The Christmas Life: Humility (Philippians 2:5-11)

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:07.269 Well, let's turn our attention this morning to Philippians, chapter two, Philippians 2 00:00:07.389 --> 00:00:27.339 two, versus three through eleven. Philippians two verses three through verse eleven. 3 00:00:32.740 --> 00:00:38.649 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant 4 00:00:38.649 --> 00:00:42.890 than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, 5 00:00:43.090 --> 00:00:47.729 but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which 6 00:00:47.729 --> 00:00:51.920 is yours, in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form 7 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:57.039 of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 8 00:00:57.719 --> 00:01:02.039 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. Being born in 9 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:07.709 the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by 10 00:01:07.790 --> 00:01:14.150 becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, 11 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:18.189 God has highly exalted to him and bestowed on him the name that is 12 00:01:18.230 --> 00:01:22.379 above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every Nie should 13 00:01:22.379 --> 00:01:26.379 bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess 14 00:01:26.540 --> 00:01:33.049 that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. May 15 00:01:33.129 --> 00:01:51.799 God bless his word to us. Please be seated. We're taking a little 16 00:01:51.799 --> 00:01:57.920 bit of break for the rest of the of December from the Romans and first 17 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:07.389 chronicles, and to consider something I'm calling the Christmas life. I hope that's 18 00:02:07.389 --> 00:02:10.509 not too out of a phrase, but I think you'll you'll see where I'm 19 00:02:10.629 --> 00:02:16.340 I'm going with this. I want to consider the connections between what we might 20 00:02:16.379 --> 00:02:23.419 call the Christmas life and what we do call the Christian Life, particularly as 21 00:02:23.939 --> 00:02:28.740 it's centered around the incarnation. I'm you know what the incarnation is. It's 22 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:32.689 a it's a big word. That means it describes what happened when the son 23 00:02:32.770 --> 00:02:38.810 of God became man, when he took on flesh, when he was born 24 00:02:38.009 --> 00:02:45.120 in the likeness of men, like this passage says. Today, or this 25 00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:50.919 morning. I'm why I'm want to focus on the theme of humility tonight, 26 00:02:51.719 --> 00:02:58.909 mere oracles. We think about humility in the Christmas life, various things might 27 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:04.669 come to mind. There's certain ways we think about living during Christmas. Christmas 28 00:03:05.030 --> 00:03:09.990 certain expectations, certain hopes. We want families to be together, people to 29 00:03:10.509 --> 00:03:15.139 share and be generous, people to be focused on one another. These good 30 00:03:15.259 --> 00:03:20.819 things, and a lot of them, involve humility. It involves giving of 31 00:03:21.020 --> 00:03:28.370 ourselves, whether that's in gifts or hospitality, acts of service. All kinds 32 00:03:28.409 --> 00:03:32.650 of things. We consider the needs of others more than the needs of ourselves. 33 00:03:34.569 --> 00:03:37.530 Now, when we do this, and this is sort of the expectation 34 00:03:37.729 --> 00:03:43.080 of this season, you see, donations typically go up for nonprofits and families 35 00:03:43.159 --> 00:03:46.439 get together, more and more gifts are given, and this is an expectation 36 00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:54.039 of of the season. Of course, there are incongruities during this time of 37 00:03:54.120 --> 00:04:00.389 year, things that don't exactly fit, the drunken office party or the family 38 00:04:00.509 --> 00:04:05.789 that won't talk to each other or all kinds of things. But even when 39 00:04:05.990 --> 00:04:13.219 these anti Christmas things, I'm not sure what to call them, but even 40 00:04:13.259 --> 00:04:16.660 when these things that sort of go against the socalled spirit of the holidays are 41 00:04:17.060 --> 00:04:21.180 maybe even more prevalent than the thing we're wishing for, and some ways that 42 00:04:21.259 --> 00:04:25.689 points out the truth all the more we feel like this isn't the way things 43 00:04:25.730 --> 00:04:30.769 should be. We want something different. Well, that's why we love Christmas. 