Episode Transcript
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The passage of scripture for the sermon
this evening is in the Book of Philippians,
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chapter two, verses one through a
level. This is the word of
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God. So if there is any
encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love,
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any participation in this spirit, any
affliction, in any affection and sympathy,
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complete my joy by being of the
same mind, having the same love,
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being in full accord and of one
mind. Do nothing from a selfish
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ambition or conceit, but in humility
count others more significant than yourselves. That
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each of you look not only to
his own interests, but also to the
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interests of others. Have this mind
among yourselves, which is yours. In
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Christ Jesus, who though he was
in the form of God, did not
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count equality with God as a thing
to be grasped, but emptied himself by
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taking the form of a servant.
Being born in the likeness of men and
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being found in human form, he
humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point
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of death, even death on a
cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted
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him and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name, so that
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at the name of Jesus, every
knee should bow in heaven and on earth
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and under the earth, and every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to
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the glory of gods of Father.
The grass withers and the flower fades,
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with the word of our Lord will
stand forever. Please be steated. What's
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the blessing to be with you here
this evening? For many reasons, it's
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always a blessing to join together with
brothers and sisters, not only in the
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same denomination, but simply in Christ. It's a It's a blessing to be
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with you this time of year where
there's there's much joy because of the advent,
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because we dwell on the incarnation and
all that means for us. So
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I've mentioned this before, and I've
been down here, but it's always a
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blessing for my wife and I,
who met in Tucson. So without your
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fine city, my family would not
exist. My eldest son who's now taken
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care of our youngest son, it
was born here. You're out to him
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as he was driving um. So
it's always a blessing to be down here
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with you. And part of the
blessing of this season is of course to
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dwell on Jesus Christ. But that's
also often a challenge for us, isn't
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it. I would surely not be
the first person to remark that the Christmas
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season, the advent season can can
be a challenge. It can be a
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challenge for a lot of reasons.
For a lot of people, the loss
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of family members means it can be
a season of sadness or loneliness. We
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we know, perhaps the biggest challenge
for us as Christians is to say,
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stay centered on the joy of the
Incarnation while we are steeped in the brine
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of American consumerism. Um, the
Christmas season for most of America is the
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season of Christmas stuff rather than the
season of the Christmas Lord. And there's
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lots of different ways you can measure
this. The average American individual last year
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spent three d dollars on Christmas gifts. I'm not saying Christmas gifts are wrong.
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Uh. The average family spent a
thousand dollars on Christmas gifts last year.
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Uh, that's equivalent to one week's
salary for the average family. Last
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year, Americans spent eight hundred and
fifty nine billion dollars buying Christmas stuff.
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And according to every statistic, it
will almost definitely cross a trillion American dollars
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this year on Christmas stuff. So, being that we are in this culture,
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we're called to be in this world, we're called to seek the good
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of the city in which God has
placed us, how do we navigate right?
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We we can't simply throw these things
off. We don't want to completely
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throw off the season or our families
or the joy of giving gifts. But
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we also want to stay centered on
Christ. And that idea of really being
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centered on the incarnation is at the
center of Paul's letter to the church in
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Philippi, and so really lovingly it's
it's also kind of a church to a
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letter to every church during Christmas.
If you're familiar with the Book of Philippians,
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Paul is almost certainly in jail,
He's almost certainly near the end of
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his life. He is suffering.
