Episode Transcript
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Well, let's turn our attention this
morning to Philippians, chapter two, Philippians
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two, versus three through eleven.
Philippians two verses three through verse eleven.
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Do nothing from rivalry or conceit,
but in humility, count others more significant
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than yourselves. Let each of you
look not only to his own interests,
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but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which
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is yours, in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form
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of God, did not count equality
with God a thing to be grasped,
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but made himself nothing, taking the
form of a servant. Being born in
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the 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. Therefore,
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God has highly exalted to him and
bestowed on him the name that is
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above every name, so that at
the name of Jesus, every Nie should
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bow in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue confess
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that Jesus Christ is Lord to the
glory of God, the Father. May
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God bless his word to us.
Please be seated. We're taking a little
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bit of break for the rest of
the of December from the Romans and first
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chronicles, and to consider something I'm
calling the Christmas life. I hope that's
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not too out of a phrase,
but I think you'll you'll see where I'm
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I'm going with this. I want
to consider the connections between what we might
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call the Christmas life and what we
do call the Christian Life, particularly as
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it's centered around the incarnation. I'm
you know what the incarnation is. It's
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a it's a big word. That
means it describes what happened when the son
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of God became man, when he
took on flesh, when he was born
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in the likeness of men, like
this passage says. Today, or this
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morning. I'm why I'm want to
focus on the theme of humility tonight,
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mere oracles. We think about humility
in the Christmas life, various things might
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come to mind. There's certain ways
we think about living during Christmas. Christmas
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certain expectations, certain hopes. We
want families to be together, people to
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share and be generous, people to
be focused on one another. These good
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things, and a lot of them, involve humility. It involves giving of
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ourselves, whether that's in gifts or
hospitality, acts of service. All kinds
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of things. We consider the needs
of others more than the needs of ourselves.
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Now, when we do this,
and this is sort of the expectation
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of this season, you see,
donations typically go up for nonprofits and families
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get together, more and more gifts
are given, and this is an expectation
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of of the season. Of course, there are incongruities during this time of
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year, things that don't exactly fit, the drunken office party or the family
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that won't talk to each other or
all kinds of things. But even when
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these anti Christmas things, I'm not
sure what to call them, but even
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when these things that sort of go
against the socalled spirit of the holidays are
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maybe even more prevalent than the thing
we're wishing for, and some ways that
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points out the truth all the more
we feel like this isn't the way things
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should be. We want something different. Well, that's why we love Christmas.
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I'm there is this general cultural clarity
in some ways that still aligns with
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what we might call the Christian life, this way in which we all in
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our society are desiring these good ends
and these good things, humility included,
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this posture that a person takes upon
themselves for the sake of loving, for
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the sake of serving, for the
sake of giving and honoring others. For
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a particular time of the year,
many, many people say, you know
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what, it's more important to be
about others than it is to be about
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only me. One Great Christmas story, of course, that points this out
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is the Charles Dickens Christmas Carol,
and we see at the beginning of that
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story Bob Cratchett asking for some time
off work to be with his family,
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to take care of his son,
and of course, screwed says no right,
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I'm important, I have a business
to run. These things don't matter.
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I'm scrooge of aneazer. Scrooge has
certain things and he doesn't see a
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Bob Cratchett for who he is and
what he needs. E beneezer scrooge isn't
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thinking about others, he's thinking about
himself and his own interests. At least
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that's how Charles Dickens wants us to
see it. When you think about this
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example or many others, I want
you to think in your own lives about
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what great humility has looked like in
your own lives. Can you think of
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an example of someone who has lowered
themselves for your sake. Maybe it was
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a professor who took you aside and
spent some time with you and really helped
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you, or a boss or a
CEO who told you here's the inside track
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you need to take. Or maybe
it was a father or a mother who
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got down and on their knees and
cared for you in your weakness. Think
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about your own acts of humility.