44 00:04:31.410 --> 00:04:36.889 I'm there is this general cultural clarity in some ways that still aligns with 45 00:04:38.050 --> 00:04:41.879 what we might call the Christian life, this way in which we all in 46 00:04:41.959 --> 00:04:48.680 our society are desiring these good ends and these good things, humility included, 47 00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:56.389 this posture that a person takes upon themselves for the sake of loving, for 48 00:04:56.470 --> 00:05:00.389 the sake of serving, for the sake of giving and honoring others. For 49 00:05:00.550 --> 00:05:04.470 a particular time of the year, many, many people say, you know 50 00:05:04.709 --> 00:05:11.300 what, it's more important to be about others than it is to be about 51 00:05:12.019 --> 00:05:18.300 only me. One Great Christmas story, of course, that points this out 52 00:05:18.459 --> 00:05:23.610 is the Charles Dickens Christmas Carol, and we see at the beginning of that 53 00:05:23.850 --> 00:05:30.129 story Bob Cratchett asking for some time off work to be with his family, 54 00:05:30.329 --> 00:05:33.529 to take care of his son, and of course, screwed says no right, 55 00:05:34.170 --> 00:05:38.600 I'm important, I have a business to run. These things don't matter. 56 00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:44.720 I'm scrooge of aneazer. Scrooge has certain things and he doesn't see a 57 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:49.000 Bob Cratchett for who he is and what he needs. E beneezer scrooge isn't 58 00:05:49.029 --> 00:05:55.870 thinking about others, he's thinking about himself and his own interests. At least 59 00:05:55.870 --> 00:06:00.509 that's how Charles Dickens wants us to see it. When you think about this 60 00:06:00.629 --> 00:06:04.740 example or many others, I want you to think in your own lives about 61 00:06:05.660 --> 00:06:11.060 what great humility has looked like in your own lives. Can you think of 62 00:06:11.139 --> 00:06:16.339 an example of someone who has lowered themselves for your sake. Maybe it was 63 00:06:16.420 --> 00:06:21.170 a professor who took you aside and spent some time with you and really helped 64 00:06:21.250 --> 00:06:28.610 you, or a boss or a CEO who told you here's the inside track 65 00:06:28.769 --> 00:06:32.720 you need to take. Or maybe it was a father or a mother who 66 00:06:33.279 --> 00:06:39.360 got down and on their knees and cared for you in your weakness. Think 67 00:06:39.399 --> 00:06:44.439 about your own acts of humility. What's the greatest act of humility that you've 68 00:06:44.480 --> 00:06:49.110 taken in your own life? What's the lowest that you have humbled yourself for 69 00:06:49.230 --> 00:06:55.709 the sake of another? What did it look like? How did it feel? 70 00:06:56.870 --> 00:07:03.579 Did it smell bad? Did anyone see you do it? With these 71 00:07:03.699 --> 00:07:09.899 things in mind, perhaps a particular picture of humility, an instance in your 72 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:16.250 life. Let's turn now to consider the greatest act of humility, the greatest 73 00:07:16.290 --> 00:07:19.290 one of all, the one that's given to us here in this passage this 74 00:07:19.449 --> 00:07:25.329 morning. In Philippians too, it is the work of the son of God 75 00:07:26.209 --> 00:07:30.839 becoming man, becoming obedient even to the point of death, death on a 76 00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:39.600 cross. To understand humility, and Jesus is humility in particular. I'm going 77 00:07:39.639 --> 00:07:44.389 to look briefly at just three things. Who He was, what he became 78 00:07:44.910 --> 00:07:51.910 and why? First, who he was. Notice what Paul says in verse 79 00:07:53.230 --> 00:07:57.310 six. He says who, though he was in the form of God, 80 00:07:58.310 --> 00:08:01.620 did not count of quality with God, a thing to be grasped, but 81 00:08:01.819 --> 00:08:07.699 made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant. So you see 82 00:08:07.740 --> 00:08:11.620 these two parallel statements, right, the form of God, the form of 83 00:08:11.660 --> 00:08:16.089 a servant. Now, this word form is a word that can mean lots 84 00:08:16.129 --> 00:08:22.050 of different things, right. It can mean shape, and it doesn't mean 85 00:08:22.170 --> 00:08:26.730 that here. He doesn't mean that Jesus took on the shape of God and 86 00:08:26.810 --> 00:08:31.680 then took on the shape of a servant. Servants don't have particular shapes, 87 00:08:31.720 --> 00:08:35.000 right. There's all kinds of servants, all kinds of things. God, 88 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:41.000 God in particular, doesn't have a shape. God is a spirit. What 