He's writing to a church that's had an
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abundance of faith in Christ, but
at church that also needs to stay centered
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around the real truth of the Incarnation. They need to stay centered in that
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during a time of controversy. There
are people who are fighting against Paul,
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who are trying to put him to
shame, to tear down his ministry,
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and so perhaps they're not dealing with
our consumerism, but both of us are
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placed with this conflict between stayings centered
on Christ in the demands of the world
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around us. And right here at
the center of this book is this famous
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passage. It's often called the Canatic
Hymn, this reflection on the incarnation,
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and what Paul says that the center
of this is humility. So we only
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have two points tonight. We're gonna
look at the humble Him. You could
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also say we're gonna look at the
humble Christ. Of course that's the center,
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and then after looking at the humble
Christ, we're gonna look at the
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humble Life. So we're gonna skip
ahead in this passage, even though we're
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doing the whole pericope. We're gonna
go down to verse five and we say
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it's Him. There's a lot of
reasons why theologians commentators will point out to
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him, and I tend to agree, and I won't go into all of
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the reasons. But one of the
more interesting facets is that there seems to
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be three couplets inside this passage that
have a lot of things in the Greek
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that connects them. But more specifically, they have this poetic progress through each
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couple. The first one is Versus
five and six. Have this mind among
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yourselves, which is yours in Christ
Jesus, who this is usual where the
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him starts. Though he was in
the form of God, did not count
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equality with the thing to be grasped. And here's the second one. He
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emptied himself by taking the form of
a servant, by being born in the
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likeness of men, and being found
in human form. He humbled himself by
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becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And
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then here's the third couple. Therefore
God has highly exalted him and bestowed upon
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him the name there's above every name, so that at the name of Jesus,
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every knie should bow in heaven and
on earth and under earth, and
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every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father.
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Now that this being a hymn,
it is not to settle some kind
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of theological debut about songs, or
it's often even find itself at a center
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of different controversies about Christ and his
incarnation, and those are all important.
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But for the form of a sermon, I think we ought to look at
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the scriptures, and say is what
does Jesus want me to know from this
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text? And I say that with
confidence because I learned that from Pastor Chris
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Shelkin. If he's wrong, then
we're wrong together. So what does Jesus
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want us to hear? And although
this this passage is amazing christological implications,
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it should be the center of any
seminary class on Christology. And although it
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has absolute implications for life in the
church, when Paul is writing this to
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the Philippians, his overriding concern is
clearly that they would understand the humility of
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Christ in the incarnation. And so, first we see that humility is the
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cause of the incarnation. Why did
God become incarnate? Why did the sun
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take on flesh, it says in
verse six, because he did not count
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equality with things with God a thing
to be grasped. So we can rightly
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say that humility, which is to
say, humble love, was the cause
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of the incarnation. We know that
God desired to make a people for himself.
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That's been the plan since the very
beginning, when he put us in
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the garden, to have a people
for himself, a kingdom of priests unto
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God. But now having fallen away
from us. If God desires to have
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that people, he must win them
back to himself, and he must do
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it through humility. Humil it is
the cause he did not count equality with
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God a thing to be grasped.
And the force of that word is clearly
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something to grasp onto, something to
hold onto, And really Paul is setting
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up I believe we call it economy
a choice, not that God was divided
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against himself, but a choice that
the Trinity made in themselves. Would the
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son of God choose to take on
this humble form and all of the suffering
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and misery and difficult that comes with
it, or would he choose to grasp
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onto to stay with and only with
the Godhead. That's awful helpful when we
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talk about the incarnation, that we
understand that God doesn't change. We know
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that can be tricky theological purpose,
but humility and understand the cause of humility
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helps us understand that in humility,
God is bringing something to himself, not
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changing who he fundamentally was. Because
and this is my mind blowing, God
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has always been humble, and we
might think that sounds odd. He's the
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great God of the university, desires, old glory and praise. Of course
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he does. It's right to give
things the Lord, it's right to praise
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his name. Every call to worship
we read tends to start that way.
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But humility, humility Paul describes here
in this passage is what look not only
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to your interests, but look at
someone else's above you. And this is
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where the doctrine of the trinity is
necessary to understand God's humble love and his
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incarnation, because we confess a God
that is three persons, and so sink.
