorified here today. In Christ’s precious and Holy name I pray, AMEN.

I only have one goal here in this pulpit and that is to bring Glory to my Father in Heaven, if in the process of my attempts to glorify Him, I plant seeds or make someone proud of me then so be it, but if my main goal deviates from the glorification of the Lord then I must step away from this calling. With that being said, turn with me to: Phil 2:5-11

Philippians 2:5-11

5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Let this mind be in you

Paul explains this mindset in verses 2-4

Have the same mind

Love one another

Be united in the Spirit

as the body of Christ we are to have the same values and goals.

He tells us to do nothing out of selfish ambition

Conceit

Regard your brothers and sisters as more important than yourselves

5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Paul is saying that the ways that are in verses 2-4 are the attributes of how Jesus lived.

6. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

Who = Jesus

being

gk word is huparcho - hoo-par-kho- to exist

form

gk word is morphe - mor-fay - nature

If any atheist comes to you and says to show you were the bible says that Jesus is God point to this verse.

Jesus, existed in the nature of God.

HIS NATURE IS GOD

HE IS GOD

thought it not robbery to be equal with God

Jesus didn’t think that He needed to rob, steal, grasp, take hold of equality with God because he was equal to God.

This is significant in the wordage that Paul uses here..

He says Jesus didn’t need to steal the throne to be equal to God

We know that Lucifer tried to overthrow the throne because He thought himself greater than God; he wanted to steal that away.

7. But made himself of no reputation

Made himself of no reputation

gk word kenosis

to empty

He emptied himself

But what did He empty himself of?

His glory

John 17:5 Jesus asks God to glorify him together with Him with the glory he once had before the world was made

independent authority

John 5:30 tells us how Christ completely submitted himself to the will of the Father, “I can of mine own do nothing; as I hear, I judge; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me,” which we see in the Garden of Gethsemane, “not my will Father but your will be done” Matthew 26:39

devine prerogatives

Matthew 24:36 says, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” Only the Father knows the time of Christ’s return since it has been set by the Father’s authority, which Jesus is no longer privy to since emptying himself. Understand that Jesus emptied Himself it wasn’t taken away from Him or removed from Him, He denied Himself of His own deity. When I say He was no longer privy to it, its because His self will is to deny his GODLY WILL and SUBMIT FULLY to the FATHER’S WILL.

eternal riches

2 Cor 8:9 says, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”

favorable relationship with God

2 Cor 5:21 says, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

If we could just stew on that for just a second

He became sin or better yet he made himself the enemy so that we may be righteous before the Lord. Is there a greater sacrifice? We read in Luke 22:44 “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

This sweating blood has a name its called Hematohidrosis. Many people who are headed to their death experience this phenomenon. But I promise you Jesus was not concerned for his life, he was in agony over what was in the cup he asked to be passed from him in Luke 22:42…THE wrath of the ALMIGHTY GOD was in the cup, becoming sin was in the cup. It wasn’t what was to become of him at the hands of mere men…it was the punishment from HIS FATHER that he was in agony over.

Next time you think of the sacrifice that Jesus made understand it wasn’t just the cross. He sacrificed so much before his birth.

So when we read that text we see that he made himself of no reputation, or the greek word Kenosis, emptied himself, understand that this doesn’t mean it was removed from Him, he just denied himself of these things. Remember Jesus says in Matthew 16:24, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

ALL THESE THINGS CHRIST DID FOR YOU!!!

HE DENIED HIMSELF AND CAME AFTER YOU…NOT TO FOLLOW YOU BUT TO SAVE YOU.

WE ALL KNOW HE TOOK UP HIS CROSS

JESUS HAS NOT ASKED US TO DO ANYTHING HE DIDN’T DO HIMSELF

Ok that sums up the 1st 3rd of verse 7 lets move on...

And took upon him the form of a servant

Jesus, came to serve, the Father, all of His will no matter the cost. He came to be an example of a servant and we see that in John 13:4-5

King James Version Chapter 13

4 He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. 5 After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

King James Version Chapter 13

Know ye what I have done to you? 13 Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. 16 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. 17 If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them

2. Don’t fool yourself and think you are too good to serve, Jesus washed these men’s feet…did you hear me? Their feet!!! Ask my wife about how I feel about feet....I have a foot phobia…This example that Jesus gives to serving with a loving humility. He knew these men would find it humiliating to wash one another’s feet…but we must be willing to be humiliated for him.

And he was made in the likeness of men.

Many people will read this and think so he’s just God in the body of a man but he was more than that. John MacArthur put it like this: “He took on all the essential attributes of humanity, even to the extent that he identified with basic human needs and weaknesses. He became the God-Man fully God and fully Man.” This portion here discusses a God becoming Man...

Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, ye without sin.”

Gal 4:4-5 says, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,  To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

Col 1:22 says, “In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.