89 00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:45.789 we have here being said is form is being used in the sense of essential 90 00:08:45.830 --> 00:08:50.470 attributes, right, the essential attributes of God. That's what Jesus had. 91 00:08:52.269 --> 00:08:56.419 He was in that, he was God, is another way to put it, 92 00:08:56.620 --> 00:09:01.299 because you can't have the essential attributes of God without being God. You 93 00:09:01.419 --> 00:09:07.299 can't have the glory of all things and of all time and of oneself pouring 94 00:09:07.500 --> 00:09:16.129 and radiating from oneself without being God. You can't be eternal and immutable and 95 00:09:16.529 --> 00:09:22.129 never changing and and all the rest without being God himself. So this isn't 96 00:09:22.250 --> 00:09:28.000 a way of saying that Jesus was somehow sort of in the way of God 97 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:31.840 and then stopped being God. It's saying that he was God because there's no 98 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:35.759 other way to have the form of God, to have the essential attributes of 99 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:43.190 God, without being God. But it focuses not necessarily on his being God. 100 00:09:43.309 --> 00:09:46.509 Because of this contrast. He had the essential attributes, he had the 101 00:09:46.629 --> 00:09:50.350 form of God because he was going to do something. He was going to 102 00:09:50.549 --> 00:09:58.179 take the form of a servant. Now this wouldn't being that he would stop 103 00:09:58.460 --> 00:10:03.620 being divine, but it would mean that he would start being human. He 104 00:10:03.700 --> 00:10:11.450 would take on himself this form, he would take on himself human flesh. 105 00:10:11.490 --> 00:10:18.610 He would become a servant. Instead of being the one to whom all service 106 00:10:18.850 --> 00:10:24.759 was due, even though he was still divine, he would now become one 107 00:10:24.399 --> 00:10:31.720 who is called to serve. God in himself is not called to serve anyone, 108 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:37.110 has no obligations to anyone except himself. But when Jesus became a servant, 109 00:10:39.230 --> 00:10:43.909 that changed in him. He took on these essential attributes of a servant 110 00:10:43.950 --> 00:10:52.220 to be one who is obligated not only to the father but to us in 111 00:10:52.460 --> 00:10:56.460 the kind, in the sense of his promise, in his desire to save 112 00:10:56.539 --> 00:11:01.220 us, he served us. You see a great picture of this. and 113 00:11:01.340 --> 00:11:05.769 John Thirteen, right before he goes to the cross, Jesus, goes and 114 00:11:05.929 --> 00:11:09.929 he gets down on his hands and knees and he washes the feet of his 115 00:11:11.129 --> 00:11:15.210 disciples. And Peter says, don't do this, and he says you can't 116 00:11:15.250 --> 00:11:18.320 be with me, you can't belong to me unless I wash your feet. 117 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:22.200 Then I love what Peter says. He says wash my head in my hands, 118 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:26.559 to go for the whole thing. I want to belong to you as 119 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:31.990 an asside. What a great attitude of one who belongs to Christ to hear 120 00:11:33.110 --> 00:11:39.389 the word of the Lord and respond to it with such Gusto. But Anyway, 121 00:11:39.830 --> 00:11:45.070 the Lord Washes Peter's feed and all the disciples feed, even Judases, 122 00:11:45.509 --> 00:11:48.139 and he says to them, if you want to be my servants, you 123 00:11:48.340 --> 00:11:52.740 must do this kind of thing, you must serve other people, you must 124 00:11:54.100 --> 00:12:01.929 lower yourself and take on this form. Now this is important to note, 125 00:12:03.049 --> 00:12:07.409 this contrast, because it really helps us understand the degree of Jesus's humility here. 126 00:12:09.129 --> 00:12:13.690 Remember that question I asked you earlier. What's the farthest distance you've traveled? 127 00:12:13.850 --> 00:12:20.000 What's the lowest which you've extended yourself? What is the greatest extent to 128 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:26.960 which you've hidden your education or your knowledge for the sake of someone? What's 129 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:33.309 the most that you've hidden? Perhaps your wealth, or you have given of 130 00:12:33.509 --> 00:12:41.870 your wealth for the sake of others, or your status or your personal gifts, 131 00:12:41.909 --> 00:12:45.940 all kinds of things you might mention. What's the most? Well, 132 00:12:46.059 --> 00:12:52.100 here we have the Almighty God of the Universe, who created all things. 