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Claire Ferguson, in his excellent book
Devoted to God, says we needed
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to find the love and holiness of
God in a way that doesn't just relate
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to us as humans. Christmas is
the season where we think about God in
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relation to us. But if we're
gonna say that God is loving, if
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he's holy, how can we say
that before the foundation of the world and
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Sinclaire Ferguson says, the way we
define his holiness before there's anything for him
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to be said effort from, is
that it's his love. The perfect outward
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facing love that each person in the
Trinity has for each other is the picture
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of precreation holiness, and therefore humility, because before the foundation of the world,
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before creation, before incarnation, the
Father loved the son, The Father
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loved the Spirit. The son loved
the Father and the Spirit, and the
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Spirit loved the Father and the Son, and that love was glorious. It
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was devoted to each other completely and
fully. So we can say, yes,
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God is humble, and that humility
is the cause that humble love.
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But then he goes on to say, in the next couplet, he emptied
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himself by taking the form of a
servant, being born in the likeness of
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men, and being found in human, humbled human form. I could say,
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being found in humbled form, he
humaned himself. That wouldn't be quite
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correct. But the point of being
a human is to us assume a level
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of humility. This is what theologians
will call the creator creation distinction. The
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minute the creator of life takes onto
himself a human form, we have that
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auction, which can only be rightly
referred to as the humiliation of Christ.
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And our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters, there's many in that tradition who do
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believe in Jesus. If you ever
get to know them, it's fascinating how
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much the incarnation forms the center of
their theology. And I'm not suggesting we
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go to the Eastern Orthodox Church for
theology, but there is a deep benefit
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to meditating on the overwhelming humility displayed
and humiliation displayed in this passage, and
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it's worth sincerely taking a time and
allowing your mind to grasp the implications that
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the God who holds the earth together, hebrew says, by his word of
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power, now walks on it and
feels it beneath his human feet. The
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God who binds hydrogen and oxygen together
holds those molecules so that water is wet
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from the smallest stream, carving a
path through the forest to the mightiest oceans,
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crossing against crashing against cliffs. The
God who made that is now thirsty.
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The God who is the source of
all energy in this universe, who
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binds every molecule together, where all
new life springs from, finds himself knocked
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out and and tired. So that's
why being in human form is being in
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humble form for him. But not
only was that hum humble love that he
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had not only for the members of
trainees, but now he has for his
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people. Not only is that the
cause, but this him says that humility
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is also the work, that it
has to be a humble work to save
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his people. He had to be
humbled in being obedient to the point of
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death. And so if God is
not humble in his cause and his love
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and his work, then we can't
even be saved. One of the most
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important works in the history of the
Church was written by Anselm around the turn
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of the last century two centuries ago, to be clear, and its Latin
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titles Curdeous Homo, which is why
the God Man. And it's a really
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excellent treatise on why God had to
become a man. But the center of
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it, there's this wonderful thought that
Anselm shares and an some sells. God
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had to humble himself to become a
man because he loved us, and it
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was in fact his love that necessitated
this humility. So humility is the cause,
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it's the reason why. Humility is
the work. It's the utility what
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it's what saves us. And then
we've seen this final couplet. Humility is
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what God crowns in the incarnation,
taking on becoming thirsty even though he made
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water, becoming hungry, even though
he made life. This humility is what
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saves us. It's also a God
crowns in verse nine. Therefore, this
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final triumphant couplet therefore, because of
his humble love, because of his humble
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incarnation, because of his bull salvation
for those things. Verse nine says God
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exalted because of his humility. God
exalted him and bestowed upon him the name
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that's above every name. Now,
that could be really hard for us as
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humans to combine the exaltation of Christ, the glorious king where you read in
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Revelations who comes down in his eyes
are like fire, and his fury treads
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the wine press of the wrath of
the Lord God almighty. And Philippian says,
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that's because he was humble. It's
because he was humble that he treads
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the fury of the wine press of
the wrath of the Almighty God. It's
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because he was humble. The nations
bend their need to him and adore him
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as a powerful king. Those things, Philippian says, are inturately connected.