What's the greatest act of humility that you've
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taken in your own life? What's
the lowest that you have humbled yourself for
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the sake of another? What did
it look like? How did it feel?
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Did it smell bad? Did anyone
see you do it? With these
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things in mind, perhaps a particular
picture of humility, an instance in your
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life. Let's turn now to consider
the greatest act of humility, the greatest
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one of all, the one that's
given to us here in this passage this
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morning. In Philippians too, it
is the work of the son of God
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becoming man, becoming obedient even to
the point of death, death on a
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cross. To understand humility, and
Jesus is humility in particular. I'm going
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to look briefly at just three things. Who He was, what he became
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and why? First, who he
was. Notice what Paul says in verse
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six. He says who, though
he was in the form of God,
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did not count of quality with God, a thing to be grasped, but
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made himself nothing, taking on the
form of a servant. So you see
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these two parallel statements, right,
the form of God, the form of
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a servant. Now, this word
form is a word that can mean lots
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of different things, right. It
can mean shape, and it doesn't mean
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that here. He doesn't mean that
Jesus took on the shape of God and
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then took on the shape of a
servant. Servants don't have particular shapes,
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right. There's all kinds of servants, all kinds of things. God,
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God in particular, doesn't have a
shape. God is a spirit. What
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we have here being said is form
is being used in the sense of essential
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attributes, right, the essential attributes
of God. That's what Jesus had.
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He was in that, he was
God, is another way to put it,
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because you can't have the essential attributes
of God without being God. You
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can't have the glory of all things
and of all time and of oneself pouring
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and radiating from oneself without being God. You can't be eternal and immutable and
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never changing and and all the rest
without being God himself. So this isn't
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a way of saying that Jesus was
somehow sort of in the way of God
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and then stopped being God. It's
saying that he was God because there's no
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other way to have the form of
God, to have the essential attributes of
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God, without being God. But
it focuses not necessarily on his being God.
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Because of this contrast. He had
the essential attributes, he had the
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form of God because he was going
to do something. He was going to
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take the form of a servant.
Now this wouldn't being that he would stop
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being divine, but it would mean
that he would start being human. He
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would take on himself this form,
he would take on himself human flesh.
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He would become a servant. Instead
of being the one to whom all service
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was due, even though he was
still divine, he would now become one
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who is called to serve. God
in himself is not called to serve anyone,
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has no obligations to anyone except himself. But when Jesus became a servant,
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that changed in him. He took
on these essential attributes of a servant
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to be one who is obligated not
only to the father but to us in
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the kind, in the sense of
his promise, in his desire to save
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us, he served us. You
see a great picture of this. and
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John Thirteen, right before he goes
to the cross, Jesus, goes and
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he gets down on his hands and
knees and he washes the feet of his
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disciples. And Peter says, don't
do this, and he says you can't
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be with me, you can't belong
to me unless I wash your feet.
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Then I love what Peter says.
He says wash my head in my hands,
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to go for the whole thing.
I want to belong to you as
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an asside. What a great attitude
of one who belongs to Christ to hear
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the word of the Lord and respond
to it with such Gusto. But Anyway,
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the Lord Washes Peter's feed and all
the disciples feed, even Judases,
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and he says to them, if
you want to be my servants, you
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must do this kind of thing,
you must serve other people, you must
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lower yourself and take on this form. Now this is important to note,
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this contrast, because it really helps
us understand the degree of Jesus's humility here.
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Remember that question I asked you earlier. What's the farthest distance you've traveled?
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What's the lowest which you've extended yourself? What is the greatest extent to
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which you've hidden your education or your
knowledge for the sake of someone? What's
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the most that you've hidden? Perhaps
your wealth, or you have given of
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your wealth for the sake of others, or your status or your personal gifts,
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all kinds of things you might mention. What's the most? Well,
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here we have the Almighty God of
the Universe, who created all things.