133 00:12:54.700 --> 00:13:03.049 Being born of a woman in a manger, surrounded by animals, in a 134 00:13:03.210 --> 00:13:11.129 place that's not home, he became very low, born under the law, 135 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:20.360 being a servant God. Emphasizes this in a second way. Not only was 136 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:24.200 he in the form of God, not only did he have all the essential 137 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:30.389 attributes of God, he didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped. 138 00:13:31.110 --> 00:13:39.350 Here it seems that Paul is making this contrast with Adam. Adam was 139 00:13:39.549 --> 00:13:43.700 the son of God. Adam was made in God's image. Adam radiated his 140 00:13:43.860 --> 00:13:48.100 glory, albeit in different ways than the eternal son of God, the One 141 00:13:48.139 --> 00:13:52.100 Who had always been begotten, but in the in a similar way, both 142 00:13:52.220 --> 00:13:56.250 sons owed obedience to the father. But there's a big difference, isn't there? 143 00:13:58.129 --> 00:14:01.529 Adam did consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, and that's 144 00:14:01.570 --> 00:14:07.169 exactly what he did. He asserted himself as equal with God. He grasped 145 00:14:07.450 --> 00:14:13.960 for power, he sought to use his position that he had M to take 146 00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:18.360 what did not belong to him to grasp and to cling to, not beat, 147 00:14:18.440 --> 00:14:24.750 an obedient and son. Jesus, however, is the Eternally Begotten Son, 148 00:14:24.870 --> 00:14:30.789 did something entirely different. Instead of trying to lift himself up, he 149 00:14:30.870 --> 00:14:39.100 dropped himself down, instead of trying to glorify himself in his sonhood over the 150 00:14:39.220 --> 00:14:46.460 father, he was obedient. He was obedient and that's what he did. 151 00:14:48.860 --> 00:14:54.289 He be took on the form of a servant, he took on the likeness 152 00:14:54.809 --> 00:15:01.970 of man, human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient. This reminds 153 00:15:01.970 --> 00:15:07.600 us of an important fact, that our salvation does not begin at Jesus's birth 154 00:15:07.679 --> 00:15:11.639 or the cross, or at any other point before that. You see that 155 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:16.879 our salvation begins even from eternity, when the god of all the universe makes 156 00:15:16.919 --> 00:15:24.789 this decision, has in his will, these eternal will, that he will 157 00:15:24.870 --> 00:15:30.029 save a people for himself. And in this particular work, the son of 158 00:15:30.149 --> 00:15:35.700 God says, I will save this people, I will, I will become 159 00:15:35.860 --> 00:15:43.659 like them in order to save them. Now this great descension, we might 160 00:15:43.860 --> 00:15:48.419 call it, from the eternal all throne room of God. So this little 161 00:15:48.539 --> 00:15:54.529 tiny manger in Bethel him should be enough to imply. Jesus is great obedience 162 00:15:56.289 --> 00:16:00.929 and should be enough to imply that he would be obedient. But of course, 163 00:16:00.970 --> 00:16:07.240 in our fallen humanity it's not. We equate being sinful with being human. 164 00:16:07.399 --> 00:16:12.600 But Jesus, in his perfect humanity, protected from original sin, lived 165 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:18.870 obediently. And so we see him acting here in when in a greater humility, 166 00:16:19.190 --> 00:16:23.990 not only in becoming human, but in becoming an obedient human. This 167 00:16:25.149 --> 00:16:30.029 is very different from us. We already find ourself in a ourselves in a 168 00:16:30.110 --> 00:16:36.580 place of humbleness or humiliation. In a positive sense. We are those who 169 00:16:36.620 --> 00:16:41.620 are made under God, right as first Peter was talking about earlier, as 170 00:16:41.659 --> 00:16:47.850 those who are under him. But here Jesus isn't merely human, he's obedient. 171 00:16:48.769 --> 00:16:52.929 He humbles himself in the one way none of us ever have. In 172 00:16:52.210 --> 00:16:57.850 a perfect way, he went lower in a sense than we even are because 173 00:16:57.889 --> 00:17:04.039 of obedience, and you consider this in every aspect of his life, even 174 00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:07.000 from the beginning of his ministry, Satan was tempting him, wasn't he? 175 00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:12.880 He was tempting him to grasp at that equality of God, to lift himself 176 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:18.309 up, to take what belonged to him, to take what has promised apart 177 00:17:18.390 --> 00:17:22.630 from obedience. But Jesus again and again said no to Satan, that he 178 00:17:22.750 --> 00:17:26.630 would obey, that he would be obedient, he would go to the cross. 