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That's why are hymns talk about Jesus
is born a king. And this is
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the illustration I think for this point
that the incarnation is at its very core,
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the humility, the humble nous of
God and of Christ is the doctrine
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of Christ as a righteous, powerful, glorious king. And it's in many
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ways the battle that I think helps
us fight back against the doctrine of stuff,
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for the doctrine of therapeutic moral deism, or all the different ideas that
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come at Christmas, is that Christ
is a humble king. So I want
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to invite you to turn in your
bibles, or swipe in your Bibles,
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or however you open the Word of
God. Um. I had a seminary
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professor, an older man from the
South, who refused people in the pulpit
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too in the in the pews to
use phones to look at their Bible,
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because he said it was like kissing
your wife through a screen door. I
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have no such compulsion. If you
want to turn with me to Deuteronomy seventeen,
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what we're gonna find is God's commission
of Christmas. And I don't think
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when we read Deuteronomo, we normally
think of it as an advent book.
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Deuteronomy seventeen fourteen, when you come
into the land that the Lord your God
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is giving you, and you possess
it and dwell in it, and say
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I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around
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me. You may indeed set a
king over you, who the Lord your
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God will choose. One from among
your brothers, you shall set his king.
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You may not put a foreigner over
you who is not your brother.
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He must not acquire many horses for
himself, or cause the people to return
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to Egypt in order to acquire many
horses, since the Lord has said to
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you, you shall never return that
way again. And he shall not acquire
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many wives for himself, lest his
heart turn away, nor shall he acquire
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for himself excess silver and gold.
And when he sits on the throne of
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his kingdom, he shall write for
himself in a book the copy of this
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law approved by political priests, and
it shall be with him. He shall
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read it all the days of his
life, that he may learn to fear.
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The Lord has gone by keeping all
of the words of this law and
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its statutes, and by doing them, that his heart may not be lifted
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above his brothers, that he may
not turn aside from the commandment, either
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to the right hand or to the
left, so that he may continue long
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in his kingdom he and his children
in Israel. This is a Christmas passage,
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because we know the king that was
promised Israel is not ultimately David,
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and it's not Solomon, it's not
Josiah, it's not Hezekiah. This is
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a Christmas patches. The king that
needs to come to Israel is the humble
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God taking on a humble human form, humbly and humanly saving his people so
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that he will be this king forever. And if we look at the descriptions
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here of this king, they are
overwhelmingly humble descriptions. I would actually suggest
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you that's maybe the only thread you
can find to connect these disparated parts.
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He has to be one of you. He can't be some foreign and that's
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separately. He has to be like
you. It's a necessary part of humility,
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I think, is that connection to
one another, to not thinking yourself
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as above someone else. You have
to be like. Then, he says
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this, he must not have what
many horses, many riches, many gold,
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many wives. He can't have anything
that elevates himself above his people.
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And then the most humbling thing of
all, he must be a man of
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the word or praise God, he
must be the Word in order to be
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truly humble. So Humility is the
king. Humility is a cause, it's
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the way, it's what's crowned.
But then we see what happens when Christians
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at Christmas forget that's the king that
we need. And so now I'm gonna
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ask you to turn to First Samuel
chapter eight, a passage that often gets
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confused. I think this is when
Israel demands a king. Then all the
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elders of Israel gathered together and came
to Samuel at Rama and said to him,
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behold, you are old, and
your sons do not walk in your
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ways. Now a point for us
a king to judge us, like all
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the nations. But this thing displeased
Samuel when they said, give us a
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king to judge us. And Samuel
prayed to the Lord, and the Lord
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said to Samuel, will obey the
voice of the people and all that they
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say to you, for they have
not rejected you, but they have rejected
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me. Now how do we reconcile
these two verses. Deuteronomy seventeen says,
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when you get into the lands,
you want a king, that's good.
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But now in First Samuel chapter eight, when they want a king, God
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says, they reject him. But
the answer is in Philippians chapter two,
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because the question is what kind of
king do they want? They do not
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want a humble king, you can
see the beginning. What they want is
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a king like the other nations.
Well, that pretty clearly violates the very
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first rule of the humble king,
that he's gonna be like you. He's
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not gonna be like the nations.