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Being born of a woman in a
manger, surrounded by animals, in a
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place that's not home, he became
very low, born under the law,
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being a servant God. Emphasizes this
in a second way. Not only was
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he in the form of God,
not only did he have all the essential
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attributes of God, he didn't count
equality with God a thing to be grasped.
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Here it seems that Paul is making
this contrast with Adam. Adam was
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the son of God. Adam was
made in God's image. Adam radiated his
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glory, albeit in different ways than
the eternal son of God, the One
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Who had always been begotten, but
in the in a similar way, both
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sons owed obedience to the father.
But there's a big difference, isn't there?
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Adam did consider equality with God a
thing to be grasped, and that's
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exactly what he did. He asserted
himself as equal with God. He grasped
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for power, he sought to use
his position that he had M to take
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what did not belong to him to
grasp and to cling to, not beat,
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an obedient and son. Jesus,
however, is the Eternally Begotten Son,
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did something entirely different. Instead of
trying to lift himself up, he
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dropped himself down, instead of trying
to glorify himself in his sonhood over the
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father, he was obedient. He
was obedient and that's what he did.
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He be took on the form of
a servant, he took on the likeness
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of man, human form. He
humbled himself by becoming obedient. This reminds
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us of an important fact, that
our salvation does not begin at Jesus's birth
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or the cross, or at any
other point before that. You see that
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our salvation begins even from eternity,
when the god of all the universe makes
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this decision, has in his will, these eternal will, that he will
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save a people for himself. And
in this particular work, the son of
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God says, I will save this
people, I will, I will become
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like them in order to save them. Now this great descension, we might
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call it, from the eternal all
throne room of God. So this little
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tiny manger in Bethel him should be
enough to imply. Jesus is great obedience
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and should be enough to imply that
he would be obedient. But of course,
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in our fallen humanity it's not.
We equate being sinful with being human.
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But Jesus, in his perfect humanity, protected from original sin, lived
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obediently. And so we see him
acting here in when in a greater humility,
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not only in becoming human, but
in becoming an obedient human. This
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is very different from us. We
already find ourself in a ourselves in a
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place of humbleness or humiliation. In
a positive sense. We are those who
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are made under God, right as
first Peter was talking about earlier, as
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those who are under him. But
here Jesus isn't merely human, he's obedient.
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He humbles himself in the one way
none of us ever have. In
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a perfect way, he went lower
in a sense than we even are because
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of obedience, and you consider this
in every aspect of his life, even
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from the beginning of his ministry,
Satan was tempting him, wasn't he?
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He was tempting him to grasp at
that equality of God, to lift himself
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up, to take what belonged to
him, to take what has promised apart
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from obedience. But Jesus again and
again said no to Satan, that he
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would obey, that he would be
obedient, he would go to the cross.
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And when he goes to the cross, we see that as well,
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he goes of his own volition,
his own will. He's not pressed,
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he's not forced, even though he's
under the command and control of the authorities.
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Throughout his ministry we see that it's
according to his perfect will. Over
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and over again we hear him saying
it is not time, it is not
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time, it is not time.
And then there's the time approaches he says
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it is time, it is time, it is time. In this way,
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it's one way we see is Jesus
sovereignly exercising this obedience and he goes
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to the cross for US willingly freely. Jesus, as a man, suffered
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many humbling things. He was deserted
by his friends, he experienced hunger,
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he experienced pain unfairness. When we
think of the incarnation, we often think
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of baby Jesus in the manger,
and rightfully so. But Baby Jesus became
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Ms Man Jesus, and that hume
and flesh that he takes on gets pressed
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with thorns, gets beaten with whips, gets nailed with nails, gets hung
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on a cross. That's what the
incarnation means. Taking on human flesh means
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going to the cross, means suffering
and suffering and suffering, and that's what
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Paul says here. This is the
lodge. These are the logical steps Paul
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takes and that we should take in
our minds when we think about the incarnation.