179 00:17:27.589 --> 00:17:30.779 And when he goes to the cross, we see that as well, 180 00:17:30.099 --> 00:17:34.660 he goes of his own volition, his own will. He's not pressed, 181 00:17:37.099 --> 00:17:41.819 he's not forced, even though he's under the command and control of the authorities. 182 00:17:42.660 --> 00:17:47.890 Throughout his ministry we see that it's according to his perfect will. Over 183 00:17:48.009 --> 00:17:51.289 and over again we hear him saying it is not time, it is not 184 00:17:51.490 --> 00:17:55.289 time, it is not time. And then there's the time approaches he says 185 00:17:55.490 --> 00:17:59.279 it is time, it is time, it is time. In this way, 186 00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:07.400 it's one way we see is Jesus sovereignly exercising this obedience and he goes 187 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:15.230 to the cross for US willingly freely. Jesus, as a man, suffered 188 00:18:17.549 --> 00:18:23.309 many humbling things. He was deserted by his friends, he experienced hunger, 189 00:18:23.869 --> 00:18:30.740 he experienced pain unfairness. When we think of the incarnation, we often think 190 00:18:30.779 --> 00:18:37.180 of baby Jesus in the manger, and rightfully so. But Baby Jesus became 191 00:18:37.259 --> 00:18:45.250 Ms Man Jesus, and that hume and flesh that he takes on gets pressed 192 00:18:45.329 --> 00:18:52.289 with thorns, gets beaten with whips, gets nailed with nails, gets hung 193 00:18:53.410 --> 00:19:00.000 on a cross. That's what the incarnation means. Taking on human flesh means 194 00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:07.559 going to the cross, means suffering and suffering and suffering, and that's what 195 00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:11.950 Paul says here. This is the lodge. These are the logical steps Paul 196 00:19:12.069 --> 00:19:17.029 takes and that we should take in our minds when we think about the incarnation. 197 00:19:17.069 --> 00:19:19.789 Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not account 198 00:19:19.869 --> 00:19:26.779 equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking 199 00:19:26.900 --> 00:19:30.500 on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and 200 00:19:30.660 --> 00:19:37.380 being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point 201 00:19:37.420 --> 00:19:44.970 of death, even death on a cross. Scriptures tell us why Jesus did 202 00:19:45.089 --> 00:19:49.890 this. When you think about the ways and you exercise humility, the ways 203 00:19:49.970 --> 00:19:53.960 in which you lowered yourself, it's fair to remember that you don't always do 204 00:19:55.039 --> 00:19:59.200 it for the best reasons. I don't always do them for the best reasons. 205 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:03.559 Sometimes we humble ourselves as a way to show off, as a way 206 00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:10.150 to get other people's respect. We call this false humility. Right, we 207 00:20:10.230 --> 00:20:14.509 even have a term for it, because it's prevalent enough people that lower themselves 208 00:20:14.549 --> 00:20:18.109 as a way to we have other phrases for this, right fish for compliments. 209 00:20:18.549 --> 00:20:22.420 Oh I'm nothing, oh I'm not a good person, oh I'm this 210 00:20:22.579 --> 00:20:26.500 or that, so that we can get those of course you are. Everyone 211 00:20:26.619 --> 00:20:30.460 loves you. Yada, Yada, Yad. We do it to get things 212 00:20:30.500 --> 00:20:33.140 back. We give it to prove a point. We could do. We 213 00:20:33.380 --> 00:20:37.569 exercise humility to show off and show how great we are, to show how 214 00:20:37.609 --> 00:20:41.930 humble we are. This is not the point. Jesus exercises humility to serve, 215 00:20:42.930 --> 00:20:49.319 to love, to honor and glorify the God, God, the father. 