He's not gonna robe himself and all these
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are rays. He's not going to
call himself the emperor of the earth.
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He's not going to build a throne
here that he thinks will stand. They're
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already breaking Deuteronomy. And then look
who they pick. In verse nine,
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there was a man of Benjamin whose
name was Kish, and he had a
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son whose name Saul. And everything
about Saul is not humble. They like
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him because he's not one. He
is a Benjamin night, but he's not
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like that. We always said,
they want a king like the nations.
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He is handsome, the opposite of
the king that God describes the book as
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he's known for his his wealth,
his his prosperity, his handsomeness. Everything
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about him is the opposite of this
humble king. And we'll see in his
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life that that Saul is most definitely
not a man of God's word. That
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he doesn't understand it, he doesn't
care for it, he doesn't listened to
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it. And so the Israel doesn't
reject Gone because they want a king.
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Israel rejects Gone because they reject his
humble king, the humble king described to
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you on me, the humble king
that we find in the birth narratives of
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Luke and of Matthew, the humble
King that Paul centers his letter around in
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Philippians Chew. You have to fundamentally
understand this Christmas King as humble. Now
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before that, before he just rise, he makes this commendation to his people,
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right, and we know that Paul
probably believes that as he's about described
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the humble life that flows from the
humble Christ, he thinks this is probably
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the last letter he's going to write
to these people. He doesn't expect to
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live. Indeed, we don't know
if he talked again to this church.
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He knows that he's leading, he
knows that they're going to need encourage me.
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They have supported Paul, they love
Paul, they love the ministry,
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they love Jesus. But their beloved
brother is about to die. He's deeply
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concerned that they might be left rudderless. Paul believes in the Holy Spirit,
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he believes in Christ, he believes
in this humble King. But he's concerned
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about them. And so Paul says, if there is any encouragement in Christ
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here the severity of his language.
I if there's anything I can give you
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to sustain you in this world,
If there's anything I can give you to
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help you persevere when me and others
and people in your flock are killed.
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If there is any comfort from love, that's pretty dramatic. Any comfort from
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love, any participation in the Holy
Spirit. Just stop right there. If
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you're in Philippi or you're here right
now this morning, what Christian doesn't want
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these things? If we condition the
ligonnaire or born, and to do a
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study of Americ Christians, what percentage
of you would like to have encouragement from
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Jesus Christ, that answer would be
Christians. How many of you would like
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to have comfort from love? Christians? How many of you would like to
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participate with the Holy Spirit? Lord, please let that be so, do
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nothing from selfish ambition or conceite in
humility. Count others more significant than yourselves.
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So just as this King that God's
people once rejected, but now have
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accepted at Christmas. This King,
whose humble love is the cause of salvation.
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It's the way of salvation. It's
what's glorified at salvation. Now Christians
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have to realize that humility is every
bit essential for their life, because they
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find life in Him, and that's
essential. In in Philippians three, we
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see one of the most beautiful testament, suggification by faith alone. For his
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sake. I have suffered the loss
of all things and account them as rubbish
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to gain Christ, to be found
in him. Paul says, this,
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not having a righteousness of my own
that comes from the law, but that
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which comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
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So here, Paul, clearly,
he is not telling you to be
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humble so that Jesus might finally love
you. He's not telling you to look
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not only to your interests but those
of others, so that this humble God
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might save you. It's instead the
opposite, he says later, I press
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on towards this because Jesus Christ has
made me his own, because of the
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tremendous humility of this King who is
like you. And that's Christmas. That's
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him fulfilling the first part of Deuteratomy's
seventeen. Because he's like you, because
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he loves you more than he loved
anything in this world, wives and riches
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in Egypt. Because he is the
Word incarnate, you are already saved when
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you have faith in Him. For
this, humility is not to win his
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love, but it is the only
way, Paul says, to have encouragement
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in Christ, comfort from love,
participation the Holy Spirit, any affection and
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sympathy. Paul says, I want
that for you complete my joy. Then
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by doing this thing, be humble, so we could see the exact same
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things that are true of Christ.