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Jesus, though he was in the
form of God, did not account
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equality with God a thing to be
grasped, but made himself nothing, taking
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on 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. Scriptures tell us why Jesus did
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this. When you think about the
ways and you exercise humility, the ways
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in which you lowered yourself, it's
fair to remember that you don't always do
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it for the best reasons. I
don't always do them for the best reasons.
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Sometimes we humble ourselves as a way
to show off, as a way
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to get other people's respect. We
call this false humility. Right, we
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even have a term for it,
because it's prevalent enough people that lower themselves
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as a way to we have other
phrases for this, right fish for compliments.
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Oh I'm nothing, oh I'm not
a good person, oh I'm this
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or that, so that we can
get those of course you are. Everyone
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loves you. Yada, Yada,
Yad. We do it to get things
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back. We give it to prove
a point. We could do. We
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exercise humility to show off and show
how great we are, to show how
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humble we are. This is not
the point. Jesus exercises humility to serve,
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to love, to honor and glorify
the God, God, the father.
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He did it because he loves you, and that's what we see when
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Jesus gets down on his knees and
washes the feet of his disciples, not
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just there in that great symbolic act, but throughout his life, when he
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overlooked their sins and bore under their
weaknesses and explain to them again and again
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and again the things that they needed
to hear. You think about how many
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times thoughts run through your mind like
I don't deserve this, I shouldn't be
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in this position. Why should I
be here? This person should be doing
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these things to me. I don't
need to give up my time, my
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money, my whatever. That wasn't
Jesus's attitude. He was humble, and
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he was humble for the right reasons. He was humble because of love.
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He served the servants, he saved
the sinners, he came into the world
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to die, and all this,
the Bible tells us. Jesus didn't lose
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anything ultimately, because in this God
exalted him to the highest place that anyone
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could be exalted. He was exalted
so that the entire world would bow to
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him at the name of Jesus.
Every knee should bow in heaven and on
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earth and under the earth, and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
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to the glory of God, the
Father. Now there's no way that we
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can exercise this kind of humility,
and God is not going to raise you
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to the status of Jesus Christ if
you do something nice for someone. But
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that's not the point. The point
is that Jesus has done these things for
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you so that you can live your
life in him and be exalted in Him
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and be forgiven in him, that
you can then serve in him. Our
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goal isn't to become as exalted as
Jesus Christ is to somehow sort of raised
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to the same level, but it's
to live our lives in Jesus Christ and
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in that sense, be exalted in
Him, to enjoy his glories, to
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know his humility. And that's why
all of this humility that we're talking about,
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this humility that's desired and on display
and hoped for it Christmas time,
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is so obviously not only important for
the Christmas life and giving gifts and giving
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up your time and traveling and showing
hospitality, but it's for all year round,
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isn't it? In the Christian life, because the incarnation is more than
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just a story that kind of fills
out a particular time of year. It's
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the bedrock truth on which we are
saved. It's something that applies not only
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to all of time, but all
of life, and that's why Paul says
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it the way he says it here. He says he gives this command,
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let each of you look not only
to his own interests, but also to
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the interests of others. Have this
mind among yourselves, which is yours,
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in Christ Jesus, who, though
he was in the form of God,
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took on the form of a servant. Those who trust the incarnate son of
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God look to the one who has
gone the distance from heaven to Earth,
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who has paid the price and done
so in order to love. And so
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when he asks US and calls us
to love others in the same way,
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to humble ourselves, it is,
of course, the most fitting thing in
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the world, as those who act
and live and love and serve and worship
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in the name of Jesus, to
get down on our knees and serve those
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who are around us. So,
when we hear the command to be humble,
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when we desire to be humble,
when we desire for other people to
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show this kind of humility, let
us remember the exist the great example of
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our Savior, to remember him,
to believe in him and trust in him,
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for our salvation and then to follow
him. Let us seek the humility
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that is fitting of the Christian life. Let us pray