216 00:20:51.240 --> 00:20:53.160 He did it because he loves you, and that's what we see when 217 00:20:53.200 --> 00:21:02.559 Jesus gets down on his knees and washes the feet of his disciples, not 218 00:21:02.839 --> 00:21:07.710 just there in that great symbolic act, but throughout his life, when he 219 00:21:07.549 --> 00:21:14.430 overlooked their sins and bore under their weaknesses and explain to them again and again 220 00:21:14.509 --> 00:21:21.779 and again the things that they needed to hear. You think about how many 221 00:21:21.819 --> 00:21:26.579 times thoughts run through your mind like I don't deserve this, I shouldn't be 222 00:21:26.660 --> 00:21:30.740 in this position. Why should I be here? This person should be doing 223 00:21:30.779 --> 00:21:33.690 these things to me. I don't need to give up my time, my 224 00:21:33.250 --> 00:21:44.490 money, my whatever. That wasn't Jesus's attitude. He was humble, and 225 00:21:44.650 --> 00:21:48.279 he was humble for the right reasons. He was humble because of love. 226 00:21:48.799 --> 00:21:56.599 He served the servants, he saved the sinners, he came into the world 227 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:03.430 to die, and all this, the Bible tells us. Jesus didn't lose 228 00:22:03.509 --> 00:22:11.150 anything ultimately, because in this God exalted him to the highest place that anyone 229 00:22:11.230 --> 00:22:19.099 could be exalted. He was exalted so that the entire world would bow to 230 00:22:19.140 --> 00:22:25.259 him at the name of Jesus. Every knee should bow in heaven and on 231 00:22:25.420 --> 00:22:29.740 earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord 232 00:22:30.130 --> 00:22:34.130 to the glory of God, the Father. Now there's no way that we 233 00:22:34.170 --> 00:22:40.450 can exercise this kind of humility, and God is not going to raise you 234 00:22:40.690 --> 00:22:45.720 to the status of Jesus Christ if you do something nice for someone. But 235 00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:49.319 that's not the point. The point is that Jesus has done these things for 236 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:56.039 you so that you can live your life in him and be exalted in Him 237 00:22:56.079 --> 00:23:00.549 and be forgiven in him, that you can then serve in him. Our 238 00:23:00.630 --> 00:23:07.309 goal isn't to become as exalted as Jesus Christ is to somehow sort of raised 239 00:23:07.470 --> 00:23:11.549 to the same level, but it's to live our lives in Jesus Christ and 240 00:23:11.710 --> 00:23:18.339 in that sense, be exalted in Him, to enjoy his glories, to 241 00:23:18.500 --> 00:23:23.420 know his humility. And that's why all of this humility that we're talking about, 242 00:23:23.740 --> 00:23:30.049 this humility that's desired and on display and hoped for it Christmas time, 243 00:23:30.529 --> 00:23:37.210 is so obviously not only important for the Christmas life and giving gifts and giving 244 00:23:37.250 --> 00:23:42.279 up your time and traveling and showing hospitality, but it's for all year round, 245 00:23:42.440 --> 00:23:48.039 isn't it? In the Christian life, because the incarnation is more than 246 00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:53.559 just a story that kind of fills out a particular time of year. It's 247 00:23:53.680 --> 00:24:00.789 the bedrock truth on which we are saved. It's something that applies not only 248 00:24:00.910 --> 00:24:06.549 to all of time, but all of life, and that's why Paul says 249 00:24:06.589 --> 00:24:11.059 it the way he says it here. He says he gives this command, 250 00:24:11.220 --> 00:24:15.579 let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to 251 00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:21.460 the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours, 252 00:24:22.339 --> 00:24:25.809 in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, 253 00:24:26.730 --> 00:24:33.730 took on the form of a servant. Those who trust the incarnate son of 254 00:24:33.809 --> 00:24:41.400 God look to the one who has gone the distance from heaven to Earth, 255 00:24:41.440 --> 00:24:47.519 who has paid the price and done so in order to love. And so 256 00:24:47.640 --> 00:24:51.720 when he asks US and calls us to love others in the same way, 257 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:56.829 to humble ourselves, it is, of course, the most fitting thing in 258 00:24:56.069 --> 00:25:00.670 the world, as those who act and live and love and serve and worship 259 00:25:02.190 --> 00:25:07.140 in the name of Jesus, to get down on our knees and serve those 260 00:25:07.180 --> 00:25:15.220 who are around us. So, when we hear the command to be humble, 261 00:25:15.940 --> 00:25:21.380 when we desire to be humble, when we desire for other people to 262 00:25:21.569 --> 00:25:26.730 show this kind of humility, let us remember the exist the great example of 263 00:25:26.849 --> 00:25:33.250 our Savior, to remember him, to believe in him and trust in him, 264 00:25:34.250 --> 00:25:40.920 for our salvation and then to follow him. Let us seek the humility 265 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:45.799 that is fitting of the Christian life. Let us pray