And that's because how it works where united
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Him. What's true of Christ must
then, through his work his free grace
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be true of his people. Humility
has to be the cause for how we
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treat each other at Christmas and all
through the year. Humility is the cause
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if we want to have encouragement and
Christ comfort and lung participation only spirit.
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Humility is what will cause those things. Just like in our humble King,
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humility is what works in our life
now. I'm very thankful for coming to
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Presbyterian Church. We all greatly limit
the amount of American churches that full prey
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to the prosperity gospel. And if
you want to hear the prosperity Gospel work,
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Christmas is the exact right season to
sample it, because every Christmas message
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in the world to be. Christmas
is the season where God has come to
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give you all of your hopes and
dreams, to drive away all the darkness,
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to get rid of your cancer,
to give you money, to get
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rid of your debt, to declare
his promises. That's what Christmas is all
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about, except we hear the exact
opposite. Christmas is about humility. And
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so when I tell you the humility
works, it's not because I desire for
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you to have your best life on
Friday. Your your best life better not
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beyond Friday. Your best life better
be in the world that's to come.
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But I will tell you, Paul
says really clearly, if humility is how
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God saved the world, then humility
is also the only thing that's gonna work
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in your life to make you more
like Jesus. If that's what he used
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to save the world, that's what
He's gonna use to change your heart.
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To do nothing from selfish ambition or
conceit, but to count others as more
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significant than yourselves. That's the story
of the Gospel. The Bible says,
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why did God suffer the ross?
And he said, for the joy that
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was set before him? What was
the joy that was set before him?
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Glory with his father? But also
you, You were the joy that was
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set before him. You being with
him and forever in paradise was his great
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joy that he loved so much that
he cast aside everything else in humility,
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because that's what he wanted. So
now he says, if you would be
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like him, have that same mind. Jesus died for these people. That's
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what humble is. If you want
to be like him, love them the
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way that he does, which is
more than he loved his own life,
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with all due respect, more than
you should love yours. Humility is also
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what God is going to crown in
our life. It's also what is going
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to last. And we can see
this in all of the promises of crowns
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that come through the Bible. You
probably familiarly. Some of them. Martyrs
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receive a crown. The Book of
Revelation, elder deacons receive a crown.
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It even says all those who were
joiced in the Lord's appearing, we'll receive
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a crown. But think of everything
that God is crowning in the Bible,
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and see that it is always the
humility that is perfectly reflected in his son.
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The martyrs receive a crown because in
humility they lost their life so that
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they might gain it in Jesus Christ. Those who serve the church receive a
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crown, Paul says, and Peter
says, because they humbled themselves and gave
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their lives to the church. And
all those who receive a crown for looking
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forward to Jesus Christ are those who
forsake their life so that they might find
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it in Jesus Christ. So just
like he will crown his son forever as
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a righteous, glorious, all powerful
king because of his humility, the only
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thing, the only thing that we
should understand will work to have this benefit,
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is humble love in our lives.
Maybe ask what about prayer? Can
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you pray if you don't do it
in humility? James saysn't it? What
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about serving one another? Serving one
another is an act of humility? You
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say, what about coming in worship? Bending the need of Jesus Christ is
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the act of humility that He requires
of his people. So there are many
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christ In virtues. I'm not trying
to elevate humility more about grace or more
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about love. But but we have
to understand that because it's central to who
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Christ is, it has to be
central to us. And so we started
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by talking about Christmas stuff. The
question is not whether or not the stuff
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is good or bad, because I
can't answer that question for you. And
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I'm not telling you to take away
your kids Christmas presents because we need to
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be humble. That's probably the wrong
way to teach your kids humility, no
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presence, be humble like Jesus.
No, it's it's entirely it's entirely different
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question. Part of the problem with
the Christmas stuff is that we live a
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life of many options. Right,
you go on Amazon and you can have
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anything you want within days, I
mean literally almost anything. Things that would
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blow the mind of our grandparents if
we showed them to them. Right,
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all we have in this world consumer
is an options. But if the central
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message of Christmas and Incarnation is the
humility of Christ, and if the central
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inciquation for his humilities are humility,
that I tell you do. You do
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not actually have options. The only
thing for us is to be humble like
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Jesus Christ. And the promises is
there is no good thing that's lost in
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following Jesus Christ. No truly good
thing does God remove from the people who
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love him. Yeah, he might
remove some of the Christmas stuff. We
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might lose some things in this world, but Jesus says, he who will
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lose this world for my sake will
have life forever. That's humility. That's
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what Christ works in his people.
That's the encouragement. Brothers and sisters.
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We are not humble enough. I
am not humble enough. It's okay because
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Christ was humble enough for us,
and so being filled with the overwhelming love
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that's so humble. It saves us. We are only radically free to be
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completely humble, not just with our
Christmas stuff, but with all of our
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life. Let's pray, Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for your example of
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humility on the cross. The incarnation
means so many things for us. It
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is a fountain head of so many
of our auctions. We are thankful for
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every day of our life that you
came and you took on our form that
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you did what we could not do
for ourselves. That you loved us even
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when we didn't love you all for
a humble love's sake, God, we
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pray that this humble love would resonate
in our hearts. Were so thankful that
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in your providence. There's a season
where we even go into stores and radio
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as we hear angels HARKing the birth
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Lord,
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let that dwell particular in your people
guard us, guard us from focusing
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too much on stuff and on the
things of this world. But let us,
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like Jesus Christ, humble ourselves of
everything except for love, and let
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us love him, not to win
his love, but to live in his
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love, and to bask in what
humility does. For your people. Let
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us pursue one another this season and
all the days of our life with a
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truly humble love, because that's what
saved us. And so, Lord,
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even as we pray these things,
we pray for the people in this congregation.
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We desire for them to be healed. We desire for them to prosper.
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We desire for them to be strengthened, to be comforted. Lord,
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And so we ask first that you
would enable the brothers and sisters here to
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be that comforting love, that we
would indeed truly look to one another's needs
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as more important than our own,
and that we would be desirous to pour
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out our lives to be a little
bit more like Jesus tomorrow than we were
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today we fought. We pray for
traveling mercies for all of our brothers sisters
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who are far from us. Lord, keep them safe, give them energy,
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keep them away from sickness. Lord, as we know that happens delivered
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to them to where they're going or
back home to us, that we might
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rejoice in the gift that they are. Lord, we pray for all the
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members of this congregation. They're sick. We think of Bill and Berniey,
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we think of Pastor Chelco, we
think of the Nichols family. Lord,
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bless them. If it's in your
will, you are got a tremendous mercy
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and grace. We asked that you
would heal them. Give them healing and
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Lord, even if you desire for
the thorn to continue, Lord, you
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pray that you would use it to
bring them closer to Jesus, that they
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would be comfort in the Holy Spirit, In the Holy Spirit, that they
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would be participation and love and sympathy, that they would know they have these
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things in You, and Lord,
allow your church to be that comfort,
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to be that encouragement to them as
they suffer. Lord, we pray for
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our sister Sarah, who goes into
open heart surgery tomorrow. We pray that
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you would bless her. We pray
that you would equip the saints of Calvin
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Presbyterian Church to care for her.
We pray for Caleb or husband. We
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pray for Joseph and their daughter.
Comfort them. Would we pray that they
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would have these things that you've promised
your people, that they would be encouraged
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in Jesus Christ, that they would
be comforted by your love, that they
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have a participation in the Holy Spirit. Because of your amazing, humble love
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for them. Lord, we do
ask for healing for Sarah, strengthen her
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heart, care for her doctors,
Give them wisdom and strength and energy tomorrow
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as they work. Lord. We
ask for mercy, knowing we are undeserving
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of it, but knowing you love
to give it because of your wonderful,
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wonderful, wonderful grace. Lord,
we ask for all these things, and
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our great say of you are Jesus
the Christ Amen
